I shoved my helmet onto my head so that I could pretend I wasn’t so lost and lonely and helpless that I just wanted to sit here and cry, and turned the ignition even though my wrist cried out at the action. One last ride.
After today, that was it.
No more riding the bike I loved. No freedom of the open road, no riding around the hills outside of the city on my days off just for fun.
No cooking. No precision work. I couldn’t even use my right hand to jack off anymore.
Two months of total rest. A year of partial. And after that, maybe I still wouldn’t get to do those things anymore. But I sure as hell couldn’t do them with a prosthetic – not to the level I was used to.
One last ride.
I sped along the shorefront, feeling like the waves were chasing at me as the wind whipped up and drove the white foam in my direction, and tried not to feel like I was completely coming apart in every direction.
Rafael
“I want to thank you all for coming,” Grey said. He looked deeply uncomfortable; he’d taken his seat rather than towering over all of us, as he usually liked to do in staff meetings, and he was visibly pale. “It means a lot to me that you’re giving me a chance to try to make amends.”
“I don’t see Beau here,” Ainslie scoffed. “He’s the one you need to make amends to.”
“I called Beau and invited him, but he didn’t want to come,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Grey wince. I didn’t know whether he really had feelings for Beau – I would probably never know the truth for sure – but it couldn’t have been an ego booster to hear that his former fling wanted nothing to do with him now. “He gave us all his blessing to decide for ourselves whether we wanted to work here. He just can’t join us.”
Ainslie sat back in his chair, a little mollified but still disgruntled. Every face around the table held a different level of emotion: Nikolai was stoic, Kit was restless and fidgety, Luca looked like he would rather the ground swallow him up rather than let him stay here for one more second. And Drake…
Drake still hadn’t shown up at all.
“I spoke with Rafael earlier today, and he’s agreed to come back and work for me,” Grey said, nodding in my direction, careful to ensure that I was okay with what he was saying before he carried on. “I’ve made a deal with him that some of you may know aboutalready, and on that basis, he was happy to sign a new contract starting with today’s service. That contract is now in effect.”
“We heard about this,” Kit said, shifting in his chair. “It’s not real, surely?”
“I’m afraid it’s very real,” Grey grimaced. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed a hand over his face. “I know you all feel that my behavior has been unacceptable. I also know you all think that even if I say I’ll stop, I really won’t. The only thing I could think of to do was to have it written into a contract that means I have to pay in blood if I mess up.”
“Not quite in blood,” I added hastily.
“What are the exact terms you’ve agreed to?” Ainslie asked. He was addressing me, but it was Grey who answered again.
“I’ve sworn under the terms of the contract that I won’t sleep with anyone at all for the next year,” he said. He was improving; this time, there was slightly less pain in it than there had been when we were negotiating the terms. “Additionally, for the next year after that, I’m restricted from having sex with anyone who lives within the Crowhill Cove area or is visiting for the day. In other words, I’ll have to make a special trip for it.”
Someone down the table snorted. I looked up, but Nikolai’s face was perfectly still and calm.
“Is that even enforceable in a legal contract?” Kit asked.
“Probably not,” Grey shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve given my word and I’ve signed a piece of paper. As far as I’m concerned, it’s binding. If I break the terms of that contract, Rafael will receive an immediate payout equivalent to a full year’s salary at the time of my lapse.”
There was immediate hubbub around the table, everyone speaking at once. “Why don’t we get some kind of payout?” Ainslie asked immediately, his voice louder than the rest.
“I think it’s enough that I already have one,” I said. “As Head Chef, I’m in charge of the kitchen. As it is, a payout of that size will probably bankrupt the business. I don’t need that much money, so I’d probably use it to ensure you could all keep your jobs.”
“How would you do that?” Nikolai asked.
I spread my hands on the table openly. “I’d buy the place off Grey,” I said.
“What?” Grey asked, staring at me. “We didn’t discuss that.”
“We don’t need to discuss it until or unless we come to that point,” I told him evenly. “But if The Crow was going under, I would want to save it. We’d be in a good position to negotiate.”
Ainslie leaned forward, putting his forearms on the table. “Well, if you’d be using it to buy Grey out, then I’m all for it,” he said.
I nodded. “I don’t have this written into any contract, but you all have my word that that’s what I would do. Either buy it outright if I had enough saved or take my payout as a stake in the restaurant instead.”
