A Spicy Teaser for At Your Service, Ms. Montclair

A pounding headache rocks me awake. That, and the blinding sunlight streaming through my window. Usually, I close the curtains before bed. Must’ve forgotten.

I shoot the sun a death-glare as I turn away, massaging my temples and shading my face simultaneously.

In some land miles away from my bed, I hear sizzling.

And there’s a scent of mint in my room—my toothpaste, I think? But also eggs and bacon and peppers and onions. Fuck did I leave a window open last night? I’m too hungover to survive a café taunting my growling stomach like that.

As I turn my head, I see something else. A small glass of wine and a bottle of pain relievers sit on my bedside table.

Can’t be too mad at drunk-me, when she surprises me with things like that.

I shoot back two pills and swallow them down with the wine—hair of the dog I desperately need. I already know that if I don’t fill my belly with protein and flood my system with water soon today is going to be atrociously lost.

Click.

Fwoosh.

I freeze with the glass still in my hand, poised an inch over the end table.

Those were noises from the kitchen.

I listen, frozen, until I hear the hollow scrape of a wooden spoon against metal.

Someone’s in my apartment.

My eyes swivel to the bed beside me—there’s an indent there, on the duvet and the pillow.

I lean over a little more and see shoes—men’s shoes—sitting by the front door in the hallway.

“…Hello?”

Nothing for the longest moment…until a shockingly handsome face pops into view down the hall and everything about last night comes crashing back into my awareness with a vengeance.

“Morning. Breakfast is ready,” the man from last night says before disappearing again, leaving me to process everything I forgot.

He came to my apartment.

He put me to bed.

He slept beside me.

But hunger growls at me again and I don’t have the strength right now to question any man willing to make me a hangover breakfast.

Instead, I rush into my bathroom, gulp down handful after handful of cold water from the tap and gently remove the makeup still on my face from yesterday. I run a brush through my hair too.

By the time I reach the front room, he’s set a whole spread out on the kitchen table by the window. Impossibly soft scrambled eggs with bacon, sauteed peppers and onions. There are glasses of orange juice and fresh croissants, too, which I definitely didn’t have in my fridge, which means he either went out to get them or ordered delivery.

I don’t really know what to say when he looks at me.

Or when he smiles.

He motions me to the table. “Please, sit. Eat.”

He’s right there with me as I sit, dropping into the seat across from me and sliding his hand through his hair to push it out of his eyes as his gaze bandies between me and the eggs, waiting.

I know he’s waiting for my verdict. I can sort of see it in the set of his jaw.

So I pick up my fork and knife and take a bit, sliding it into my mouth as delicately as I can—scrambled eggs aren’t exactly the sexiest food to watch someone eat, and he’s definitely watching. Like a hawk, his eyes are glued to the fork as it rises to my mouth, then to my face as I chew, waiting.

“Delicious,” I say, because it’s true. “Is that Gruyère?”

“Oui,” he says, his eyes brightening. “Is the texture right?”

His genuine curiosity brings a smile to my face. “Yes. Perfect. Is that what you learned at the Cordon Bleu?”

“Among other things,” he says, picking up his own fork and digging in. “I cannot believe I waited so long to learn how to cook.”

“Me neither,” I tease. “Every adult should know how to cook.”

“It’s more than that,” he says. “I gave very little consideration to food before—maybe because it is so often made for me, but making it myself is…is…”

“Like magic?” I supply.

“Yes!” he breathes. “You already know, but it is literal magic—mixing wholly different things to make something brand new and delicious? I was a fool for not realizing.”

“Well, that’s what self-improvement is supposed to be about, right?” I half-joke.

“I don’t know about that,” he laughs. “People use the phrase ‘self-improvement’ so much now, it has lost its meaning. And I am a creature of balance—any improvements I make I tend to balance out with vices, on principle.”

“On principle.”

“Of course. Balance is important.”

I raise my eyebrows at that and look away out the window, watching bicyclists and walkers as they take in the early morning light.

“I hope it’s all right, I bought croissants from the corner bakery rather than walking all the way to your patisserie,” he says after a moment.

“I shop there all the time, their stuff’s amazing,” I say. “This entire spread is… Thank you. You didn’t have to cook, but I’m grateful you did.”

“Would you like one?” he asks and I pull my focus back to him to find him with the plate of pastries already extended toward me.

“No, thank you.”

“Are you sure? They’re really good.”

“No, the eggs are enough.”

His brow furrows for half a second before he sets the plate down. “Ivy, is everything all right with you?”

His shift in tone almost makes me laugh; I’ve heard it before, from people who claimed they were “worried about me” but really just wanted to judge me.

