This wasn’t something I wanted to talk about with my former boss. And my current boss’s friend and mentor. Time to deflect. “You’ve met him. It’s self-explanatory.”
Killian’s smile died. “Regardless of what Vera has led you to believe, we’re not all awful. And I don’t think Wyatt is at all. He’s hard maybe, precise. He knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to go after it. But I don’t think that makes him an asshole.”
“Maybe,” I said noncommittally.
Killian wasn’t fooled by my halfhearted answer. “It’s probably hard for you since you used to work with him and now have to work for him. It’s not that he’s an asshole, it’s just a difficult adjustment.”
“It’s not that at all,” I admitted when I knew I should keep my mouth shut. “I don’t mind perfection. I worked for you and didn’t complain.”
Killian’s eyebrows rose slowly, and I knew I’d said too much.
“Much,” I added quickly.
He cracked a small smile. “He’s good for Lilou. He’s good for you.”
The back of my neck prickled, and I took a sip of coffee to hide my urge to rub it. “I don’t know about that. Maybe he’s good for the restaurant, but we butt heads in the worst way.”
Killian’s smile stretched. “He doesn’t like that you’re as good as he is.”
The compliment spiraled through me, warming me from head to toe, slightly thawing some permanently frozen place inside my chest. “I don’t think either of us like it,” I admitted, suppressing the ego swell.
His smile disappeared, and he straightened. It was like he put on a different persona. Gone was the man in love and in his place appeared a wise father figure that was about to offer sage advice. I shifted again. I had never been great with authority. “He needs you, Kaya. He was the best for the job, yeah? I didn’t give it to him to spite you. I gave it to him because he deserved it. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t important. He’s kept you as sous, right?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, but he also threatens to take it away from me every single night.”
“He won’t.” Killian’s affirmation was confident. “He can’t. There’s no one else in that kitchen that’s ready.”
“Hey!” Dillon cried out in protest. Killian gave her a look and she wilted, folding her arms over her chest and sticking out her bottom lip. “Fine, Kaya’s amazing, blah, blah, blah.”
Killian’s gaze moved back to mine. “Support him, Kaya. Support his role completely before you move on.”
My eyes narrowed. The boost to my ego from his compliment a few seconds ago was replaced with the sharp, raw feeling of vulnerability. I hated that he saw me so clearly. I hated that he’d managed to motivate me to stay with Wyatt while making me feel valuable as a chef all at once. I didn’t want people to see this much of me. I wanted to remain hidden, mysterious. Yeah, fine, I wanted my talent to be known, but I didn’t want that to give anyone insight to my insides.
“Why do you think I’ll leave Lilou?” I asked him, needing to know how obvious I was.
He shrugged and looked around the kitchen. “Because you’re never going to be satisfied with being number two. You don’t have it in you to support someone else forever.”
“I can’t tell if that’s an insult or a compliment.”
He smiled again, but this time it was at his future wife. “It’s admirable.” He turned back to me. “But EC is hard as shit. A lot of chefs want to get to the top, but few have it in them.”
I laughed to make light of his warning, knowing he was right. “I’m okay with hard.”
“That’s what she said!” Dillon giggled from across the kitchen, her arms raised over her head in victory like she’d won something for being the first person to ever say it.
We all groaned at her terrible joke, but inwardly I was grateful we could move past the life lessons portion of the morning.
“This is why you’re still single,” Killian teased her in that older brother way.
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Speaking of being single…” She paused dramatically and we all waited to find out where she was headed with this. “What’s happening with Sarita? Ezra was on the phone all last night and I fell asleep before he decided anything.”
Killian rolled his eyes. “If he was smart, he’d sell the damn thing. He should piece off all of the harem except for Lilou. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.”
The harem was how we lovingly referred to Ezra’s group of restaurants, all named after ex-girlfriends.
“He won’t do it,” Dillon stated simply, but with all the confidence we knew she had the right to have. “He loves them too much.”
