Chapter 16 #2
The hostess blinks at me. Not hostile, not interested, not concerned that I could be a threat. I paste a smile onto my face. “Sure.”
Will I endure this from everyone we come across tonight? And for the next two months?
What if there are more gorgeous youthful girls who want to climb him?
Ugh— I shouldn’t care!
I nod goodbye to the hostess more aggressively than normal, but she barely registers my presence never mind my movements as she keeps Stone in place by gushing about his success and that she’s totally on his side in the Stone vs. Bradley debate on social media.
Stone suddenly grows uncomfortable. “Right, well, I wish Bradley the best, regardless of how we feel about each other.”
“Seriously?” The hostess guffaws. “I totally thought after you broke his head that you were mortal enemies?—”
“Nice meeting you, Amy.” Stone hooks my elbow and steers me to the back.
I dig in my heels, both confused and disturbed by what the girl said. “Wait—Stone, we don’t know where to go.”
“I’m fairly certain a cooking class is gonna happen in the kitchen. Let’s go.”
“But there might be instructions or a pamphlet we have to grab.”
Stone pushes against me firmly, stumbling me back into a walk. “Put your rule-following instinct aside and let spontaneity guide you to the pots and pans for once. I know you have it in you. I drew it out of you any chance I could.”
Slightly hurt, I say, “It’s not that I need someone to tell me what to do all the time. I just like to know what I’m walking into without looking stupid.”
Stone slows his steps, his clasp on my upper arm loosening. “You’re right. I’ll go back and ask her if she has anything for us.”
I glance back at the same time as Stone, both of us noticing the hostess tapping on her phone with the fury of someone explaining to a chat group what just went down.
I lay my hand on his flexed, tense bicep. “Don’t worry about it. If we go in unprepared, I have you to use your Stone magic and smooth it over.”
Stone smiles at that, but it’s a sad one. “Yes, I’m reliable like that.”
As we approach the back of the restaurant, I venture, “So … you used your fists to end an argument?”
The way I phrase it makes Stone’s chest shake with suppressed amusement. “You may be the only person in the world who hasn’t heard about it, unfortunately.”
I think back fondly to the time I pulled Stone’s glossy, still face from the magazine stand and tore it up to dump in the trash—back when my feelings were black and white. “I tend to avoid anything written about you.”
Stone sobers. “Well, my HR head sent me home for a time-out to think about my actions.”
“And have you? Thought about it?”
Stone halts between the tables. “Do I need to?”
His harsh tone brushes over me with the sharpness of a blade. “I’m not asking if you’ve learned your lesson. I’m wondering what caused you to hate a man so much you wanted to humiliate him.”
Stone stares at me, his lips thin and his eyes shrinking with confusion.
Silence passes between us, the type where I’ve either cemented my status in his head or caused irreparable damage to whatever our relationship could now be called.
His eyes leave mine, tracing my face instead, leaving a trail of stardust in their wake.
Sparkling, ethereal, invisible. I shouldn’t be able to feel the weight of his study so deeply.
“I wasn’t in the nightclub by choice,” he says.
“We were entertaining potential clients and one of the executives cornered and groped a cocktail waitress. The first time, she pushed him off with a smile and got back to work. The second time, she became firmer. The third, I intervened because I simply couldn’t stand for it, potential billion-dollar deal or not. ”
I’m truly taken aback. I think back to the Merc and why he threw the first punch at the biker. Not because he was personally insulted, but because the biker disrespected his girlfriend. “So that’s what you do now? Defend women’s honor?”
It comes out more bitter than I intended.
“Men in my pay grade behave badly. I dislike it. And I refuse to become one of them.”
“Well…” I move back, creating needed space between us. “I’m not trying to start anything. I was genuinely curious.”
“I understand you’re upset. I wish I could put the man I am today into the boy I was when I hurt you. I would’ve punched him, too.”
I raise my head, meeting his eye and sharing in the perplexity of this strange, sudden moment of revelation. The type of unraveling that creates an unwanted bond.
Until we’re interrupted by a smooth, velvet baritone asking, “Are you the last of them? Class has started.”
I break my stare from Stone’s, but not before I notice his jaw cutting forward to make room for his massive frown.
Turning in the same direction, I face the man who just beckoned us forward. The name Toussaint is embroidered in black on his chef’s coat. His expression mirrors Stone’s.
Chef Toussaint is nothing like what I imagined a French chef opening his doors in Falcon Haven instead of a big city would be.
My new teacher is young, tattooed, and gorgeous.