He went in anyway. A last few tables in the back were in the process of getting up. Trey stood among them, seeming at ease with what was being said. The guests were in a good mood, so Zane guessed the evening hadn’t been a disaster. Trey laughed, the sound carrying. He looked good in his dark gray suit with the white shirt collar unbuttoned. His hair was tied back so you couldn’t tell it was shoulder length. His sexy stubble showed off the planes of his cheek and jaw.
All grown up, Zane thought, remembering him in more casual getups. Affection expanded in him so fiercely the sensation was uncomfortable. He knew he was walking a slippery slope with Rebecca but couldn’t seem to drag his feet off it. She felt like the antidote to every forgettable woman he’d slept with, like proof he could connect to one with a deeper part of him than his cock. Wasn’t there a way to hold onto Trey and have a shot with her? And how would he know if he never tried?
He didn’t call out to Trey, whose back was to him. Doing nothing to draw attention to himself, he slipped down the hall to the kitchen.
“Where’s Rebecca?” he inquired of a busboy.
Because he’d asked like he had a right to know, the young man pointed to a door marked “Staff Only.”
Inside was a combined break room and overflow storage. Metal shelves stacked with dry goods lined the walls. Zane spied a small coffee station, a large round table, and the door to the staff toilet. In the middle of the floor, on the tweedy brown carpet, he found Rebecca.
She lay on her back with her knees bent up. Her left forearm shielded her eyes. Her right was flung out flat, as if the ground beneath her were unsteady. She wore her precious chef’s whites, the front now dirty from her labors. Zane’s restless emotions settled even as his heart beat harder. God, he was glad to see her.
“Is there a reason you’re lying on the floor?” he asked.
Rebecca twitched but didn’t rise. “My back is trying to seize up. It’s a stress thing. I took a couple ibuprofens. It’ll stop in a minute.”
Weirdly amused, Zane crossed the room to drop down next to her. Rebecca shifted her forearm to look at him. The look in her narrowed eyes was not friendly. “Why aren’t you with your girlfriend?”
“My girlfriend?”
“The one you took clubbing in Paris. The one you thought it was perfectly okay to bring to my opening. The swimsuit model.”
The last description he understood. His mind took a moment to sort out the rest. “Mystique was here? I didn’t bring her. I just arrived myself. Anyway, we weren’t in Paris. It was Montreal.”
“Whatever.” Rebecca hid her eyes again. “At least you didn’t tell her you slept with me.”
This seemed as much a complaint as a statement of gratitude. The smile Zane was fighting grew stronger. “You’re jealous.”
“I’m stupid,” she retorted, her sumptuous lips pressed thin. “I know I have no right to be angry.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Zane said, to which she responded with a snort. “She isn’t. She’s a woman I’ve dated on and off for a couple years. This weekend decided me to switch her to ‘off’ for good.”
“If she showed up here, you need to convey your decision more clearly.”
Sensing a grudging reduction in her annoyance, Zane coaxed Rebecca’s arm away from her face. Her hand fit nicely between his. Turning her head without lifting it, she looked at him with her big gray eyes. The vulnerability he saw there touched him. Funnily enough, so did her prickliness.
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he said softly, “even though we only slept together once. Deliberately shoving her in your face would be childish—especially on your big night.”
“It wouldn’t be my business if you did.”
He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “You could make it your business in two seconds.”
“I told you—”
“I know what you told me.” He slid his arm beneath her back, helping her to sit up without straining her muscles. “How did tonight go?”
“Oh,” she said, “we had a couple bumps. The guy who replaced me at my old job showed up with an important food critic. Half a dozen lobster plates went out raw and—evidently—my big tough expediter falls apart over fights with his roommate.”#p#分页标题#e#
Zane eased her toward him until her brow rested on his shoulder. With extra gentle fingers, he massaged the back of her neck. Her skin was warm, the short hair at her nape like silk. “What went right?”
“Almost everything else,” she admitted. “My crew pulled it together after they bobbled. I don’t think The Lounge will get panned.”