Chapter Nineteen
Can we talk outside of Lilou?
It had been a simple enough text on my part. Straightforward. To the point. Without innuendo.
As in a date? Had been his stellar reply. Breakfast tomorrow? Benny said he’d cover deliveries.
He already had substitutes in place?
When I hesitated to reply, he sent another one. Come on, Swift. Play hooky with me… Promise we’ll have fun.
I had tried not to smile as I paced my apartment Sunday night and contemplated how to answer him. God, I was smitten with Wyatt. Completely head over heels. Maybe it had always been simmering underneath the surface. The way he would tease me. The way I would challenge him. How I always felt his eyes on me. How I always knew where he was. But, God, I was so stubborn. So obnoxiously pigheaded. I don’t think I would have done anything with my crush had Wyatt not kicked down my walls of resistance for me.
And it was embarrassing to think about it now, how messed up one relationship had made me. It was so long ago and yet I was still carrying around the fear that I wouldn’t be good enough. That there was something in me that would inevitably push Wyatt away.
Ridiculous, right?
The fear was still there though. Still burbling inside me like an accidental nuclear waste spill. I wanted to get rid of it so badly. I wanted to cleanse my body of the toxins. But even if I did the hard work and cleaned it up, there would always be trace particles lingering in the air, hiding in buried places within me, leaking forever into my confidence and self-esteem.
I was tired of the way my personality split in two, this frustrating dichotomy always at war within me. I could protect my heart and be open to new relationships. I could also hide and shrink away, terrified of change. I could be kind and considerate and also guarded and careful. I could snarl, act a raging bitch, but still remain loyal to my friends and generous whenever I wanted to be.
Maybe it wasn’t only me. Maybe all humans had these battling personality traits. Endless characteristics that didn’t always match up, but always made sense in light of who we were.
We were complicated and intricate, made up of a billion different experiences that have shaped and molded us to who we are. For better or worse.
That was how I felt now. Both better and worse. Both completely confident in my skills in the kitchen and terrified that I wouldn’t be enough for Ezra, or that his taste would be outside the realm I could cook in.
I one hundred percent loved my parents. I was grateful for all that they had done for me and the way they tried to support me and loved me, even though I wasn’t living the life they wanted me to be living. I was also totally frustrated with them and felt as though I’d earned some distance. Mostly from my mom.
And more importantly, I was falling for Wyatt. Hard and fast and irrevocably. And here I was, still trying to protect my stupid heart, still trying to quickly build defenses from the rubble inside me that could save me from the inevitable heartbreak.
I didn’t want to find out I wasn’t good enough for Wyatt.
I didn’t want for things to fall apart if I left Lilou because we wouldn’t see each other all the time and there wasn’t enough substance there to keep us together.
I didn’t want Wyatt to give up on us because I wasn’t worth pursuing.
I’d already had that relationship. And it had killed me. Damaged me. Left me as this skeptical, paranoid person that couldn’t even try at relationships anymore. I couldn’t go through that again.
But a date couldn’t hurt, right?
My heart thumped twice. Yes. Do it.
My brain gave a weak, common sense protest, but my fingers were already typing. How early do I have to get up?
I swear I could feel his smile all the way through the phone. Eight-thirty. It’s worth it. I know the best little place.
Not even his early choice for breakfast could turn me off to the idea. Still I couldn’t help but give him a hard time. It was too ingrained in me. Besides, I knew he liked it. Okay, fine. I’ll meet you there. Where is it?
Been waiting to do this for a long time, Kaya. I’m glad you said yes.
My heart had exploded with butterflies. I’d collapsed on my couch in a fit of old-fashioned heart palpitations.
But now as I pulled up to the address he gave me, I was second guessing my choice. This wasn’t a restaurant, but a house. Possibly the scene of a murder. Or my future murder. Not that the house was scary. It was the opposite.
The perfect square of a ranch had a detached garage, the door opened to show off a big, black muscle car with the hood popped open and tools laid neatly in rows on one of those manly workbench things. He drove an Acura to work and I didn’t know anything about it other than it was fast. This one seemed to be along the same vein.
