He was going to be pissed. The man did not handle rejection well. I knew this from working with him. This would wound his pride, chip away at his testosterone. He’d hate me forever now.
So, I drove the nail into the coffin and let go of this delicious, wonderful, totally unexpected moment of insanity. It was better this way. “I don’t want you.”
Only his smile turned genuine again. His eyes twinkled and darkened, beckoning all at once. His hands rested on his desk, his fingers curling around the edges. He stretched his body back all cocky arrogance and self-satisfied man. “Liar,” he taunted.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re a dirty liar, Swift. You fucking want me.”
Red. I went red. From head to toe, including my vision. “I don’t want you.” I stepped forward and pointed a finger directly in his face. “I seriously don’t want you.”
He sucked in his bottom lip and let his silence speak for him.
“You’re out of your damn mind.”
He remained silent.
“I honestly can’t believe you. Or how you could even come to that crazy conclusion! What have I ever done to give you any indication that I want you? I was being polite, asshole. Nice. I didn’t want to wound your poor, fragile ego.” I yanked open the door, but before I walked through it I had to turn around and say, “Tomorrow morning you’re going to feel embarrassed about all of this. And I’m not going to feel bad for you, Shaw. This is what you get.”
I turned my back on him and that’s when he decided to speak. His voice still low, he asked, “And what if I want more of it, Kaya? Then what?”
I looked back at him over my shoulder. “Then find somebody else.”
He shook his head and mouthed one word. “No.”
My body finally reacted the way it should have a half hour ago and I ran from the building like the hounds of hell were chasing me.
If I thought his barely there kiss a few days ago was bad, that was nothing compared to the torment a full on make out session put me through. I tossed and turned for hours, replaying every second of the night.
I couldn’t help but wonder what I’d done to lead Wyatt on. And then every single interaction between us seemed obvious and fraught with sexual tension. Hadn’t I bitten his finger? How else was he supposed to interpret my actions?
And, God, was he that far off?
Alone, in my room, with nobody to face and no one else to answer to, I had to be honest with myself. Of course, I wanted Wyatt and I had imagined us together. I had noticed his body, his mouth, the way he would casually touch me every once in a while. I had played around with the idea of how good we would be and how he would totally rock my world in every sense of the phrase. But that was a natural reaction to what he looked like. That wasn’t my fault! He was objectively attractive.
I was reacting to him as any woman in my position would react to him.
When I rolled out of bed in the morning, he’d sent me an email. There was no subject or personal message other than a link that led to another interview.
The interview had gone live last week on a more popular website than Epissessed called Cocktails and Carnivores. It was a national site and didn’t have the promise of local gossip, so I didn’t check it often. I read through it three times before I believed the words on the page.
“How has the transition gone?” they’d asked him.
His reply? “Unbelievably smooth. Honestly, I expected a fight. Killian was made in that kitchen and I feel totally unqualified to fill his absence.”
“You must be doing something right,” they’d said.
“It’s the staff mostly,” he’d answered. “Especially my sous chef. Kaya Swift. She’s stayed strong through the entire overhaul, giving the kitchen confidence to do what it does best—cook good food. I’d be completely lost without her.”
I swallowed my tongue. Or nearly did. That should have been enough. That would have been enough to shut me up about the Epissessed interview. But they’d gone on.
“She sounds special,” the interviewer had commented.
And in print, in type, right there in front of me, from a reputable website that claimed Wyatt had verbalized these exact words, said, “She is.”
So that was basically the sound of my entire world collapsing. Or exploding. Or altering entirely.
Wyatt was full of surprises lately.
It was probably time I decided if I liked those surprises or if I wanted him to get the hell out of my kitchen.
Chapter Ten
“You look like hell.”
My lip curled at Dillon as I slid across from her in the vinyl-cracked booth. “Good morning to you too.”
“I mean, clearly something’s up,” she went on. Not the least bit apologetic. “Are you feeling all right? Do you have the flu?”
