“You’re here to tell me I hurt your precious ego, so you took it out on me?” I say, nowhere near ready to let him off for his appalling behavior.
He looks very uncomfortable now. “Look, I know it’s a bad look, but I promise I’m not usually like that. I just—” He cuts himself off and glances around uneasily before he continues. “I promise I’m not saying this to justify my behavior, but if you’d looked me up properly, you’d know I pride myself on being even-tempered and equitable with all my employees. I don’t even feel comfortable calling them employees when they’re really my equals… Like you.”
I recall the words I spoke to Minka earlier about how I was so busy trying to prove I was Edward’s equal.
Ethan holds up a finger to stop me as I open my mouth to speak. “Hold that thought. I brought you something.” He hurries off in the direction of a black Lexus parked on the street, grabbing a white plastic bag out of the front seat and hurrying back to me. “Can you hold this?” he asks, holding the bag open by its handles.
I grab the handles, and he proceeds to pull out a white, cardboard box containing something that smells divine. “What is this?”
He opens the box and winces as he seems to remember something. “Bollocks. I forgot the silverware,” he says, looking back and forth between my face and the white box a couple times before he finally shrugs. “I suppose that’s what fingers are for.”
As he digs his hand inside the box, I can’t help but think of all the other things his fingers might be good for.
His hand emerges from the box and, pinched between his thumb and forefinger, is a piece of chicken covered in a green sauce. “Taste this.”
It’s not a question, but it’s also not a demand, and somehow this makes me more receptive. With a sigh, I open my mouth slowly, watching him as his gaze is fixated on my lips, a longing in his eyes I recognize very well. It’s the same expression I saw on Edward’s face the day we met at Javits Center.
Ethan places the morsel of food on my tongue and I have to resist the urge to close my lips around his fingers. But the urge is soon forgotten, immediately replaced by the orgasmic sensory explosion in my mouth.
My eyes widen as I swallow the bite of food and say, almost gasping with pleasure, “Pipián?”
He smiles. “You do know your sauces.”
I lick my lips clean, hoping to get another taste. “Did Edward tell you it’s my favorite?” I say, very likely doing a bad job of hiding my disappointment.
He shakes his head. “Actually, Judy enlightened me.”
I look into his dark eyes, searching for a trace of deceit, but I don’t think I know him well enough yet. “Judy remembered that?”
His smile softens. “Not to minimize her amazing memory for that type of stuff, but Judy keeps fastidious notes on all her most promising students. She has a binder full of your old essays and some notes on things she learned from you.”
I’m speechless as my mind struggles to comprehend his words. Judy learned something from me? But as I try to temper my obvious shock, I realize something else he’s implied.
“You read her notes about me?”
He looks uncomfortable again, and he seems to grasp for a distraction as he digs into the plastic bag I’m still holding and retrieves another box. He places the first box back in the bag and looks up at me. “I’m a fast reader,” he says as he opens the second box. “So, do you accept my apology? Will you please come back to work with us?”
I stare at him for a moment, wondering why I feel like he’s hiding something from me. “It’s going to take more than a well-made sauce to ply me into submission.”
My choice of words elicits a wicked smile from him.
“I mean that it will take more than food to get me to take another chance on Forked,” I clarify.
He tempers his devilish grin. “Well, I might have something else to offer, but first,” he says, pulling something out of the second white box, which looks like a piece of a croissant, “taste this and tell me what you think.”
I eye him warily. “That’s not poisoned, is it?”
He cocks an eyebrow. “I reckon it’s a bit late to wonder about that, young lady.”
“I’m twenty-nine years old,” I reply, then I open my mouth obediently.
He places the food in my mouth. “And you don’t look a day over ninety-two.”
I try not to roll my eyes as the piece of bread partially melts on my tongue, and I chew the rest slowly. “What is this?” I ask, unable to get a good grasp on the soft-yet-crunchy texture and sweet-yet-salty flavor. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever eaten.
He smiles as he understands he’s stumped me. “It’s a play on brioche feuilettée au sucre. It’s made with yeasted biscuit dough instead of brioche, so it’s more—”
“American,” I say, finishing his sentence as I savor the sweet, caramelized aftertaste of the pearled sugar between the flaky layers of buttery biscuit dough.
“Exactly,” he says. “I want to serve these as the complimentary bread course, but I was hoping to get your opinion first.”
“My opinion? On what?”
He chuckles. “Do you think they’re good enough for a bread course? Or do you think they’re too sweet? Or should I chuck them in the nearest bin?”
I look up at him in confusion. He’s seriously asking for my opinion on what he should serve for an entire meal course?
“But I’m…just a hostess,” I reply, aware I haven’t yet accepted his apology.
His expression is somewhat serious as he shakes his head. “You’re so much more than a hostess, Alice.”
Something about his words, and the way he delivers them, makes the breath catch in my throat.
I swallow the emotions rising inside me. “The bread is perfect,” I say without exaggeration.
His smile returns as he places the box back in the bag and takes the handles from me, not noticing how I flinch slightly at his touch. Or, at least, he pretends not to notice.
“If you come back, we’ll start you out at $25 an hour,” he says, upping the offer from the original $17. “And we can evaluate you for the sous chef position in ninety days instead of six months.”
That light-as-air feeling I had after my chat with Judy is back, and I can’t hide the uncontrollable smile spreading across my face.
“Will I see you again tomorrow?” he asks, and for a moment I get the feeling he’s not just asking if I’m coming back to work.
I shake off this thought and, after a brief silence, I nod. “But only because I want to know how to make that sauce.”
“Some things are better kept secret,” he says, a grin lighting up his gorgeous features as his gaze slides down the length of my body. “See you tomorrow, Alícia.”
He turns around and heads back to his vehicle before I can reply. He must have learned that name from my father. But, why would the two of them be discussing the pronunciation of my given name?
The thought of Ethan plying my dad for information about me makes me uneasy, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t also quite flattering. Ethan is either very interested in working with me or very interested in screwing me. I just wish I could figure out if he wants to screw my career or my body.