Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
I didn’t quite know why I did it with Cleo. Maybe because I liked her on sight, maybe because she’d seen through Gerald. Or maybe because she reminded me a little of my sister Maisie, with her wild energy and easy smile.
“No shit?” Her eyes lit up. “That would fucking rock.” She dug into her purse, grabbing her phone for us to exchange numbers.
By then I was recovered enough to look up at Kane and hide my discomfort. Unfortunately, he had a crease between his brows, obviously holding on to the moment when I’d stiffened.
He opened his mouth in question, but luckily, we were interrupted by Brax.
“Kane, we’ve got a sponsor over here we need to talk shop with.” Brax looked at me with a fake smile. “You don’t mind, do you? I’m sure you’d find it boring.”
Any other time, I would’ve treated Brax’s casual belittling of me with one of my patented stares and a cold quip, but I’d already pegged the man as an arrogant asshole.
“I’m not talkin’ shop,” Kane bit out. “And Avery isn’t going anywhere.”
“It’s fine.” I held up my drink, thankful it was half empty. “I need a refill and to find Kiera.”
I all but ran from them at that moment.
I could tell Kane wanted to pull me off to a quiet corner to discuss the conversation with Cleo, but this was Kane’s party. Therefore, there were no quiet corners. Usually, that would’ve irritated me. But for current circumstances, it suited me.
The party went well into the night, with people getting rowdier and rowdier. Kiera left at some point with a famous actor. She gave me a cheeky grin, and I couldn’t help but smile back. It did help that I’d had two margaritas. Which was a lot for me.
I wasn’t drunk. But I was less tense. I needed something to take the edge off, especially after the mention of Gerald.
Kane nursed the same beer the entire night. He made a good show of smiling and joking easily with his friends, but I didn’t miss the sideways glances, filled with concern, he sent my way. I did my best to ignore those glances and try to make it look like I was having fun.
The last straggler had filtered out and Kane dragged me up to his room at the brownstone.
“As much as I’ll try to convince you to sleep in tomorrow, I know that’s an ill-fated journey,” he said on the ascent up the stairs. “So bedtime it is.”
I smiled. “Since when do you dictate my bedtime?”
His hand ghosted over my ass. “Whenever the fuck I like, Chef.”
I didn’t argue, though the principle should’ve made me bristle.
He stayed in the bathroom as I went about my nighttime routine, washing off makeup with the face wash I had at home. He’d noted every one of my toiletries in my bathroom and then bought them for me to have here.
Likely, he had an assistant buy them, but the gesture was pivotal. Romantic.
I tried to ignore it, feeling suddenly delicate without the sounds of the party and disturbingly sober in the overhead lights of the bathroom.
“Something triggered you tonight,” Kane said from where he was perched on the side of the bathtub. “When Cleo mentioned that chef.”
My stomach dropped. I’d hoped that Kane hadn’t noted my reaction. The music was loud, we’d been drinking, and the environment was chaotic.
I glanced at him in the mirror. I considered trying to lie, brushing him off. I was an expert at throwing people off the scent when they tried to prod into my personal business. My family didn’t even know about this.
Not even Kiera.
She knew the basics, she knew something had happened, that a man hurt me, but I hadn’t been able to tell her the entire story.
I’d buried it, deep, unable and unwilling to drag it up into the light. Especially not into these bathroom lights in front of Kane.
It might’ve been the margaritas. It might’ve been my suddenly soft heart. Or that Kane had shared about his trauma so easily with me. It might’ve been because I was exhausted from keeping it inside for so long. Whatever the reason, I started talking, washing my face as I did so.
“I was young,” I said, rubbing at my face a tad too vigorously. “I’d studied at the culinary institute in France and after, I’d promptly been offered a position working under Gerald DuBois at his Michelin star restaurant in the heart of Paris. It was a big deal.”
I clenched my teeth and wiped my face with a washcloth, thinking of the girl I was then. There were no tears of joy at the offer, no hysterics of any kind. Even as a teenager, I was serious. I was happy at the offer, of course, but not surprised. Hadn’t this been what I’d been working toward my entire life? I’d put the effort in and got the intended result.