“I guess there were some people around, but not Kai or Landon.”
“They could’ve heard it secondhand. They have spies all over. Everybody loves them.”
She gave a delicate, ladylike snort. “Even Mr. Pierce?”
I almost laughed. “Especially Mr. Pierce. I can’t decide if he wants to be Kai or fuck him.”
This time, she did laugh, and the sound did something weird to my chest. “I had the same thought the first day I met him.”
She recrossed her legs, the other one on top now, and the towel slid even higher.
It took heroic effort not to stare at where it barely covered her. Instead, I let my gaze trace down her long, smooth legs. Such small, delicate feet. Her toenails were painted pink.
Shit, she was gorgeous. Why the hell couldn’t her inner beauty match her outer beauty?
“So why’d they do this?” she asked.
My attention snapped back to her face. Unless I was mistaken, her gaze had been aimed rather low, too. Had she been checking me out? I had my legs spread, but I doubted she could see under the towel from her angle.
And I didn’t give a fuck if she could.
I was hot, sweaty, and trapped with one of my leastfavorite people in the whole resort. I didn’t see how squeezing my legs together and crushing my cock and balls was going to help that situation. “I don’t know.”
“It doesn’t make any sense. Do they want us to kill each other?”
“That’s one possibility.” I shrugged. “Or maybe they want us to hash things out.”
“Hash things out while nearly naked?” She sounded skeptical.
“I can think of a few ways to do that.”
“Not interested,” she said firmly, scowling at me.
“I didn’t say I was interested. I said I could think of a few ways.”
For some reason, she took that as a challenge. “Yeah? So you’re telling me that if I took off my towel right now, you wouldn’t be interested?”
Heat shot through me, but I didn’t let my expression change. “You can try it and find out.”
“You’re such a pig.” She glared at me. “It’s a real shame you’re the last person I’ll ever talk to.”
She was being sarcastic, not serious, but I still detected a note of concern in her voice.
“We’re not going to die in here. It’s not even that hot. This can’t be the highest setting.”
“Yeah?” She was definitely eyeing my towel now. “You hang out in here often?”
I leaned back slightly, making no effort to adjust myposition. “Yeah. During my free time, which is something head chefs have plenty of.”
I’d deliberately emphasized my title—the one she’d maligned yesterday when we’d argued over the New Year’s Eve menu. But any way you looked at it, she’d been wrong. Baked Alaska was a gimmick, a flashy dessert designed to impress unsophisticated palates. Real chefs didn’t need to set things on fire to impress. Plus, it made no sense. We were half a continent away from Alaska, and some of the oldest guests used oxygen tanks.
But Zoe was apparently thinking about other things. “I still can’t believe Landon was part of this.”
That again? It was like trying to convince a child that Mom and Dad bought those presents, not a big jolly man in a bright red suit.
“He told me he needed to talk to me and that he’d meet me here. Do you see him here?”
She actually turned her head to look, as if he’d magically appeared next to her. “All right, so he lied to you,” she said softly.
