Luciana
“Thank you.” Chase’s voice jolted me out of my intense stare-down with the Final Will and Testament of Emiliana De Lange.
I immediately tensed and slid the folder underneath the pile and turned.
“For what?” I asked, trying to sound casual when my heart was thudding so fast against my chest I was sure he could both see and hear it.
Our eyes met.
He looked… different.
Dangerous still.
Naturally too sexy for words.
And clean.
I narrowed my eyes.
“Do I pass inspection?” He was smiling.
Why was he smiling?
Was this a trick?
I grabbed the closet thing I could find, which just so happened to be a pen, and held it out in front of me, pointed at him.
His eyebrows arched. “Either you’re a better fighter than I am, or you really think a pen’s going to keep me away.”
“Don’t.” I held it between us. “Just, say what you need to say, and then…” I gulped. “…go away.”
He crossed his arms and stopped walking. “I just came to say thank you, that’s all.”
I lowered my arm. “For what?”
His eyes drank me in. “The first sleep I’ve had in six months.”
My chest tightened as I looked away. “I’m sure that was the alcohol.”
“Nah, that was the singing.”
Heat flooded my face, and I knew I was blushing, embarrassed that I’d literally sung a murderer to sleep for a solid six hours while trying not to fall asleep on his hard chest. It was both the best and worst night of my life.
The best because I genuinely felt like I was singing the demons away.
The worst because I figured he wouldn’t remember, and he’d just wake up as haunted as before, never changed, never free, and for some reason, it mattered.
It really mattered to me.
I didn’t know what to say so I stared down at the ground. Best not to look into his crystal blue eyes; they made me feel things, nice things, not angry things, and with how hot and cold he was, I knew I needed to keep my walls up.
“I wanted to thank you with something else.” He moved again.
Oh no. Hell no.
I lifted the pen and shook my head slowly. “All done and thanked! You can go now, I should, should, um…” Could I be any less eloquent? “…get back to the grind.” Oh, God, what was next? Punching his shoulder and calling him slugger?
His grin only widened.
He. Was. Epically beautiful.
Men weren’t supposed to look like him in real life, with light eyes, dark, perfect olive skin, strong jawlines, hair I wanted to dig my hands into, and a body just made for magazine covers.
“Grind, huh?” He pressed his lips together. “Alright, well, I guess I’ll just eat by myself then…” He started backing away just as my treacherous stomach grumbled. He grinned back at me. “Hiding a T-Rex in here, or are you hungry?”
I covered my face with my hands. “I didn’t eat breakfast.”
“Well then…” He made a motion with his hand. “Follow me.”
“Chase…” I gulped. “…you don’t have to, really. I know you… I know you don’t like me… or people for that matter.”
“Today I’m making an exception,” was all he said before leaving me to decide my own fate.
Ugh. I was starving.
With a little mental slap in the face, I followed him out of the room and down the stairs in silence.
The kitchen smelled like rich pasta and homemade bread.
He must have a personal chef or something.
And then he went over and started stirring sauce on the stove. I frowned so hard my vision blurred. He moved to pull bread out of the oven, and I immediately wondered if I was on a hidden camera show, the ones where they ask you what you would do if someone murdered a dozen people in front of you, and then asked if you want to break bread.
Obviously, I was the dumb one in the situation.
I was still living with him!
I slapped my hand against my face and gave myself a hard shake as I walked over to the stove. It smelled like spaghetti with a heavy dose of basil, and I sniffed again.
Chase froze next to me as I dipped my finger into the sauce and licked it.
Completely out of habit.
I winced. “I’m so sorry. I just, I used to do the cooking and I just, I’m so sorry I won’t touch anything else, I swear. Your house, your kitchen, your food, your—”
He slapped a hand over my mouth and then pulled it back and pressed a finger to my lips. “You talk too much when you’re nervous. Talking usually gets you killed.” His lips twitched. “But since this is a thank-you day, I’ll give you a free pass.”
I exhaled.
