“Table 12 wants to see you.” Olivia interrupts my five-minute staring contest with the booth in the corner, where not six hours ago I was lying naked and sweaty, tangled in Grayson Walker’s heavily breathing body.
I snap out of my reverie, knocking my untouched glass of wine and causing it to slosh over the rim onto the paper napkin I’ve been doodling on. The red liquid smears the rudimentary drawing I sketched of a kick-ass female assassin in a skintight orange minidress and lace-up boots being swept into the arms of the man she’s been assigned to kill. Peeking out from under the hem of her dress are two knives strapped to her inner thighs. It’s a character I’ve been working on for a few months now, but haven’t yet managed to get quite right.
I scrunch up the napkin and toss it aside.
“What’s with you today?” Blake asks from behind the bar, arriving with a wet rag to wipe up my spillage. “You’ve been in la-la land all night. Reminiscing about hot and steamy encounters?”
I blink in surprise and stare at him.
He knows?
He flashes me a winning smile. “I can’t stop thinking about last night either. They may as well just rent that dance floor by the hour.”
Oh, right.
He’s talking about us.
And how I made a total fool of myself at Hank’s last night in a pitiful attempt to make Grayson jealous. Although, technically, I suppose it did work.
“Alcohol can make you do just about anything,” I say, half-joking.
He flips the wet towel over his shoulder and it lands on his broad back muscles with a smack. “Oh! Burn!” he feigns offense. “And I thought you Smart girls were such ladies.”
I blush, thinking about how far from a lady I was earlier today.
Or more important, how far Grayson was from a gentleman.
The thought makes me giddy. I bite my lip to hide a smile, but apparently I wasn’t fast enough.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Blake says with a knowing smirk, clearly thinking my red cheeks are directed at him. “So, when can we do it again? Maybe this time with a little more privacy and without that cock block Grayson around?”
“Table 12,” Olivia reminds me impatiently.
“Right.” I slide off the bar stool and head for the front of the restaurant.
“How about tonight?” Blake calls after me.
“How about never?” I reply without turning around.
I reach the two-top and brace myself for the worst. It’s never good when customers ask to speak with the owner. That’s a lesson I learned on day one of taking over this place.
I paint on my brightest smile as I approach the middle-aged couple. “Hello, there. My server said you wanted to see me? Is everything okay?”
I glance down at their plates which, to my surprise, are empty and appear to be licked clean.
The man peers up at me as his face lights up. “Oh yes. We just wanted to pay our compliments.”
“Huh?” I mutter, confused.
“The sauce.”
“It’s marvelous,” the wife puts in, grinning at me with the same enthusiasm as her husband. “I haven’t tasted anything so delicious since our honeymoon in Italy.”
“Really?” I instinctively glance over both shoulders, looking to see where the practical joke is coming from. Clearly Blake or Olivia has put them up to this in an attempt to lift my spirits.
“Truly!” the man sings.
“What is in that recipe?” the woman asks.
“Uh,” I stammer, thinking back to this morning. My mind suddenly floods with images of Grayson in that kitchen. Stirring. Heating. Steaming. Boiling.
“Um, well, I can’t really say.”
Namely because it’s still somewhat of a mystery to me. When we returned to the kitchen after cleaning up the restaurant from our impromptu food fight (among other impromptu activities), the ingredients in the pot had simmered to a beautiful, thick red sauce.
How it didn’t completely burn or bubble over while unattended, I don’t have a clue. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I have an inkling that it wasn’t actually anything Grayson put into the sauce that made it work, but rather the passion he felt while making it.
Not to mention the passion he clearly felt later...
“Secret family recipe?” the woman asks and I nearly choke.
“God, I hope not,” I mumble.
The husband and wife look confused and I quickly add, “I mean, no. We um...kind of got a new chef.”
She smiles like a proud mother. “Well, whoever this chef is, you better hold onto him, honey. He’s a keeper.”
Another blush blooms over my face as I think about Grayson’s words to me as we lay in that booth.
I choose you.
“Thanks. I will certainly try.”
