Chapter Twenty-Four
I bypassed the hostess, the floor manager, an army of waiters, and headed straight into Bianca’s kitchen. Unlike at Lilou where Ezra’s office was separate from the main kitchen, in Bianca, his workplace was tucked in the back of the expansive kitchen area.
The kitchen was abuzz with activity as cooks hurried around in their professional attire—toques bobbing between stations. Another difference between Lilou and Bianca was the way service ran. At Lilou, with Wyatt in charge, everything flowed directly from him. Maybe it wasn’t always smooth or easy-going, but Wyatt was the source and the kitchen moved in a kind of synchronized chaos around him. Like the mouth of a mighty river.
Bianca wasn’t a steady-pathed stream. Or even a turbulent current. At least not tonight. She was the ocean in the middle of a hurricane. Chefs were shouting demands back and forth at each other, cursing furiously. The air was tight with tension and panic. Dishes clanked on messy surfaces and orders were bellowed from one side of the room to the other. I related in a way I never thought I would.
Several of the kitchen and wait staff paused in their frantic activity to watch me as I slinked along the edges, trying not to draw attention. Too late.
“I’m just here for Ezra,” I muttered, doubting any of them heard me anyway.
I had only been back here once and it was not during dinner service. It was on one of the Saturday mornings I had painted. Ezra had given me a little tour and then we’d made out in the cooler.
There hadn’t been anyone here then. The kitchen had seemed huge and empty and void of life. Now it was the opposite. Crammed with people running in every direction, the space no longer appeared big enough to accommodate all of Ezra’s staff. It was all madness and mayhem and delicious food, and I loved it.
I loved every part of it.
Any other day I would have grabbed my phone and taken video of the flurry of activity to post online. I would have captioned it #workvibes and watched social media go crazy over the interesting aspects of how a five-star plate of food is made.
Not that it mattered now. My future at STS looked grim. Instead of one-minute videos and interesting hashtags, I was going to be busking portraits on a busy street corner instead. Excuse me, ma’am, can I interest you in a caricature? I promise to make your boobs and head look ginormous.
That was my life now, a big-boob drawing chalk artist. #lifegoals.
Thankfully, Ezra was in his office when I finally scuttled back there. Nerves assaulted my already weak heart as I realized I should have texted or called first, or at least let him meet me out front. He wasn’t expecting me. He probably wasn’t ready to see me…
“Molly.” He looked up at me from behind his desk, his tie tugged loose and his fingers poised on a keyboard mid-email. His mouth split open in a warm smile and I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding. “I was just sending a note to ask if you wanted to do dinner.”
Seeing him there, behind his desk, tired from a long day but happy to see me, did something permanent to my shaky spirit. My chin trembled and I pressed my lips together in a valiant effort to hold back hot tears.
He noticed my emotional state, pushed back in his chair and leaped to standing. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head, unable to speak for fear of sobbing again.
“Come here,” he demanded.
This time I didn’t have a single problem doing what he asked. I threw my body into his and let his arms tighten around me, holding me to him. I didn’t wail, sob, or scream like I thought I would, but I couldn’t help the few rogue tears that slipped out.
I crushed my body against his, relishing the warmth and safety of his arms. As far as hugs went, this one was an A-plus, perfect in every way. He held me tightly against him without asking me for details. He simply held me, giving me the sanctuary and healing I needed so badly.
And I gratefully clung to him, soaking up every second of this man that had come to mean so much to me over the last few months.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, his voice low and soft, but edgy too—prepared to fight. For me, I hoped. I didn’t have it in me to fight with him tonight.
My arms tightened around him. “I was at work…” I sniffled, feeling pathetic all over again. “My boss… We were working on a project and he came onto me.”
Ezra’s entire body stiffened, tightened, and readied for battle. “He did what?”
“But not in a nice way,” I hiccupped. I pulled back, drying my eyes with the back of my hand and getting a grip on my wild emotions. I bravely met Ezra’s hard glare and confessed what happened. “He’s been harassing me for a while. Always saying inappropriate things or accidentally touching me. But he’s the CEO’s son. When I complained to HR, they accused me of making something out of nothing. They made it seem like I was a drama queen. And before maybe it wasn’t anything… I wasn’t afraid of Henry at that point, he was more obnoxious than dangerous. He irritated me and disgusted me, but he didn’t scare me. Then this afternoon, he called me into his office to discuss the client we’re working together on, and that’s when he took things too far.”
I told Ezra everything, the horrible things he’d said to me, how he felt entitled to me because of the project, how he threatened to fire me. Ezra listened attentively, his body coiling with his reaction the longer my story went on. His jaw ticked with every mention of Henry, and he never once let go of me. Not once.