The Acura was parked in the second bay. Leading me to believe that this was not only Wyatt’s house, but he had a thing for fast cars.
I tried to pass a snotty little judgment on him, as was my way. But I couldn’t come up with anything. It wasn’t stupid that Wyatt liked fast cars. It somehow fit perfectly in line with his personality. It wasn’t such a surprise to find that out as it was an obvious addition to all of the facts and truths I already knew about him.
Filing it away, I tried to talk myself out of imagining him driving the sleek muscle car with the white racing stripe down the center. But it was too late. I’d already imagined him. And I already found it unbearably sexy.
There was that.
The house itself was completely isolated and perched on a bluff. Tall, towering trees surrounded the property and left little grass to be found. Instead, pine needles lay in a blanket of brown, only interrupted by the occasional bush or shrub.
A cozy wraparound porch made the walk up to the front door especially inviting. I could tell immediately that Wyatt took pride in his home. The walkway and porch were both swept of the relentless pine needles. The shutters looked nice framing the large windows. And there was even a porch swing hanging from the ceiling.
Either he was going to murder me all the way out here or charm the pants right off me.
The navy-blue door was opened, but I still knocked as I stepped inside his domain. I paused in the doorway, inhaling the scent of him in his house, and checking out the spacious layout.
There wasn’t an abundance of decorations or anything hanging on the walls, but his furniture was rich, chocolate leather and he’d filled in all the right spaces so it didn’t look as though there was anything missing.
His lamps, coffee table, and dining room setup were all a mixture of modern and mountain. It shouldn’t have gone together, but because it was Wyatt, it did. His aesthetic wasn’t accidental. This was his taste. This was him laid out before me in such a way that I felt like I was turning the pages to his autobiography.
He poked his head out of a room I could see was the kitchen, a smile already on his face. “Hey.”
I suppressed a smile and shook my head at him. “I hope you got reservations. This place looks packed.”
His smile stretched. “Don’t worry, I know the owner,” he assured me. He disappeared again, and I took that as my cue to join him.
Toeing off my shoes, I dropped my purse by the front door and closed it behind me. I walked around the corner and joined Wyatt in his real-life kitchen.
It wasn’t terribly different from Lilou. His appliances were all stainless steel and nearly as big as what we kept at the restaurant. His gas stovetop was gigantic and the copper hood over the top was one of the few bright spots of color in the whole space. But somehow it worked.
Again, there was that strange mix of modern and mountain, but everything that was modern was state of the art, and everything that was mountain cabin felt cozy and warm.
“You know you should warn a girl before you invite her over to your super secluded cabin,” I said as I sidled up across the island from him while he chopped green onions and cooked bacon. “So, she doesn’t assume you’re luring her to the middle of nowhere because you’re secretly a serial killer.”
He looked up at me and winked. “I didn’t want you to have the opportunity to decline.”
My gaze strayed to his tattoos, the bird on his neck, delicate and dainty compared to the hard, masculine design of him. I swallowed so loudly I was positive he could hear me.
“That’s exactly what a serial killer would say.”
He laughed and shook his head. “This once, try not to think the absolute worst of me.”
I stuck out my lower lip and explained, “But I’ve been doing it for so long. It’s like an irreversible habit now.”
His smile warmed. “I have faith you can manage. We’re way past fighting now, Swift. We’ve finally gotten to the good stuff.”
My eyebrow raised without my permission and my mouth blurted the dumbest question. “The good stuff?”
He set his knife down and leaned into me. “This, Kaya. You and me. What’s happening between us. This is the good stuff.”
I struggled to swallow again. How could he be this sweet? And this hot? And this totally, one hundred percent amazing person. Even though I would deny all of this if asked in public.
He waggled his finger back and forth between us. “You don’t realize it yet. But I’m telling you, woman, this is where it’s at.”
