He thought he’d prepared himself for today. Naturally, he knew who she was. He’d recognized her name the instant her resume crossed his desk. Some might argue he should have forgotten it after all these years. Who had she been except a waitress with a nice pair and a pretty smile? There had to be thousands like her in any big city. That didn't seem to matter. The night they’d met, the night she’d imprinted herself on his memories, was a life changing one for him.
That was the night Zane admitted he wanted them to stay together.
Trey had never regretted accepting Zane’s offer—business or otherwise. Zane might not have said the words, but Trey knew he loved him. Pursuing a girl like Rebecca would have road-blocked all the good things that came after. She wasn’t a woman he could sleep with and then let go. Trey didn’t know if it was genetics or hormones or some weird subconscious awareness. He just knew her eyes had warned him; the way his chest had tightened at her nearness. She was his thunderbolt, possibly the only woman he could fall for as hard as Zane.
With a heavy sigh, he pushed into his big office.
Zane’s office was next to his. Most days, if he heard Trey come in, he’d say hello with a friendly drumroll on their shared wall. Today he couldn’t. He was on his way to Hawaii, to visit a resort they were considering bundling into TBBC’s collection. His partner being so far away didn’t lighten Trey’s mood at all.
Zane tried not to be possessive. He liked their arrangement. At least once a month he indulged his alternate erotic interest with a female. His revolving door for dates amused Trey, but it served a purpose. Rotating women as he did, Zane avoided encouraging any particular one to believe she'd stick around. Though Trey stepped out less frequently, his methods were similar. Hardly anyone got a repeat, and nobody slept over. Other men were off limits entirely. Trey understood his partner needed to come first with him. Sharing Trey with another love of a lifetime would be a deal breaker.
He dropped into his desk chair, swiveling toward the long expanse of windows to stare at the city. August’s sunshine shimmered in sparks and sheets off the old and new buildings. He could see the waterfront from this direction, the wharves and the bright harbor. Boston was never all one thing or another: neither all modern nor historic, neither completely land nor sea . . . kind of like him, when it came down to it.
He remembered the day, two weeks after his and Zane’s fateful dinner, when he’d given in to temptation and returned alone to Wilde’s. He’d purposefully gone during lunch, when Rebecca had said she worked in the kitchen and not out front. He’d emerged with her last name and a pounding long-term hard-on. Simply coming as close to her as that had sent a storm through his libido.
The reaction was enough to shock him to sanity. He hadn’t tried to contact her. He’d pushed the thought of her behind him, telling himself his crazy ideas about her had to be in his head. Love at first sight was silly. What he felt for Rebecca Eilert wasn’t any more than a crush.
Eventually he’d stopped dreaming about her sad gray eyes. Eventually he no longer wondered if anyone but him had noticed how profoundly alone she was.
Being more romantic than Zane didn’t make him an idiot.
Or maybe it did, because when he saw her application for the executive chef’s position, he hadn’t torn it up. The letter she’d sent along had been literate, humorously thorough, and inadvertently neurotic. The things she didn’t realize she was saying charmed him as no female had for years. He had his assistant schedule her to cook before he could stop himself.
He’d changed his clothes twice this morning, taking extra care to close-trim the stubble most women seemed to love. As they rode in the limo—Zane to the airport and he to work—Zane had accused him of having a hot lunch date. He’d been teasing, but Trey had blushed like a teenager. He hadn’t told Zane he was interviewing chefs, though they both had a stake in the future Bad Boys Lounge. Truthfully, he couldn’t tell him. Rebecca was the only applicant he’d seen.
Trey was acting like a cheating husband. He needed to cut it out. He’d almost convinced himself he would when he stepped into that kitchen.
His heart had jumped in his chest like it had at Wilde’s. It’s her, sang his imagination. She’s in the same room with me. His skin had tingled at her presence, his every cell humming with aliveness.
Her littleness was a mule kick to his breadbox.
She had the same short blonde haircut, like she’d settled on a style and couldn’t be bothered to change it. Her eyes were still huge, still haunted by shadows and mulishness. She was wirier than he remembered, as if she didn’t—or maybe couldn’t—leave a restaurant’s heavy lifting to underlings. The tension in her handshake astonished him. She was like a racehorse who never, ever allowed herself to relax. He shouldn’t have found that sexy. He shouldn’t have wanted to strip her naked and massage her all over.#p#分页标题#e#