Chapter Eleven
Four hours later, I had to chant the promises to make my dreams come true like an incantation. I thought if I believed in them strongly enough, they would come to fruition. That was difficult when a certain someone apparently had other ideas in his big, stupid head.
The trouble had started when Dillon and I walked in the door to Lilou, ready to start prep for tonight’s service. Wyatt had caught sight of us almost instantaneously. He’d popped out of his office and held up his hand in the smallest of waves. His other hand had offered a creamy iced coffee that I hadn’t been able to turn down. Despite Dillon’s raised eyebrows and giddy smile.
I’d tried to remain neutral and returned a simple thank you. That was when he pulled out the big guns. His eyelids had lowered to that dreamy, bedroom look that gave me goose bumps all over my body and his lips had curled into a soft smile when he mouthed, “Hey.”
A mouthed hey shouldn’t have sent me into a tailspin of frantic emotions and even more panicked thoughts, but it had. Why? Because this was Wyatt and up until yesterday, he preferred growling and snarling over actual words!
Things had only gotten worse from there. He’d stopped by an hour ago to help me mince onions and chop herbs. And then ten minutes ago, he’d brought me a cold bottle of water and set it down next to me without saying a word or asking if I even wanted the damn thing. Apparently, he was very concerned with my hydration.
I did want the water. I was always hot in the kitchen and subsequently always thirsty. Maybe I was thirstier than usual today. Fine. I could admit that. Anyone would be thirsty with Wyatt walking around, being nice, not yelling…
Also, the kitchen was very hot today. Did I already say that? The point was, he should have at least asked if I wanted water.
I let out a slow breath and decided banging my head against the wall wasn’t going to solve any of my problems.
“There you are.” Wyatt rounded the corner, another one of those secret smiles appearing as soon as our eyes met. “Can I go over a few things with you about tonight?”
My breath caught in my throat, but I wrestled it into a shaky exhale. “About the kitchen?”
One half of his mouth kicked up in a smirk. “Yes. About the kitchen.” He tilted his head toward his office. “Come on.”
“In there? Are you sure?” I spoke softly as to not alert the few people in the kitchen.
But he’d already walked ahead of me and didn’t hear my pathetic reservations.
“Strong, independent woman,” I whispered to myself. “Tough as nails. Remember that.”
I reluctantly followed Wyatt into the office and immediately felt an embarrassing blush creep up my neck and tiptoe across my cheeks. The corner of his desk was a particular place I needed to ignore if I wanted to avoid spontaneously combusting in a ball of nerves.
Taking a seat in the chair across from his desk that was squished between a bookshelf neatly organized with trophies, awards, notebooks, business manuals, and a filing cabinet, I intentionally left the door wide open. Hopefully Wyatt would take that as a sign I had moved on. And also, that I didn’t trust him.
Even though I hadn’t moved on and I did trust him.
He read the truth all over my face as he sat down in his chair, his smirk becoming more and more wicked with every passing second. “You look a little tired today, Kaya. Did you sleep okay last night?”
“I didn’t if you must know,” I told him in clipped tones. “I barely slept at all.”
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his desk. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
There was something hidden in his voice, some kind of clue that he wanted me to catch and I was curious enough to take the bait. His body seemed relaxed, and I couldn’t help but notice that the black bags beneath his eyes were slightly less pronounced. The redness to his pupils had all but disappeared. “You look better rested though.”
His grin came out in full force, stopping my heart and tap dancing all over my fresh resolutions to stay away from him. “I slept better than I have in months last night. Like a baby. I woke up this morning and I have to tell you, I felt great.”
My lip curled over my teeth for a nanosecond before I was able to smooth out my reaction. “How nice for you.”
He made a sound in the back of his throat that sounded like a laugh. Only I knew it couldn’t be a laugh because Wyatt didn’t laugh. “I think I have you to thank for it.”
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
We weren’t doing this. Not now. Not here. Not ever.
The thing was, I was great at denial. The best if truth be known. But if he opened the conversation I thought he was leading to, especially right before dinner service, I was going to melt into a humiliated pile of goo. As a result, dinner service was going to be a disaster and then Ezra was going to fly home from vacation to fire me. I was never going to get Sarita and I’d have to move back home with my parents. And, oh my god, I’d have to marry Nolan.
Hell, no.
