The Wrong Car

Sarah’s POV

Chad is forty minutes late.

I’m on my third glass of water. The bartender has stopped making eye contact with me, which is how I know it’s gone from ‘running late’ territory into ‘getting stood up in public’ territory. Staten Island bartenders have a sixth sense for that particular migration.

I check my phone again. Nothing. No message, no missed call, nothing.

I sigh heavily as I rest my chin on my palm, swirling the ice in my glass gloomily. Chad had seemed fine. I should have known better than to go out with a customer. I thought two months was enough to get a read on a guy through text messages and phone calls. 

When he first came into La Savante, I caught him looking at me twice through the kitchen pass, which wasn’t unusual except he didn’t look away when I caught him. He had been sitting at the bar alone and was kind of cute, so I gave him a small smile. 

Apparently that’s all the encouragement a guy needs. 

He’d waited outside till the end of my shift, and single as I was, giving my number out to him didn’t seem like the worst idea. Now I’m regretting it. 

Arranging a dinner date was not the easiest thing, given my hectic routine. Ever since management changed hands at La Savante and I was moved to the Staten Island branch, getting a day off has been next to impossible. I lied to my new boss to be here. And Alex Hunter is not a man one should lie to. If anyone or anything gets in the way of his ambitious relaunch, he’ll have their hide. He made three cooks burst into tears on his first day. He’s not managed to break me so far but it’s not for lack of trying on his part. 

I look around and feel irritated at the memory it invokes. Ever since that man took over, my entire life has become topsy turvy. I was fine at the Manhattan branch. The hours were good, it wasn’t far from the apartment. Then this jerk bought the Manhattan flagship, liked the numbers, bought Staten Island too,  and shipped me out here with two other cooks like we were kitchen equipment.

It doesn’t help that he’s constantly breathing down my neck. The other two cooks don’t get this special treatment. Mr. Hunter watches me like a hawk. I’ve turned round and walked smack into that ridiculously broad chest of his more times than I care to count. And then the way he says my name—Miss Brown. I don’t know what it is, whether it’s that hint of accent in his voice, but every time he stands behind me and murmurs it, I can’t look anyone in the eye. He makes it hard to concentrate. Jerk.

“Would you like to order a drink?” The bartender gives me a sympathetic smile, and I sigh heavily. 

“No. I should probably leave. He’s not going to show.” 

I take a last look at my phone, which still has no messages, and slide out of the booth. Putting a five on the bar for my waters, because I have manners, I pull my jacket off the stool and head out into the parking lot. Maybe he’s just busy. I mean, someone who’s been chasing me for so long wouldn’t stand me up. That doesn’t make sense. But he could have let me know. It’s been an hour now.

I stretch my arms over my head, lowering them when I feel the blue dress ride up my thighs. Maybe I’ll order some food. I’ll shower, put on my sweatpants and eat in front of the television. I never message a guy if I’ve been stood up. And I have no plans to start now. 

Fuck Chad. He has some groveling to do.

I’m just about to look around for a cab when I see him. Two cars down from the entrance, just a few feet from me, propped against the driver’s-side door of a black Lexus SUV: Chad, in the navy jacket he told me he’d be wearing. And wrapped around him, mouth-first, one hand up in his hair, is a woman I recognize. The same woman whose photos he had sent me when he fed me that sad, little story about having his heart broken. The crazy ex-girlfriend. 

For someone he described as vindictively insane, he sure has no problem putting his tongue in her mouth.

I stand there in the parking lot for a beat, just long enough to make absolutely sure I’m seeing what I’m seeing before I step behind a concrete pillar. My teeth are clenched. 

Lying bastard. If he had to stand me up, why bring that woman here? What was the fucking point?

I don’t want to break my rules, but I have to know. Taking out my phone, I call him. 

Through the gap at the side of the pillar I watch Chad stiffens mid-kiss. He pulls back from her. She makes a little sound of protest; I can hear it from all the way over here. He fumbles his phone out of his jacket pocket and looks at the screen, rolling his eyes before cutting my call and putting the phone back in his pocket.

Did he just roll his eyes?

My fury is mounting, and I’m ready to walk over and rip a chunk of hair out. 

Chad’s supposed ex tilts her head and asks breathily, “Who is it, baby?”

Baby?

That is no ex-girlfriend.

Lying, cheating bastard.

Chad has his back pressed against his car, kissing her jaw. “Nobody. Just some girl who’s been after me for a while.”

The woman puts both hands on his chest, an aggrieved expression on her face. “A girl? Are you cheating on me?”

Chad grins at her. “Of course not, Demi. I filled out some form at a restaurant I was at, and she got my number from there. She’s some waitress or something. Like I would be interested in kitchen help.”

I run my tongue over my teeth, telling myself not to walk over there. No point in creating a scene. No, I do my best work behind the scenes. My anger which had been boiling hot has now turned into something cold and vicious. Chad McCallister is going to pay.

