But it’s all worth it when Bastian says…
“You did well.”
He’s not looking at me—he’s watching the valet pull away with the last car. Maybe that’s why it feels okay to smile and blush.
“I didn’t even break Harold’s fingers,” I say proudly.
“A remarkable show of restraint.”
“I considered it. Strongly. I even?—”
Before I can even process what’s happening, Bastian pulls me into a hug. It’s quick—maybe two seconds, definitely no more than three—but it’s enough. Enough to feel the solid wall of his chest against mine. Enough to smell Super Tuscan terroir and Beluga caviar and clean, male, soapy skin. It’s a cocktail designed in some supervillain’s lab to make my brain short-circuit completely, leaving me standing there like an idiot when he releases me, my arms still half-raised like I’m hugging a ghost.
He looks as surprised as I feel by what just happened. Blotches of color rise on his perfect cheekbones. Bastian Hale doesn’t blush—except when he does, just a little, and it might just be the cutest dang thing I’ve ever seen.
“Good work tonight,” he says gruffly, shoving his hands in his pockets as if they’ve betrayed him.
“Like I’d ever do anything less than that.”
He checks his watch and fidgets. “It’s only nine-thirty.”
“Is that your way of saying we should go back to the office? Because the answer is no. Hard no. Absolutely not. I’ve already exceeded my daily Bastian exposure limits.”
His mouth twitches. “I was going to suggest oysters.”
“Oysters?” I repeat stupidly. That was low on my list of suggestions I thought he’d come out with, right between “BASE jumping off Sears Tower” and “joining a cult.”
“Unless you’d rather go home…?”
I should go home. I should go home and take a bitterly cold shower and remind myself that Bastian Hale is my boss who’s paying me a million dollars to tolerate him, not to notice how solid his chest feels or how his rare smiles transform his whole face.
But my mouth, backstabbing bitch that it is, says, “I’ve never had oysters before.”
In a night full of firsts, Bastian’s jaw falling open is maybe the most unexpected of them. He looks utterly dumbstruck. As if I just confessed some unspeakable sin. Murder. Arson. Never tasting oysters. All basically equivalent and equally heinous, in the eyes of God and the law, right? Well, in the eyes of Bastian Hale, they are.
“Unacceptable. We’re going.”
“You don’t have to?—”
“Eliana.” The way he says my name stops me cold. Not Ms. Hunter, not Hunter.Eliana. “It wasn’t a question.”
And just like that, I’m following him again.
Big man say go eat oysters. Me go eat oysters with big man.
Mermaid’s Purse is nothing like Coruscant. We descend rickety, narrow stairs into a damp basement that reeks in the best way of brine and beer. The bar is scarred wood, the chairs are mismatched, and the guy behind the counter looks like he could bench press a small car.
“Bastianfuckin’Hale!” the car bench presser barks as soon as he sees us enter.
He’s barrel-chested, covered in some truly atrocious tattoos, with a salt-and-pepper beard that would make a lumberjack weep with envy.
He abandons the oysters he’s shucking, the knife clattering to the countertop, as he continues at ear-splitting volume over thealready-very-loud rock music thundering through the speakers, “I thought you’d forgotten about us common folk.”
“Dante.” Bastian’s entire demeanor changes. His shoulders drop, his spine loses that rigid perfection, and his mouth curves into an actual, genuine,you-gotta-be-shitting-me-it’s-so-perfectsmile. “You know I could never forget the best oyster man in Chicago.”
They embrace briefly—one of those back-slapping man hugs that somehow conveys years of history in the blink of an eye. I watch, fascinated. This is a Bastian I’ve never seen. Comfortable. Relaxed. Almost… playful?
When they part, Dante’s eyes slide to me, and his grin widens. “And who’sthispretty lady?”