Instead of letting Wyatt watch me freak out, I swallowed my laundry list of fears, neutralized my expression and asked, “Did you say you wanted to go over tonight’s service?”
“There are important reservations tonight that I wanted to make you aware of.”
I pulled a notebook from my apron and got ready to take notes. We were back in familiar territory and it felt good. All I needed now was for him to yell at me later tonight and reduce me to near tears—we would be one hundred percent back to normal.
Wyatt rattled off the VIPs coming in tonight—mostly people with money or local politicians or both. There were also people that were vaguely friends with Ezra and he had promised them a tour. Unfortunately, we would have to dance around that during service and whichever careless waiter was put in charge of the behind the scenes look. Never a super enjoyable experience because it was obnoxious to have people in your kitchen that had little regard for health and safety, and food inspectors, but it was something we accepted. We went over a few more notes about staff and topics he wanted to talk about in our meeting. We wrapped it up with a brief discussion of a new dish he wanted to introduce on the summer menu.
“Fish and chips is hardly groundbreaking,” I told him, frowning over his latest nouvelle idea.
“Yeah, but we would put our spin on it. Make it amazing.”
“I don’t see how battered fish fits Lilou’s menu. Ezra likes things old school. Besides, it’s not exactly up to par with the other protein dishes we offer.”
“That’s the point. Lilou isn’t accessible. It’s outdated and stuffy. I want to make the menu more inclusive, add a few more classic options that feel brand new.”
“Isn’t that what Vera and Killian are doing with Salt?”
He snapped his fingers excitedly. “Yes! But also no. Vera and Killian are extending her philosophy from Foodie. They’re doing all new Americana with a twist. They’re taking already trendy food and putting their spin on it. I don’t want to do exactly what they’re doing. However, from when Vera had her food truck parked across the street, I know there is an outcry in this city, particularly this area, for that kind of familiar food. People want to eat here, but they also want to have a handle on what they’re eating. Everybody is a food critic these days. Everybody thinks they’re a foodie. Thanks to Netflix and Top Chef, our customers come into this restaurant with an expectation that they can pick apart our dishes with earned expertise. And then they have our food, don’t understand what the fuck they’re eating and rip us apart afterward.”
“You mean in Yelp reviews?”
He leaned forward, his eyebrows drawing together. “Yeah, in Yelp reviews, on Google and Instagram accounts that somehow have garnered thousands of followers. Our social media presence is tanking.”
“I thought you said our waitlist was six months long?”
“For now,” he growled. “But it’s not a sustainable expectation if we keep churning out the same old shit day after day.” He slid forward in his chair, growing animated with his argument. “Vera and Killian are going to blow up as soon as Salt opens. That’s a given. Those two are powerhouses on their own, imagine them together.” He had a point. “If Lilou wants a chance in hell at surviving that kind of competition, we’re going to have to mix things up. We’re going to have to take risks and try new things. We’re going to have to up our game.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“A deconstructed hamburger, for instance. It will still have the Lilou flare. Wagyu of course, with heirloom tomatoes and artisanal gruyere cheese. I’m thinking a champagne glaze and maybe some kind of caviar garnish. Expensive, interesting, but comforting.”
I leaned toward him, eating up every word, totally enraptured by his vision. It was genius and ballsy and impossible all at once. “What else do you want to add?”
He smiled and pulled out a notebook from the side drawer of his desk. “A modernized Croque Monsieur, with an American twist. It would convey easy, nostalgic, but also elegant and sophisticated; a fancy grilled cheese and tomato soup option. I’d use pork belly instead of the traditional ham; finishing it with whipped brie. We could call La Parisienne to find out what loaves they have available for our kitchen, maybe something with olives and rosemary—the entire city knows their baker is extreme. I’ve been playing around with these tomato soup bites. Warm soup injected into a hollowed out cold cherry tomato. I want it to be this surprise bite of comfort food that just bursts to life in your mouth. I haven’t worked out all the details yet, but I think I’m headed in the right direction.”
I stared at him. Who was this man? I had expected a Killian clone. Not a man willing to go head to head with Killian to hold his place at the top of this city’s fine dining experience. At the very least, I expected a man that towed Ezra’s line because he was more afraid of losing Lilou than his identity. “Have you talked to Ezra about this?”
He nodded. “A bit. He hasn’t, uh, exactly approved my direction. But I think he’s open to change. I think losing Killian has been an eye-opening experience for him. And it would kill him to lose to Killian at anything, but especially in this.”