The couple is still talking, Chad’s arms around her waist as she plays with his tie. I lean against the pillar watching them, arms crossed as I plan what to do next. 

“Are you sure you won’t be late for your business dinner?” Demi asks her voice coy as she moves closer to him. “The girls can take me home. Our girls’ night out isn’t over yet.”

This time Chad’s laugh has a trace of nervousness as he glances towards the restaurant I just came out of. “No. Ilya can handle it. It’s his account after all. Have you had dinner yet? Come on.”

The man is a skilled liar. The fact he plans to take her to the same restaurant I’m supposedly waiting in makes my lips press together into a thin line. 

This fucking—

My eyes land on his Lexus, the one he bragged about last week. It’s nearly paid off. A small smile curls the edges of my lips.

“That’s a nice car you got there, you cheating dirtbag,” I murmur. “It’d be sad if something happened to it.”

I remember in a clean, cold flash the orange sign I passed on the bus in. DELAWARE HARDWARE, twenty-four hours, at the end of the strip mall a block over. I’m sure they have something for everyone.

I turn on my heel and walk out of the parking lot.

Tonight’s going to be busy.

***

The fluorescents in the hardware store are doing no one any favors, but they’re doing me exactly enough. The kid behind the counter has a name tag that says BRANDON. He’s eighteen, maybe nineteen, with the skinny-wristed build of a boy who grew four inches over the summer and hasn’t quite moved into his own body yet and the peach fuzz of a boy who thinks, by his own reckoning, he is now a man. The only other soul in the store is a tired-looking guy in the far aisle picking out plumbing fittings with the glazed focus of a man who’s had a long day. Once Brandon’s eyes land on me he stops noticing that man exists.

I push a spike of hair out of my eye as I walk up to the counter. The pink is getting limp in the August humidity and my spikes are falling; I fluff them absently, and I feel Brandon’s eyes track the movement.

I lean on the counter. I’m short enough that leaning takes effort. He’s sitting on a stool, so we end up about eye-level, which works for me. I smile.

“Hi, Brandon.”

“Hi.” His voice cracks on the i. He closes his mouth immediately, as if trying to catch it.

I prop my chin on my fist and look at him for a beat, letting him simmer.

“What’s the lightest, sharpest thing you sell for slashing a tire?”

Brandon’s face does several things in rapid succession. His eyebrows climb. His mouth parts. The register beeps at him for no reason. He does not notice.

“W-What?” he stammers out.

“The lightest. And the easiest.” I hold my hands up, fingers spread, and wiggle them at him. “I’ve got small hands.”

His eyes track my hands, and he swallows.

“You want to slash—”

“Yes.” I keep beaming at him.

“But—But isn’t that illegal?”

“Is it?” I examine my nails.

He looks unsure now. His eyes dart toward the entrance as if expecting a cop to walk through it. Nothing happens. He looks at the door a little longer, hedging his bets. Still nothing happens. He looks back at me and seems, for a moment, almost disappointed that the universe has not intervened on his behalf.

“Uh,” he says, his expression torn. “Will I get in trouble?”

“I don’t see why you should.”

When he hesitates, I narrow my eyes at the boy. “Brandon. Aisle, please.”

“Aisle three.” He blurts it so fast it comes out as one syllable. “Three, end of the aisle, with the leather stuff. You want an awl. It’s like—It’s this little wood handle with a metal point on it. It looks like nothing. It fits in a clutch. It’s super easy on the wrist.”

He runs out of air somewhere around wrist.

I smile slowly. “Perfect.”

“I’ll…” He half-rises. Sits back down. Half-rises again. “I can—I can get it for you. I can get it.”

“Well, aren’t you sweet?”

He is off the stool so fast he knocks his water bottle flat. Not bothering to pick it up, he disappears around the endcap of aisle three. I pick up his bottle and place it back on the counter.

I hear a small clatter. A pause. Another clatter. A whispered shit.

I wait.  Drumming my nails on the counter, I look around the store. The plumbing-fittings man in aisle two has stopped examining plumbing fittings. He is holding one in his hand and is, I note with amusement, aggressively not looking in my direction, which is how I know he has been listening since the word tire.

Brandon comes back a few seconds later holding the awl flat on his palm like it’s a ring in a jewelry box, slightly out of breath, color high in his face. It’s exactly what he described. Dark wooden handle, round as a thumb, slim metal spike about three inches long. Looks like something a grandmother owned for reasons having nothing to do with revenge.

I take it from his palm. My fingers brush his accidentally, and he inhales so quickly I can hear it.

I test the point against the pad of my thumb. Excellent.

“Gloves?” I ask brightly.

He makes a small choking sound. “Aisle…”

“Lead the way.”

He leads the way. He walks me to aisle six with the proud formality of a sommelier and hands me a pack of thin latex gloves, food-prep grade, the kind I use at work every day. Perfect. I’m a chef. These are for my kitchen. This story writes itself.

