Page 10

With my fingers trembling, I push the box back exactly where it was and step out of the cooler without touching the powder. Whatever that is, it isn’t going anywhere near my hands.

Now what?

I could call the police. That’s the answer, that’s the obvious answer, and I get about four steps toward my office before it falls apart in my hands. This is a kitchen inside a building owned and run by a motorcycle club. Seventy-odd men in this place. Half my prep line wears a patch. Whoever put that box on my shelf either belongs to the Aces or is doing business with someone who does, and the only person I can take this to sits at the top of it all.

And what exactly would I tell him? That I found something in his building, on his property, that he might already know about?

I stand in the middle of my kitchen with my arms wrapped around myself and understand, for the first time since I signed the contract, what it means to work for these people. I shut the cooler door and drop my forehead against it.

Deep breaths, Margot. Slow and deep.

I give myself a moment, waiting until I’m certain my heart won’t pound its way out of my chest before turning around. That’s when I come face to face with the man I’ve spent my weekend daydreaming about.

He’s standing in the middle of my kitchen with a plain brown box under his arm.

The same brown. The same size. The same nothing written on it.

My stomach drops out of me.

“Margot,” he says in greeting, shoving his free hand into his pocket.

I can’t make my face work. I know I can’t, and I know he’s watching me do it.

“What’s the matter?”

“What?”

“I can see it clearly on your face. Did something happen?”

“I…” My eyes go to the cooler door behind me before I can stop them. “It’s nothing. I thought I heard a noise from the kitchen, so I came in to check, but it’s nothing. It’s nothing really.”

“Margot.”

“What are you doing in here anyway? The restaurant isn’t open today.”

He watches me for long beats, and I have a distinct sense of being weighed. Then he leans against a counter and lets it go. “I’m here for the potluck. Every first Monday of the month, we have a family dinner here in the restaurant. It’s a gathering for the Steel Aces. Kira didn’t tell you this?”

“No, I had no idea.”

“Well, I’m here to store some things in the kitchen before dinner.” He nods at the box under his arm. “These need to go in the cooler. The gathering doesn’t start until two.”

Every drop of blood in my body goes somewhere else.

“I’ll do it,” I say, and my voice comes out wrong, too bright and too fast. He hands it over and I carry it to the counter, and I make myself pull the flaps apart slowly, the way a person opens a box she isn’t afraid of.

Food containers. Neatly packed, sealed, labeled in someone’s careful handwriting.

I let out a breath I’ve been holding since he walked in.

“Why do you look scared, like you’re afraid something might jump out of the box and attack you?”

“I care about food safety,” I say, unloading containers. “I’m just making sure everything is sealed properly before it goes in.”

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t call me a liar either, and somehow that’s worse—the sense of a man who has decided to let me have this one and is filing it away.

“Margot—”

“Why did you lie to me that night?”