“The reservation list is still months out though. Ezra doesn’t have a whole lot of incentive for change.”
He shrugged, hiding his notebook away again. A pang of something bloomed across my chest. His notebook was like his diary, the place where all his most secret and intimate thoughts flowed. It was instinct to hide it away, to protect it. Not only would it expose his still formulating ideas if someone found it, but it would also give them away.
It was like the holy grail. In his hands, his potential for success was unlimited. But if it fell into the wrong hands, his work would be for nothing. They would take his thoughts, his ideas, his innovative risks, and make them their own, claiming their origins.
There probably wasn’t anybody in this kitchen with the balls to do that, but this was a cutthroat industry where creativity was questioned every day. It was unfairly easy to accidentally mimic someone’s brilliant dish or abuse inspiration based on someone else’s hard work. Integrity was preached, but rarely practiced. We were all paranoid at best, raving conspiracy theorists in our worst moments of insecurity.
“I’m not worried about months down the road,” Wyatt admitted. “We have this brilliant, complicated menu that makes no sense to seventy-five percent of our patrons. I’m not saying I want Lilou to be known as the best snobby burger joint in the country, or that I want any old Joe to wander in off the streets to order something to go. But I do want to meld together old world culinary with new world innovation. I want to update our painfully outdated menu and give our diners something they recognize, but also something that will change their entire definition of what good food is and how it can change their life. I want to welcome Killian and Vera to the neighborhood and then fucking annihilate them on every level.” He grinned, showing his teeth and sending sizzling heat spiraling through me.
My chest squeezed again and this time I recognized the feeling as jealousy. This was brilliant. Incredible. Fucking genius. If he got his way, he was going to be the guy responsible for evolving Lilou into her best version yet. It wasn’t a totally original idea, but it was in this caliber of fine dining.
And he was right about Salt. It would kill us the second it opened unless we did something innovative, something that could truly compete with it.
Most chefs, for that matter, aspired to mimic Lilou’s style, not skydive off the precipice to become more relatable to the common man. Wyatt not only saw the need to up our game before Salt became real competition, but he also recognized the necessity of keeping our social media game on point. I was blown away by his foresight and insight into the industry. He saw years down the road and knew what he had to do today to keep us at the top.
“I’m impressed, chef. This is a good idea.”
His eyes sparked with the compliment, but his words surprised me. “You shouldn’t say that.”
That look was back, the one that had gotten me into so much trouble last night. One part confident, sexy man, two parts vulnerable and open.
“Say what?” I whispered.
“Chef.”
“But you are a chef.”
His jaw ticked. Anger, I thought immediately. But it wasn’t. It was something else. And now it had me questioning every single time I’d seen it before. “And I like it far too much when you remind me.”
I laughed a breathy, girly sound. I couldn’t help it. Now he was flirting with me? Opening up to me? Sharing his plans for the future with me?
“Wyatt, what are you doing?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he struggled to swallow. My eyes tracked every second of it.
“I’m trying not to kiss you, Kaya. I thought that was obvious.”
Now it was my turn to nearly choke on my tongue. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You’re beautiful.”
I stood up so quickly, I probably would have tipped my chair over had there been room. “Are you drunk?”
He shook his head. “Did you hate it last night?”
No. Yes. No. I crossed my arms, hugging my body against the wave of embarrassment that washed over me. “It was a mistake,” I told my shoes.
I didn’t have to see his face to know that he was smirking. “Hmm, you liked it then.”
My head popped back up. “It doesn’t matter what I like, Wyatt. You’re my boss! We work together. This is insane. And also, there are other reasons.” I couldn’t remember them off the top of my head, but I was certain they existed. Especially not with him looking at me the way he was, his eyes practically liquid chocolate as they sparkled and darkened, brightening all at once.
“We should try it again though.”
“Is that a suggestion?”
“A counterargument.” He stood up and leaned over, his hands planted on his desk—the desk that remained between us.
“It’s crazy. That’s what it is.” Crazy because I was thinking about it, because that wicked expression on his face had me considering it, had me thinking that maybe we should try it again.
“It’s not that crazy, considering.”
I raised one eyebrow at him, calling out his sweet-talking tactics. “Considering what?”