Back at the counter, he rings me up. His eyes stay fixed on the scanner. He is very, very focused on the scanner.

“Fifteen-forty,” he tells me.

I hand him a twenty. He hands me four-sixty back and a receipt without once lifting his eyes from the counter. I take the receipt. I fold it in half. Then I slip it, very slowly, into the cup of my bra.

In my peripheral vision, his hand twitches against the counter.

I take the bag, but I don’t leave. I lean back against the counter on my elbows, arching my spine just a little, and smile slowly.

“Brandon.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You seem like a good kid.”

“I try.” He swallows.

I tilt my head and let a pink spike fall forward over my eye. I don’t bother to push it back.

“Brandon. Let me ask you something. Would you ever cheat on a girlfriend?”

His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. A whole silent sentence happens on his face and dies before it reaches his tongue.

“No, ma’am.”

I nod. I chew the inside of my cheek thoughtfully. I look briefly at the ceiling, as if consulting it, and then back at him.

“Say some girl really liked you, Brandon.” My voice is soft, almost sweet. “Say she put on a nice dress for you. Say she took a day off work to meet you somewhere.”

He is nodding before I finish the sentence.

“Would you show up?”

He nods aggressively.

“Would you show up with another girl?”

“No, ma’am.” The shake of his head is so violent that it might just fall off his shoulders.

“Would you stand in the parking lot of that restaurant, and put your tongue down somebody else’s throat where she could see you?”

His head is shaking before he finds the words. “No, ma’am.”

“Good, Brandon. Because if you did…” I push off the counter and pick up the little plastic bag. I swing it once, gently, so he can hear the soft thud of the awl against the plastic. His eyes follow the bag. “…a girl like me—” I smile sweetly. “—might end up in a store like this one. At ten-forty at night. Asking a boy like you for advice.”

He stares at me. His throat moves.

My smiles fades.

“So don’t cheat, Brandon.”

A small, dry, faint voice: “No, ma’am.”

“Good boy.”

I do not mean it the way it comes out. His ears turn a shade of red that is brighter than any tomato I have ever seen. I have to turn toward the door before I laugh, because laughing at Brandon would be unkind, and I have been a great deal of things tonight but I would prefer not to add unkind to the list.

“Here. You can keep the change. And let’s say I never came here.”

He looks at the money before slowly pocketing it and whispering, “Good luck.”

As I leave, I lift two fingers to my lips and blow him a kiss across the length of the store. He blushes fiercely, and I let the door close behind me.

The heat wraps around me the second the door shuts. I pull the latex gloves out of the bag as I walk and work them onto my hands, one finger at a time. A block is not very far. I’m back at the edge of the restaurant’s parking lot in under five minutes, and the moment I round the corner, I pause.

A couple is standing by a sedan three rows over, arguing about who has the keys. Two women are on the far side of the lot by a silver hatchback, laughing at something on one of their phones. The valet has wandered down to the street corner because Saturday night in this part of Staten Island is slow until eleven, but he will wander back. 

I step back into the shadow of the concrete pillar and scan the walls. There are no cameras. My smile widens. I walk over to Chad’s car and crouch down as if going to pick something up. It’s not easy to slash a tire, but I’m not that weak. Looking up to make sure nobody’s watching, I make quick work of the second tire. 

I stand up and brush my dress, the hissing sound of the tires, music to my ears. The two women have moved away from that side of the car so I make quick work of those two tires as well. Standing back, I admire my handiwork, but it still looks incomplete. He can replace tires easily. A slow smile curves my lips as I take out my keys.

I’ve just set the key against the car door when a familiar voice sounds from behind me. “I hope you’re not going to key my car as well, Miss Brown.”

My eyes widen, smile fading in a heartbeat.

Fuck.

Oh, no.

I know that voice. 

I know it because three days ago this exact voice stood at the front of the La Savante kitchen and promised to feed us our own phones through the stockpot if we brought them to the line. 

I stand there frozen in place.

No, no, no. Anyone but him.

Very slowly, I turn my head. Alex Hunter is standing six feet behind me in a grey peacoat, swaying very faintly, looking past me at the car with a frown.

His eyes fall on me and then at the awl which, I realize with a dull horror, I have been holding loosely in my left  hand this entire time, fingers curled around the wooden grip, point down. 

“How am I supposed to get home now?” He’s surprisingly calm for a man who just caught his employee vandalizing his car. 

I wet my lips. There is no way out of this. 

“I—I didn’t know this was your car, Mr. Hunter,” I babble. “I thought it was—”

He’s circling the car now, inspecting the tires. “You punctured them.”

Why is he so unbothered?! He sounds like I’ve mildly inconvenienced him if anything. The world briefly goes white at the edges.

He squints at me. “Is this because I told you your tomato soup was too salty yesterday?”