“No flu.”
“It’s cancer then.” She leaned forward, sliding her hands toward me over the Formica tabletop. “Oh my God. You have cancer. Don’t’ worry, friend, you also have me. We’re going to fight this, K. Fight it with all we got.”
I threw my hands in the air before she could touch me. “Has anyone ever told you how obnoxious you are?”
She grinned at me. “Nope.”
“You’re obnoxious.”
Her expression didn’t falter. “Yeah, but that doesn’t count because you love me.”
“I’m reconsidering actually.”
She stuck out her tongue and handed me a menu at the same time. Saturday mornings we always grabbed brunch at the Blue Pelican. It was this hole in the wall dive that served the best corned beef hash on the planet.
“This is how I know I’m right,” she murmured. “You’re so grumpy today.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I thought you knew you were right by how I looked?”
She waved a hand at me. “I was giving you a hard time. I mean… your eyes are a little bloodshot today, but the eyeliner helps. It looks good on you. You never wear it.”
Staring hard at the menu in front of me, I didn’t comment. I didn’t usually wear makeup to work, especially not eyeliner. I was more of a waterproof mascara and hydrating primer kind of girl. But Dillon was right about my eyes. And the bags underneath them. Also, how my hair had decided to misbehave and get all wild on me—even with half of it knotted on the top of my head. I was a mess today.
“It’s okay,” I relented. “I didn’t sleep at all last night. I’m exhausted.”
“You need a night off.”
I smirked at her. “That isn’t going to happen.”
“You’re all…” She made hand gestures that put her at a cross between a zombie version of Frankenstein and a chipmunk having a seizure. “Tightly wound.”
She had no idea.
The waiter stopped to take our order. Dillon got the roasted tomato and poblano egg white mini quiches and I got a cup of coffee.
“Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?” our regular server, Dan, asked.
“Um, maybe the oatmeal? With the berries and brown sugar.”
Dan’s eyebrows raised, but he didn’t comment. Dillon wasn’t as kind.
“Oh my God. It is cancer.”
“Shut it.”
“Oatmeal, Ky? Oatmeal? How bad is it? Stage four? Stage five? Oh my God. Is it stage ten?”
Staring at my gorgeous, talented, super ditzy friend, I wondered whether to bring up Wyatt now or tackle her severely irrational fear of cancer. “I think cancer only has four stages. I think stage ten is dead.”
She pounded a dainty fist on the table. “That’s not the point!”
I needed to put her out of her misery. That was the kind thing to do. But I couldn’t seem to get the words to leave my mouth. They sat on my tongue, making it numb and immovable.
Rip the Band-Aid, Kaya. Tear that motherfucker right off. “Wyatt and I made out last night.”
She slumped back against the booth and blinked at me. She didn’t even have to say a word. I felt her judgment fill the sma
ll restaurant like helium in a balloon
“Obviously making out with Wyatt was a mistake,” I told her. “Obviously it won’t happen again.”
She still didn’t say anything, and I decided I should have let her believe it was stage ten cancer.
“I stopped by his office to talk to him about… I can’t even remember what now. But we were alone, and one thing led to another…” Although I was still fuzzy on all the details. One minute we were standing there and the next I was trying to climb him like a spider monkey. “And suddenly we were making out.”
She finally spoke, her eyes as wide as I had ever seen them. “In his office?”
I pressed my lips together and nodded.
“Holy shit, Kaya!”
Covering my face with my hands I moaned. “I’m a terrible person.”
“You’re my hero!”
I peeked through my fingers and saw glee on my friend’s face. Her reaction couldn’t be right. “Huh?”
“You made out with Wyatt fucking Shaw.” She laughed. “That’s legendary status.”
“Shh!” I demanded, leaning closer. Saturday morning brought out our industry en masse. Either they were gossiping or working while gossiping. And the last thing I wanted was for this piece of information to get around town. “Please. Nobody can know.”
