Chapter 16 Eliana
ELIANA
shuck·ing: /?SH?kiNG/: verb
The investors love me. Most of them do it in appropriate ways—although, per Bastian’s warning, Harold Fitzgerald (bow tie with sailboats printed on it, leering eyes, every bit as creepy as advertised) does corner me near the cheese table to explain the difference between Old World and New World wines while his gaze drifts repeatedly to my chest.
I nod and make impressed noises, all the while mentally calculating how hard I’d have to stomp on his Italian loafers to break a toe.
“You simply must see my cellar,” he’s saying, one liver-spotted hand reaching toward my elbow. “I have a 1943 Cheval Blanc that would make you weep.”
“The only thing that would make Ms. Hunter weep,” Bastian interjects as he materializes at my shoulder, “is missing our meeting with the Singapore team. Which starts in—” He checks his watch. “—twelve minutes.”
Harold’s hand retreats. “Singapore? At this hour?”
“Time zones are merciless,” Bastian says smoothly. “If you’ll excuse us.”
He steers me away like this isn’t his first time rescuing a damsel in distress from Harold’s black hole orbit.
By the time the last investor air-kisses their goodbyes and totters toward their valeted Tesla, I’m exhausted from pretending to be someone I’m not for three straight hours.
My feet hurt from standing in heels, my face aches from smiling, and I’ve said the word “synergy” so many times it’s lost all meaning.
But it’s all worth it when Bastian says…
“You did well.”
He’s not looking at me—he’s watching the valet pull away with the last car. Maybe that’s why it feels okay to smile and blush.
“I didn’t even break Harold’s fingers,” I say proudly.
“A remarkable show of restraint.”
“I considered it. Strongly. I even—”
Before I can even process what’s happening, Bastian pulls me into a hug.
It’s quick—maybe two seconds, definitely no more than three—but it’s enough.
Enough to feel the solid wall of his chest against mine.
Enough to smell Super Tuscan terroir and Beluga caviar and clean, male, soapy skin.
It’s a cocktail designed in some supervillain’s lab to make my brain short-circuit completely, leaving me standing there like an idiot when he releases me, my arms still half-raised like I’m hugging a ghost.
He looks as surprised as I feel by what just happened. Blotches of color rise on his perfect cheekbones. Bastian Hale doesn’t blush—except when he does, just a little, and it might just be the cutest dang thing I’ve ever seen.
“Good work tonight,” he says gruffly, shoving his hands in his pockets as if they’ve betrayed him.
“Like I’d ever do anything less than that.”
He checks his watch and fidgets. “It’s only nine-thirty.”
“Is that your way of saying we should go back to the office? Because the answer is no. Hard no. Absolutely not. I’ve already exceeded my daily Bastian exposure limits.”
His mouth twitches. “I was going to suggest oysters.”
“Oysters?” I repeat stupidly. That was low on my list of suggestions I thought he’d come out with, right between “BASE jumping off Sears Tower” and “joining a cult.”
“Unless you’d rather go home…?”
I should go home. I should go home and take a bitterly cold shower and remind myself that Bastian Hale is my boss who’s paying me a million dollars to tolerate him, not to notice how solid his chest feels or how his rare smiles transform his whole face.
But my mouth, backstabbing bitch that it is, says, “I’ve never had oysters before.”
In a night full of firsts, Bastian’s jaw falling open is maybe the most unexpected of them.
He looks utterly dumbstruck. As if I just confessed some unspeakable sin.
Murder. Arson. Never tasting oysters. All basically equivalent and equally heinous, in the eyes of God and the law, right?
Well, in the eyes of Bastian Hale, they are.
“Unacceptable. We’re going.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Eliana.” The way he says my name stops me cold. Not Ms. Hunter, not Hunter. Eliana. “It wasn’t a question.”
And just like that, I’m following him again.
Big man say go eat oysters. Me go eat oysters with big man.
Mermaid’s Purse is nothing like Coruscant. We descend rickety, narrow stairs into a damp basement that reeks in the best way of brine and beer. The bar is scarred wood, the chairs are mismatched, and the guy behind the counter looks like he could bench press a small car.
“Bastian fuckin’ Hale!” the car bench presser barks as soon as he sees us enter.
He’s barrel-chested, covered in some truly atrocious tattoos, with a salt-and-pepper beard that would make a lumberjack weep with envy.
He abandons the oysters he’s shucking, the knife clattering to the countertop, as he continues at ear-splitting volume over the already-very-loud rock music thundering through the speakers, “I thought you’d forgotten about us common folk.”
“Dante.” Bastian’s entire demeanor changes. His shoulders drop, his spine loses that rigid perfection, and his mouth curves into an actual, genuine, you-gotta-be-shitting-me-it’s-so-perfect smile. “You know I could never forget the best oyster man in Chicago.”