“W-What?” I stammer. “No. No! I was—This is a misunderstanding! I thought this was someone else’s car. Oh, god! I’ll get it fixed. I’ll—”

He staggers, and I instinctively grab him, immediately regretting it. He’s a foot taller than me and built like he spends all his free time at the gym. All of him lands against me at once. My back hits the side of his car and his body lands against mine. For a second, I can’t breathe. Not from the impact but from the sheer solid heat of him pressed against me from chest to hips.

A small, strangled sound escapes me before I can stop it. His head drops forward, and his mouth lands at my temple.

His breath is hot. Whiskey and cigars and that familiar aftershave of his. It fans across my cheek, and I feel it all the way down to my stomach. I look up, which is a mistake. Our faces are inches apart, and up close I can see the stubble along his jaw, the flecks in his grey eyes, the shape of a mouth I have absolutely no business thinking about.

I have spent the last couple of weeks being annoyed that this man stands too close to me at the pass. I had no idea what “too close” actually meant until right now. His chest against mine feels like being pressed up against a wall that breathes. His hands have landed, one at my waist, one flat against the car beside my head, boxing me in without meaning to, and they are ridiculously big. His fingers nearly span the whole side of my ribcage.

“Mr. Hunter… Mr. Hunter, are you drunk?”

His gaze drifts down from my eyes to my mouth and back up, slow enough that I feel it happen. “Very.”

I should move. I should absolutely move. Instead I hear myself say, more carefully, “Mr. Hunter.”

“Alex.”

“I’m not going to call you that. You said you don’t want anyone calling you by your name.”

“Did I?” His forehead drops to mine, like his neck has given up and my face is the nearest available shelf, and now his breath is on my mouth. I am officially in trouble. “Doesn’t sound like me.”

I duck out from under him with more force than grace, shove myself under his arm, and lock it across my shoulders before he can slide down the car. He leans on me now the way a man leans on a crutch, his full weight dragging me sideways every time he shifts. I brace my hip against his and feel, with deep and reluctant clarity, every inch of the difference in our sizes.

He’s so completely drunk. I can only pray he doesn’t remember the events of tonight. And that my knees stop shaking in the next thirty seconds.

“Where do you live? Is there anyone I can call for you?”

He is quiet for a long time.

“No.” His voice is filled with an emotion that makes my chest tighten involuntarily. “There is no one anymore. Just me now.”

“And me, apparently,” I mutter, looking around. “What’s your address? I’ll get a cab to drop you off.”

“I don’t know,” he mumbles.

I stare down at him. How was he speaking to me so eloquently when he caught me trashing his car? It’s like a downward spiral. The more he speaks, the more drunk he appears. What kind of alcohol was he drinking?

“Mr. Hunter—”

“Alex!” he snaps, and I nearly jump out of my skin.

“Okay, okay. Alex. Where’s your wallet?”

He gives me a suspicious look. “Why? Are you going to pin this vandalism on me?”

My lips part, and then I press them together. I’m sure if I could take out my phone and record him, he wouldn’t be able to fire me. Not with such amazing blackmail material. But I have morals… and I can’t reach my phone with him clinging on to me. 

“I need to find your address,” I explain, easing him down against his car door. He slides down the side of the Lexus until he’s sitting on the asphalt, one leg stretched out and the other bent, an arm draped over the raised knee, his forehead dropping to rest against his own forearm. It’s a ridiculous amount of dignity for a man who doesn’t know his own address. 

I crouch in front of him and start patting him down, trying not to think about how solid and muscled his thighs are. I’m trying harder not to imagine how they will look outside of these pants. I’m just about to check his right pocket when a hand closes around my wrist and pulls.

I topple forward. He catches me against himself with his other hand at my hip, and suddenly my face is inches from his, close enough that I can feel his breath on my mouth for the second time tonight.

“And where, exactly, do you think you’re touching?”

His eyes are open now but not quite focused, like he’s dragged himself halfway to the surface and the effort is showing. The grip on my wrist is firm and unyielding, and the hand at my hip is holding me in place. The look he’s giving me from under heavy lids is the same look I have walked into at the pass a hundred times, and it is still, even drunk, enough to make me forget what I was doing. He is not a man, I remind myself firmly. He is a tyrant. Tyrants are not sexy. 

My mouth goes dry anyway.

“Your wallet,” I manage. “I am looking for your wallet.”

He studies my face for another beat, long enough that I feel the heat crawl up my neck. Then his eyes slide shut, the grip on my wrist loosens, the hand at my hip falls away, and his head drops back to his forearm. He is, once again, the drunk man I have been dragging around a parking lot.

I sit back on my heels, fishing the wallet out of his slacks with hands that are not quite steady, and I flip it open for his driver’s license. One look at it has me squeezing my eyes shut momentarily. He’s got an international license with an Australian address.

Lowering my head, I take a minute to think. 

He can’t go anywhere, and he’s clearly drunk off his rocker. There’s only one solution left.

