Saving the CEO(2)

Without a word, without making eye contact with her or with Sara, he sat at the bar—at the far corner, tucked against a large wooden pillar. Just as he always did at his table, he spread out his papers.

“Well, damn,” whispered Sara.

Cassie tried not to panic. “He’s going to want to hear the specials, isn’t he?” Crap. The sorts of people who sat at her bar weren’t usually the type to care about the specials. They were either killing time waiting for a table or they were regulars, solo diners who ordered a salad with chicken and wanted to shoot the breeze.

“Yes!” said Sara. “We have a pan-fried pickerel with capers and preserved lemon served with maple mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus. Roasted pork loin with cranberries, goat cheese, and fresh dill, served with wild rice pilaf, and the same asparagus. Pizza of the day is fig, arugula, and house-cured salumi with a drizzle of buckwheat honey.”

Though she had absorbed a negligible amount of that little speech, Cassie nodded determinedly. Fake it till you make it. That was pretty much her entire philosophy of life, whether she was facing multivariable calculus or a night among the model-waitresses at Edward’s. And hey, so far, so good.

He didn’t look up from his work until she was practically under his nose. “Single malt to start tonight, sir? We have a new bottle from—”

“Does Edward still have that 1955 Glenfarclas?” he asked, naming a rare bottle she couldn’t remember ever having touched, except maybe to dust it. She wasn’t even sure it was on the menu, so she’d have to ask Edward what to charge him. She remembered Edward bragging that there were only 109 other bottles of it in the world.

“Right away.” Ack. Surreptitiously fanning herself, she pulled a stool over to boost herself up to reach the bottle, wishing she could loosen the regulation men’s tie she wore as part of her uniform, or at least roll up the sleeves of her heavy cotton button-down shirt.

Her feet hadn’t hit the ground for a nanosecond before he spoke. “What are the specials?” Though he was looking at her, those ice blue eyes seemed almost to look through her, the way ghosts can walk through people in the movies.

“We have, ah, pork chops. No, pork loin. Pork loin with preserved lemons, and…something. Pickerel with cranberries and, um, asparagus.”

“Pork loin with preserved lemons?” He set down his pencil—he always used an old-school, non-mechanical pencil, and it was always perfectly sharp—and raised an eyebrow.

“Um…” Had she got it wrong? That must be wrong.

“I’ll have that. Pork with preserved lemon.” He picked up his pencil. “There’s a first time for everything.”

Get a grip. You’re coming off like a total ditz. Carefully setting a tumbler on the bar for his scotch, she asked, “Neat?” though she already knew the answer.

“Water,” he said.

“Good man.” It was out before she could think better of it. Just that most people ruined their scotch with a whack of too-cold ice, or tried to testosterone their way through by demanding it neat, which was a shame, because the best way to really taste scotch was to dilute it with just the right amount of water.

Ebenezer’s eyes rose from his work again, but this time, instead of looking through her, they looked right at her. For a very long time. They began at her hair, which she suspected was doing its usual poor job staying slicked back into the requisite bun, slid down her face which, yes, thank you, heated under his scrutiny. From there he raked his gaze to her chest, which…well, she had curves that even Edward’s gender-neutral generic wait staff uniform could not constrain. She cursed them every evening, in fact, when she struggled to button the work shirt even while its sleeves and shoulders dwarfed her. Sara and Camille and the rest of them, with their lithe frames and graceful lines, looked like an army of Kate Mosses in their always-crisp shirts. The mannish ties made them look hot, whereas the same tie just made short-waisted Cassie look…strangled.

This was all Cassie’s internal monologue, though. Ebenezer didn’t betray a single thought. His eyes lingered, yes, but once they fell to her waist, which was the end of the line because the bar blocked the rest of her, they came back up to her eyes with no hint of anything. No approval, no disgust. Just emptiness.

“You’re a connoisseur then?” A hint of a raised eyebrow made its way onto his otherwise inscrutable face. She might have been imagining it.

She shrugged to hide her nervousness. Surely none of the others had ever had even this much of a conversation with Mr. Scrooge. “I am.” She tipped the bottle to fill his glass, pausing when she’d poured the standard amount, and then poured a little more—keep the customer satisfied. After all, this one glass was probably going to cost him more than a hundred bucks, and since he was eating at the bar, she didn’t have to share her fifty percent tip with anyone. “But I haven’t tried this.” She set the bottle down a little more vehemently than she’d intended, but he didn’t flinch. “This is a little too rich for my blood.” She winked—fake it till you make it. “Wait!” She suddenly remembered. “I stock distilled water for you.” She squatted down to grab the jug she kept under the bar.