“Considering you’re the most beautiful, fiery, fierce woman I have ever met. Considering I’ve wanted to kiss you since the day I met you. Considering the things I want to do to you have only gotten decidedly more depraved over the years.”
This was the part where I flailed around for a few seconds trying to catch my breath after I mis-swallowed, the spit dangerously going down the wrong tube. Obviously, I was a sex goddess and why wouldn’t he want to do all manner of wicked things to me? I bent over at the waist and desperately tried to wheeze in enough air to prevent myself from dying on the spot.
“Have some of my water.” Wyatt tried to pass me his glass, but I waved him off.
I didn’t need saving. I needed for him to stop ripping the rug out from underneath me with crazy talk.
“You’re telling me you’ve liked me since the day we met?” My voice was hoarse, still shaky from the ominous threat of more coughing.
He shrugged nonchalantly. “I don’t think like is the right word to use. You can be difficult. And a little self-righteous. And from day one you’ve made it clear that we are in some kind of competition with each other and you’re willing to spill blood to win. But…”
My nervous energy flatlined. And so did my patience. “You don’t like me, but you want to have sex with me?”
“Geez, no!” He ran a hand over his jaw and wrapped it around his neck, hiding his tattoos from me. His lips twitched, and I knew he wanted to smile. “God, Kaya, it’s not like that at all. You can be those things. But you can also be unreasonably kind and patient. You’re competitive with me, but your challenge has made me a better chef. I don’t know what I would have done without you during this transition, during the kitchen takeover. You’ve done all that I’ve asked of you and more. And I’ve demanded an insane amount from you. I like you a lot. As a person, as a friend, as a chef. But there are times I also want to strangle you. And if I had to guess, I think you feel the same way about me.”
He hit the nail on the head. I did like him sometimes. And I respected him as a human and a chef, although I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a friend. But I also wanted to strangle him a lot.
Like more than was probably healthy.
“You like me and also hate me, and now you want to make out with me?” Was it possible to get this conversation with subtitles? I felt like I was completely missing something.
His smile was shy, self-deprecating, and irresistible all at once. I wanted to strangle him right now. Because how was it fair that he could look like that and make me feel like this by smiling?
“What I’m trying to tell you is that yes, we disagree, and sometimes yes, you’re downright scary, but I have always had a crush on you, Swift. From day one. But you had a boyfriend and then I had a girlfriend. Our timing has always been off. We’re finally both single. And now we’ve broken the seal. We kissed. It happened. And it was fucking amazing.” He dipped his head and looked at me from beneath lush lashes. My uterus jumped up and down in my body like it was trapped in a CrossFit session against its will. “Let’s do it again.”
I sucked my lip ring between my teeth and demanded my feet stay put. I wouldn’t run away from this. I couldn’t let him see me panic. He had all these inflated ideas of me, that were, fine, kind to my ego, but maybe not entirely true.
Like the scary part. I wasn’t scary. I was sometimes tenacious because I got tired of being walked on by bullish men. But that didn’t turn me into a villain.
It just made me… assertive.
Except at this moment, I was anything but. I wasn’t assertive. I wasn’t tenacious. I wanted to put my hands over my radish-red cheeks and flee from the building.
Flee from Wyatt.
I didn’t trust myself around him. I was already too enamored with him from kissing him. What happened if we kissed more? Or tried out other fun activities that didn’t include clothing?
I would become a full-on fan-club stalker and he’d have to get a restraining order taken out against me to get through dinner service.
Okay, maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. But Wyatt Shaw was trouble. Until now he’d been this alluring mystery, a perplexing enigma that piqued my interest and tempted me in the worst way. But now I knew him and what he wanted, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop this snowballing attraction we had for each other if I gave it even an inch of room. There would be no walking back from this, from him. There would be no coming out the other side unscathed.
If he continued to look at me like this and smile at me like this I was going to spontaneously combust. Or worse, let him get away with his flirting.
And when Ezra found out—and he would find out—without a doubt, Wyatt would keep his job, but my fate was questionable. It’s possible I would keep my job. Or get fired. Or get moved to another restaurant in the harem. I sure as hell would never get the head chef position at Sarita.