As I walk back to the bar, my phone vibrates in my pocket. My stomach flips when I dig it out and see Grayson’s name on the text message.
Grayson: Hey, Lil’ Killer. Just got back to the city. Craving more sauce...
I can feel the stupid grin twisting my lips, but I don’t care. My fingers fly over the keys as I race to text him back.
Me: Apparently so is the couple at table 12.
Grayson: Tell them you’re all mine. :)
I swallow, feeling a strange mix of happiness and trepidation. My fingers shake as I type out my apprehensive reply.
Me: Am I?
I wait, my heart growing more impatient and doubtful with each second that ticks by.
Maybe it’s too soon to be saying things like that.
Maybe I should let him bring it up again. So I don’t come off sounding like a needy, insecure freak.
After our second round in the booth earlier, Grayson and I agreed that he should go back to the city. Alex was catching the six o’clock train to Manhattan tonight. Grayson told me he wanted to see me again, but not until he made things right. Not until he ended it with her.
But even though he was the one to say the words, I still had a hard time believing them.
It’s easy enough to promise those things in the heat of the moment. But now that he’s back in the city, inside his apartment, surrounded by her scent and the memory of his life before, what’s to say he won’t change his mind? What’s to say he won’t realize how crazy it is to choose me over Alex, and back out?
The device in my hand buzzes again.
Grayson: Soon.
I shiver at the implication. At the weight of just one word, four letters, one syllable. That simple promise has the ability to change my life. Forever.
Another text message arrives shortly after.
Grayson: I told Alex to come by tonight after she gets back.
My heart starts to slam against my ribs and suddenly I can’t breathe.
This is something I’ve dreamed of him saying since I was fourteen years old. But the reality of it—the imminence of its consequences—riles up a thousand butterflies in my stomach.
It’s actually happening.
He’s actually going to leave her...for me.
And that’s when the nausea comes. Followed by the guilt and the numbness and the gust of freezing cold wind that whips through the restaurant, chilling me to the bone.
He’s going to destroy her. Unleash a massive 9.5 earthquake right under her heart.
Whenever this scenario took place in my head, for some reason that part never even occurred to me. Because it wasn’t real. It was imaginary.
But it sure as hell is real now.
Alex’s pain will be real. Her tears will be real. Her shambled life will be sickeningly, agonizingly, excruciatingly real.
I try to reassure myself that Alex will have no problem finding someone else. She’s sexy and beautiful and confident and successful. Guys will be lining up outside of her door. She’ll have her pick. She could host a fucking Bachelor show of her own if she wants.
But it only makes me feel a smidgen less awful.
Why does my happiness have to be so intricately linked to her pain? Why do Grayson and I have to destroy so much just to be together? It doesn’t seem fair.
It was Grayson’s idea not to tell her about us.
At least not yet.
And I agreed. It’s better to let the aftershocks of the break-up play out and wait for things to settle down.
But suddenly I have this image in my head of Alex learning about our secret relationship and….laughing.
She won’t believe it. Grayson pick me over her? She’ll be convinced he’s insane. Blind. Stupid.
The hideous, blood-curdling doubt starts to writhe in my chest. I scurry back to the office, collapse into the chair, and shut the door, struggling to take in tiny sips of air.
“She’s right,” I say softly into the empty office.
Grayson can’t do this. I can’t let him. Alex is the better choice. She’s always been the better choice!
I have nothing to offer him.
At least nothing that Alex can’t give him better, stronger, sexier.
What if he breaks up with her and then realizes a week—a month, a year—later that it was a colossal mistake? What if he chooses me only to regret his decision tomorrow?
He says he wants me, but does he know? Does he really know? Or is he just making a rash decision because of a couple out-of-this-world orgasms?
And then, as though he can read my thoughts from fifty miles away, as though he can feel my insecurity seeping through the phone tightly clenched in my hand, he messages me again.
Grayson: Everything okay?
Hands shaking, heart hammering, I tap the letters one at a time, hesitating over each one.
Me: I hope so.
Another long pause. The ocean four blocks away echoes in my ears.
Grayson: Me too.