One More Taste (One and Only Texas #2)(76)
Knox still held her hand tucked in the crook of his arm, so she pulled it away. Tonight, in front of the equity firm investors and resort executives, they were nothing but boss and employee, despite the wicked, wonderful things he’d done to her body that very morning. Oh God, what a terrible corner she’d painted herself into.
She wiped her clammy palms on her chef’s jacket. “I can’t do this.”
It felt like she was saying that a lot that week. And every time she did, she was struck by the terrible sensation of being on a runaway horse, clinging to it by only her fingertips.
Knox stopped short of the guests and gave her a studying look. “You’re really nervous, aren’t you?”
He had no idea. All she could do was nod.
“I’ll tell you what. Let’s scrap this idea. I can make your grand introduction when you serve dessert. How does that sound?”
“Divine,” she choked out.
He leaned in as though in preparation for a kiss. Emily stopped him with a hand to his chest. “We can’t.”
“They’ll know soon enough,” he countered.
And that, right there, was the whole problem. “I’m going to get back to work. Enjoy the evening. I’ll see you at dessert.”
The dinner service and the dishes she’d crafted for the party were flawless, just as she’d known they’d be. Between her and Nori and the rest of her top-notch staff, there wasn’t a menu she could design that they wouldn’t master. The trouble was, the night was flying by. Every course served brought Emily closer to dessert, and to facing the crowd of all of Knox’s business partners to announce that she’d been tapped by Knox to open a restaurant.
Well, maybe tapped was the wrong word. “Damn double entendres,” she grumbled as she pulled a cart of individually crafted desserts from the refrigerator.
Dessert was a riff on another dish she’d served Knox, and that, in itself, only dog-piled onto her stress. When she’d originally designed tonight’s menu, it had seemed the perfect gesture to show him how taken she was with him—but that was before she’d gotten an extreme case of cold feet. Or self-sabotage, as Carina would tell her.
But it was too late to change course, and so, at eight-thirty on the nose, she and Nori plated thirty chocolate bombes filled with chilled peach soup.
“Go ahead,” she told the servers. “I’ll be right out. I’ll make a grand entrance.”
When she walked into the dining room, the crowd applauded. All except Knox, who was staring at the bomb in front of him as though it were an actual bomb.
When she reached his side, she whispered, “Is something wrong?”
The question seemed to shake him from his trace. He refocused his eyes on her, and in them, she read tenderness and heat. “It’s peach soup,” he said almost reverently.
She nearly stroked his cheek before thinking better of it. “I thought that might be a nice touch. Kind of brings everything full circle, you know?”
“It’s more than a nice touch. It’s perfect.” He stood and took her hand, lacing their fingers together. Then he leaned in close to her ear. “Thank you for giving me a second chance to try the peach soup.”
Grinning, Knox faced the crowd. “Ladies and Gentlemen. I’d like you to meet Emily Ford, the mastermind behind tonight’s fantastic dinner and the chef of a future five-star restaurant here at the resort that we’re installing as part of the resort’s renovations. Didn’t she do a fantastic job tonight?”
Shayla led the room in another round of applause. Emily smiled and nodded her appreciation, but only until she noticed one of the dinner guests leaning back in her chair, her eyes on Knox’s and Emily’s joined hands.
Panic struck, swifter and harder than ever before. They’d basically just told all of Knox’s investors exactly how intimate she and the company CEO were. Her eyes flashed wide as she pulled away from him, but the damage was done. She read it on enough faces in the crowd.
What a pretzel she’d contorted herself into for this job—for this man. He’d dared her to prove her worth and she’d tried. Like a mindless drone. He’d snapped his fingers and she’d performed for him. And now she was falling in love with him on top of it all. He held too much power over her. Her career, her heart. He knew her deepest secret and her greatest weaknesses. He controlled every aspect of her life.
Because she’d let him.
That wasn’t love, not in any way that would last. If she ever hoped for a future with Knox, if she ever wanted them to have a chance at something real, then they’d have to come together as equals. Not boss and employee. The power differential was too great. There was no way for her to consider what to do, much less breathe, with Knox right there by her side clouding her judgment, even as he signed her paychecks. Instead of bending to another’s will, instead of living in fear of discovery by her parents, timid in the face of the unknown, it was time for her to rise, secure in her bones. The only person she should have been trying to prove her worthiness to was herself.
There was only one way out of this spiral into disaster. One of them had to be strong enough to say enough. She’d been the one to say enough when she’d run away from home, and she needed to be that strong again.
She looked at Knox. His eyes glowed with pride for her. Then she looked at the roomful of investors who were watching her, assessing her bankability and waiting for her to speak to them.