She looked truly affronted. “Why not? Don’t you think every female in this city has been trying to get in that boy’s pants for years? He’s basically a locked box. I’ve played around with the theory that he’s secretly wearing a chastity belt. He’s never looked twice at me.” She didn’t say it in an arrogant way, but I couldn’t help but smile. She of all people wouldn’t understand Wyatt’s lack of attention, not when she got plenty of second glances and third glances and fourth glances everywhere she went. “But suddenly, our dear Kaya has the keys.”
Her grin made my cheeks blush tomato red. “That’s wrong. All of those things you’re saying are wrong.”
She laughed at my flustered denial. “Kaya, he’s into you! Like so into you. I see it now. How could I have been so blind all this time? The man has it bad for you!”
“You’re out of your mind,” I insisted. “It was a fluke. A mistake. He hasn’t been sleeping. And I haven’t been… sleeping with other people. And it was like the wrong time and the wrong place and we both got caught up in the… the… the whatever it was. It was a one-time thing that can never happen again.”
She didn’t hear a freaking word I said. “This explains why he’s always glaring at you and yelling at you and making you do everything over. He doesn’t hate you at all! He’s got the hots for you!”
My blush turned from embarrassment to irritation. “First of all, no. Just no. No to all of that. Second, I’m pretty confident—because I have dated guys before, just not recently—that when guys like you they don’t spend their time glaring at you and yelling at you, living to piss you off. They do different things. Like ask you on dates. And do kind gestures and buy you things. And smile at you.” Although he did smile at me, didn’t he? Yeah, okay, maybe not very often, but more often then he smiled at other people.
Shit.
Stop it.
He didn’t like me.
“He has kindergarten syndrome,” Dillon decided. “He’s treating you how a little boy on the playground treats his crush.”
“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Wyatt hates me. He’s threatened by me. Maybe he tolerates my presence in his sacred kitchen because I’m good at what I do, but if he ever has a chance to replace me, he’ll take it.”
At that moment a text flashed across my phone from Wyatt. Stopping for coffee. Want one?
I quickly clicked my screen to black so Dillon didn’t see it.
She crossed her arms over her chest and jutted out her chin. “Okay, let’s go with your theory then. He hates you. That explains why he’s always staring at you when you’re not looking and why he makes you work every single night and why he wants you to stay late with him. That’s definitely the reason he made out with you last night in his office. Be real, Kaya, there’s been weird, kinky tension between you two for weeks. Maybe even months.”
My eyes narrowed. “Don’t act like I’m the crazy one! Up until approximately three minutes ago you thought he hated me too. One tiny piece of new information doesn’t change years of hard evidence.” Of course there were other pieces of evidence I was choosing to omit from the conversation, but she didn’t need to know that.
Shaking her head at me, she continued laying out her case. “Up until three minutes ago, I agree that I didn’t understand his behavior and that he’d definitely singled you out. It was easy to assume he hated you because Wyatt’s an asshole and it’s hard to read him. But, lucky you, it turns out he doesn’t hate you at all.”
She had a point, but I couldn’t give in. The change was too sudden for me to wrap my head around. There had to be another explanation to his attraction one-eighty. “He’s working all the time. He doesn’t have time to meet anyone right now. And he’s been acting weird ever since he got the executive chef position because he’s not sleeping well. What happened is, he got desperate. I am also,” I cringed admitting the truth of it, “a little desperate, and when the two of us were alone together something… snapped.”
“He’s not sleeping well?”
“No.”
“How do you know that?”
Another text from him lit up my phone. I’m getting you one. If you don’t want it, I’ll drink it. The text box ended, but I knew there was more I just couldn’t see it. My fingers itched to check it.
I hesitated answering Dillon’s question because I didn’t want to admit the truth. But after a few beats of trying to ignore my phone, I finally fessed up. “He told me. He wanted me to… to help make sure he was getting everything right.”
