He cradled my face in his hands, calloused palms scratching against my jawline. “I love you,” he whispered. He didn’t ask if I was okay. He didn’t ask me how I felt. He told me the words I needed to heal, to move on, to remember the life I wanted and the future I was willing to work so hard for.
“Yes.”
One side of his mouth lifted in that arrogant smile and his green eyes twinkled knowingly. “Yes to what?”
“Yes to everything.”
His smirk became a smile. “And what else?”
I laughed, because seriously. This man. “And I love you.”
His eyes warmed, and he looked down at me with so much adoration and awe that I felt it all the way to my bones. “Yes, to everything.” His thumb slid over my cheekbone. “And I love you.” When he kissed me, it wasn’t gentle or sweet, it was demanding and desperate. He kissed me with the promise of a future in front of us. He kissed me with the truth of who he was, the man he would always be, but also the man he would become because of me. And I kissed him back, promising those same things.
When he pulled back, I missed him immediately. A secret smile still danced in the corners of his mouth, hidden by his beard unless you knew where to look. He held me close and said, “Now can we please go file that damn restraining order.”
Laughing because I couldn’t contain my happiness, I looked across the street. “What about Lilou?”
“They’re going to have to learn how to survive without me. They might as well start tonight.”
“But there’s no chef!” Even through my happiness, I knew that Ezra Baptiste was not someone you made an enemy.
“Eh,” Killian shrugged, knowing, confident, cocky as hell, “I was planning on recommending Wyatt for the position anyway. Ezra won’t notice.”
“Ezra’s going to notice,” I protested.
Killian gave me a mischievous side eye, “But what can he do about it?” While I sputtered for an answer, Killian grabbed my hand and pulled me toward Foodie. “Now let’s lock up and get to the police station. I have other plans tonight, so we’re going to need to wrap this up as quickly as possible.”
“What other plans?”
Vann stepped away, reminding us both he was still there. Covering his ears, he said, “I don’t want to know. For the love of God, wait until I’m gone.”
Turning to my brother, I said, “Thanks for everything, Vann.”
He grinned at me. “Looks like you finally hired some help, yeah?”
Killian squeezed my hand. “It’s about time.”
“I think I’ll make him work the window,” I told Vann, ignoring Killian’s smug satisfaction. “He might just be pretty enough to bring in some extra cash.”
“As long as I get to control the salt, I don’t care where you put me,” Killian countered.
I slapped his chest with the back of my hand, which he then caught and pressed against his heart. The message was there in that sweet, subtle gesture. I was in him, and he was in me. We were complete opposites, but we’d been made for each other.
We said goodbye to Vann and locked up Foodie. Then together we went to the closest police station. Filing a restraining order wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. It took work and a lot of standing up for myself, which was hard since it was practically a new concept for me.
But I had Killian there with me, supporting me when I needed it and stepping in for me when I needed that too.
At the end of this journey, I so wanted to be the tough girl. I wanted to kick ass and take names every damn day. But some things, I was learning, were personality based. Conflict wasn’t my thing. Making people do exactly what I wanted them to do was hard for me. And if I never got myself into a Derrek situation again, I could be okay with that.
By the time we left the station, the sun had been down for a while. It was Saturday night, and we were both supposed to be working. This was the busiest night of the week. We had kitchens to run, food to cook, money to make.
Instead, we climbed onto Killian’s motorcycle and ignored everything but each other.
“Let’s go grab some dinner,” he said over his shoulder.
“Like a real date?”
He gave me his profile so I could see the smile and his beard and his gorgeous face. “Like a real date.”
Twenty-Six
I stepped inside Foodie and quickly shut the door behind me. I wouldn’t need to open the windows to let cool air in today. It was frigid outside.
Well, maybe not frigid, but the November breeze was biting as it chased the sunlight outside. I rubbed cold fingers together and wished for warmer days. I’d rather be sweaty and overheated than frozen.
Or so I told myself now. Just wait until the middle of summer. I might feel differently then.
I looked around the familiar space and brushed my fingers over the cool surfaces and smooth steel. It was going to be one of the last times I got to stand inside her and not just because winter was almost here.
I’d sold her.
I couldn’t believe it either.
But after much thought and consideration and many, many business meetings, we’d decided that it was for the best.
We were moving on from the food truck business and dipping our toes in the restaurant business. Or rather, plunging headfirst into the restaurant business.
Killian and me.
I smiled at my blurry reflection, unable to believe it even after all this time.
Killian and I were opening a restaurant together. Killian and I were moving in together. Killian and I were… together.
And I had never been happier.
Or more myself.
