Chapter 19
Air conditioner on, check. Innocuous background music, check.
From where she leaned against her kitchen island, Cynthia surveyed the rest of her apartment and nodded to herself.
Immaculate. Everything was in its place, tidy and gleaming, and thanks to her keen eye, it could’ve been the spread of an interior design magazine.
But when her eye roved to the island countertop, she grimaced.
The meat rosette she had researched online and painstakingly put together was unfurling before her eyes, petal by petal, into an unappetizing pink-red lump of rumpled salami.
“Shit,” she muttered, pushing herself away from the island and the charcuterie board she’d been obsessing over for the better part of the hour.
She stalked to the fridge for fresh slices of meat, noticing with dismay that her sweaty palms had left streaks on the shiny metal handle of her stainless-steel fridge.
Cynthia changed course and yanked a new dish towel out of a drawer, dried her hands, and cleaned the fridge handle.
And the handle of the dish towel drawer for good measure.
When there was nothing left to wipe, Cynthia took a quick lap around her minimalist living room, fluffing a throw pillow here, straightening a stack of coffee table books there.
Thanks to her monthly cleaning service, there wasn’t much to do, and her feet wandered back to the kitchen.
It wasn’t until her hand was reaching for the refrigerator door handle once more that she realized what she was doing.
Zero chill, check.
Cynthia shook her head in disgust. She was acting as if she’d never invited anyone to hang out at her condo before.
Granted, her work schedule didn’t leave much room for entertaining, but Cynthia knew how to host. She was well-versed in wine and the perfect food-serving-to-guest-number ratio.
Photoshoot-worthy presentation was her thing .
Failed meat rosette notwithstanding.
But the thought of Rohit coming over had her reaching for the dish towel again if for no other reason than to wipe down the spotless island with rough, jerky swipes. When a knock sounded at her door, a nervous yelp popped out of her mouth.
When Cynthia opened the door, Rohit took one, long look at her and froze in the hallway.
“What?” she asked, unsure how to adopt a casual pose when he looked so good standing in her doorway.
He still wore what he’d worn to work that day, minus the suit jacket, and had rolled up his shirtsleeves as if he knew exactly how much her palms longed to feel the solid curves of his strong forearms again.
Rohit’s eyes traveled down her oversized, off-the-shoulder cream sweater and loose black lounge pants to her feet. When he met her gaze again, his half smile made Cynthia want to hide behind the door, but the twinkle in his eyes held her hostage.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in anything but heels,” he said.
Cynthia’s toes wriggled in her fuzzy open-toed slippers. “Who wears heels in their home?”
Rohit eyed her feet again. “Right. But I didn’t expect…” When he finally tore himself away, there was a noticeable shift in his gaze, something hard to read but intense enough that a delicious frisson of awareness tap-danced up her spine. “Can I come in?”
Wordlessly, Cynthia stepped aside, watching as Rohit took in her clean, airy home.
“Now, this apartment? Not a surprise,” he commented. “Although the orange is unexpected.”
Cynthia considered her surroundings. The neutral palette boasted mostly warm grays and soft whites with the odd pop of burnt orange to catch the eye. “It’s my favorite color,” she admitted, embarrassed by the delicate heat creeping between her collarbones.
“I like it,” Rohit said, his eyes catching the charcuterie board on the kitchen island. “Is that for us?”
Cynthia hurried to the cupboards and grabbed some small plates. “If you want.” When she caught Rohit’s pleased smile, she hastened to add, “Or whatever. I mean, if you’re hungry.”
When Rohit joined her side, the plates slipped from her hands and clattered onto the table. “You can ignore that,” Cynthia said, pointing to the lump of Genoa salami in the middle of the board.
“Why?”
“I tried to make a meat rosette.”
“A…a what?”
“A meat rosette. Like a flower.” When Rohit’s forehead wrinkled in confusion, as it often did when she threw unfamiliar slang or colloquialisms his way, Cynthia glanced around for her phone, wondering if she still had the tutorial tab open.
But when she spotted her phone across the room on the docking station, she opted to show him what she meant instead, joining her hands together in front of her chest, fingers clawlike, in a poor imitation of a rosette.
“It’s a flower made of—” When Rohit chuckled, she slapped his arm. “Shut up. I found it online and thought I’d try it out. Sorry I’m not Martha fucking Stewart.”
