Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 28222 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 141(@200wpm)___ 113(@250wpm)___ 94(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28222 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 141(@200wpm)___ 113(@250wpm)___ 94(@300wpm)
His laugh is incredulous. “You’re reprimanding me about how I speak to employees?”
Point taken. “There’s a difference in demanding excellence from my staff and how you’ve just spoken to her. And you fucking know it.” Her small hand twists in the back of my white chef’s coat and something is now crushing my windpipe. What the hell is happening to me? I don’t know, but this girl needs protecting, and I can’t fathom ignoring the responsibility. Not claiming it with both hands. “Don’t let it happen again.”
There’s a dangerous glint in my brother’s eye. “Are you calling dibs?”
My temper spikes more dramatically than it ever has in the kitchen—and that is really saying something, because I once got so angry over burned coq au vin, I shattered a porcelain Dutch oven my knee. “How about this? If you speak to her again, Pierre, I will dislocate your jaw.”
His face grows blotchy with anger, yet he laughs. “Wow. It appears we’ve found the one thing Draven finds more enticing than food.” He sidles in closer. “I’m going to let you get away with embarrassing me in front of my employees this time. Just remember that you owe me. We’d be running this restaurant with our mother if you hadn’t killed her.”
The girl stiffens at my back, gasping lightly.
My stomach plummets, but I hold on to my composure, like I do every time Pierre brings up our mother. And how she died. My fault. Yes, it was entirely my fault. And Pierre couldn’t be more accurate in saying that I owe him. That onus on my head is why I never leave Tartine’s kitchen. Why I feel so much pressure to make it succeed.
Because I can’t give Pierre back our mother, but I can give him success.
“Are we done here?” I ask my brother, my jaw glued shut.
He gives me a blasé smile, as if he didn’t just verbally stab me in the throat. “Yes, I think we’re done.” He peeks past me, trying to get a look at Claire, but a territorial growl rumbles out of me, causing him to flinch back. “I guess I’ll go back to manning the front of house.” He takes a few backwards steps out of my orbit, then spins on a heel exiting the kitchen.
Against my better judgment, I turn to look down at Claire, shocked by how badly I want to pick up her hands and kiss the little scars I noticed earlier.
She’s looking up at me with her wide blue eyes, so innocent compared to the tightly peaked nipples outlined at the front of her damp t-shirt. “Thank you, chef.”
Oh, goddamn. That sweet little whisper combined with her courageous chin raise?
That’s the moment I admit to myself how badly I want to fuck her raw.
Meaning, I’m no better than my brother. A tough pill to swallow.
No, I need to resist.
Claire is a too-young, too-hot distraction from the fall menu that needs to be perfected now. I’ve been working on my new sauce too long, and the city is so competitive, the clientele always wanting something groundbreaking. New. This girl making my dick hard in the middle of dinner service is the absolute last thing I need when my priority is the restaurant. But banging her brains out in the locker room, the way I’m imagining myself doing, wouldn’t be a simple transaction of flesh. Nope. That truth is branded into my gut—and I never feel this certain about anything but cooking.
Women are usually an afterthought to me. An occasional indulgence.
But this one? Claire?
Her plush mouth and perky tits are making me feel like I have a fever. A righteous need that deepens by the minute—and I need to kill the urge to take an employee to bed. As in, now. I can’t let my brother, or my mother’s memory down, more than I already have.
The smart thing to do would be fire her.
But I can’t fathom never seeing her again.
Or sending her out into a world full of men like my brother.
Absolutely fucking not.
“Get back to work, Claire,” I growl.
Her chest dips gratefully. “Yes, chef.”
But despite the warning I issue myself, I continue to watch Claire all night, her shirt growing progressively soaked until I can see her little, rose-colored nipples, the shadow of her navel. And when everyone leaves for the night and she walks into the empty locker room, I find myself following, the sound of a bell tolling in my ears.
Somehow, I know I’m a dead man walking.
Chapter Three
Claire
Iblink twice to make sure I’m not imagining what I’m seeing. But no. The fishnet stockings, thong and nipple tassels are still staring back at me from inside the plastic bag.
I’ve just rushed into Tartine’s staff locker room to change into my waitressing uniform, because my shift at Swet begins in twenty minutes and I’ve finally discovered why Pierre found my employment there so shocking. With two little sequined black hearts covering my nipples and a thong leaving nothing to the imagination underneath the fishnets, I will essentially be working naked. Holy moly, I can’t wear this, can I?