It turns out I wasn’t such a doormat after all. I just needed the right relationship to push me. I needed the right man to challenge me.
It was easy to stand up to Killian. Not because I didn’t care about his feelings or what he thought, but because I had confidence that he cared about me, that he wouldn’t leave me because of a dumb fight or my unflinching opinion on how the dishwasher should be filled.
I fought back because he mattered to me. I wasn’t just surviving with him. I was living, really, truly living.
And because it weirdly turned him on.
The door opened and Vann stepped inside, closely followed by my dad. “Hey there, baby girl,” my dad greeted gently. “How are you?”
I eyed the bottle of wine in Vann’s hand. “Better now that you’re here.”
Dad ran his fingers over the hammered wall. “It’s hard to believe you’re already sending her on her way. It’s like she just became part of the family. Now I have to say goodbye.”
Vann sighed. “Yeah, we’ll all miss those nights you worked us to the bone and didn’t pay us.”
I stared at my brother. “It’s really hard for you to sit at the window and make change? That was really difficult?”
He glared at me, but my dad stepped in and said, “Now, Vera, you know he’s more sensitive than you.”
I smothered a smile while my brother contemplated falling on the wine bottle like a sword. My dad went on without noticing.
“I should have bought her,” he said. “I could have tried my hand at this whole cooking thing. Taken her around the country. You know, lived out my retirement on the road.”
Vann and I shared a look. A relieved look. It was nice to hear dad talk about the future again. He’d been through hell with this cancer and paid the price with his health. He was practically gaunt from how much weight he’d lost. He’d stopped looking like our dad and turned frail… old.
It broke my heart to see him now, a shadow of his former self. But I also knew he was finally at the point where he could start to recover, put his weight back on. Thanks to surgery, he was cancer free! There had never been better news than that.
The door opened again, and Vann and Dad moved out of the way so Molly could step inside. She had a bottle of champagne in her hand.
“What’s that?” I asked her.
“To ce
lebrate.” She held it up. “Aren’t you supposed to smash it on the front before you sell it?”
I stared at her for a second, trying to decide if she was for real. “I think that’s for ships. Before you sail them. Not sell them.”
She hugged the bottle. “Oops!”
The door opened again, and Wyatt stepped inside. Now it was so crowded that we all had to squish around the galley. I slid onto the counter with my feet dangling, hoping to make more room. “I didn’t realize this was going to be a party.”
Wyatt smiled and stepped over by Molly. “We all wanted to say goodbye. I’m going to miss this truck. Now where am I going to get my fourth meal from?”
“You’re head chef now, bucko. You’re not going to have time for fourth meal.”
He nodded solemnly. “Or third meal. Maybe not even second meal.”
My dad patted him on the shoulder. “Well, there’s always breakfast, son.” Wyatt looked up at him curiously, and Dad added, “Most important meal of the day, you know.”
While we laughed at my dad’s joke, the door opened, and Ezra Baptiste stepped inside. He blinked at the five of us huddled in the galley and glanced at the door as if he wanted to run away. “Hello.”
Wyatt was the quickest to recover. “Hey, boss.”
Ezra stared at Wyatt. “Who’s in the kitchen?”
“Killian’s saying goodbye,” Wyatt explained. “It was too emotional for me. All the crying and shit.” He looked at me. “From Killian.”
Nobody believed him.
The door opened for the fifth time and when Jo squeezed in, I knew something was up. “Okay, what’s going on?” Then feeling rude, I smiled at Jo. “Hi, Jo. Welcome.”
She smiled back at me and then told Ezra to shove over. “Hello, Vera Dear.”
I couldn’t help but ask her, “What are you doing here?”
She held out her hands. “I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. You’ve talked so much about the truck, I just wanted to see it for myself.”
“Okay, something is going on.” Glaring at each of my visitors in turn, I waited for someone to confess.
They just smiled at me like dorks.
The door opened and Killian finally stepped in. Obviously, this was his doing, but I didn’t know why. Was it just a thoughtful gesture because he knew how much Foodie meant to me? I’d been bugging him all week with dramatic tears and second guesses.
Foodie had been everything to me when I needed her to be everything, but now it was time to chase after what I really wanted.
This truck had healed me. And introduced me to this man I loved so much. And for those two things I would always and forever be grateful.
But I also couldn’t wait to see what else I could do.
Killian had given his notice to Ezra the day after I’d agreed to open a restaurant with him. He’d also recommended Wyatt to replace him. Ezra had been furious of course. And he had a right to feel that way since he still had to replace the head chef at Bianca too. Eventually Killian had convinced him it was for the better or at least that they should still be friends despite Killian’s abandonment.
