I got out of my car and headed upstairs, throwing my keys onto the side table as soon as I got in and tossing my coat onto the back of a chair. I kicked off my shoes, walked to the bed, and considered for a moment whether I should get dressed, shower, or brush my teeth.
And flopped down instead, because I was tired and alone, and the less time I spent awake in this apartment in the dead of night, the easier it was to ignore that tired and alone were the only things I ever felt when I came home.
Drake
“Okay, Chefs,” Grey said with a look of twisted pleasure in his eyes. “We’ve been doing this for two weeks. It’s time to take things up a notch.”
I raised an eyebrow and glanced at Rafael. He had barely reacted; his face was passive and still. Not that that was a surprise. Two weeks of trying to get under his fucking skin, and he hadn’t given me what I wanted a single time. No matter how much I riled him or how many times I used a nickname instead of his full name, he was able to keep his rage down.
And I knew it was rage. I could see it in his eyes in that initial flash of a reaction. I could hear it in his voice when he gritted out for the umpteenth time thatmy name is Rafael.
But he never gave me more.
Never stumbled. Never fumbled a dish or dropped the ball on an order. Never gave Grey a reason to hire me over him.
The comparison was obvious at this point. My dishes looked like they belonged in a high-end restaurant. Rafael’stastedlike they did.
We were never going to get anywhere if things carried on as they did. I just wanted him to fuck up a single time. That was all it would take.
I’d tried flirting with him over and over, thinking a good fuck might require taking the stick out of his ass and leaving hima little messier than usual, but he’d never responded to that, either.
I was beginning to wonder whether Grey had been tricked into hiring an employee who wasn’t gay, after all.
Who would be able to resist a face like mine for that long?
Not Grey, obviously, because he’d been making it more and more clear that a quick fuck with him would more or less guarantee me the job. I just didn’t want to get it that way.
I wanted to beat Rafael.
I wanted to make that mask he wore on his face crumble.
I wanted him hot and sweaty, pulling his chef’s whites open to get some air, letting his hair get mussed. I wanted him undone, begging for me, crying out my name over and over like a prayer.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t just about beating him in the kitchen.
But I was allowed to have fun while I worked, wasn’t I?
The idea of taking things up a notch sent a thrill through me, but I wasn’t sure yet that what I was imagining was exactly what Grey had in mind.
“I want you each to come up with a new menu item,” he said. He had the air of a reality host judge like he was announcing the latest challenge for the weekly episode. Grey liked himself a little bit too much, which said a lot coming from me. “We’ll add them to the menu at the end of this week, and in two months, whoever has the most orders will be our new Head Chef.”
Rafael gaped at him, a frown contorting his face. “So, you can’t choose and you’re letting some stupid test do it for you?”
Grey frowned right back at him. It was abundantly obvious that Rafael had been here longer than I had and was a lot more comfortable, but I wasn’t sure it would ever be a good idea to talkthat way to your boss. “It’s not a ‘stupid test’,” he replied. “It’s actually very meaningful. Setting new menus is one of the main responsibilities of a Head Chef. If you don’t have the commercial acumen to pick out dishes our customers will actually eat, then you won’t thrive in the role.”
Rafael scoffed and folded his arms over his chest.
“I’m looking forward to the challenge,” I said with a grin, taking the opportunity to raise my own status in Grey’s eyes. It wasn’t hard to invite the comparison. “Do we have any restrictions?”
Grey tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. “It can’t be the most expensive or cheapest item on the menu, and it must make a profit,” he said. “How’s that?”
I nodded in approval, not missing the fact that he was asking me, not telling. I may not have been here as long as Rafael, but I was clearly in the boss’s good books.
“What if the dish looks flashy on the menu and lots of people order it, but they end up hating it and leaving us bad reviews?” Rafael said. I could hear the barb behind his words. It was the same thing he’d been pushing into my face whenever he had a chance: my food was pretty but tasted bad. Which it didn’t – not at all. Just not as good as Rafael’s. But that was something I could work on, while he didn’t seem willing to make his food look even remotely palatable.
Grey sighed and thought about it for a moment. “Fine.Repeatorders,” he said. “I’ll rely on Nikolai and Kit to report on our regular customers.”
It was my time to scoff. “You mean, you’ll take reporting directly from the people who’ve had more time to get to know and like Rafael than me?”