Killian leaned back against the sink. “Which is ironic considering how much he didn’t love the actual women they’re named after.”
Vera snorted a laugh. “If he names a restaurant after Molly, I’m going to punch him in the throat.”
Dillon and Killian quickly promised Vera that would never happen. I wasn’t totally convinced, but then again, I didn’t know Ezra. I knew about him. And I worked with him enough that I knew what to expect from him in a professional setting. But I didn’t know anything about his personal life. Except that he dated high maintenance women with exotic names.
But even that was learned secondhand.
“What will happen to Sarita?” I asked, refocusing the conversation.
“We’re going to run it while Ezra is on vacation,” Vera answered. “Because we hate ourselves.”
Killian explained, “Ezra was going to cancel their big vacation, but Vera felt bad for Molly so here we are, running the most dysfunctional kitchen on the planet.”
“That’s not true,” Dillon argued. “Bianca is the most dysfunctional kitchen on the planet. Sarita will truly be better without Juan Carlo.”
I bit my bottom lip to keep from smiling. Juan Carlo was as pretentious as his name suggested. He was a beast to work for and a complete egomaniac. Wyatt was bad, Juan Carlo was impossible. But his food was only mediocre in my opinion and he never changed the menu. Still, somehow, he’d created the illusion of a big name for himself and prior to last night, I never thought Sarita would be available.
“You two are in charge until Ezra gets back? Then what?”
Killian gave me an assessing look that again made me feel too seen, like a kid in trouble with her parents. “Then the search begins.”
Looking everywhere but at Killian, I asked, “Do you think he’ll hire in house?”
“Hard to say,” Killian replied. “It’s always hard to say with Ezra.”
That response got me nowhere. I downed the rest of my delicious coffee and rinsed the mug out in the sink.
“Just set it there,” Vera directed. “I’ll get it later.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s not a problem,” she promised, offering me a smile.
“Thanks. And thanks for the coffee. I needed it today.” I caught Dillon’s eye and nodded my head toward the exit. “We should get going.”
“Oh, yeah.” She hopped off the counter and turned to Killian, launching into something about how Sarita opens and delivery information.
Vera moved to my side and started walking, indicating that I should follow her. So, I did. Once we were back in the dining room, she nudged me with her elbow. “Do you want Sarita?”
I swallowed a lump large enough to be my heart. “Wh-what?”
“Don’t play humble with me,” Vera laughed. “Do you want it?”
Rolling my eyes at her so she knew I didn’t appreciate being called out, I admitted, “Obviously, I want Sarita. I’d have to be crazy not to want her.”
Her voice dropped, and she whispered, “He’s not going to give it to you.”
I would have felt devastated if not for the mischievous tone in her voice. “Why not?”
“Because you’re a girl.”
“I’ve never taken Ezra to be the sexist type.”
She shrugged. “He’s not necessarily.
It’s the industry. It’s all men. And Ezra has never had a female executive chef before. He doesn’t even know it’s possible.”
She wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know. The first day of culinary school I realized I would have to work twice as hard as the boys in my class that outnumbered me three to one. “Not even Dillon?”
“That’s what I mean,” Vera said quietly. “He’s definitely going to hire Dillon for Bianca. That’s already in motion. You’re either going to have to beat her or convince him to give two of his restaurants to women.”
I hadn’t thought of that. The floor seemed to drop out from underneath me. My fragile dream curled up into a ball and rolled out of reach. “Shit.”
It wasn’t possible. And not because I wasn’t good enough. Vera was right. If Ezra planned to give one of his restaurants to Dillon, there was no chance in hell I would get the other one. And I couldn’t compete with my best friend over a restaurant because it was the only option.
Besides, I wouldn’t be a good fit for Bianca. My integrity wouldn’t even let me apply for the position. I didn’t want to do fussy French food. I wanted spicy tapas and a sexy, smoldering atmosphere. I would suffocate Bianca. Or the other way around.
