Savor You (Fusion #5)(18)

“I don’t think so. I could use a walk.”

I nod and wave as I pull away. I watch him in my rear-view mirror, and he stands on the sidewalk, watching me, his hands in his pockets. His hair is disheveled, and I can read his face perfectly.

He wants me.

And for the first time in a long time, I have that fire in my belly that comes with being so damn attracted to a man I can hardly stand it. Camden Sawyer is a sexy, kind, chivalrous man, and I just agreed to take a good portion of the day off tomorrow to be with him.

The girls won’t even know who I am when I tell them.



“How was your morning?” Camden asks after we’ve ordered dinner. He took me to The Cheesecake Factory, which made me laugh like crazy. Who would believe that two highly skilled chefs would choose The Cheesecake Factory for dinner? We used to love this place back in the day. I still do. The menu is huge, and it’s always delicious. Not to mention, you always know what you’re gonna get. There aren’t any surprises, and as a person who is constantly experimenting and tweaking recipes, it’s nice to go back to something you know.

“I slept longer than I expected,” I admit and laugh when he cocks a brow. “You can say I told you so.”

“No need.”

“But I did have time to quickly weed the garden and pick a few things.”

“Have you had the garden for a long time?”

“No, actually. I bought the house just before we opened Seduction, so maybe three years ago. I had the kitchen gutted and redone before I even moved in. While that was being finished, I went to the house one day to measure for furniture and stuff, and wandered into the backyard. There was the perfect spot for a small vegetable garden, but with the renovations and getting ready to open the business, there just wasn’t time for it.

“This past spring, I decided that Sundays after brunch with the girls would be set aside for the garden.”

“You take Sundays off?”

“Mostly.” I bite my lip and shrug a shoulder. “Lately, I’ve been working more. The girls yell at me.”

He tips his head to the side and takes a sip of his water. “Yell at you?”

“To take days off,” I reply. I check my phone for the third time since we sat down. “I wonder if they remembered that the walk-in freezer door doesn’t shut right?”

“Mia?”

“Yeah.”

“Put your phone away.”

I look up at him and frown. “I have to have it handy in case they need me. What can I say? I’m a workaholic.”

“I have a question.” He pauses while our meal is delivered, and I immediately dig into my orange chicken. It’s so good. I should put something like this on our menu. “Do you get off on working?”

I pause, my fork halfway to my mouth. “Excuse me?”

“Does working give you a rush? On your days off, are you itching to go into the restaurant because being away from it is physically painful?”

“That doesn’t sound normal.”

“You’re right, but it’s what a workaholic is. I don’t believe you’re a workaholic.”

“You’ve been around for three days,” I remind him with a frown.

“True, and I could be wrong, but from what I’ve seen so far, you’re not a workaholic, you have trust issues.”

I frown again, but he puts his hand up. “Let me finish. You said yourself that you don’t trust your staff to prepare your dishes the way you’ve taught them to. You just said that you don’t even trust them to shut the freezer door properly.

“You’re a control freak, and you want to make sure that everything in your kitchen is just so. Which I totally understand. It’s your kitchen, and it should be exactly the way you want it. But you should also be hiring people who are competent and have the same work ethic that you do. They should be dependable.”

“I haven’t found them,” I reply, shaking my head. “In the beginning, I tried to do that, and when I’d take a day off, someone would not show up for a shift, or not show up at all. I caught a sous chef who almost send a salad out to a customer who specifically said she was allergic to nuts with almonds all over it.”

“Yikes,” he says with a cringe.

“Yeah. It’s my place, and besides the other girls, no one is going to care about it the same way I do. But damn it, Camden, I’ve build a reputation for this restaurant, and I’m not willing to let these people who could give two shits about it fuck that up for us.”

“You love it.”

“More than anything else,” I agree immediately. “It’s my passion. It’s everything I ever wanted. So if making sure it’s a success means that I don’t get many days off, so be it. It’s worth it to me.”

“You’re fucking gorgeous when you talk about it,” he says, throwing me completely off. “And when you’re working in the kitchen?” He shakes his head and takes a bite of his bread. “It was all I could do not to boost you up on the counter and fuck you brainless.”

The couple sitting next to us both look over at us in shock.

“Having a private conversation here, but that’s okay. Do that to her later.” Camden suggests to the man, winks at them and I want to crawl under the table and die. “What?”