Wyatt’s feet came to a screeching halt and his knuckles turned white where he held open the heavy side door of Lilou. Dillon’s words landed like landmines around us, falling with the heaviness of a waiting explosion.
God, why couldn’t I be a smoker? They congregated at the back of the building, where there was privacy. Where our boss didn’t walk into a conversation he had no business hearing.
Instead, I had to hang out here, where the air was clear of lung cancer but strongly lacking in distance to the door. Damn.
To his credit, Wyatt didn’t say anything. Instead, he glared at me until my insides started to melt.
“Hey, Wyatt,” Dillon said, breaking the awkward tension boiling between us. “What’s up?”
He didn’t take his eyes off me. “Are you planning on working tonight? Or are you going to hang out here until your shift’s over?”
I attempted to swallow, but my throat had dried out to a husk and I couldn’t manage it. “Here,” I decided. It seemed like a better option than walking back inside. “I’m going to hang out here all night.”
His sneer hit me right in the gut, and a deep swell of panic and insecurity washed over me. I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. I wanted to walk away from this restaurant and never look back. I wanted to… I wanted to feel nothing whenever Wyatt was involved.
That was my biggest issue with him. He made me feel more than any other person on the planet. When he disapproved of something I did, it killed me. When he got irritated with me, it made me want to cry. When he approved of something I did, my spirit soared. When he touched me, I burned. When he kissed me, I exploded.
My emotions were not neutral toward him. I was all over the place. With every other person I could remain nonchalant, totally unaffected no matter their opinion of me. At the very least I could defer to sarcasm without wanting to cry or run away.
Wyatt brought every single feeling out of me. All at once. I didn’t want to care about him or what he thought. Yet, here I stood, a buzzing, flailing ball of feeling. If Dillon wasn’t here, I probably would have jumped the poor man and picked up right where he’d left off earlier—meaning more kisses. So many more kisses.
I was also contemplating punching him in the kidneys.
It was really anyone’s guess what I would do. But the indecision inside me was concerning.
He turned his glare on Dillon. “Can I have a minute with Kaya?”
She crossed her arms and glared back. “That depends. Are you going to be mean?”
His jaw ticked, and I had to fight to swallow again. Only for entirely different reasons. Damn that jaw.
Damn this boy.
“I’m never mean to Kaya.”
Dillon rolled her eyes, and the confused, over-emotional crazy person inside me threw her hands in the air and cheered for good friends. “Please.”
Wyatt’s jaw ticked again. “Go inside, Dillon. I need to have a conversation with my sous chef.”
She pointed a finger at him. “Be nice.”
His hands dropped to his waist and he glared at the ground until she’d walked past him and disappeared in the building again.
“Am I in trouble?” My voice had more courage than I felt, but I was thankful for the bravado.
His head lifted slowly, his eyes finding mine from behind thick lashes. “You shouldn’t let her set you up. I’ve heard stories about the guys she dates. They’re losers.”
His words made zero sense to me. I blinked at him and tried to put them in the right order. Was he having a stroke? “What?”
“Listen, you’re better than that. You deserve more than club rats.”
My heart kicked in my chest and I struggled to catch my breath. Was that a compliment? But I didn’t know what to say. Or why he was giving me dating advice. I should have said thank you and walked back inside. That’s what I should have done. But like all the times before with Wyatt, for whatever stupid reason, I ended up blurting the truth. “I, uh, she’s not setting me up with anyone.”
His eyes narrowed. “I thought I heard you ask her to.”
Belatedly I remembered that I had asked her to hook me up not that long ago. Crap. But had I even been serious? I didn’t have the time or energy for blind dates and meaningless hookups. Honestly, a night out with one of Dillon’s friends sounded exhausting. Best to move this along. “You must have misheard. Uh, what did you want to talk to me about?”
He remained silent long enough that I wondered if he forgot what he’d wanted to talk to me about. Finally, he said, “There’s a chance that Rebecca Jones will stop by tonight.”
“Whoa.” Rebecca Jones was a food critic in Durham. Lilou had been reviewed by plenty of notable critics while Killian was here and considering the magazines and professionals and acclaimed critics that had reviewed before, Rebecca Jones wasn’t that big of a deal. But for Wyatt, she was the most notable critic to dine at Lilou under his new regime.
This was a good sign for him. People wanted to check him out, see if he had the chops it took to handle Lilou.
He shrugged. “It’s not for sure. But just in case, I, uh, I need you to be extra on top of things tonight.”
Noticing the redness to his eyes and the several days of stubble covering his face, it was easy to see that he still wasn’t sleeping. Unable to help myself, I leaned forward and brushed my thumb over his cheekbone. He leaned into my touch, his eyes fluttering closed.
I had the strongest urge to kiss his closed eyelid. My heart squeezed with the need to soothe some of his exhaustion, the burden stress and perfection had dropped on his shoulders. He was too calm like this, too sweet. This wasn’t the dictator I’d come to resent in the kitchen, this was a softer, more insecure version of him. A version that made me all squishy inside and prone to make bad decisions.