“Prove him wrong,” Vera coaxed. “Prove that Dillon is a fine hire, but that he’d be crazy not to give you Sarita.”
I looked at her, feeling helpless and lost. “How do I do that?”
“First, you’re going to have to convince Wyatt. And Killian. And me.” She winked. “But spoiler alert, I’m already on your side.”
“You’re not making me feel better,” I whispered, my guts exploding with butterflies and bumblebees and razor-sharp wasps.
She smiled at me. “Don’t wimp out on me now, Kaya. Continue showing me the strong, independent woman I know you are. The kickass chef that can outcook and outsmart literally any other man. Do your thing, woman, and the rest will follow.”
Her words were like a gust of wind on the dwindling fire inside me, reigniting the fight and flames that had gotten me this far. “This means I have to be nice to Wyatt though, doesn’t it?”
She laughed. “Sleep with him if you have to.”
I nibbled on my lip ring again, hating that I didn’t hate that idea as much as I should. Or at all. I made an amused sound to cover my reaction. “Pretty sure that would only make things worse between us.”
She winked at me. “Obviously, I’m kidding. But you have to at least try to get on his good side.” We reached the door and Dillon burst through the kitchen, quickly catching up with us. Vera slapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, it’s worth a shot! Bye, Kaya.”
“Bye, Vera…”
That didn’t go anything like I thought it would. Hell.
Four
Dillon and I walked into Lilou through the side entrance laughing about having coffee with Killian and Vera at Salt and the possibility of running restaurants in the same city together. It wasn’t a conversation I let myself indulge in often, but she wanted to know what Vera had said to me and I couldn’t keep a secret from her.
“What are you going to do? How are you going to get him to like you?” she asked.
“Vera said I should sleep with him,” I told her, giggling my way through the sentence.
Dillon laughed harder until it completely died on her lips. I looked up to find Wyatt, the very topic of our conversation, looming over us, staring at me. More like glaring at me.
My smile wobbled, but I managed a sarcastic, “Hey, boss.”
His eyes narrowed. “Can I see you in my office?”
That was the last place I wanted to go. I had food to prep and a menu to study. And a separate restaurant to takeover. “Uh, sure.”
Dillon stepped away from me to head the opposite direction, but not before she whispered, “Now’s your chance,” which made me cough and laugh at the same time.
Wyatt’s head snapped around to see what I was doing. I waved at him and continued to cough and also plot Dillon’s murder. That was the worst thought she could have planted in my head before I was forced to be alone with the man.
He held the door open for me and my mind immediately raced to memories of last night and his body touching mine… his late-night text that almost felt flirty. My thoughts sped forward and wondered if sleeping with him was even possible? Not because of the job. My integrity would never stoop to that level. But because… well, hell, because it was kind of impossible to not thinking about sleeping with Wyatt now.
Would he reject me outright? Or was he the kind of guy to never turn down free play? That thought made my nose wrinkle. I could hardly tolerate Wyatt in a professional capacity, but I didn’t think he was a douche in his personal life. In fact, the entire time I’d known him, he’d never bragged or even talked about nightly conquests. Around the time I broke up with Nolan, he’d started dating a girl and I thought it had gotten kind of serious, but they had broken up at least a year ago because she hated his hours. Since then if he hooked up with random girls or started dating someone new, he’d never said anything to anyone.
Oh, my god, why was I even considering this? It wasn’t like I’d let myself move forward in my career that way.
I pressed a hand to my forehead and tried to push the perverted thoughts out of my mind.
“Are you okay?” Wyatt asked from behind me.
Jerking to face him, I tried desperately to school my features into anything but guilty. “Yes. Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
He watched me compose myself without another comment. I found him particularly unsettling today. He hadn’t donned his chef’s coat yet and his black t-shirt clung a little too tightly to his biceps and broad chest, tattoos on full display.
