Before anyone could argue, Vann stuck his head through the kitchen door and said, “I probably should have asked. But, where exactly are the plates?”
A collective annoyed sigh rippled through the room, but I saw the interruption as an escape. “Here. I can help you.” Shouldering my way through my friends, I scurried after Vann for a moment of quiet.
As soon as I stepped inside the kitchen, I forgot my entire purpose for being there. I walked over to the nearest counter and carefully set my palms on the cool stainless steel. The lights were still off and the only sound filling the empty space was the buzz of the refrigeration units.
“Son of a bitch.” I growled at my manicured nails. I closed my eyes against the spirit of this space, the living, breathing, tenacious something that inhabited this place and the chefs that worked here.
It seeped through my skin and caught fire in my blood. I took a breath, filling my lungs with the contagious hunger to stay here.
“I found these,” Vann announced, interrupting my solitude.
I opened my eyes and found him standing on the other side of the island with a stack of dinner plates in his hand. My muscles tensed out of instinct, assuming he’d manage to drop and shatter them before he made it out the door.
Fear and anxiety and a jumble of idiotic hope tangled in my throat and I was unable to give him better instructions. “What is your obsession with cake anyway?”
Setting the plates on the counter with more finesse than I gave him credit for, he eyed me across the distance with something like arrogant insight. “It’s why I came. Hell, it’s why you came.”
I shook my head, defiant and digging my heels in, set on my decision. My loose, wavy blonde hair dancing around my shoulders like Medusa’s snakes. “It’s not at all why I came. I had no idea any of this was going to happen. Ezra asked me to meet him here to get my advice on a possible new menu. The head chef offer was a total and complete surprise.”
I got the feeling he resisted rolling his eyes when he said, “But you knew it was coming.”
“Y-yeah, maybe,” I conceded, not willing to lie. Ezra had been hinting around about this position since I graduated school. I had known he wanted to give me this restaurant for a long time. And lately I’d realized he wanted to give it to me sooner rather than later. But that didn’t mean I knew he would do it today. Or even in the next five years. “But I was still surprised. I thought he’d at least give me a few years’ experience before he thrust an EC of a lifetime in my face.”
This time he gave into the eyeroll. “So be honest, you were never going to take the job. You should have told him from day one.”
The fire inside me turned into a furious dragon. “Excuse me?”
“We’re here for the cake,” he repeated. “You and me both.”
“What exactly are you saying?”
He pushed the plates to the center of the island and walked closer, dragging his hand over the cool metal surface. “I don’t even know you and I can see this job isn’t for you.”
“And why is that?”
“It’s hard work, for starters. And from what Vera says, the chef that takes over is going to have to be a badass both in the kitchen and in real life. This place needs someone to resuscitate it. Whip it into shape. You’re too soft.”
“Too soft?”
He smiled, but it was teasing… smug. “You’re a good girl, Dillon. Gentle. Delicate… Afraid to hurt anyone’s feelings. This place would chew you up and spit you out. And you know that.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I could have sworn my nails stretched into talons. It was all I could do to keep from launching myself across the counter and wrapping my hands around his throat.
But I didn’t.
I was a lady after all.
Which only doubled my desire to choke this man out since it went along exactly with his accusations.
“I’m not taking this job as a favor to my brother,” I hissed, needing him to understand I wasn’t any of the things he said I was. “If he’d have waited another year, or three, I would have been happy to accept the position. But, the hard facts are, I need more experience. It has nothing to do with how nice of a person I am.”
He shot me a tightlipped smile. “That’s a good line. I guess you need a good line though if you’re going to have to feed it to yourself for the next thirty years.”
He started to walk by me, but my hand shot out and I dug my finger into his bicep before he could get away. “And what the hell do you know?”
Turning his head to face me, he pierced me with gray eyes that were far too observant and volatile for my liking. “I know good girls.” His explanation came out with notes of pure and unfiltered disgust. “And you Dillon Baptiste are a good girl to the core.”
Pulling his arm from my slackening grasp, he left me alone in the kitchen with his words echoing in the air.