“So, you googled ‘meat flower’?”
“Yes.”
“And weird, fetish sites didn’t pop up?”
Cynthia fought to keep a straight face. “Maybe. It was mostly meat.”
The word meat plopped heavily between them, and they stared at each other in silence for approximately five seconds before cracking up.
“I’m touched,” Rohit said between peals of laughter, “that you’d go to the trouble of making me a meat blossom.”
“Meat flower,” Cynthia said, trying to sound haughty and failing miserably. “It’s a meat flower .”
“Meat flower,” Rohit wheezed. “A meat flower .”
Cynthia wiped her eyes and turned toward the wine rack built in the end of her kitchen island. “Do you want some wine?” She stopped short. “Wait, do you drink?”
It was a stupid question and fully deserving of the burn of mortification—and something else—that weaved through Cynthia as she remembered the night they met. The beer bottle she’d pulled out of his hands. Inexplicable heat.
The look that flashed across Rohit’s face told Cynthia he remembered, too, but his voice was deceptively neutral when he answered. “Wine would be great,” he said, accepting the bottle Cynthia handed him.
The moment of levity over, the sound of Rohit pouring the dark red liquid into her wineglasses in her home rushed against Cynthia’s eardrums and she couldn’t resist shuffling her feet again.
“Okay, what’s up?” Rohit asked as he filled his own glass. Cynthia couldn’t tear her eyes away from his hands. Her baser instincts remembered the slide of those clever hands exploring the dips and planes of her body. Every reverent touch had been a slow, seductive performance for her alone.
And now, even the fucking hair on his knuckles made her skin flush.
“Cynthia?” he prompted before bringing the glass of lush, deep ruby liquid to his mouth.
“S-sorry?”
“You look…” Rohit paused to study her, and once again, his eyes lingered half a second too long on her slippers. “You’re not acting like yourself. I feel like you’re nervous or anxious or…something.”
She was burning , but Cynthia cleared her throat and opted for a safer response.
“I’m a little weirded out. You’re in my apartment, Rohit.
You’re in my apartment, drinking wine, and I tried to put together a charcuterie board for you.
For us.” Cynthia’s arms lifted helplessly.
“A month ago, this would’ve been the backdrop of a crime scene and I’d be standing over your dead body with a bunch of black garbage bags in my hands, but now we’re, like, hanging out. Voluntarily.”
“I’m going to skip over the garbage bag part and point out that you’ve been to my apartment before.”
“That was for a special occasion. This is different.”
Popping a cube of cheese into his mouth, Rohit looked less concerned, but his dark eyes were watchful, and he remained silent, as if he knew there was more.
And there was. A month ago, Rohit’s uncanny ability of knowing when something weighed on her mind and stepping back to give her the space to work through her thoughts would’ve had her reaching for the sharpest tool in her knife block, but now a sweet feeling drizzled through her when she glanced at his patient, observant face.
This man , she thought as she expelled a long, silent sigh.
“Everything feels kind of surreal lately. My dad…” Cynthia’s breath caught because she couldn’t bring herself to revisit her father’s words to her earlier today.
I’m very proud of you , he’d said. Granted, he’d been addressing them both but still…
The moment was still too fresh for close inspection right now.
Instead, she tilted her head and shared another small, strange success from last Sunday night. “My dad recently referred an important client of his to me because he thinks I’d be a good fit to help with the rebrand of his chain of spas.”
She had to pause to fight against the thickening lump in her throat.
“He’s never…I’ve never…I’ve always had to bulldoze my way into his business.
I’ve spent most of my career feeling like I’ve had to claw for scraps.
But suddenly, it’s like I have something to offer.
Finally. ” Cynthia raked her fingers through her hair.
“This is what I’ve been working for my entire life, what I’ve dreamed working with my father would be like.
And now that it’s in my lap and…I don’t know, I feel stressed and excited and weird…
” She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know how to deal with it all. ”
“You’re tense.”
“I’m always tense.” Cynthia’s lips twisted into a wry smile, gesturing at the neat, perfect living room behind her with a flick of her wrist. “I mean, have I ever known how to relax?”
Rohit drained his glass before grabbing Cynthia’s full glass off the countertop and handing it to her.