“I believe you,” I said quickly. “I do know this is good.” And I did. It didn’t only feel good in the carnal, greedy sense of the word. Although there was that. There was my lust and desire for him to touch and kiss me again, and do wicked, depraved things to my body again. And there was the infatuated good too. The kind that made all of my thoughts revolve around him, and my fingers itch to check my phone constantly to see if he texted, and my heartbeat speed up whenever he was around.
But then there was the deeper level of good. The wholeness of this, the healing in him. There was a lightness to this attraction that I’d never experienced before. My feelings for Wyatt didn’t feel heavy or weighted with impossible expectations. They were honest and genuine, fun and flirty, real and exciting. But most of all they weren’t holding me back. They weren’t… holding me under them.
His grin stretched across his face and my lungs forgot how to do their job. My heart also decided to throw its hands in the air and quit. I mean, honestly, how was I supposed to function when he looked like that? It wasn’t fair. And probably the reason he was so much further along in his career than me.
For real, if I could smile like that I would probably have my own Food Network show by now.
“Yeah?” he asked me. The insecurity in his voice was like two defibrillation paddles to my chest. All at once everything inside me kicked into high gear via his electric current.
“Yes, Wyatt. You’re the good stuff.”
“Mmm,” he hummed. “I like to hear that.”
Rolling my eyes in a last-ditch effort to hold onto my heart, I changed the subject. “Okay, since you didn’t bring me out here to kill me, what can I help with?”
He focused on cracking eggs into a mixing bowl. “Uh-uh. I’m cooking for you this morning, Ky. Sit down. Relax. But don’t try to lift a finger.”
Hiding my smile, I took a seat at one of the square-style wooden stools tucked into his island. “Gosh, you’re so bossy.”
He looked up at me from beneath thick lashes, his eyes turning stormy and electric. “Only because you like it that way.”
I sucked in my lip ring and let him see what I thought. My gaze heated, my cheeks flushed, my entire body screamed yes please! I took a breath and asked, “What’s on the menu, chef?”
Using his knife as a second hand, he picked up the green onions and bacon and tossed them into whisked eggs and then added sautéed spinach, mushrooms and peppers. “Quiche.”
His answer surprised me for some reason. It was so… simple. “How French of you.”
He added handfuls of cheese and milk to his mixture and laughed. “Shocking, I know.” Pulling out a pie crust that I had a feeling he hand rolled himself, he added. “It’s worth it. I promise.”
I couldn’t help but ask, “Do you make quiche often?”
He shrugged. “I don’t make an entire one for myself, if that’s what you’re asking. But if the opportunity arises, I like to. It’s one of the first things I ever learned to make well. One of those dishes that kickstarted the whole love of cooking for me. You know, beyond my obnoxious need to keep up with Killian and Ezra.”
“My kickstart dish was a good roulade.” I confessed. “We learned how to make them in high school Home Ec and mine was exceptional. Ever since then, I always feel like a superstar when I pull off a good one.”
“That’s exactly it.” Adding more cheese to the top for good measure, he slid his secret signature dish into the oven and set the timer. “I’m not going to lie, I’ve been playing around with the idea of bringing one into the Lilou menu.”
“What’s stopping you?”
He splayed his hands across the island and leaned toward me, giving me his full, heart-stopping focus. “Because I know it would be totally gratuitous. It wouldn’t add anything to that menu other than I would have added something personally nostalgic there.”
“Isn’t that your right?” I asked him, leaning closer to meet him halfway. “If you’ve earned executive, haven’t you also earned the right to put your adorably nostalgic dishes on there too?”
Some of the light dimmed from his eyes. “That’s the thing about the executive chef, it’s all an illusion. You assume there will be all this freedom and control. But the truth is, you’re a slave to the restaurant and what the restaurant wants. It’s an almost impossible question to answer by the way, because the restaurant is fickle and picky. There’s an owner to answer to and the limitations of your staff. Not far behind are the thousand opinionated diners and reviewers and critics.” He dropped his head, hiding his expression from me. “It’s going to suck out my soul before I ever figure out how to please the greedy bitch.”