We’d all been a little surprised when Ezra had agreed to let Wyatt take over though. It showed just how much Ezra trusted Killian after all. Even if Wyatt wasn’t totally convinced yet. Killian had spent the last two months training Wyatt in all things Executive Chef. Yesterday was Killian’s last official day at Lilou, although he had to tie up all the loose ends today.
Tomorrow we would officially be self-employed.
It was awesome.
And scary as hell!
Killian squeezed through the sea of surprise guests so he could stand by me in the middle of everyone. The second he walked in the door our gazes locked. I watched him as he moved, reading the excitement and worry on his face, reaching for him as soon as he was close to me.
God, I loved this man.
“Hey.”
He bent down to drop a quick kiss on my lips. “Hey.”
“You invited a lot of people to a very small space,” I told him.
“How do you know I invited them?”
I looked at our friends. “Because it would be weird if they just showed up.”
He smiled at me, his green eyes sparking with fire and love. He held up one of my cardboard to go boxes. I wondered when he’d grabbed that since I’d cleared the excess equipment two weeks ago. “I made you something.”
I stared at the closed box in his hand. The light glinted off the shiny cardboard. “You made me something?”
He shrugged, that one shoulder lifting and lowering with careless ease. “Kind of a last hoorah in the Lilou kitchen.”
A tingle of anticipation zinged up my spine. “Thank you?”
He held the box out for me to take it. “I need your advice, though.”
My eyes slid to Molly, but she gave nothing away but a huge, dopey smile. “About what?”
He leaned forward, our foreheads almost touching. “The flavor.”
I took the box from him with trembling hands. My mind couldn’t seem to make coherent thoughts. There was a part of my brain that suspected what was happening, but mostly I was numb with excitement and hope.
Opening the lid, I gasped, sucking in a sharp, needed breath of air. A glittering diamond ring winked at me from the inside, not food. He didn’t need my opinion on salt! That liar!
I looked up at Killian, the box violently shaking in my hands now as I tried not to pop.
Killian’s expression was filled with the kind of hope that cut straight through me, that settled in the air like a tangible, permanent thing. “I have another idea of something we can do together,” he said.
“Yes,” I whispered, my voice choked with emotion. “Yes, to everything.”
He cradled my face in those familiar, strong hands. “And I love you?”
“And I love you,” I whispered, my voice thick with emotion.
Our friends cheered and clapped, and a champagne cork popped while he swooped down to seal my answer with a kiss. Happy tears tracked down my cheeks as I struggled to kiss him through my smile.
It wasn’t easy! I wanted to do both things, but the smiling was winning.
He pulled back just enough to take the ring from inside the box and my trembling left hand. He slid it on my ring finger, unable to hide the quiver in his own hands. Once it was in place, I stared at it in awe for a long, heart-fluttering minute, then he kissed me again.
“You all knew!” I accused once we’d remembered there were witnesses and we could save the fun stuff for later. I pointed at Wyatt who was recording us with his phone. “Unbelievable!” I turned to Molly. “And you! No head’s up? You could have at least warned me to dress cute!” I patted my face. “Or wear makeup!”
“You’re beautiful,” Killian murmured, his face dipped close to mine as if he couldn’t pull away. “Always.”
I blinked away a fresh wave of tears, repeating, “I love you.”
He smiled, that full smile that was cocky and confident and adoring and everything I loved. “I love you too, chef.”
We celebrated with our loved ones long into the late hours Killian and I were so comfortable with. We made the truck home for one last memorable night, laughing and talking and planning futures that would be spent together.
And when our friends and family went home, Killian and I stayed, talking about our future together both as a married couple and as business partners. We shared hopes and fears. We laughed and held each other and then we came together on the floor of the truck unable to stay apart for a second longer.
Killian took me home on the back of his bike. I wrapped my arms around him, knowing he was everything I didn’t know I wanted. He was the opposite of my plans. He was the opposite of the kind of guy I thought I wanted.
But he was everything I needed.
Thank You
Thank you for reading The Opposite of You! I hope you enjoyed Killian and Vera as much as I enjoyed writing them! The
second book in the Opposites Attract Series, The Difference Between Us, is live now. Each book is a standalone romance following a different couple! Keep reading to find out more about Molly Maverick and Ezra Baptiste.
The Difference Between Us
Book 2
Copyright@ Rachel Higginson 2017
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To Katie,
Without whom I would have lost my mind.
Here’s to Jazzercise, future communes,
and the Big F’er!
Single, single, double for life.
One
I walked into the meeting fifteen minutes late.
Opposites Attract: The complete box set Page 31