“Jesus,” he said, dragging his lax mouth across Zane’s sweat-streaked skin. “Tell me I didn’t hurt you at the end.”
“You didn’t hurt me,” Zane slurred obediently.
Trey pulled out with a groan, dropping from where he was to sit on the floor. “I don’t think I can stand up.”
Without his weight, Zane felt as light as air. He squirmed fully onto the couch, then turned himself around. Trey’s damp dark head was near enough to pet.
“Thank you,” Zane said. He meant for everything: the last five years, tonight, the future they were going to share together. Zane might not have cornered the market on introspection, but he knew this was a rare moment. In this moment, his life was very close to perfect.
As if he sensed his thoughts, Trey drew Zane’s hand down and kissed its palm.
Emotion overwhelmed him. How could he deserve this man? Trey’s kindness alone was humbling, his ability to forgive. Trey never held back his affection, no matter what Zane did. In the face of that, Zane had no right to deny him anything he wanted.
“We could go back to Wilde’s tomorrow,” he offered impulsively. “See if the lobster is fresh yet.”
Trey hesitated for one heartbeat. “No,” he said. “I expect we’ll be too busy to try their food again.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Chef
REBECCA’S heart pounded way too fast as she opened the passenger door and hopped out of the delivery van. Her head chef Raoul was driving, taking time off to help her. She owed him big for this, especially since—strictly speaking—he didn't work for her anymore. In the back of the van was his strapping son Dominic. They’d double-parked in the financial district, a busy area of Boston that mixed Colonial buildings and skyscrapers. Because Raoul couldn’t leave the wheel, Dominic was helping her offload her two shrink-wrapped six-foot-tall supply carts. Neatly packed onto the steel shelves was everything she needed for today’s menu. She knew this because she’d checked the contents as obsessively as her brother Charlie used to check his backpack for school.
She couldn’t afford to forget anything today. Every detail had to go perfectly.
She wiped sweaty palms on her clean black trousers, then grabbed the back end of the first cart to guide it down the van ramp with Dominic. He grinned at her, a nice kid who adored his talented father and seemed likely to follow in his footsteps. Once the second cart joined the first on the hot sidewalk, he flipped the ramp up and slammed the doors.
“Knock him dead, chef,” Raoul called out the driver’s window. Though they were friends, he often called her that. Coming from him, the title was a cross between “boss” and “hon.”
Grimacing at the butterflies in her stomach, she acknowledged his well wishes with a wave before he drove off. God, she hated being this nervous.
“You’ll be fine,” Dominic assured her like he was sixty and not sixteen. “You’ve done this sort of thing, what, two-and-a-half zillion times?”
“Pipsqueak,” Rebecca retorted as they shoved the carts toward the entrance of TBBC’s corporate headquarters. She might have done this a zillion times, but never with so much riding on the result. “If their kitchen sucks, I’m not letting you forget it for a year.”
The building’s doorman trotted over to open the non-revolving door. His charcoal gray uniform was sharp, his buttons bright enough to blind. Trey Hayworth and TBBC didn’t do anything half-assed. She’d need her A-game to get this job with him.
Inside, the circular air-conditioned lobby was just as intimidating—soaring steel and glass and Carrara marble stretching to a hundred-foot atrium. Her mind boggled at the thought that two Jersey boys who’d barely cracked the age of thirty were responsible for Beantown’s latest architectural marvel. The spread she’d read in Boston Magazine claimed the pair had been integral to the design process, and that Hayworth in particular had caught an engineering miscalculation that would have resulted in large stretches of windows popping out in high winds. If she’d been applying for an architectural position, she’d probably have quailed before she set foot inside.
You’re a genius at what you do, she tried to remind herself. No one cooks for Bostonians like you.
Unless they did, and she’d been deluded all this time.
The stupid thought sank her stomach. God, please, let her not screw this up. She couldn’t beg that bastard Titcomb to take her back on staff, not if it meant working under the dumbass dickhead he’d hired to be her supposed boss. Titcomb liked the guy because he’d won some reality TV show. However he’d managed that, it wasn’t by cooking well. The only thing sadder than his overworked, over-seasoned dishes was watching him try to impress Wilde’s crew with his “credentials.” She knew the veteran cooks were hoping she’d get this job and could bring them over. Titcomb would be lucky if the new guy didn’t drive him out of business within the year.
Not that she’d be there to see it.
Molars grinding, she pushed her cart beside Dominic’s across the shiny lake of imported stone. The wheels bumped slightly at the lobby’s center where the company’s elegant gold logo was inlaid.
“Ms. Eilert?” said a security guard in a suit. He’d stepped out from behind his desk before they could reach it. He was trim and polite, his wireless earpiece adding to his professional air. “We’re holding the freight elevator for you if you’d like to follow me.”
“See,” Dominic murmured. “No way is this place’s kitchen going to suck.”
Rebecca smiled, amused by his confidence—despite her ability to be neurotic under almost any conditions. Calm at least for the moment, they and their carts made it to the twentieth floor before her palms broke into a sweat again.
She forgot they were damp the moment she caught a glimpse of where she’d be working.
“Whoa,” Dominic said, coming to a halt behind her.
TBBC’s corporate kitchen was a palace. Impeccably equipped, every pot, every burner, every inch of burnished steel worktop was spotless. Rebecca’s entire brigade from Wilde’s could have cooked here with room to spare—assuming she still had a brigade, of course.
“The walk-in is that way,” the suited guard informed her, gesturing toward its door. “Feel free to use anything in it. Mr. Hayworth has cleared his schedule for 1:30. If you suspect your food won’t be ready, please use the phone on the wall to warn his assistant.”