I groan loudly. 

Damn it!

***

Natalie is in Chicago, so that’s one blessing. She would freak at me bringing my boss home. 

Alex is a quiet drunk. But when I leave the room, he follows after me like a child who’s afraid of being left alone. It’s actually kind of adorable, and I would enjoy it more if I didn’t know that tomorrow morning I might end up unemployed.

“Look, you stay here.” I grab him by his upper arms, which is a bad decision. His arms are thick and hard under my palms, his muscles shifting with the simple effort of keeping himself upright. I have spent the last hour touching various parts of this man, and none of it has gotten any easier. “I’m just going to get you a pillow. You’re going to sleep here.”

I gesture towards the couch behind him. My mistake.

He turns to look, and his balance, which has been a polite fiction all evening, files its resignation. His knees go, his hands grab my shoulders, and he falls.

I try to catch him.

I try.

Alex Hunter is six feet of dead weight and I am, at best, five-three of sous-chef, and physics settles the argument inside half a second. He lands on the couch. I land on him.

For one suspended second, I am sprawled across my drunk boss’s chest in my own living room. My hair grazes his forehead as I lean over him. One of my hands is braced against the couch cushion beside his head and the other is pressed flat against his collarbone, where the peacoat has fallen open. There is skin under my palm. Warm, bare skin and the slow heavy thud of a pulse I can feel through my whole hand.

Under my palm, his heart is going fast.

I can feel the cord of muscle at the side of his neck, thick and warm and alive. I can feel him breathing. I can feel, with horrible clarity, every point of contact between us: my hip pressed to his upper thigh, my ribs against his stomach, my breasts pressed to the lower plane of his chest through two thin layers of fabric. And then I realize, with a jolt, that his free hand has come up and settled at my waist. A wide, warm palm at the small of my back, like he put it there to steady me and then forgot to take it away.

My breath catches when I notice those gray eyes watching me with an intensity that I feel all the way down to my core. “Sarah.”

My mouth is dry, and I freeze when his arm wraps around my waist. 

“Y-Yes?”

“You smell nice.”

My lips tremble, and I remind myself he’s my boss, my very drunk boss who will kill me if I so much as even think of taking advantage of him.

“That’s my fear you’re smelling.”

He chuckles lightly, his eyes closing for a moment. His arm is like a band around my waist now. Why aren’t I getting up? I need to move my ass. But I’m frozen in place, my heart pounding. 

The scent of him hits me again, whiskey layered over the lingering trace of cigars. My lower muscles tighten.

“I think I should get up.” Managing those words is incredibly difficult. 

“In a minute.”

Neither of us moves.

I count to five in my head. Somewhere in the middle of the count, his eyes open. They are darker than they have any right to be. His other hand comes up. Slowly. Like he’s giving me time to stop him, to pull back, to do literally anything other than stay where I am.

I should move.

I have to move.

So why aren’t I?

His palm settles against my jaw, warm and a little rough at the pads of his fingers, and his thumb sweeps across my cheekbone once, very slowly, like he’s confirming something.

Then he tips his head up and kisses me. I am, briefly, not in my body.

He’s drunk. He is very, very drunk, and somewhere in the part of my brain that still works I know this doesn’t count, that this will not be spoken of in the morning. None of that changes what his mouth does.

There is nothing hesitant about his mouth.

His fingers tighten under my jaw, tilting my face exactly where he wants it, and the kiss goes from gentle to something else between one breath and the next. He licks into my mouth, and the tight hot pulse of heat that goes through me lands between my thighs and stays there. His mouth is hot and tastes like whiskey, and it drives me crazy. The sound I make is deeply, deeply unprofessional.

He swallows it and hooks an arm around my hips, dragging me fully into his lap. My dress rides up as I come down over him, and I feel his cock, thick and hard through his slacks, pressed directly against the wet ache between my thighs. There is almost nothing between us now, just two thin layers of fabric and whatever shred of self-control I am still clinging to. I have to bite down on his lip to stop the noise that wants to come out of my mouth.

My hands are no longer in my control. One is in his hair. The other is fisted in the open collar of his shirt, my nails digging into the bare skin at the base of his neck, and I can’t stop touching him.

There’s a freckle on his collarbone an inch from my mouth. I have been pretending all week I didn’t know about the freckle.

I knew about the freckle.

He makes a low sound into my mouth. Not a word; a note, a rumble from somewhere deep in his chest, and I feel it travel down my spine like a struck piano wire. His hand at my jaw slides back into my hair and fists there, and when he uses it to tilt my head the way he wants it, a small, humiliating moan escapes me.

I hear him huff a laugh against my mouth. A dark, satisfied laugh. The laugh of a man who has just learned something and is absolutely going to use it.

