“Vaguely,” I say, and everyone laughs again, but there’s an edge of truth to it. For six years, I’ve been clawing my way up from receptionist, putting in seventy-hour weeks, skipping vacations,missing birthdays. Just like Mom always said:Keep your head down, stay quiet, don’t make waves.Of course, Mom also said that about her various post-Dad boyfriends’ drinking habits, about the landlord who used to let himself into our apartment, about every disappointment life ever threw at us.
Don’t make waves, Eliana. That only makes things worse. Just endure.
Well, look where that got me: twenty-seven years old, depressingly single, and about to go blind.
Maybe “enduring” is overrated.
“Besides,” I continue, “can you imagine? Me and Bastian? He’d probably make me submit a PowerPoint presentation before we could do the deed.”
The kitchen erupts in laughter, and I feel the spotlight shift away from my burning face.Thank God.
“Oh my God, yes,” Samuel wheezes. “He’d have performance metrics!”
“KPIs for everything,” Tony adds, wiping tears from his eyes. “Customer satisfaction scores.”
“‘Your moaning was only at seventy percent capacity.’” Chef Rubio mimics Bastian’s clipped tone perfectly. “‘I expect excellence in all areas, Ms. Hunter. This is simply not good enough.’”
I snort-laugh so hard cappuccino nearly comes out my nose. “He’d probably writeNGEon my ass with a Sharpie.”
That mental image sends everyone into fresh hysterics. One of the prep cooks is literally on the floor, clutching his stomach.
“Stop, stop,” the French stagiaire gasps. “I cannot breathe!”
“You know he’d time everything,” I continue, emboldened by their laughter and the sugar rush from the bite of kouign-amann I just stole. “Foreplay: twelve minutes and not a second more. Any longer is just poor time management.”
Chef Rubio scoffs. “Girl, you’re being generous. That man would schedule sex like a business meeting. ‘I have an opening between my 3 P.M. conference call and my 3:45 portfolio review.’”
“Forty-five minutes?” Tony shakes his head. “Nah, he’d block fifteen, tops. Five for the act, five for a critique, five to check his emails.”
“While still in bed,” Samuel adds.
“While stillinsideyou,” I correct.
Everyone guffaws; meanwhile, I’m trying to ignore the way my whole body feels like it’s been dipped in hot sauce. Making fun of Bastian like this feels dangerous, thrilling. It’s playing with matches next to a gas leak.
Part of me wonders what he’d think if he could hear us. Would those ice-blue eyes narrow in that way that makes my stomach do weird jumping jacks? Would his jaw clench? His hands tighten? His eyes burn?
“You know what the worst part would be?” I say, riding the incomparable high of making your coworkers laugh while you talk shit about your tyrannical boss. “Bastian would take one look at you and?—”
“Ahem.”
I hear a throat clear, and even as I start to turn, I know what I’m going to find.
Sure enough, I do.
Bastian Hale stands framed in the kitchen doors, impeccable as always in a powder blue shirt with the cuffs rolled up to his elbows. His scowl is at full force today. That ten percent smirk from last night is nowhere to be found—it’s pure venom, pure heat, purewhat the fuck do you think you’re doing?
Our eyes meet across the kitchen.
The laughter dies in my throat.
“Don’t stop on my account,” he growls. “Tell me, Ms. Hunter: what would I take one look at you and do?”
If spontaneous human combustion were real, I’d be a pile of ash right now. If only that were so.
Everyone turns in slow motion, like those dreams where you’re trying to run but can’t move fast enough. The horror on their faces might be comical if I weren’t experiencing my own personal apocalypse.
“Mr. Hale!” Chef Rubio recovers first and tries to jump to my rescue. “I was?—”