When I realized what I was doing, I dropped my hand. His eyes opened, and my heart kicked again at how tired he looked. Maybe that was what the kiss was about earlier—sleep deprivation.
“Are you still not sleeping?” I asked gently.
He shook his head. “I think I’m still acclimating.”
“You must be doing something right. Rebecca Jones is coming tonight. The city of Durham will soon know you can handle the shit out of this kitchen.”
I had been hoping for a smile and I got one. “Yeah, or the opposite.”
Rolling my eyes, I moved to walk past him. “Don’t worry, I’ll babysit you tonight so that doesn’t happen.”
His arm shot out, wrapping around the front of me. “Thank you,” he murmured near my ear.
We heard the smokers returning at the same time. His arm dropped immediately, and I ducked inside before anyone caught us talking innocently and not at all suspiciously outside.
I looked for a surface to bang my forehead against until my rapidly beating heart and rushing blood returned to normal but settled on prep work and hours of chopping instead.
Get your shit together, Kaya. Or you’re going to end up as red-eyed and glitchy as Wyatt.
And I did not have time for that right now.
I had an executive chef to babysit and a different restaurant to take over.
It was hard to focus after all that had happened between us today. By the time I got home after a grueling fifteen-hour shift and a successful night of impressing Rebecca Jones—or at least I hoped we had— I wasn’t even surprised to find a text message from Wyatt. I might have even been expecting one.
Thanks for taking care of me tonight.
I smiled at the typed words, imagining that they were said with no small amount of reluctance. Are you embarrassed by how much you need me? I asked him.
Not even a little bit, he’d typed back immediately. Pretty sure I’ve needed you for a long time.
The demonic seductress inside me couldn’t help herself. You’ve never said anything before…
I’ve never had an opportunity before.
I nibbled on my lip ring and tried to decide if he was still talking about food
. Don’t let this go to your head, chef, but I might need you too.
His reply was simple, to the point, and inexplicably the hottest text I’d ever received. Good.
Chapter Eight
“Charlie, do it again.”
My coworker cursed under his breath, calling me a dirty name I couldn’t make out. I could have guessed though. I figured it landed somewhere in the general vicinity of body parts used to degrade women.
I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t going to let him get away with being a crybaby. I’d stupidly made the mistake of sleeping with the idiot a while back. We’d gone out after an epically long shift and gin was involved. One bad decision led to the next… I woke up the next morning with a killer hangover and buyer’s remorse. He was a nice enough guy, but so not for me. “Your asparagus is charred to hell and you’ve murdered that egg.”
The poached egg over crispy, lemon asparagus was one of Wyatt’s original ideas and it was freaking fantastic. I mean, as hard as it was for me to give Wyatt a compliment, I had to admit it was the best asparagus I had ever tasted.
And Charlie was doing a bang-up job of making sure nobody else shared my opinion.
“Fucking hell, Kaya,” he continued to grumble.
“I’m saving your ass,” I reminded him. Lifting my gaze off the filet in my pan, I stared him down. “Or did you want to hear it from Wyatt instead?”
Half his mouth twitched into a smile. “You’re as bad as he is.”
I wrinkled my nose, hating and loving the comparison all at once. “Don’t be gross.” I threw my elbow toward his grill top. “And fucking pay attention or you’re going to burn it again.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled but turned back to his food.
On instinct, I glanced back and caught Wyatt staring at us with that signature glare of his. He was either pissed at Charlie for messing up the asparagus for the third time tonight or at me for getting in Charlie’s business.
Our gazes clashed together, fire flaming between us. Nope, he was definitely pissed at me. He probably wanted the chance to scream at Charlie and I’d taken it away from him.
Suddenly, the strangest thing happened. A shadow of a smile passed over his lips. He wasn’t glaring at me. He was smiling at me!
Nerves bubbled in my stomach at the same time my bones turned to liquid. I quickly turned around and tried to forget that look, that exact expression. I’d seen Wyatt smile before. Once or twice. Maybe. But that wasn’t a normal smile. That was sex and sin and very dirty things.
Steak, Kaya. Pay attention to the steak.
It would be a miracle if I didn’t ruin this poor filet. And it was wagyu. I’d be damned before I burned wagyu. I needed to focus.
And not worry about Wyatt.
Yeah, right.
I had been telling myself that for two days now. It wasn’t working.
My lips still burned where our mouths had touched on Wednesday. I had stopped calling it a kiss sometime yesterday, at like the twenty-four-hour obsession mark. It wasn’t a kiss. Kisses were warm and gentle and lovely.
No, Wyatt hadn’t kissed me.
He’d branded me.
I knew that to be true, because I could still feel the outline of his lips on mine and the heat of his body pressed into me. The gentle touch of his tongue. The riot of butterflies that migrated through me from head to toe every time I thought about it was unforgettable.
Kisses didn’t leave me so disoriented. Kisses were ordinary. Or at best they were nice.
Only nice.
Clearly Wyatt had done something more than kiss me, something wholly irreversible. Now I was stuck with the memory of his touch for the rest of my life.
Bastard.
“Did you read the review?” Charlie asked in a low voice when he plated the now perfect asparagus.