He bites my lower lip. A proper bite, sharp enough that I gasp into his mouth, and he soothes it with his tongue the next second like he has been waiting to do exactly that. Then he kisses me harder. His hand in my hair does not let me pull back. The hand at my hip has slid under the hem of my dress and is splayed hot against the small of my back, skin on skin, and I can feel every single one of his fingers against me.

I am so wet my thighs are slick with it. I have known this man for two months. I have called him a tyrant in my head every day of those two months. I have spent approximately ninety seconds being properly kissed by him and am falling apart like I have never been touched before in my life.

Drunk Alex Hunter is smiling against my mouth because he has made me fall apart, and I do not want to think about what sober Alex Hunter is capable of doing.

Somewhere outside, a siren goes by.

The siren does it.

I pull back, gasping for air, lips numb and pulse thundering so loud in my ears that for a second I can’t hear anything over it.

He’s already pulling me back, the hunger in his eyes cracking my resolve. His hand in my hair tightens, just once, just a tug, and I almost, almost let him.

“Come here, Miss Brown.”

Oh fuck, if he uses that tone on me…

I sit up. Or try to. I end up kneeling on the couch beside him, both hands planted on his shoulders to hold myself up, because my knees, on either side of his hips, are not currently in the business of supporting weight. My mouth is throbbing. My face is hot. My thighs are actually shaking, and the tremor goes all the way to the soles of my feet. I can feel the wetness where the hem of my dress has ridden up, and I do not want to think about whether I have left any evidence of it on his slacks.

“You’re drunk. You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t even know what’s going on,” I say hoarsely, my heart stuttering in my chest.

His eyes drift over my mouth, slow, hungry. “Don’t I?”

“No.”

Alex’s eyes fall shut. His hand is still around my waist, but his grip is loosening. His thumb strokes my hip once more, a small, private, possessive thing, like he’s memorizing the shape of it, and then his arm goes heavy.

I peel his hand off my waist with considerable effort. “I’m going to—I’ll get you your pillow and… yeah.”

I stagger away.

Oh, god. My legs feel like jelly. My underwear is a crime scene. I am, at minimum, three separate kinds of fired.

When I come back to the couch he’s already out, his forearm thrown over his eyes. I take his shoes off because Natalie has a thing about shoes on the furniture. Tucking the pillow under his head, I drape a thin blanket over him. The water bottle goes on the coffee table and the trash can right beside him.

Turning off the lamp, I stand in my dark living room looking at my boss passed out on my couch, and I whisper, to no one in particular:

“Oh, I am so fucked.”

My legs are still shaking.

And I am still wet and throbbing below.

***

I don’t remember falling asleep.

I wake at seven with a headache that feels like divine punishment and the immediate, sickening, full-body memory of every single thing that happened in the last ten hours. I lie very still. I stare at the ceiling. I briefly consider that I dreamed it.

Then from the living room, I hear the creak of the couch, and I close my eyes. “My life is over. This is it. I’m going to have to move back home and work at the café. Sous-chef who?”

Turning on my stomach, I scream into the pillow.

There has to be something I can do. Maybe he won’t remember. He was pretty out of it. What if I convince him his memory is jumbled?

My head lifts from the pillow, the idea appealing.

That could work. 

My lips curve. All I have to do is convince him I was the one who rescued him. Oh. Oh!

I sit up abruptly. That could totally work. 

I rush out of bed, stumbling down in the process and hitting my knee. Hopping on my good leg, I pull on some clothes. 

When I step into the living room, Alex is still face-down on the couch, one arm tucked under his cheek and the other dropped to the floor, the blanket I threw over him last night half-kicked off and pooled at his hip. His peacoat is tossed on the coffee table and the water bottle is still full. He didn’t wake up, it seems.

I back away on tiptoe and once I’m sure he won’t awaken, I make a beeline for the kitchen.

I’m going to whip him up a nice sizzling breakfast and do a whole woe-is-me routine when he accuses me. If he remembers, that is. Gleefully, I start gathering ingredients and getting to work. The bacon is hissing in the pan when I call Natalie, because I’m not the only one with problems right now. 

“So, how is Chicago treating you?” I say, moving the bacon with one hand.

“I hate it,” she mumbles.

I grin. I can picture her, wrapped up in too many hotel sheets, staring at the ceiling of a room she has not spent a waking minute enjoying.

“Really?” I keep my voice flat. “You hate Chicago or your CEO?”

She sighs, and I have to swallow my laugh.

As she talks, I move the bacon and pour the eggs into the buttered pan. I scramble them with a wooden spoon, one-handed, the phone tucked between my shoulder and my ear as I play therapist to my flatmate and best friend. Heaven knows she’s done it plenty of times.

“Sarah,” she murmurs suddenly. “Do you think people can change?”

“I think you mean to ask whether I think Ethan Wilder can change.”

She makes a small frustrated noise.

I fold a piece of paper towel around a piece of toast and set the plate on the counter. While I wholly agree that Ethan is an asshole for what he did to her in the past, the fact that he cares about her is undeniable. The man stayed outside her apartment to make sure she was alright. My friend needs somebody like that, who puts her needs above everything else.

