One More Taste (One and Only Texas #2)(45)
“You wanted to know why you scared me,” he said in a tight growl of a tone. “Do you have your answer now?”
She opened her mouth, meaning to tell him, Yes. I get it. And you’re right. We’re both terrified of each other for good reason. But no sound came out. Maybe that was for the best. She closed her mouth again, made sure her pride and dignity were on full display, and walked from the room.
Chapter Ten
Dinner the next several nights was one gastronomic wonder after another, served in Knox’s dining room on fine china. By Haylie, who was apparently acting as Emily’s assistant. The better for Emily to avoid him by lurking in his kitchen, as she’d been doing all week. It was hard to hold it against Emily, though, because he’d tied himself into knots trying to avoid her, too. He simply couldn’t figure out what he felt, much less what to say to her.
On this night, after the first course of asparagus soup with a poached duck egg, he glanced over the cardstock menu next to his place setting that described in great detail the four courses he’d be served. Up next would be sous vide salmon.
Every element of the meal was a technical culinary marvel. Perfectly prepared, perfectly seasoned. Totally void of Emily’s passion and personality. Just as the tropical smoothie she’d presented him with—via Haylie—for breakfast had been, as the deconstructed salad nicoise had been for lunch, all the meals had been that week. Before this week, he never would’ve guessed it possible to use food as a tool of distance, but he felt Emily’s retreat from him in every empty bite he took.
When Haylie delivered the salmon—a work of art with a yin and yang of vibrant green basil oil and vivid red pepper sauce, and radishes so finely minced, they sprinkled like confetti over a perfect fillet of deep orange fish—she did a little curtsey.
Knox gave the fish the side-eye and poked at it with his fork. Maybe this was part of Emily’s strategy—prove her culinary skill by getting him addicted to her meals, then yank them away. If she’d been hoping he’d go into withdrawals, then she would have been right.
Something in him snapped. He couldn’t stomach one more technically perfect, heartless meal. It was time to face up to Emily and the damage he’d done by taking advantage of her at his mom’s house.
He caught Haylie’s attention just as she reached the door to the kitchen. “Haylie, would you send the chef out, please?”
Haylie paled. “I don’t think that’s in your best interest. She’s, like, way stressed tonight.”
I’ll bet. “Please. I can handle her.” The lie of the century. He’d already demonstrated he could no more handle being alone with Emily than a puppy could be trusted alone with an ice cream sundae.
Haylie returned with Emily, and the pair stood at the far side of the long table, with Haylie’s carriage that of a bodyguard, though it was unclear whether she was there to protect Knox or Emily.
“Haylie, leave us,” Knox said.
She looked to Emily for approval.
Emily nodded, and Haylie scurried back to the kitchen.
“Will you sit?” he said.
“No.”
There was no way he was going to call to her from across the long table. He pushed out of his chair and walked her way. With each step nearer, her body grew more rigid. The pink stain on her skin spread and deepened.
“Stop right there,” she said, holding her palm out. “Me first. The other day—” The swinging door to the kitchen creaked. Both their eyes swung in its direction. The shadows of two feet were visible in the space beneath it. Emily stepped closer to Knox and lowered her voice. “The other day, at your mother’s house, that shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have been there, and we shouldn’t have slept together.”
The word she’d left out was barely. They’d barely slept together, in the loosest definition of the term. They hadn’t kissed or spoken or removed their clothes. In fact, the more time went by, the hazier the experience got in his mind, and the more he wondered if it had only been a dream. “If that’s what you want to call what we did, then fine.”
She wrung the kitchen town folded over the belt of her chef jacket. “What else would we call it? A hook-up? A quickie? Fucking? You tell me, Knox.”
“How about momentary insanity?”
He read the debate on her features, the head of steam too stubborn to dissipate. She finally answered him with a curt nod. “Sounds about right.”
On a huff, he raked a hand through his hair. “Look, I called you out here to tell you that I’m sorry. As your boss, I should have never put you in this position. This is all on me, and I can assure you that it won’t happen again.”
“Damn right, it won’t. When you give me the restaurant, it will be because I earned it with my skill in the kitchen and nothing more. I refuse to sleep my way to the top. Even if it was…”
Her voice trailed off, but he could’ve easily finished her sentence.
Even if it was the most profound release he may have ever had.
Even if, when their bodies had connected, the electric force of it was nothing he’d ever experienced before.
Even if he still wanted her so badly that it wasn’t healthy or wise or reasonable.
His mind filled with all the things he would never have the chance to say to her, do to her, with her—thoughts that were too dangerous even to think. That same atavistic coil of lust flared to life inside him again. Disgusted by his visceral reaction, he took a step back, then turned and walked to the wall of windows overlooking the lake, his hands in his pockets to obscure his ill-timed arousal.