I did what any sane, rational thinking person would do. Even if I didn’t feel sane or rational. I doused the flames between us with ice cold water. “You’re sweet, Wyatt… but…”
He looked down at his hands and grumbled. “Fuck.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea. You’re my boss. Also, I fight with you more than I’ve ever fought with anybody in my life. We’re explosive together. Maybe that’s fun sometimes, but most of the time we just blow shit up. On a regular basis, we’d be a disaster of epic proportions.” I exhaled a shaky breath and jumped off the cliff of finality. “And I’m not willing to give up my career for a fun fling that will eventually end in a flaming ball of fire.”
I took a step toward the door, but he stopped me with a sound in the back of his throat. It was both angry and desperate at once. The employee inside me picked up on his disappointed fury and instantly cringed, awaiting his wrath.
“You’re looking around then?”
Another question that left me spinning. “What?”
“I’ve had the feeling you’re exploring other options since I took over. I’m not stupid. I know you think executive should have gone to you. I know it’s hard for you to work with me.”
There were so many things wrong with what he’d said. But there was also a lot right with it. I didn’t even know how to begin to tell him the truth. I could barely admit to Vera and Dillon what I was trying to do. There was no way I could share it with Wyatt.
Besides, I got the feeling that the last thing he wanted was for me to leave Lilou. How many times had he already said that he couldn’t run the kitchen without me? Maybe it wasn’t in that one online review, but it was everywhere else. The way he talked to me here. How he relied on me, leaned on me, shared with me. Despite our weird and warring feelings for each other, we had somehow developed the dependent, symbiotic relationship every great chef had with his sous.
A thought occurred to me. It was absolutely batshit, but so was Wyatt wanting to make out with me. I narrowed my eyes at him as the suspicion started to take root and turn into an idea, and just like that, it grew roots and branches and leaves and became a verbal, anger-driven accusation. “Are you trying to seduce me to stay at Lilou?”
His head snapped back, and his eyebrows drew down immediately. “What? No.”
“Tell the truth, Wyatt. I will not be toyed with in your pursuit of greatness.”
“That is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. You know me better than that. I wouldn’t treat anybody like that, least of all you.”
“Good,” I said quickly. “Because it wouldn’t work. I’m a much stronger woman than that.”
Half his smile returned, softer than before, but no less dangerous. “Kaya, if all it took to get you to change your mind was dry humping in the cooler, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now because I wouldn’t be interested.”
My heart kicked with embarrassment. “You wouldn’t like me if I wanted to make out with you?”
“I wouldn’t like you if your mind changed that quickly and purposelessly because you were into me. I like you because of your strong opinions. I like you because you’re feisty and sharp and unwilling to change for anyone. Not even me and I’m your boss.”
His words hit me in the chest like a shove or a slap across the face. I stood there, totally and completely upended, trying to absorb them, understand them. He was the first person that had ever complimented my stubborn will and opinionated personality. The very first.
My friends felt that way. I knew they did. And I felt the same way about them. But most everyone else shied away from people with strong opinions and relentless drive. We were intimidating or weird. Or maybe our ambitions made us too self-centered to relate to. We were always so focused on our career and the path to get us where we wanted to go that we hardly ever picked our heads up and looked around at the needs of the rest of the world. I wasn’t proud of that, and I made a concerted effort with my friends, but there had been plenty of people that hated me because they felt trampled beneath my hunger to reach my goals.
My parents were forever annoyed by my sense of self, my need to make my place in the world. They wanted a sweet, docile daughter that was willing to live close to them for the joy of a quiet, uninterrupted life.
Nolan had only pretended to support my ideas and big plans, my drive and overwhelming need to do something with my life. Once I’d left Hamilton and it became clear that he wouldn’t join me, we’d had countless arguments. His abandoned promise was one of the reasons I knew I’d done the right thing when I broke up with him. He wanted a compliant wife, a woman to dutifully stand by his side and shut up until asked to speak. He wanted someone content with mediocrity.
Nolan had never been cruel or unkind about what he expected from me, but the belief system was as ingrained in him as it was that entire town. It was a small town that expected small things from its inhabitants. And while that was fine for other people, I could not get on board. Bending to that will wasn’t me.
I would never be content with small. Hell, I was desperate to get away from medium. I was a go big or go home girl all the way.
“You mean that?” I asked him, my voice barely above a whisper.
He held my gaze, his brown eyes darkening. “Yes. Nice bores me. I like you scary.”
We both laughed, his dry sense of humor felt out of place considering the heart palpitations in my chest. But it worked. He lightened the mood and I was finally able to suck in a deep breath.
