“You’ve got this. The rest of the staff had a paid vacation or worked in other departments while we got you here, so they will all be back tomorrow and ready to work. I hope you’ll be ready for them.”
“I will be.” Any doubts I had, whether I should have gone another direction and opened my own restaurant, were assuaged. I would certainly enjoy this kitchen and all it had to offer. Including my membership now becoming free.
Chapter Four
Hudson
Everything had changed since coming to Emerald City. My dad had paid for me to go to phlebotomy school, and my grades and clinical work was so good that I got a job offer on the day of my graduation. Here, in the city, only blocks from my apartment.
My dad wouldn’t let me pay him back for anything. He said it was a gift. He also held some guilt for not knowing what I’d been through, but I lived across the country with my alphas, so he never saw me. Even if he had, I wouldn’t have divulged anything. I would’ve slapped a smile on my face and told him the sun was shining.
We were working through it.
In the meantime, my job was stable, and I was able to pay for my own small apartment. No one told me how to decorate it. I made the decisions about what I ate. What time I woke up. What time I went to bed. No more comments about my weight.
I enjoyed dessert every day.
I had made friends. Friends! I even went to a book club on Monday afternoons.
I had a life.
After a long week of work, I walked to a new Korean fried chicken place in town, taking the long way to get some more exercise in. Despite eating dessert every night and shunning dry chicken breasts for good, I’d slimmed down. My face had changed. I slept a full eight hours.
Even if my harem tracked me down, which I hoped they wouldn’t, they might not recognize me. I looked like me before them. Before their abuse.
Fried chicken wouldn’t ever be allowed by my harem. Jonah and Brent used to pinch at my sides and claim my muffin top disgusted them.
On my way, I noticed a building I hadn’t seen before. The outside had no signage, but the doors had handles shaped like crowns.
“It’s a nice touch, right?” A man approached from my right. He was dressed in a chef’s outfit but instead of white, it was black. The same crown as the handles was embroidered on his right chest. “The handles.”
The chef’s uniform got my attention, but it wasn’t what held it. The man was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. He was tall and lean, and I would bet under that black uniform, he was ripped as well. He strolled over with a confidence I strived for. His blue eyes never left mine.
My wolf had been dormant for a long time. The relationship between him and me was strained. I’d put us in danger, even though it wasn’t my fault. He was traumatized by people we thought would love us. But as this person drew closer, he emerged and howled for him. For this man we hadn’t met. Who had said less than a paragraph to us.
“It is. Is it a restaurant?” I asked.
“No, it’s a club. A club for adults.”
I was stumped, but only for a second. Then it all clicked. Some of my coworkers at the lab office were talking about the new sex club called Crowned. The crowns now made perfect sense. “I’ve heard some people talk about this place. Crowned, right?”
The man nodded, chuckling, and pointed to the crown on his jacket. “Yes. Crowned.” His scent hit me as he approached. A heady scent, powerful and bold with a striking note of citrus and oak buried underneath the other musky layers.
My wolf liked it very much.
“But there’s some kind of kitchen inside? Or is chef cosplay your kink?” I asked, not checking my surroundings for people passing by. I should’ve, but something about this man made me not care about manners and doing the good omega thing. I’d played the doting, submissive alpha for too long.
Another laugh from him had my stomach pulling tight. “I work as the head chef. We serve food in there as well. There’s also a bar. The club is officially closed but would you like a tour?”
I looked up at the sleek, modern building. From a distance, no one would know what was going on inside. If I had to guess what this building was, I’d think a lawyer’s office or some kind of corporate investment firm. Not kinky sex club.
“Are you sure that’s allowed?”
“Of course.”
I turned to look down the street and could smell the frying chicken that was supposed to be my dinner. But this man called to me with another kind of hunger that overpowered my stomach. Maybe he could make me dinner inside and then show me what he liked in particular.
Ugh, I was getting ahead of myself.
