“You wanted my expertise. Well, that’s what you’re getting.” My pulse races from more than just anger. It’s also from the way his eyes keep dropping to my mouth, the way his shirt pulls across his shoulders when he shifts closer, and above all, from the inappropriate thoughts flooding my brain about what those hands could do well besides cook. “And my expertise says your signature dish will bankrupt us before the year is out.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Prove it.”
A silence consumes us that’s not really a silence at all. It’s this whole cacophony of micro-sounds. It’s the compressor cycling through its endless mechanical grunting; it’s the clanking of the chefs’ knives in the kitchen beyond; it’s the bob of Bastian’s throat when he swallows. It’s my own heartbeat doing its panicked Morse code against my ribs, like it’s trying to telegraphdanger, danger, dangerto any part of my body still capable of rational thought.
I watch his eyes. Navy at the edges, arctic pale near the pupils, flecks of gray. And they’re doing this thing where they’re not quite focused on me anymore but not quite looking away, either. As if he’s reading something written in the air between us. Some invisible contract neither of us signed up for.
The distance between us could be measured in centimeters now.
In breaths.
In heartbeats.
In all the words we’re not saying.
I need to get away.I try to push past him, needing space, air, freedom,elsewhere.But before I can even turn halfway to find the door handle, Bastian’s hand catches my wrist.
Not roughly. His thumb rests against my pulse point, and I know he can feel how fast my heart is thumping. The touch burns through my skin, sends electricity shooting up my arm and straight to places that have no business responding to Bastian Hale.
We stand frozen, his fingers wrapped around my wrist, my body still pressed against the cooler door, his torso hot and huge against mine. The air between us feels combustible.
I don’t know what’s going to happen….
… then his phone buzzes.
Bastian doesn’t move for a heartbeat. Not for two. His thumb traces the smallest final circle against my pulse before he releases me abruptly and steps back to pull his phone from his pocket.
Whatever he sees on the screen transforms him completely.
“We’ll continue this later.” He reaches past me to pull the door open, then strides through and away, the phone pressed to his ear. “… What? … No? … Are you fucking kidding me…? Listen…”
I stay pressed against the cooler door, my wrist still tingling from his touch. It takes me a while to realize I’m shivering.
Probably because he’s no longer here to warm me up.
13
BASTIAN
car·ry·o·ver: /'kere?ov?r/: noun
1: residual heat that continues cooking food even after it is removed from the heat source.
2: when you think you killed the heat, but it turns out the damage is already done.
The freezer door shuts behind me, but I can still feel the warm imprint of her body against mine.
When’s the last time someone surprised you, Bastian?
You have, Eliana,I almost said.Every fucking day since you stumbled into my office.
“… Mr. Hale? Did you hear me?”
Patricia’s voice crackles in the phone as I stride through the test kitchen. The staff scatter like roaches under a suddenly flipped light and I carve through them without a second look.
“Say that again.”