A sharp pain cut across my chest and it had nothing to do with me or my ambitions. I ached for Wyatt, for the struggle to make his place in this industry. For the pressure he felt and the constant fear of disappointment he had hanging over his head. “Is that why you took out your piercings?”
He nodded, still looking at the counter. “Yeah. I’m trying to be, uh, more professional. Besides, it was time. I’m thirty-one now. I should probably take life seriously. Not just this damn job.”
I smiled at his levity. “I liked them.”
His head lifted slowly, his eyes sparking with challenge. “And now you find me hideous?”
Laughing because I couldn’t help it, I shook my head slowly. “Completely. I can barely look at you.”
“Liar.”
My breath caught in my throat, trapped there by the butterflies swarming through my body like it was migration season. The look on his face was so adoring, so completely enraptured. He stared at me like I had always yearned for, like I was his sun and moon and morning star. God, it did things to my insides. It turned my hard edges soft and squishy. It melted my frozen heart and razed my impenetrable walls.
“Prove it,” I dared him.
He stalked his way around the island, his strides long and sure. I swiveled in my chair to keep him in my line of sight. Nerves fluttered inside me, dancing like windchimes in the breeze. God, this man. He did something to me. Without consciously deciding to, he made my nerve endings buzz and my blood rush through my veins.
My entire body came to attention under his dominating gaze. Like a sunflower reaching its face for the light, I stretched and preened and leaned toward him whenever he was around. I used to assume that was because he was my boss, and before that, my superior. I wanted to impress him. I wanted him to notice me. Now I realized it was more than that. Since I’d met Wyatt, he’d pulled me toward him. I had always reached for him. I had always wanted him. And now, I was finally going to get him.
“Challenge accepted, Swift.” His arms caged around me. His words were a rumble in his chest, a sweet temptation and wicked threat.
His mouth descended on mine like a gasp of breath. We connected in an open-mouthed kiss, our tongues tangling as our hands grappled to get to each other.
My legs opened in an invitation, one that he gladly stepped into. His hands landed on my cheeks, while mine curled into his t-shirt, tugging him closer.
I loved the taste of him, and the way he kissed around my lip ring and then scraped it with his teeth just when I’d forgotten about it. I loved that his tongue dominated mine, leading the kiss in every way. I loved that his hands held me in a way that made me feel cherished and adored, but his mouth was anything but soft. Greedy, hungry, all-consuming, he kissed with fire and passion—the same way he cooked.
Our mouths separated so we could explore the rest of each other’s skin. He kissed my jawline and toward my ear. I nibbled his earlobe between my teeth and pressed a kiss to his temple. My hand slid beneath his shirt and when I touched his bare skin, he shivered.
“Fuck, Kaya,” he mumbled in my ear. “It’s been too long since I’ve touched you.”
I laughed against his skin, loving the feel of his stubbled jaw against my lips. “Not that long.”
“Any amount of time is too long with you,” he countered, always arguing, always needing to be right. And I loved that about him because I was the same way.
He kissed up the column of my throat, forcing my head back. His teeth grazed against the underside of my jaw. I gasped when his hand palmed my breast, his thumb brushing over my nipple, making it peak, bringing it to life like every other part of my body.
“I want you all the time,” he murmured. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop wanting you.” His head lifted so he could meet my gaze and drown me in desire and feeling and him. “You’re my weakness. I see you across the kitchen and I crumble. I lose my train of thought and I forget what I’m in the middle of doing. I see you and there is only you. You’re going to get me fired.”
My lips lifted in a love-drunken smile. “Then I could have your job.”
He stole the desire straight from my lips by kissing me to oblivion. His fingers tugged at the thin straps of my flowy, floral maxi dress. “Why am I not surprised this is your play?” He laughed against my skin, his scruff tickling my throat. “But the joke’s on you. If you would have dangled sex in front of me months ago, I would have gladly handed it over to you.”
