Rather than succumb to temptation, he pulled the mail toward himself. Yet another letter from his aunt got fed straight into the shredder. Sending them to his office was her new tactic, one that wasn’t any likelier to entice him to open them. He set aside a business proposal to read later.
The latest issue of Bad Boys was next. He did a double take when he saw the cover. A pair of eerily familiar faces grinned at him from the glossy front.
“MEET HOT HARVARD TWINS PETE & CHARLIE EILERT,” urged the headline.
Eilert was Rebecca’s name. Trey’s research had focused on her work history, but he recalled she had younger brothers. What a strange coincidence that Zane’s magazine had picked them as cover boys.
Unable to resist, Trey flipped straight to their interview. His eyes were drawn to a block of text in the middle of a column.
~
“Charlie always was intense,” Pete said jokingly of his brother. “Even at the age of ten. He decided the neighbors wouldn’t be convinced Dad was home for Christmas unless he animated the mannequin we’d dressed up as him. I was recruited to help. I conked out at midnight, but Charlie crawled the floor until daybreak, shifting the dummy from chair to chair. He wore himself out so well he fell asleep facedown in his pancakes the next morning.”
“Rebecca cooked more when I woke up,” Charlie said. “Though she did tease me.”
“She teased you worse when you tried to invent a way for the mannequin to drive us to school.”
~
Trey set down the magazine, blinked, then began again at the start. He was so amazed by what he learned that he went through it twice.
This was extraordinary. Rebecca’s childhood read like a Dickens novel. Mother dies. Father abandons family. Teenage daughter raises brothers while keeping father’s absence secret. No wonder she was uptight. She’d spent a good portion of her life looking over her shoulder.
He’d been right to sense a sympathy between them on that long-ago night at Wilde’s. They were kindred spirits, more than he’d realized.
He rose from his chair, his head buzzing with odd thoughts. Did discovering this about her change anything? Was she less of a soul mate if there was a rational cause for his reactions? He slapped his palms to his brow, barely aware he’d done it. Kindred spirits or no, given his own dysfunctional childhood, could he trust his feelings?
Stop, he thought. No one could prove soul mates existed or what being one entitled a person to. All Trey knew for sure was that Rebecca called to him. So did Zane, and he valued Zane too much to risk losing him.
He sat and looked at the article again. His hands flattened the magazine’s open pages, a bit too close to stroking them.
He couldn’t think straight—not a preferred state for him. Popping up again, he grabbed his jacket and strode across the hall to Elaine’s nice but small office. She looked up at him startled. The clock behind her said four thirty.
“I’m going out,” he said. “You can leave whenever you’re ready.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, too circumspect to ask questions.
He felt better out in the sunshine. The afternoon wasn’t sweltering, more fall than summer for the time being.
Jacket slung over his shoulder, he walked in the hopes of the exercise settling him. Past the Old State House he went and then down Tremont Street to the Common. The lush green park reminded him how much he loved living here. The people of Boston were a wonderful mix of blue- and white-collar—in every shade of the rainbow. On any corner, he might see ivory tower academics bumping elbows with cops and dog walkers. Trey belonged here as much as anyone.
He crossed the Common with meandering steps, eventually landing on Charles Street. He could check on the restaurant. It was only a few blocks off.
“Crap,” he muttered under his breath. His subconscious had done this on purpose.
She’d be there of course, but so would everyone else, a whole horde of cooks and bottle washers much too busy to speak to him. She’d been training her crew as if their first night were an Olympic event. He could stick his head in, as any owner might. Rebecca didn’t even need to know he’d come.
As soon as he decided, an undeniable excitement fluttered in his stomach.
To his amazement, when he stepped through the door, the only soul in sight was her. She sat in the dining room, sipping from what he thought was a pint bottle of porter.
“Where is everyone?” he asked.
“Sent ’em home,” she said. “We were getting over-prepped. I told them to enjoy the weekend, and I’d see them first thing Monday.”
“You sent everyone home.”
She seemed to recognize this was out of character. She poured beer into the glass she hadn’t been drinking from. “Sit,” she said. “Taste. I think this will complement our spin on Boston beans and bacon.”
This was one of their appetizers, served on lace-thin triangles of sourdough toast. Unsure what he was getting into, Trey sat and sipped. “Yes,” he said. “That combination ought to work.”
When she said nothing, he studied her. He was irrationally content to be in her presence, though he disapproved of the dark circles beneath her eyes. She looked thinner than the last time he’d seen her, and she couldn’t afford to miss the weight. That bothered him. This job was supposed to ease her burdens, not add to them.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She let out a ragged laugh. “I had a moment today when I was convinced everything was crap. I honestly thought I needed to toss out every recipe and start again from scratch.”
“Ah,” Trey said. “That’s when you sent your crew home.”
“I wish. I sent them home an hour later after my head chef told me I’d better. When every other word I say is ‘fuck,’ he knows it’s time to rein me in.”
“Smart man.”
“Good man.” She took another swig from the bottle.
“You know, Rebecca, Monday night doesn’t have to be perfect.”
“Sure it does. Trying to be perfect is what keeps me sane.” She said it wryly, but he sensed it wasn’t a joke. Worried, he wrapped his hand on her bare forearm. He didn’t like that she eased away.
“Sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t be laying my doubts on you.”
“Why not? Can’t we be friends as well as employer and employee?” Though he strove to say this lightly, he wasn’t certain he’d pulled it off.
Rebecca’s big gray eyes rose to his. The steadiness at her center seemed to look straight into his heart. Fuck, he wanted her. His c**k was abruptly aching, his chest tight with longing to nestle her against it.