“I don’t know what to do,” I told him. “I don’t know how to go back into that office and deal with those people… with Henry.”
“You’re not going to do it alone,” he growled. “I’ll go with you in the morning.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Enough, Molly. You are not an inconvenience to me. This is not something I’m going to make you do alone. I am going with you because I’m going to let those assholes in your office have it, and it’s going to be my privilege to stand up for you.” He reached for his phone. “I’m going to call my lawyer, Brent. He should go with us.” His gaze snapped back to mine. “You will be suing, won’t you? Brent is the best in the city. He’ll know exactly what to do.”
“I-I haven’t thought that far ahead. I’m just really still trying to get through today.”
His expression softened and he tossed his phone back on his desk, forgetting about it. “I’m sorry,” he murmured sincerely. “My default is action. Especially when I feel helpless. We’ll get through today and you can think about what you want to do.”
I tilted my head at him, staring up at this gorgeous man that cared so deeply for me. It still seemed crazy. “Why do you feel helpless?” He wasn’t the one that had been attacked. He wasn’t the vulnerable female fleeing her own job.
He gently pressed the back of his hand against my cheek, rubbing a slow, sweet path. “Do you really not know? Molly, I want to murder the asshole that touched you… talked to you that way. I want to kill him for making you feel this way, for expecting you to give him whatever his depraved mind came up with. He’s a scumbag and he tried to touch you. How can I feel anything but helpless? This asshole deserves my fist in his fucking face, and I’m going to have to settle for destroying him legally. It’s killing me.”
I shivered. Nobody had ever stuck up for me like this. Nobody had ever needed to. I had spent twenty-seven years of my life blending in.
But I wasn’t invisible with Ezra. He saw me. And I was enough for him.
I couldn’t speak or reply or even think straight. Words sat on the tip of my tongue that I didn’t think I was ready to say yet. I felt them. I felt them all the way to my bones. Ezra had been this life-changing event that had shaken up everything I’d convinced myself that I knew about the world, dating, and men.
He didn’t come into my life gradually or delicately. He swept in like a wildfire, consuming every single thought and word and thing until there was only him and me and it was like we were always supposed to be this way.
“Thank you,” I told him. Those simple words containing so much raw emotion that I could barely even whisper them.
He brushed his thumb over my bottom lip as he stared at my face, looking for the words I couldn’t or wouldn’t say. “I’m taking you back to my place,” he said gruffly. “Yeah?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“I just need to grab some things.”
“Okay.”
Before he let go of me, he bent down and kissed my forehead. His lips were warm and soft, and so perfectly gentle that tears flooded my eyes again. “It’s going to be okay, Molly. You’re going to be okay.”
He let go of me for just a minute to gather his computer and phone, and I was left reeling with wonder that I believed him. I had no idea what I was going to do tomorrow or the next day, or if I even still had a job. Or if I wanted that job. But I had Ezra and this new sense of inner strength that I couldn’t seem to scare away.
I was still shy. I was still meek in some instances. But I had this deep sense of worth too. My life plans could change, maybe I really would have to resort to busking portraits to pay the rent, but I was still me. I still had all the things that made me Molly.
And I had Ezra too. Despite how I felt about us before, about past relationships in general, or anything else, I realized I wasn’t going to lose this man easily. He wasn’t going anywhere, and I wasn’t in any hurry to make him leave.
“Ride with me?” he asked as we walked out the back door of Bianca, not really waiting for an answer. His Alfa Romeo glistened in the twilight, looking pretty in the golden light. A spring breeze danced over my skin, and the air smelled like budding flowers and freshly cut glass.
I had just had to face one of the ugliest moments of my adult life. Yet, holding Ezra’s hand in the employee parking lot of Bianca made today feel oddly like one of the most profoundly beautiful days of that same life. It was a strange dichotomy that I had trouble reconciling. I had to admit it had everything to do with this man next to me.
There were so many bad people in the world, so many people that would rather hurt and harm and crush. But the good people were the ones that made life worth living, that made searching for them worth every bad relationship and heartache, worth the pain, suffering and potential heartache of finding them. I would never want to relive any of the bad dates or guys or lonely nights that I had been through before Ezra. But I also wouldn’t give them up either. They led me to him. And that was all that mattered.
He held the door open for me and I climbed into his fancy sports car feeling more at home than anywhere else in my life. We listened to good music and talked carefully about things that weren’t important. He held my hand whenever he didn’t need it to shift.
By the time we reached his apartment building, my chest felt less pinched and my eyes were completely dry. He parked in an adjacent lot and then led me into a renovated turn of the century industrial building.