I’m a little bit on Team Ethan right now. 

 Maybe he can be less stalkerish, but then he can’t be perfect.

The egg timer goes off and I glance at it. Then my eyes swivel toward the hallway because the small sleep-sound from the living room has shifted in pitch, and that is the sound of a man about to surface.

“Look,” I say, suddenly in a hurry, “I have to get going. I have a guest over.”

A pause on the line.

“You have a what over?”

“A guest.”

“A guy?”

“Yes.”

“Last night’s date?”

I sigh. “If you must know, I got stood up by that jerk, and this one isn’t sleeping in my bed. He’s on the couch. Long story. I’ll tell you when I see you.”

“Sarah…”

“Now I gotta go kiss his ass before he sues me for ruining his car.”

“His what? Sarah? Hello?”

I hang up on her. Sorry, Nat, I need to go save my job.

I put the phone down and stand with my hands braced on the counter, and I breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. 

“You can do this, Sarah. What’s the worst he can do? Fire you? Sue you?”

I squeeze my eyes shut and groan.

Then lifting my head, I steel myself. “Get out there. You’ve got this.”

Pouring one cup of coffee, the way I know he likes it, I walk out to the living room where Alex is now sitting up. Even with his hair standing on end and his clothes crumpled, the man looks like sex on a stick, which is just so incredibly unfair. There are four faint crescents at the base of his neck, exactly where I remember digging my nails into him last night.

I would like to drop dead, please.

When he looks at me, his gaze is alert in a way that makes me uneasy. Not drunk-alert. Not hungover-alert. Just—alert. Like he has been awake for some time and has been thinking. About what, I am choosing not to ask.

“Mr. Hunter.” I infuse a careful blend of cheerfulness and sympathy into my voice. “How’re you feeling?”

He doesn’t answer right away, and I quickly offer him the cup. “I made you coffee. You had a terrible night.”

“Did I?” he murmurs, his eyes on me as he takes the cup from me and sips it. His fingers brush mine, and he does not pull them away as quickly as a man who does not remember would.

Oh, he remembers.

Why is he looking at me like that?

“Yeah.” I’m not going to get intimidated so easily. “I found you in the parking lot of—”

“I know you destroyed my car, Miss Brown.”

I grimace. “Did I? Or did you imagine me—”

“Miss Brown.”

I fall silent almost immediately at that tone. The way he says Miss Brown now is not how he said it in the kitchen last week. The tone has a different edge to it. He knows I know.

He takes another sip of coffee before looking around the living room. “So this is your home?”

I give him a petulant look. “Yeah.”

“Don’t look at me like that.” He leans back against the couch almost as if he’s not hungover. Maybe he’s not. Maybe he has some super strong metabolism for alcohol. Who the fuck knows? “You slashed my tires, and if I hadn’t stopped you, you would have keyed my car.”

My lips part as I try to say something in my defense but nothing comes out.

“May I ask what I did to deserve that?”

I sink my teeth into my lower lip, mumbling something.

“What was that?” he asks sharply.

“I thought it was somebody else’s car,” I speak louder, my cheeks flushing.

His eyes drop for a fraction of a second to the spot on my lower lip where my teeth still are. Then, quite deliberately, back up to my eyes.

He remembers. He definitely remembers.

He stares at me. “You were going to do that to a stranger’s car? Interesting side hobby you have there.”

“Not—Not a stranger,” I mutter. “My date.”

Alex’s eyes linger on me. “You’re a dangerous woman to date.”

“It wasn’t like that!” I burst out angrily. “He stood me up. He was cheating on his girlfriend, and he referred to me as the kitchen help. He said he doesn’t date kitchen help!”

Alex’s eyes narrow. “What?”

My lips are pressed into a thin line now as I struggle to contain my emotions. “Even if I was a waitress or a busboy, that is unacceptable. He’s the one who asked me out. I was just teaching him a lesson. How was I to know you owned the same car as that asswipe?!”

“So it’s my fault, then?” His voice dips—and the way it dips is the same way it dipped last night against my mouth. I cross my arms over my chest because it’s the only defensive gesture available to me.

“That’s not what I said. It was a mistake. Why would I go around vandalizing your car?”

“I assumed it was because I have been slightly critical of your skills.”

“Slightly critical?” My left eye twitches. “You’re a tyrant. There’s nothing wrong with my cooking. You just can’t stop yourself from micromanaging down to how we breathe in your damn kitchen!”

As soon as the words are out, I slap my hand over my mouth, horrified by my brazenness. Alex, on the other hand, just arches a brow. “Do you have complaints over my management skills? You’ve never said anything before.”

I clench my jaw. If Natalie were here, she’d superglue my mouth shut.

“You don’t belong in the kitchen.” I look away, his piercing gaze unnerving me.