“Which one?” The Daily Durham review had come out last week. They’d raved about Wyatt’s successful takeover and seamless transition. Lilou had been hailed as better than ever. They had been especially impressed with Wyatt’s new dishes and couldn’t wait to see what else was going to come from “Durham’s rising star.”
In a strange turn of events, Wyatt had seemed ignited by the review, instead of pacified by it. He was more desperate than ever to make changes to the menu and improve nightly service. I’d walked in on him yesterday when he’d been on the phone with Ezra, fighting over yet another menu change that Wyatt wanted to make. I could only imagine what another review would do to his already feverish pace.
Rebecca Jones had stopped by a couple of nights ago, but she would visit the restaurant a few more times before she wrote anything up. She never reviewed after her first stop.
“The one on Episessed.” Charlie paused to listen to Wyatt’s latest callouts. “It came out this morning.”
I read Episessed like every other foodie in the region, but I only checked it every so often. They didn’t post every day, so I usually caught up on the weekends.
Dread curdled in my stomach. I glanced at Wyatt. His back was to me again, his hands splayed on the counter in front of him. His arms were locked, forcing his shoulders to stiffen, and his head was bowed over order tickets.
God, it was unfair how sexy he was.
That was it. Right there. My hottest fantasy. Not that it was necessarily Wyatt. But a chef that looked like him and commanded a kitchen like he did and stood like that. And also sounded like him. And talked like him. And had an ass like him. Yes, please.
Of course, I was referring to a totally different human. That other person in my fantasy. Not Wyatt. Obviously.
“You should read it,” Charlie coaxed.
The dread came spilling back in full force. If it was bad, we were all going to suffer. As we should. They could give Wyatt as many exaggerated honors as they wanted to, but he couldn’t run this kitchen by himself. Still… I wasn’t sure if he could handle it emotionally if it was negative. He didn’t seem to be the most stable person lately.
I tore my eyes from Wyatt and focused on Charlie. “Is it bad?”
He smirked. “You might think so.”
Glaring at him, I began plating the slices of wagyu filet over a bed of crispy jicama and sweet potato frites with a side of glazed green beans topped with roasted pistachios.
Wiping the edges of the dish with a towel, I focused more on the plate in front of me than on the annoying cook to my left. “Are you going to tell me what it says?”
“Just read it, Swift.”
Holy hell, he was annoying. I couldn’t tell if he was taunting me or preparing me. But his suggestion was on my mind as I carried my plate over to Wyatt.
I set it in front of him and ran my lip ring back and forth in my teeth while he inspected my handiwork. “The filet looks okay.”
“It’s perfect.”
“Did you do the green beans?”
“Those are all Benny.”
“Hmph.”
He started wiping the edge that I’d already cleaned off. It wasn’t worth saying anything. This was his way.
Usually I would have retreated to the fire by now, but I had a break in orders and the Episessed review was on my brain. I cocked my hip out to rest against the counter. Wyatt gave me a side glance but remained focused on the dish going out.
“I heard a rumor that Episessed reviewed Lilou today.”
He smiled at the filet and my heart kicked with that same obnoxious pitter-patter his smiles always caused. “They did.”
“The review was a good one?”
He turned his head, that smile still lifting the corners of his too wide mouth. “It was.”
Something tugged at my guts, warning me it wasn’t all good. Not if Charlie was all but daring me to read it. “Congratulations,” I told him, but to be honest, it lacked all the congratulatory feelings.
He didn’t say thank you. A normal person would have said thank you. But Wyatt wasn’t normal.
Instead, he made a humming noise and then called for a server. The steak went out of th
e kitchen next to seared rabbit with pancetta and truffle tortellini. My stomach growled at the smell of some of the best food this city had to offer.
“You can take a break,” Wyatt murmured in a low rumble of a voice.
I blinked at him again. “What?”
His gaze dropped briefly to my stomach before he turned back to an order of risotto that had been placed in front of him. “If you’re hungry. You can take a break.”
Was this a trick? “I don’t usually get hungry while I’m cooking. I don’t know why I am tonight.”
He turned to look at me again, hitting me full force with those dark, mysterious brown eyes. “Really? I find that I’m always hungry in this kitchen.”
It was a normal sentence. Totally normal. And yet there was a tone to it that made my knees shake and my belly pool with heat.
Was that an innuendo?
No way.
Not in the middle of dinner service…
I found myself staring at him, held prisoner by his hot chocolate gaze and the mystery swimming in the depths there. My mouth was suddenly very dry, and I licked my lips desperately to find relief. His eyes dropped to follow the movement and my breath caught in my chest.
What was wrong with him? This was craziness. He had officially lost his mind.
And the worst part was the confusion. We were in totally uncharted territory and I had no idea how to read him. Was there something going on with him? Between us? Or was I totally reading into stupid little things because I was completely overworked and lonely and secretly, very, very secretly crushing on him?
Leaning closer I caught his scent. He smelled like the kitchen. Fire and herbs and citrus. But there was something beyond the food, something manlier… something so totally consumed with testosterone, my delicate lady parts nearly swooned. “We need to talk.”