Once again my breath caught in my throat as I watched him. With the sleeves of his expensive button-down rolled to mid-forearm, I was able to stare, transfixed, at the cords and muscles flexing and straining beneath his golden-tanned skin as he wiped down his prep station.
The last place I’d ever expected to see Pierce was at a cooking class. It was a complete contradiction to the callous man I knew him to be.
His hair flopped down over his forehead as he leaned over, adding a boyish element to the man’s hard, chiseled face that managed to somehow soften his granite-like features just a bit. I hadn’t thought it possible for the man to ever look soft. He always seemed to be in a bad mood. In the three years I’d dated his douchebag of a brother, I’d only been around Pierce a handful of times and, with the exception of that very first encounter in his mom’s kitchen, I’d never seen the man smile.
On top of hard, brooding features, he had the most incredible icy blue eyes I’d ever seen. They had the ability to freeze a person to their core with just one look. I knew that for a fact, considering after each run-in with the glacial man I felt like I had frostbite.
Still, as much as it irked me, I couldn’t help being fascinated by him.
“Uh . . . everything okay here?” I jerked up, whipping back around so fast my hair slapped me in my face when I turned to the woman standing a few feet away. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper as she looked off in the direction I’d just been staring. “Do you need me to call the police or something?”
“What? No! Oh God. No. Sorry. I just—” I stopped myself mid-ramble and held my hands out, palms up. “No, sorry. Everything’s fine. I just spotted someone I know, and I didn’t want him to see me, so I’m hiding.”
Oh great, Marin. Because that admission totally doesn’t make you sound like a wackadoodle.
Her brows climbed higher on her forehead. “Why didn’t you just leave then?”
I gave a small, self-deprecating laugh. “Well, because I didn’t want him to see me. But I still wanted to see him, you know?” Realizing how that sounded, I quickly added, “But not in a weird way! In a totally normal, non-creepy kind of way.”
I’ll take Things Stalkers Say for a thousand, Alex.
If anything, the woman looked even more convinced that she needed to call the police.
I pulled in a slow, steady breath in an attempt to calm my nerves that had been firing like crazy since I saw Pierce, and explained, “He’s my ex-boyfriend’s older brother.”
Understanding lit her eyes, and the panicked look of I’m standing here talking to a psycho drifted away. “Ah. I see.” She joined me at the wall and peeked around with me to get a better look. “Wow,” she breathed. “He’s very good looking.”
“Yeah,” I said with a defeated sigh. “The stupid jerk.” She looked back to me, a quizzical brow arched in suspicion. “Sorry. It’s a long story. I should probably get out of here before he notices me. Is he looking this way?”
The woman glanced back. “No—wait.” She watched for another second before whispering, “Okay, go!”
“Thanks,” I whispered back, pushing off the wall and scuttling down the hallway.
“Have a good evening. See you next class,” she continued to whisper-yell.
“Yeah, you too,” I returned, waving over my shoulder.
Half an hour ago I’d been so sure I was done with Cooking Solo and that snooty Chef Jodi. But then I saw him. And even though I couldn’t stand the guy, I knew that if it meant I’d get another chance to gawk when he wasn’t looking, I’d be returning for the next class.
Because I was nothing if not a glutton for punishment.
2
Marin
Every light in the house was on, making it glow like a spotlight on the quiet, sleepy street. I could hear pandemonium from inside as I climbed the porch steps and knocked on the front door.
I waited patiently as a blood-curdling scream erupted from inside. A second later my older sister pulled the front door open, looking harried and exhausted. Glancing back over her shoulder, she shouted, “Erika Marin Allen, if you don’t knock off that screaming right now, I’m gonna shave your head in your sleep!”
“It’s not my fault!” my eleven-year-old niece shouted back from somewhere upstairs. “Matt let his stupid rat out of its cage again!”
“Tubby’s not a stupid rat!” my nephew decreed loudly, as full of indignation as a nine-year-old could possibly get. “He’s a guinea pig, and he needs his exercise!”
“He wouldn’t need exercise if you didn’t overfeed him and make him fat!”
“He’s not fat!”
“Enough!” my sister boomed in her loud, shrill mom voice that had both her kids going silent. “Matt, put Tubby in the plastic ball if you want to give him exercise. Erika, chill out. You’re losing your mind over nothing. And both of you. Stop. Screaming!” she screamed.
“Did I come at a bad time?” I asked as I stepped across the threshold.
Tali rubbed at the space between her eyebrows as she pushed the door shut and started for the kitchen, leaving me to follow after her. “Nah, just another night in the Allen household,” she muttered as she rounded the island toward the sink stacked high with dirty dishes.
Instead of pulling up a stool, I came up beside her and started loading the dishes she’d rinsed off into the dishwasher, trying to lighten the load she was quite clearly carrying on her shoulders. She turned to give me an appreciative grin, and I noticed she looked even more tired than usual. Purple half-moons bled out from beneath her eyes, and her normally dewy complexion looked ashen.
“Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah. Just beat. I’ve been fighting off a migraine for a few days now, and the damn thing isn’t giving up without a fight.”
“Where’s Nick? Why isn’t he in here doing this if you don’t feel well?”
My sister let out a snort chock-full of derision as she scrubbed even harder at the plate in her hand. “Where do you think he is?” she asked bitterly. “He’s still at work. Another late night,” she said in a low, mocking voice that I could only assume was supposed to sound like her husband. “It’s the third late night this week.”
I took the plate from her before she snapped it in half, and loaded it in with the rest of the dishes before closing the front of the dishwasher and starting it.
“I thought you said his hours were supposed to go back to normal once he got that promotion.”
“I thought so too,” she grumbled, drying her hands on a hand towel before grabbing a glass of wine that had been sitting on the counter a few feet away. She quickly downed the contents and reached for the uncorked bottle. She held it up and gave it a little wave. “Want one?”
“Sure,” I answered, moving around the island and hopping up on one of the stools while she grabbed a second glass from the cabinet and proceeded to fill both of them three quarters full.
She took the stool beside mine, sliding my glass in front of me while taking a healthy gulp from her own. “Things were supposed to get better after he got that stupid job, but if anything, they’ve only gotten worse,” she lamented. “He’s at the office more than he’s home. He’s even going in on weekends now. He missed one of Matt’s baseball games and Erika’s choir recital.”