“And where,” Alex’s voice is deceptively soft, “pray tell, do I belong?”

If I keep digging my grave like this, I might as well hand him the shovel and save us both the trouble.

“You own two restaurants, Mr. Hunter.” I know I should stop talking, but my pride won’t let me. “You do not need to be standing three feet behind me while I julienne a carrot. There’s this whole concept called delegation. Very popular in your tax bracket. You should look into it. Or go micromanage the Manhattan branch.”

“Manhattan runs itself.”

“So let Staten Island run itself, too,” I snap back.

“Staten Island is still being revived.” He takes a slow sip of his coffee, his eyes not leaving mine. “And I’m a very hands-on man, Miss Brown.” The way he’s looking at me when he says it has my breath catching in my throat.

And there it is. The confirmation I didn’t want. He has dropped the word hands into the room with the exact weight of the hand he had on my back last night—wide, warm, deliberate—and knowing that is all the proof either of us needs.

My cheeks are burning, and I look away for a moment. When I pull my gaze back to him, he’s still watching me with that same amused patience. One arm is spread over the back of the couch, the other holding the coffee he occasionally sips. There is a small, almost polite smile on his face that is doing nothing to hide the fact that there is absolutely nothing polite happening behind his eyes.

I open my mouth to fire something back. Nothing comes out.

“Anything else, Miss Brown?” he asks mildly. “Since we’re airing grievances and all.”

And I know.  I know, the way you know a pan is hot before you touch it that he is not asking about the restaurant anymore.

I press my lips together and look at the floor. “I let you stay at my place when you were drunk, so I would very much like not to be fired.”

His silence has me sneaking a peek at him. He’s just watching me. I swear this man has the patience of a rattlesnake. 

“I wouldn’t have had to stay here if you hadn’t slashed my tires,” he points out.

I scoff. “You were drunk. How were you going to drive?”

He frowns now. “I would have ordered a cab.”

It takes a lot of self-control not to roll my eyes. “You didn’t even know your address.”

“Be as that may, Miss Brown, you did vandalize my car. How would you propose I handle this?”

I give him a sweet smile. “By not firing me because I’m your favorite chef?”

His lips twitch, but his gaze is sharp as ever. “You’re opinionated, reckless, don’t think things through, and apparently don’t mind having a criminal record. Should I go on?”

I move my weight to my other leg. “I make good food, though.”

“Anybody can make good food,” he says dismissively.

My eyes tighten around the corners at that. “Not everybody has my palate, Alex.”

He blinks. “Alex? Are we on a first-name basis now, Miss Brown?”

“Drunk you sure wanted to be,” I mutter under my breath. The silence that follows is the loudest silence of my entire working life.

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t blink. He just watches me, one dark brow climbing by one millimeter, and the small, polite smile from before returns, with company.

“Did he now?” The words are a question, but his tone isn’t. It isn’t a denial either.

My heart drops out of my chest, rolls across the living room floor, and disappears under the couch.

“Fine. You know what?” I throw my hands in the air. “Do whatever you want. It’s not like I want to work for a control freak anyway. I’m going to go have breakfast.”

I turn around and head to the kitchen. Better I throw in the towel than induce a heart attack from the stress. I’ve just sat down on the stool when his voice sounds from the doorway. “Do you always run away from an argument?”

He followed me. Of course he’s followed me.

I pick up a piece of bacon and point it in his direction. “I know my worth, Alex. Besides, I’ve worked at La Savante for a long time now. Maybe it’s time to move on.”

“I see.” He leans across the island and plucks the bacon from my hand, his fingers brushing mine—on purpose, I’m now certain. He takes a bite. “Hard to do that if you have a criminal record.”

I swallow.

“That’s twice now you’ve mentioned a criminal record. Are you threatening to call the police?” I watch him pick up a fork and sit down across from me, pulling one of the plates toward himself.

“Is that what you want?” He takes a bite of the eggs and pauses for half a second before continuing to chew, his expression carefully neutral.

“What do you think?” I say tightly.

“I think you would like to pay for my tires and keep your job.”

I go still. “So you’re not going to fire me?”

He looks up, and his eyes settle on mine with a weight that is not the weight of an employer. “Like you said, not everybody has your palate, Miss Brown.”

His eyes linger on my lips.

A beat.

Two.

“And I’m a very patient man.”

He takes another bite of the eggs. I stare at him. Somewhere between the stool and the pan, my stomach has started doing something it, as an organ, is not structurally rated for.

“Patient,” I repeat faintly.

“Mm.” He reaches for the coffee, takes an unhurried sip, and sets it back down. “Eat your breakfast, Miss Brown.”

I pick up my fork. My hand is not entirely steady.

And Alex Hunter, sitting across from me in his wrinkled shirt at eight in the morning with the memory of my mouth on his, watches me over the rim of his coffee cup and smiles like a man who has all the time in the world.