“Yes,” I lie. “Is everything all right with you?”

“No,” he responds, surprising me. “Last night, I went out drinking alone to scare away bad thoughts, only to discover someone else was doing the same. Your message last night…”

Ah.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” I say. “It really wasn’t meant for you. I didn’t mean to call you. I thought I called my friend, Cara.”

“The one who lives in America?”

I nod.

“What could she have done?”

My mouth opens and closes. “She would’ve just comforted me. That’s all I needed.”

“You said you were sad,” he pushes. “You said you were tired of being everyone’s last choice. Is that why you are trying to lose weight?”

“Whoa!” I don’t know why I say it in a chiding tone; I guess his bluntness hits after so long in this culture without it.

“What?” he asks.

“That’s not…you don’t need to pretend you care about that.”

“But you are trying to lose weight,” he says, not framing it as a question. “Because someone has insulted you?”

“What?”

“Is it because you feel you must? If it’s not to please other people, then why? Did your doctor tell you you should?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“It’s…I…” I fluster for a second before an answer pops to mind. “It’s that Fou de Pâtisserie photo shoot. I just want to look good for it.”

“And when is that happening?”

“Three weeks.”

“Ah.” His lip disappears between his teeth as he narrows his eyes at me. “Well, if you want to burn calories, let me help you do it the right way.”

“Oh God,” I snap, rolling my eyes. “If one more person mentions dieting or joining a gym—”

“No gyms. Fuck gyms,” he says, his disdain so obvious it knocks the defensiveness out of me. “Why would you need one of those when you have a perfectly good bed we can use?”

Annnd, the fluster blows back in.

“Excuse me?” I ask.

“What?” he asks, blinking at me as if he doesn’t understand what he just said to me—how insane it sounded.

“Is that how you ask women for sex?” I ask.

He shrugs. “It’s a beautiful Saturday morning. We both own our own businesses; we choose when we work. No one will mind if we take a couple hours to…exercise.”

I can’t help but laugh, but it sort of blows out of me in disbelief.

This time, he meets my laughter with a sly smile—like that of a fox slipping into a hen house.

“What?” he teases. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

I sort of gawk at him.

“Aren’t we?”

“I don’t fuck my friends,” I say.

“Maybe you should try it,” he replies. “Instead of fucking your enemies.”

He doesn’t even say Hugo’s name, and I know he means him.

“Fuck you!” bursts out of me, high and staccato.

But I say the words with a smile on my face, and I have no idea why.

His lips twist with glee, and he rises slightly from his seat before pulling it closer to me and dropping into it again. “Yes, that is what I am offering.”

My stomach twists a little. “You’re serious?”

“About very few things, so you know I mean it,” he teases.

I don’t know why I do it. But it scares me, his bluntness. It scares me into lying, “I’m on my period.”

And I don’t know how to handle it when the corners of his lips turn down in a shrug and he says, “Well, that is not a problem for me. If it is uncomfortable for you, I understand. And if it is the blood you are worried about, we could always make love in the shower. Slow under the warm water is one of my favorite ways to please a woman.”

My mouth flops open, and snaps shut again.

I don’t…I don’t know what to say, but my mouth repeats itself, “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“You already asked me that.”

“Yes, but you don’t mean it.”

He recoils playfully as if I hit him with a beanbag. “I do.”

“No.”

“Why wouldn’t I mean it?”

In response, my mind explodes, like someone let off a glitter bomb of competing thoughts in there. There are too many to tease apart.

Too many to stop myself from telling him the truth, “Look. I know men will take sex wherever they can get it, but honestly the thought of fucking someone who doesn’t actually care about me seems really gross to me right now.”

He surprises me again.

“If you’re in need of comfort, I have plenty to give.”

“I don’t want pity sex either.”

His reaction surprises me again as he barks, “Ivy!” like he’s scolding me. But he calms after a moment and rises to his feet, holding out his hand to me.

“Come with me.”

His soft command sort of rattles me. It’s deep and simple and unflinching. His hand remains extended between us as if it’s immoveable—and I have a feeling if I tried to move past it, he’d let me but only long enough to put the offer in my path again.

I stare at his hand.

I stare because I know what it means—that his offer is serious.

But…I want to take it.

It’s the strangest thing.

Despite who he is—despite…everything he is—I feel something like trust when I’m around him.

Which is NUTS!

He’s probably the last person I should trust.

“…Can we keep our clothes on?”

“Now, Ivy.”

~~~

Two billionaires. One pastry chef. A recipe for revenge and disaster.

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