Chapter Eight
Jase
Me: At work. I’ll call you tomorrow.
I shot off the text as I reached the bottom of the office stairs and shut off my phone before slipping it into my pocket. It probably made me a horrible son, but in all fairness, I had already talked to my mom once this week. Any more than that felt like overkill.
Alec probably didn’t go more than two days between check-ins. Then again, he also didn’t get lectured on what an awful disappointment he was during every conversation with her. Even Dr. Ohara agreed it was okay for me to take some space from my family when I needed it, and I’d taken a hell of a lot more than a week between phone calls in the past. She could survive one more day.
“Jase.”
I paused at the door to the kitchen and turned to where Dani sat at the middle of the bar with a paper and pen in hand. She hopped off her stool and rounded the counter, drawing my eyes to her long legs. The skirt she wore hugged her hips perfectly, ending just below her knee, a flash of thigh peeking out through the short slit with her every step.
My blood warmed as images I’d fought for weeks assaulted my mind. Running my hand up that leg and brushing my fingers over the sensitive skin behind her knee. The soft gasp that would escape her lips and turn to a sigh as I inched up her skirt to trail my touch along her inner thigh, see if her skin there was even softer than it looked everywhere else. How her hips would seek me out, begging me to go higher.
My cock stirred, and I forced my thoughts to the ten pounds of raw shrimp waiting to be deveined in the kitchen. Chef pants did almost nothing to hide an erection, and the last thing I needed was for my little brother’s ex-girlfriend to see that. Especially when she was the cause.
She stopped in front of me and held out the paper, her blue-green eyes intense with concentration. It did nothing to ease the stiffness in my pants.
“I need you to look over the rental form to confirm the plateware order is correct. I’ll be placing it this afternoon, so if we miss anything, you’re stuck with what the hotel has on hand, and they may not have enough.”
“I already checked it over,” I said. “Twice.”
We’d finalized the last of the menus earlier in the week, making plateware the last major catering task that needed to be handled until much closer to the actual event. It also meant Dani wouldn’t have a reason to be here anymore. I tried not to think about how that made my stomach twist.
“Okay, well, can you do it again?” She shook the paper at me.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Three times is a bit excessive, isn’t it? Or more like six since you’ve probably triple-checked it yourself. Am I right?”
The blush in her cheeks as she narrowed her eyes told me I was. And while I was all for being thorough, I got the sense something more was going on here.
“I just want to be sure there are no mistakes.”
“There aren’t. I know because I already double-checked.”
Her eyes fell closed on an exhale before she opened them to glare at me. “Can you just check again, please?”
“Exactly what kind of catastrophic mistake do you think could come from a plateware order form?” I asked instead. “I mean, having to use salad bowls instead of soup bowls wouldn’t be ideal, but it isn’t the end of the world.”
She finally dropped her arm and stormed her way back to her seat. “Yeah, well, some mistakes can’t be so easily fixed.”
I followed on my side of the bar. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said.” She slammed the order form onto the counter and slid back onto the stool.
“Is this about the article?” I asked. “Because that wasn’t your mistake.”
I knew there’d been some uproar online over the health clinic. Jillian felt awful, especially since Ardena’s mention had been a blip compared to the pummeling Dani received, but I didn’t see that as Jillian’s fault either. As far as I was concerned, the only one responsible was that asshole reporter who’d set out to stir up outrage from the start.
I’d never been so tempted to spit in someone’s food. Not that he’d ever be welcome in one of my restaurants again, as long as I had a say.
“It doesn’t matter. There’s still no taking it back.” She turned to her laptop and mumbled, “Among other things.”
I studied her for a long moment as she willfully ignored me. Then I uncrossed my arms and braced my hands on the counter behind me. “So what happened between you and my brother, anyway?”
Her head whipped up so fast she nearly fell out of her seat. “What?”
I gave a casual shrug. “Why’d you break up? It seems like you two would have been good together.”
The words burned my tongue, mostly because they were true. I could see them together, taking on the corporate world, living the power couple dream. It was never a dream I’d had for myself, never one I’d even thought about until recently. Even in those passing thoughts, I knew it wasn’t right for me.
Not the way Alec lived it, at least.
She rolled her shoulders and returned her gaze to her screen. “I don’t see how that matters.”
“That’s what you were talking about, right? A mistake that couldn’t be fixed? I mean, I just assumed, seeing how you’re still in love with him and all.”
“Hold on,” she said, face appalled. “I’m not still in love with him.”
“I’m not judging you for it?—”
She threw her hands in the air. “I’m not still in love with him! It’s been almost a decade .”
I lifted my own hands in concession. “If you say so.”
“I do,” she said firmly, eyes blazing.
I had to bite my cheek to keep from smiling. Don’t ask me why. Just that seeing her fired up like this sparked something within me that wanted to poke deeper, tear that carefully constructed appearance of hers wide open to reveal whatever burned underneath.
Even that first day we’d met to go over the menu, the time I’d been a complete dick to her after she’d told me about Alec, a part of me had wanted to see more.
I had been a dick, though, mostly because of my own issues, and I wasn’t trying to do that again. I sobered my expression. “But really,” I asked softly. “Why’d you guys split?” And then, because I liked to make myself suffer, tacked on, “He suck in bed?”
She narrowed her eyes. “No. That wasn’t a problem.”
Damn.
Her face relaxed, shoulders dropping on an exhale. “I don’t fully know what happened. Things were good. Really good.”
I ignored the twinge in my gut and focused on her.
“And then…” She looked at the shelves of liquor behind me, her gaze far away. “I don’t know. He was graduating, and he had all these plans while I still had my senior year to go, and suddenly, it all felt like a lot. I was overwhelmed and unsure of what I wanted, which was the exact opposite of how he felt. I didn’t know how to handle it.” She shrugged. “So I ended it. I thought I needed space to figure it out. Meanwhile, he moved on, married Stephanie, has a baby on the way, and here I am nine years later still trying.”
My chest burned as I listened, and not with the jealousy I’d expected. That I’d been prepared for.
This was recognition.
Her voice held the same insecurity I’d carried most of my life. The self-doubt that was so easy to drown in when faced with the tsunami of unflinching certainty that was my brother. And I knew what it was like to live with that self-doubt and not be able to shake it.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Sounds to me like you did what you felt was best for you at the time, the best you knew how. I wouldn’t call that a mistake.”
Her gaze finally shifted, locking with mine.
And there she was, the burning heart of her on full display, open and honest and real . Full of passion and curiosity and a little bit of fear, but too determined to let that stop her.
I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. For what I said that day. How I acted when you told me about you and Alec. It wasn’t okay.”
Her brows lifted for a moment before her eyes softened, the corners of her mouth tipping up ever so slightly. My eyes lingered on her lips.
“Apology accepted.”
I stepped to the bar and slid the order form my way. Her smile grew as I picked it up and read it over for the third time.
I ignored the way my heart pounded in my chest.