I pulled my arms free from my dress and it slinked to my waist. He didn’t bother to wait for me to acclimate, his hands moved to the back of my strapless bra and deftly flicked it open. I tugged at his shirt, not wanting to be the only one topless.
“Now who’s the liar?” I asked, totally breathless.
Forcing my eyes to stay open, I took in the sight of him and all his glorious tattoos in the natural sunlight from his big kitchen windows. God, he was breathtaking.
I traced my fingers over the very realistic eye drawn over his right pec, a single tear welling up in the corner of it. On the other side, an anatomical heart had been reimagined with fissures snaking out in every direction. It looked so real, except it was shattering, breaking apart into little, destroyed pieces of itself. The words forgive, focus, and fear made a triangle beneath his ribs. And all of it was connected by intricate designs and meaningful swirls.
My fingers traced over the word triangle curiously. “What does this mean?”
“My mom,” he rasped, his eyes intently watching my fingers move over him. “It’s a reminder to forgive the people that have hurt me, focus on the things I want most and rise above the fear.”
I made a sound in the back of my throat, feeling oddly convicted by the words he chose to live by. I could learn a thing or two from them.
“And the bird?” I asked, trailing my fingers to his neck.
“More of my mom. It’s like a memorial to her.”
My throat dried out until it was sandpaper and gravel. “You were close to her?”
He jerked his chin once and it seemed like the one simple movement took everything out of him. “She had her demons, but she loved me. She wanted to take care of me, she just… couldn’t.”
Tears wet my eyes. I laid my hand over the broken heart on his chest, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that it symbolized the real one hidden beneath skin, muscle, and bone. My voice was a strained whisper, grating against the rocks in my mouth. “I’m so sorry, Wyatt.” The words were so inadequate, so completely wrong. I was sorry, yes. But I was more than that too. I was devastated and grief-filled and angry on his behalf. I wanted to take him back in time and shake his mom until she got it together, until she saw how fucking precious her son was and how desperately he needed her to take care of him.
“I’m okay,” he told me. And I believed him. “It was a long time ago. But I… I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing her.” He blinked against glassy eyes. He pointed to the toque next, the giant chef’s hat tattooed on his side. “I got this the week Killian left Lilou. It was my promotion present to myself.”
And just like that we’d moved on so effortlessly. His eyes cleared, and his voice steadied. He’d slid back into his comfortable skin. His hands caressed up my sides and settled on my back, bringing us closer together.
“That doesn’t surprise me.” I leaned to the side, to get a good look at it. “I’m surprised there isn’t an ‘I Hate Kaya’ tattoo somewhere on you.” I checked around the other half of him. “Or something like ‘Sous Chef Must Die’…anywhere?”
He shrugged, nipping at my collarbone with his teeth. “Again, I feel as though you’re missing how much I rely on you. How I’ve always relied on you.” His head lifted, and our gazes slammed into each other in a head-on-collision that would shut down an interstate for hours from the force of the impact. “How much I’ve always liked you.”
My belly flipped. “Lies,” I accused.
Shaking his head slowly, he pressed a sweet kiss to my lips. “Day one, Kaya. You walked into the kitchen—all cotton candy blue hair and sharp teeth—and I lost my fucking head. I had never seen someone so cutthroat and sexy all at once. I burned everything I touched that night because I couldn’t concentrate on anything but you.”
I remembered that night. I had been a ball of nerves, ready to puke at any second, but my own screwups had been ignored because Wyatt’s mistakes were way worse. Killian had chewed his ass all night.
“You’ve never said anything until now.” My words were a whisper of disbelief. I thought about all the times I’d been mean to him, snapped at him, challenged him unreasonably. God, I’d been a vindictive bitch all these years.
I thought about our texting through the years. And our recent make outs. I thought about the way I let him win sometimes. How I’d practically killed myself working so he could transition to EC easier.
Okay, maybe I hadn’t been horrible the whole time.
“You had a boyfriend,” he reminded me. “Or I had a girlfriend. Or God, you were sleeping with fucking Charlie.” His face wrinkled with disgust. “The timing has always been off for us.”