I had been expecting sleek and modern, simple lines and smooth surfaces. Instead, his fourth-floor apartment was all exposed brick walls and insanely high ceilings. The only thing that screamed modern was the kitchen with its cement countertops and floating shelves. The appliances were all shiny stainless steel and state of the art.
But the rest of the apartment? Surprisingly warm and masculine, but not overly so. His bedroom was an elevated loft with a cedar and iron staircase. The rest of the main floor was a mixture of different living spaces. A giant TV hung on the wall surrounded by rich, chocolate brown leather couches. A desk and computer were tucked in another corner. I was surprised with his large dining table, a massive statement piece of iron and wood that matched his staircase.
“Big enough table?” I set my purse down on it and smoothed a hand over the top.
“It’s a good table,” he answered. “I like to have people over.”
In the time that I had known him, he had never had me over or that I was aware of, anyone else. I faced him again, raising my eyebrows expectantly. “Really?”
Half his mouth lifted in a smile. “You know, when I have time.”
“Oh, so never.”
He didn’t take my bait. Instead, he jerked his chin and beckoned me over to him. “Come here.”
I did.
His arms wrapped around me again and his forehead dropped to mine. “I’m sorry for what happened to you today. You deserve so much more than to be treated like that. You deserve so much more than assholes, bad dates and crappy jobs. Molly, you’re brilliant. The most brilliant person I’ve ever met. You don’t need that job. And not just because of that dickhead that molested you. But because they never recognized your fucking genius.”
I chuckled at his devotion to me. “There are other good designers there. I’m not the only talent.”
“You’ll never get me to believe that,” he said without laughing. “I checked out the company, remember? Even if I hadn’t been trying to get in your pants, I would have picked you. For the sake of my business. You’re good at what you do, Molly the Maverick. The best.”
Wait. What? He hired me because he was what? “I need you to start from the beginning,” I told him.
He smiled. It was devastating and relaxed and everything I had never even known to hope for. “Did you really not know?”
“That you hired me because you wanted to sleep with me? No. No, I did not know that. Also, so far it’s backfired because there has been no sleeping or other bed-related activities.”
His hands slid down my back, coming to rest possessively on my butt. With a firm tug, he pulled me flush against his body, hard and muscled and unbelievably tempting. “Don’t be fooled by the long game. When you’re serious about a girl, you can’t make your move too quickly. You get her to care about you first, fall for you. Then you take her to bed and show her she can’t live without you.”
He was saying so many words that I was struggling to comprehend. My fists curled into his shirt, wrinkling the smooth material. “The long game?”
“Molly, you have to realize how much I care about you, yeah?” I shook my head. His milk chocolate eyes deepened with heat and grew more serious all at once. “I’ve been careful with you, with us. I’ve been terrified of scaring you off or starting something you weren’t willing to finish. But I have to be honest with you, I have waited a very long time to find someone like you. And I’ve made a lot of mistakes trying to make people fit this role that you glided into effortlessly. You demanded my attention the second I met you, and then you claimed my respect and admiration, and now you’re stealing my heart. This is real for me. This is serious. I’m sorry if that scares you, but I need you in my life as much as I want you there. Here.”
I licked dry lips and willed my heart to stay inside my chest. “I’m falling for you too,” I confessed. “I… I did try to stop this from happening. You terrify me.” His lips kicked up in an affectionate smile as if that was the most adorable thing anyone had ever said. “I’m serious. You’re gorgeous and surprisingly funny, loyal, and this crazy, successful restaurateur. And I’m weird and flighty, late all the time, and I’m pretty sure I’m unemployed. I’m a mess, Ezra. We’re so different.”
“Thank God,” he murmured. “I don’t want to date myself. You make me smile when I’ve had the worst day. And you make me see the world in brighter colors and unique angles. You’ve opened my mind to my business, but also to my friends. I would be so boring without you. We are different, but in the best possible ways. And maybe that means we’ll fight more than other people, or disagree or whatever, but we’ll also makeup more because of it. And laugh and talk more, and feel more. Molly, I’ve waited my entire life to find the person that didn’t just want something from me, but wanted me. All of me. Now that I’ve found you, I can’t let you go.”
I couldn’t stand the distance between us any longer. With my hands grasping his shirt I yanked him to me, our mouths meeting in the middle. We were all passion and desperation, and greedy hunger that could not be sated. This kiss was explosive, and all things bright and beautiful.
His lips moved over mine with a new sense of urgency, savoring and tasting as if for the first time. His tongue slid over my bottom lip, and when I opened my mouth, he deepened the kiss making my toes curl with anticipation. His hands dipped into the waistband of my skinny jeans, one sliding around to the front to flick open the button.