“That said”—his expression grew serious again—“I can’t let you leave. I need you too much. Whatever they’re offering you, I’ll pay you more. I’ll double it if I have to.”
My heart quit palpitating. Only because it stopped beating altogether. “You’ll double my salary?”
He nodded. “If I have to.”
“Now you do.”
A deep chuckle tumbled out of him, zinging straight to my core and curling around my heart, coaxing it to beat again. “Who are they? I need to know who’s poaching my kitchen.”
“Nobody,” I assured him, anxious to keep him off the trail of Sarita. “I’ve been looking, but nobody has offered me anything. It’s wishful thinking at this point.”
He stared at me for a long minute, taking in my answer, weighing its truth, searching for the secrets I kept hidden away. Finally satisfied, he grunted a gruff, “Good.”
My stomach twisted with nerves and I felt inexplicably guilty. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should have told him what I’d been up to and hoped for. At the very least he deserved honesty. But Sarita seemed impossible at this point. Ezra was still on vacation. I’d had one lesson with Vera and I hadn’t even worked in the kitchen. There were too many unknowns still.
Better to keep it quiet until I knew if I could even apply for the position.
Wyatt shuffled to the door and grabbed the handle. “If you’re not going to make out with me, you should probably get back to it then.”
I turned toward him and couldn’t resist that wicked half smile of his and the words he’d said to me, the affirmations, the sweet confessions. Did Wyatt really like me? Not just as a sometimes friend or loyal employee, but like girlfriend potential?
It didn’t seem possible.
After all the grief we’d given each other through the years, he felt more apt to hate me than want to start a relationship with me. Except if I were honest with myself, fighting with him had never felt like fighting.
Our arguments had always shown how we challenged each other. It was like we were playing tag. Or chess in our more sophisticated moments. There had always been a heart-pounding competition to it.
That would have been enough for me. I enjoyed our headbutting bouts. I had fun with them. Fun with… him. Even if it felt like World War Three between us sometimes. But now he’d gone and said everything else. He’d admitted to liking me for me. Now I couldn’t unhear his life-giving affirmations no matter how badly I wanted to.
I paused by the door, knowing this would only complicate things between us even more. But my body was moving on instinct and my fingers were already pressed against his crisp black chef coat.
His body stilled beneath my touch. Enjoying his reaction more than I should have, I stepped forward and pressed my body against his. The kick of his heart beneath my palm was the final incentive I needed.
My left hand slid behind his neck, putting pressure on the warm column, bringing his face closer to mine. “Thank you for saying what you did, chef.” His eyes lit with anticipation. “They make me hate you a little bit less.”
I pressed my lips to his in a sweet, lingering kiss that only held the promise of something more. He wanted more, but I wanted to give him something more meaningful.
And so, we kissed in that slow, tantalizing way that made my toes curl from the frustration layered between the sweet tease of it. I nibbled his lower lip and ran my tongue across it, promising wickedness I wasn’t sure I could deliver. He made a sound in the back of his throat, half groan, half satisfied moan and I wanted to strip us both down and see exactly how far he was willing to take this.
But I didn’t.
I pulled back, taking a step away from him to catch my breath. Then I fled from his office and into the safety of the kitchen. I knew my cheeks were blazing red and I was visibly out of breath, but I needed the kitchen, the buzz of it. I needed the clanging of pots and the bustle of my coworkers. I wanted the sweet smells and the sizzle of the grill. I needed my equilibrium to return and for steadiness to settle in my soul.
Because Wyatt had taken them from me. He’d flipped me upside down and turned me inside out and then left me to piece myself back together.
I didn’t get giddy about men. I certainly wasn’t infatuated with them.
Not even when they said the sweetest things and turned out to be so much more than I ever gave them credit for. Not even when they looked like a demigod and tasted like sin.
Not even when they were Wyatt fucking Shaw.
From this moment on, I would get over him and this new and sudden attraction between us. I knew I kept saying that, but this time I was for real.
Wyatt was becoming a problem I couldn’t afford to ignore. A problem that felt too big and too complicated to solve. A problem that also felt like a solution. I shook my head and decided I needed to stop trying to figure it out, figure him out. Mostly, I needed to stop kissing him.
And I would. I would stop all this nonsense and put my career back on the pedestal where it belonged and forget about my crazy, stupid, hot boss.
Starting… now.