They embrace briefly—one of those back-slapping man hugs that somehow conveys years of history in the blink of an eye. I watch, fascinated. This is a Bastian I’ve never seen. Comfortable. Relaxed. Almost… playful?
When they part, Dante’s eyes slide to me, and his grin widens. “And who’s this pretty lady?”
“Eliana Hunter. My—” Bastian hesitates for a fraction of a second, and I hold my breath. “—project manager.”
Dante’s ear-to-ear smirk suggests that he finds this title hilarious. “Is that what the kids’re calling it these days?”
“It’s what we’re calling it, because it’s what she is,” Bastian says firmly.
“Sure, sure.” Dante winks at me. “Welcome to the Purse, Eliana. Fair warning: This place has ruined better people than you. Once you’ve had my oysters, everything else tastes like ass. And not in the fun way, either.”
“Someone’s confident,” I remark with a laugh.
“Unfortunately for both us and his ego, he’s correct,” Bastian says. He slides onto a barstool and pats the one next to him. “Sit. Learn.”
I hike myself up onto the stool. It’s cramped in here and our knees almost touch. If I shifted just slightly to the left…
“You two have caught me in quite the whimsical mood,” Dante remarks as he pulls oysters from the ice.
“Nostalgic, really.” He points a shucking knife at Bastian and grins.
“I remember the first time I laid eyes on this miserable, brooding bastard. First time he came in here, he couldn’t tell a good oyster from his own ass. ”
“Dante…” Bastian warns.
“No, no, she needs to hear this.” Dante’s eyes gleam with mischief.
“Picture it: fifteen years ago, maybe more. Or was it…? Ah, shit, I’m getting old.
Anyway, this kid—and I do mean kid, couldn’t have been more than twenty, had about three hairs for a mustache—walks in at the wee hours of the morning, orders two dozen oysters, and proceeds to mutilate every single one. ”
“I was experimenting,” Bastian protests as he scrubs a hand over his face.
“What you did to those poor bivalves was a tragedy.” Dante sets a plate in front of us—six perfect oysters nestled in crushed ice, each one pristine.
“So I take pity on him, right? Show him how it’s done.
And this stubborn S.O.B. sits right where you’re sitting now and practices until his hands are bleeding all over my damn counter. ”
“You’re exaggerating,” insists Bastian.
“Like hell I am! I have photos.” Dante whips out his phone, and Bastian actually lunges for it to stop him, but Dante’s already showing me a slightly blurry picture of a much younger Bastian, hair longer and messier, intensely focused on an oyster, both his hands wrapped in what appear to be bloodstained bar towels.
“Every night for a month, he’d come in after his shifts and practice.
And then… Well, it’s like riding a bike, ain’t it, buddy? ”
He hands Bastian a knife and an oyster. I expect Bastian to refuse, to maintain his holier-than-thou dignity, but instead he takes both items. With a slight grin, he gets to work. Finds the hinge, inserts, twists. The shell pops open, revealing perfect, glistening meat inside.
“Show-off,” I mutter, but I’m impressed and we all know it.
“Your turn,” Bastian says.
“Oh, no. Absolutely not. I’ll end up in the emergency room.”
“I’ll teach you.” He selects a smaller oyster, easier to handle. “Come here.”
He stands behind me—because it seems that this is our thing now, Bastian pressing against my back while teaching me things—and wraps his hand around mine on the knife.
“Feel for the hinge,” he murmurs, guiding my fingers along the shell’s edge. “There. Feel that little gap? That’s your entry point.”
“This feels like a metaphor for something,” I mumble, mainly to distract myself from how warm he is, how his breath tickles my ear.
“Ha! Little girl’s got her mind in the gutter,” Dante guffaws.
“Ignore him,” Bastian says. “Now, insert the knife. Steady pressure, don’t force it.”
I try to follow his instructions, but the shell resists. “It doesn’t want to open.”
“Nothing good ever does.” His hand tightens on mine, applying just a bit more pressure. “Patience. Feel for the moment when it wants to give.”
There’s a tiny pop, and suddenly, the shell splits open. Inside, the oyster gleams.
“I did it!” I’m absurdly proud of this tiny, meaningless accomplishment.
“You did.” Bastian releases my hand but doesn’t immediately step away. “Now, taste it.”
“Raw? Just… raw?”
He looks genuinely baffled. “How else would you eat an oyster?”
“I don’t know! I thought maybe there was a process of some kind?”
Dante laughs. “She’s adorable. Where’d you find her?”
“She found me,” Bastian says, then seems to catch himself. “Taste the oyster, Eliana.”