I fumbled at his shirt buttons, clumsily grasping each one. He moved me toward the staircase as we shed our shoes and pants, tripping up each step, refusing to take a break from this kiss.
God, this man was everything I didn’t know I wanted. Everything I didn’t know I needed. His words resonated in every secret chamber of my soul. I had been waiting for him too. Maybe I hadn’t realized it. Maybe it wasn’t a concerted effort on my part to find him. But I had been waiting. With every bad first date that I refused to revisit, and every pretend grown-up that I refused to call back, and every single attribute added to my picky list of qualifiers, I was shaping my desire for a man like Ezra. Hoping that he was real and that I could find him, and knowing that I would never, ever settle for anything less.
Now that I’ve found him? He was so much better than anything I could have imagined.
He was so much more than anything I could have dreamed up.
Best of all, he was real and really mine. Maybe he was right. Maybe we would fight, and bicker, and disagree. But every second together was infinitely better than apart. I would rather take his bossy, heavy-handed and stubbornly opinionated self than live one minute without him.
He laid me down on the bed, slowing our frantic kisses as he moved over my body. My blouse was left somewhere near the foot of the bed, and I was almost completely exposed to him in my bra and panties.
It didn’t occur to me to be self-conscious. I was too wrapped up in the sensation of his lips moving over my skin, his teeth scraping across my nipple, his fingers disappearing inside me, bringing me closer to an edge that I was restless to find.
His mouth hovered over my breast and I made a sound I had never made before, half-mad with need for this man. His tongue moved slowly over my nipple, before he closed his lips around it and sucked it into his mouth. My fingers clutched the sheets to keep me anchored to the bed, the planet. His fingers did something wicked inside me, heightening pleasure until my back bowed off the bed and I lost my breath with need.
He looked up at me, his gaze so hot I felt it blaze across my skin. He held me there, halfway to bliss and irrevocably forever feelings. “Perfect, Molly. You’re so fucking perfect.”
“Ezra.” I didn’t have adequate words to reply with. I felt too much, wanted to say too much. There were a thousand thoughts racing through my head, at the same time my body hummed with desire for more of him, more of this, more of every single thing. Finally, I settled on a brave confession, something I didn’t know I had the courage to say.
I placed my hand on his pounding heart and whispered, “This is forever for me. You are my forever. I don’t care about your money or your job, or anything but you. I want you and that’s it. I want you forever.”
He struggled to swallow, gazing down at me with those words still reflected in his eyes, he could barely move his throat. And then, as if suddenly remembering what we were in the middle of doing, he snatched a condom out of the nightstand and got back to business.
He slid inside me and everything was right with the world. His hands braced his spectacular body over me while my legs wrapped around his waist. We wound together in a sweaty, desperate tangle of soul-deep emotions and fiery desire.
I had never experienced anything so satisfying or achingly lovely. He held onto me, whispering sweet, sexy things in my ear as his body moved over mine. I lost myself in his words, and touch. This man meant everything to me.
When we were both sated, limp with exhaustion and love, he pulled me against his body and wrapped his strong, safe arms around me.
“So I’ve been thinking,” he murmured over my racing heart. “Now that you’re jobless, I think I have a position that might interest you.”
“Oh my god,” I groaned. “Are you seriously talking about work now?”
He chuckled and his whole body vibrated with the relaxed sound. “You should know by now, I always talk work.”
“You’re a maniac.”
“Social media specialist for EFB Enterprises. It comes with a pay raise.”
“You don’t even know what I make!”
“Then you should tell me, so I can guarantee a pay raise.”
I turned in his arms, laying my head on his chest and tangling our legs together. The moment was absolutely perfection. The kind of moment all other moments would be compared to for the rest of my life. “What does the F stand for?”
He sounded sleepy when he murmured, “Hmm?”
“EFB. Ezra… what?”
“Felix. Ezra Felix Baptiste.”
Raising up on one arm, my hair fell in a curtain around his face. “I’m not going to work for you, Ezra Felix Baptiste. But I will let you make me something to eat.”
His sleepy eyes blinked. “I’ll change your mind,” he decided. “I always do.”
I didn’t respond, because I was afraid he was right.
That was the last we mentioned business that night. He threw on pajama pants and gave me a t-shirt, which meant all other over-sized t-shirts in my collection would hereby need to be burned. I was basically the Cinderella of boyfriend t’s and I’d finally found the right fit.
We walked back downstairs to his kitchen where he made me eggs and toast, bacon and hollandaise sauce from scratch. We laughed and talked for hours, getting to know all the simple things about each other that would never get boring. And then he took me back to his bedroom where he made love to me again and then again.
I woke up the next morning wrapped in his arms and his blankets, with the crazy beautiful realization that I’d found my very own happily ever after.