“Hmm.”
“Don’t hmm me.” I pointed a finger at her that let her know I meant business. “I’m his sous chef. Obviously, he would count on me for something as important as that.”
“That’s another thing.” Dan showed up with our food, interrupting our conversation while he set it in front of us and made sure we had everything we needed. I took the opportunity to sneak a look at Wyatt’s message.
I’m guessing you’re an iced coffee kind of girl. Cream? Sugar?
When I hadn’t answered, he’d come back with, I’m getting you cream and sugar.
He was right. How did he know that? I mean, there were other options I liked. But during warm months, iced coffees were my jam. And always with cream and sugar. Always.
When Dan walked away again, Dillon leaned forward and dropped her voice again. “He asked you to stay as his sous chef right away. On day one. He didn’t even have to think about it. It was like the second he got promoted, he knew exactly who he wanted by his side.”
I rolled my eyes. That was the least interesting clue out of the bunch. “That doesn’t mean anything. Who else would he ask?”
“Benny.”
“Benny’s not far off from sous. He’s like an honorary. They’re BFFs.”
“Doesn’t that make it strange that he asked you and not Benny?”
“I’m a better chef than Benny. And I was a sous for Killian,” She gave me a look. “Besides, Wyatt’s not the kind of guy to pick his friends over more qualified competition. They might be close, but Wyatt cares about the kitchen more than friendship.”
She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Okay, you have me there.”
“I have you everywhere,” I insisted, except in my recent text messages. “Stop trying to make this more than it is. Whatever happened last night was the product of too much hatred, too little sleep, and a weird moment of insanity. It’s not going to happen again. Ever.”
Dillon’s mischievous smile filled my stomach with nerves. “Don’t be crazy. This is Wyatt Shaw we’re talking about. Have you seen the man? God, he’s so sexy. That body. All those tattoos. His hair! His hair is obnoxiously amazing. Kaya
, if you get a chance to do that again, do it. Do it for me. Do it for the women of Durham. Ney, do it for the women of the world. Be our tribute.”
I found myself laughing before I could discourage her craziness. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Was it good?”
Rolling my eyes, I suddenly found my oatmeal to be very interesting.
“Kaya!” she hollered at me.
“God, what? Don’t yell at me!”
She was still grinning like a fool. “Was. It. Good?”
I held her eyes, my expression turning serious and furious all at once. “It was fucking amazing.”
She threw her head back and cackled at the ceiling. “Ha-ha! I knew it. I knew he would be good!”
“Okay, seriously, do you have a thing for him? Because you’ve never said anything, and I didn’t mean to step on your toes and—”
Her laughter died, and she wrinkled her nose at me. “Don’t be crazy. I have no thing for Mr. Mysterious and Broody, okay? I like my men open, honest, and much less… yell-y.”
He was very yell-y.
“But,” she went on. “I’ve always felt like there was more to him than what he lets the world see. I mean, Ezra and Killian think the world of him. And they are the two opinions I trust most in the world. Clearly, he’s not all mean, scary boss. It’s nice to see that there’s a soul to him. That’s all.”
He definitely had a soul. There had been times when we were sous chefs side by side that I’d even thought we were friends, maybe even good friends. Yeah, we always found something to clash over, but he had layers. He was so much more than the version I faced off with in the kitchen every night. Not that I would admit that to Dillon. “Being a good kisser does not automatically make someone a nice or decent person. Do you remember when he threw your trout in the trashcan? The whole entire plate and everything? He is the definition of mean, scary boss.”
She shrugged. “I’d killed that trout. And I’d managed to drop half the roe on the ground and tried to get away with it. He called me on my bullshit.” She buried her face in her hands for a moment and groaned. “I was so green. I’d been working there for all of two weeks or something and seriously contemplated quitting. Yeah, fine, he’s terrifying. But he’s also right most of the time.”