His tattoos were familiar to me now, at least the ones I could see, making them even more dangerous for some reason. The single feather that transformed into a bird stretching elegant wings wrapped around his neck. The fork, spoon, and butcher knife laid out on his right forearm like it was set for service. The outline of a pig on his left forearm with the cuts of meat dotted and labeled. There were more, so many more. They made full sleeves over his forearms and biceps, and I could only assume reached across his chest and touched the visible ones around his neck, but I’d never seen the ones beneath his shirt. Only the ones peeking out.
He wore tapered jeans and stylish gray tennis shoes that probably cost more than half my paycheck. His hair wasn’t disheveled from work and stress yet, artfully settled in lush waves.
When my eyes dropped to his stubbled jaw and tired eyes, the pang of sympathy for his late night was the wake-up call I needed. I was checking out my boss—the same boss I drove crazy with my presence.
This was Vera’s fault.
Sarita danced around my thoughts, taunting me, calling me with her Siren song. I met Wyatt’s mysterious gaze and wondered how I could get him on my side. On one hand, I imagined that he was dying to get rid of me. This was his opportunity.
Maybe. If the position at Sarita opened to the public.
On the other hand, did I have a chance in frozen hell that he would admit what a great chef I was? Especially to Ezra?
His eyes darkened as we stood there silently, staring at each other. His jaw ticked, and I realized how foolish this dream was. He was already pissed off and I hadn’t even said anything yet.
I cleared my throat and took a step back. We weren’t standing particularly close, but suddenly there wasn’t enough room in this whole damn kitchen to put between us. “Did you get any sleep last night?” The question came out differently than I meant it to. It sounded like a criticism when I’d meant it as concern. His eyes narrowed, and I knew he felt the accidental judgment.
He rubbed a hand over his face and turned away from me. “Not much.” With short, precise movements, he took a seat behind his desk and leaned back in his swivel chair. “That’s actually why I brought you in here.”
“I get it, Wyatt. You don’t have to berate me. I won’t cover for Dillon again.
I realize now that it screws everything else up.”
He rapped his knuckles on the desk and continued to look at anything but me. “I appreciate that, but that’s not why I wanted to talk to you.”
My shoulders drooped in response to my disappointment. I had been expecting a fight. At the very least, a riled-up argument. But the tired tone of his voice made it clear he wasn’t up for sparring. And considering Sarita, I shouldn’t have been either.
I wasn’t going to sleep with him. Obviously, that was crazy talk. But I could get on his good side. I could get him to warm up to me. I could maybe even convince him that I wasn’t always the villain.
It wouldn’t be easy. And not because of his feelings for me. I would have to be nice, kind… thoughtful. Blech. They were all qualities I wasn’t even sure I possessed.
Running a hand through my short hair and pushing it out of my eyes, I decided to make a vision board when I got home. Not that I was confident the universe would simply drop Sarita in my lap if I taped a picture of her to a poster board. The universe didn’t work like that. But maybe a physical reminder of my goals would incentivize me to change… work on who I was.
That’s when the universe moved. Not when I wished for something, but when I worked as hard as humanly possible to change, to go after the things I wanted, when I didn’t give up or quit trying.
I suppressed a grimace. This better be worth it.
“What do you need me for?” I asked in a tone I hoped came off as sweet.
His eyes lifted from the desk and he hit me with that darkened gaze all over again. His jaw ticked once. Twice. My hands balled into nervous fists from some subconscious reaction to him. This wasn’t irritation. Wyatt was a complete mystery in every way, but intuition whispered there was something else going on in his complicated mind—some emotion that made a tingle skitter down my spine and my breathing hitch.
Wyatt cleared his throat and subtly shook his head. “Uh, like you said, I’m tired today. And I, uh… this isn’t easy for me to ask. And I wouldn’t under normal circumstances, but there’s a critic from the Daily Durham coming in tonight. I know it’s a small paper, but it’s my first real write up, so I’d like for everything to operate as perfect as possible.”
Opposites Attract: The complete box set Page 66