“Holy shit, I was kidding.” He shook his head. “Go ahead, take another taste.”
Still breathing heavily, I dipped my finger deeper and then sucked it off.
He jerked his head away like the motion offended him.
It needed more salt. I didn’t tell him that though. You don’t tell the man with the gun that his cooking could use more salt. No, you just strategically find it on the counter. Bingo. Grab it, and then tap some out.
He turned on my last shake of the sea salt.
I froze.
He stared at my hand, the one I was probably going to lose after dumping salt into his sauce.
Because that was what they did to kitchen criminals like me who sent steak back when it was overdone or, God forbid, asked for ketchup!
“I, uh…” I had nothing. Absolutely nothing. “…didn’t get much sleep last night…” Even as I said it, I wanted to gag myself and then jump off a cliff. That was my excuse for the salt?
“Ohhhhh…” Chase crossed his arms. “…so this is a thing, you sleepwalking your way to work and then just picking up salt and shaking it all over the place?”
“Sure?” I tried.
“Lie,” he whispered, and then he dipped his finger into the sauce and licked it so slowly my heart fluttered at least a dozen times before he was finished. “Huh, needs more salt.”
My hand was still hovering. He tapped the back of it a few times causing more salt to come out before very gently guiding me away from the stove and toward the table.
What had just happened?
A glass of wine had been poured for me.
One for him.
We sat next to one another as he served me, and when he lifted his glass, I numbly lifted mine and clinked it against his before taking a giant gulp.
“So, you cook?”
“Two years of culinary school,” I said proudly. “Before law school, I never really knew what I wanted to…” My voice trailed off as he stared at me like I was a naked unicorn.
He took another gulp of his wine.
Then another, still staring me down and then finally he got out, “You. Cook?”
“Yeah.” Didn’t we just have this conversation?
He put his glass down; his hands were shaking.
Why were they shaking?
I’d done something wrong again. I just didn’t know what.
“Look, if you could just tell me the rules, then I’ll know better next time.”
A frown furrowed his forehead. “Rules?”
“So you don’t get angry with me,” I said stupidly, feeling like a kid.
“The problem,” he said in a quiet voice, “is not that I have rules, because even if I did, you would have already broken every single one. It’s in your nature. You can’t help it, just like you couldn’t help the salt. Rules won’t save you. They never do. All you have is this…” He tapped my chest with a finger. “…and this.” He cupped my face then caressed my temple. “Two things to get you through life. Fuck the rules.”
Okaaay.
“And I’m only angry ninety percent of the time.”
“And the other ten?” I just had to poke him.
He grabbed his fork and started digging in. “I’m sunshine and rainbows.” He sighed. “Would you believe me if I told you I used to be the funny one?”
“No,” I said, probably too quickly.
He looked bitterly down at his plate. “Yeah, that makes two of us.”
I didn’t move.
“Eat, Luc. It’s not poisoned, just a truce.”
“A truce?”
“An ‘I’m sorry for being such a dick to you.’ And when you’re done eating, I have a mutually benefiting proposition…”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Eat first.”
“I’m too nervous now.”
He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Sing the devil to sleep… and I’ll help you with your work so you can get your ass out of here and onto the next Family.”
“Tame the beast, and I get extra help?” I toyed with the idea. “And you promise not to… threaten me anymore?”
“I promise…” He gulped. “…that I’ll try. It maybe habitual at this point in my life.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re in your twenties. Nothing’s habitual yet.”
“When you start killing at twelve, it sure as hell is.”
It was my turn to start choking.
“So, what do you say?” He leaned in, his forearms bracing against the marble table. “I help you. You help me?”
I was quiet.
“And maybe the more I sleep the nicer I’ll be… you never know. We could become… friends.”
I stared over at his clear blue eyes and said the first honest thing that came to mind. “You and I will never be friends. Don’t insult confession time with a lie.”
He looked stunned, and then his face completely transformed, as if he respected my truth more than the terrified lie.
“Cooks and calls my bluff…” He lifted his wine glass. “Happy Friday.”