It still was. He didn’t want to admit it but working together and sleeping together was a bad idea. And then there was Sarita… This was what I would call a pickle.
And he was right. For all these years, we had missed each other. Now, at least we were both single. And what we had was too good to let go. I needed to explore it. Explore him.
“The timing isn’t exactly awesome now…”
His biceps flexed around me and his jaw ticked in that way I liked so much. “You think I’m going to let working together stop this?” He shook his head, determined. “Kaya, finally.” His breath snuck out of him in this relaxed, delicious way that forced my body to react. I felt him in my bones, down to my toes and the places beyond my physical body. He was settling into something permanent with me and I was helpless to stop him. “Fucking finally.” He grabbed the sides of my head and tilted it back, forcing me to meet his intense, consuming gaze. “This is real, yeah? This is fucking deep. And if you’re in, then let’s fight for this. Work, our friends, your parents, whatever is out there that wants to get in our way is just noise. We decide what we do, what we want. We decide how hard we want to work for this and when we want to walk away.”
After all these years, I had to admit that I wanted this as badly as he did. Maybe I’d wanted it as long as he had too.
“Do you think you will?” I cleared my throat, old fears and insecurities resurfacing. “I mean, walk away?”
His smile reappeared, lifting the corners of his mouth slowly, in that way I loved so much. “Kaya, I’ve been trying to walk into this relationship for five years. The plan is to figure out how to get you to stay forever.”
“Forever?” The word rushed out of me in a whoosh of disbelief.
The look on his face devastated me, tore apart my heart and stomped on my soul and then somehow pieced it all back together again. His brown eyes twinkled, and his smile brightened and everything about him radiated permanency and hope.
“You’re such a chicken,” he taunted. “I’ve known you for all these years and I can’t believe I’m only just now realizing that you’re one huge chick-en.”
I sat up, pushing my body into his, closing what little space remained between us. “I am not,” I argued, lit up by his challenge. “I just think you’re moving too fast.”
“Yeah, of course you do. Because you’re chicken.”
Grabbing his nipple, I twisted quickly, causing him to jump back and fend me off. “Now you’re violent! I’m rethinking this entire relationship.”
I ignored the way my heart kicked at the word relationship and my stomach flipped with fear. I couldn’t let him be right about me. I couldn’t run from this good, beautiful, honest thing between us because I’d been hurt in my past.
“Now who’s chicken?” I taunted, reaching for his other nipple. He laughed at my efforts. “I’m in it, Shaw. You want long term. You got it. I can out-relationship you any day of the week.”
He shook his head at the tug-of-war that never ended between us. “Good.” He held out his hand and I took it, thinking he was going to be sweet and gentle. But then he grabbed my wrist, playfully yanked me out of my seat and tossed me over his shoulder.
I screamed in surprise. “Put me down!”
“I intend to,” he promised darkly.
“Where are we going?” I demanded as he ran through his house bouncing me on his shoulder the entire way. The top of my dress was hanging down but did little to cover my breasts. I grabbed the back of his jeans and pressed my upper body to him, holding on for dear life.
We burst through a door and from my upside-down position, I realized it was his bedroom. Hunter green shades hung over a giant picture window that looked out past a deck to a glorious view of the bluffs. His furniture was all rich browns and soft tans, mingling together to make a masculine but tasteful space.
He tossed me on his bed and I witnessed his huge, sleigh bed first hand. King size. Could he be more perfect?
He hovered over me. “You’re in this, Kaya? No prisoners?”
I smiled up at him. Wondering if he treasured my smiles as much as I cherished his. “No prisoners, Wyatt. You and me. For better or worse or whatever. It’s you and me.”
And there it was. His smile to end all smiles before it. He leaned over me and I scooted back. He followed quickly, our bodies parallel but not yet touching.
“I’ve been waiting so long to hear you say that.”
“I’ve been wanting to say it.” And I realized I had.
“I’ve been waiting for this too.” His eyes darkened.
“For what?”
“To have you, Kaya. To have all of you.”