Page 22 of The Flirt

Scarlett laughed. "I wouldn't even dream of it."

She bent down, and I exhaled sharply. Her ass was utter and complete perfection. I had to look away or my imagination would run wild. After she straightened up, her face was entirely red. There was no stopping the inappropriate thoughts running through my mind.

"Chad, this was truly the best way to start the week. Thank you."

I wanted to surprise her every fucking day. She deserved it.

"Damn, I should’ve sent Mom a picture of the cake when it was intact. She loves it too," Scarlett said.

"I can order one and send it to her."

The look on her face was priceless. "It would make Mom's day. She's just as fascinated with New Orleans as I am. Well, the other way around. I got the bug from her."

"Consider it done," I said.

She looked at me like I'd promised her the moon. “How much—”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I wanted to ask.”

“I can guess. It’s a gift.”

“Why?”

There were a million reasons, but all of them were inappropriate. Except one. “Because I want to do this for you.”

She looked like she wanted to fight me on it, so I said, “Email me her address, and I’ll get Beckett on it this morning. I’m not backing down.”

I wanted to come up with an excuse—anything—to keep her here longer. I wanted to know about her family, about what else she’d planned to do in New Orleans. It didn’t even matter what we talked about. I simply wanted her here. And that was dangerous. So instead of following that impulse, I stepped to one side, pointing at the door.

“After you. I’ll see you on Thursday.”

I’d successfully fought my instincts today. But would I be able to on Thursday?

Chapter Six

Scarlett

I blushed for no reason as I went down to the kitchen, clutching my king cake to my chest. I felt as if I was lost in a daydream, and I didn’t want to wake up. Chad was the dreamiest man I’d ever met. Not to mention the hottest. Sitting next to him sent all my senses into overdrive.

He’s your boss, Scarlett. Remember what happened the last time you mixed work and personal life?

D.I.S.A.S.T.E.R.

After storing the rest of the cake in my locker, I joined the team and immediately brought up the shrimp issue. Turned out they weren't exaggerating about the difficulty of obtaining shrimp. It never even crossed my mind that it might be a problem. Joel informed me that there were a lot of suppliers, but not all of them had consistent quality or the quantity we needed. I could probably reduce the menu to just one course with shrimp, but I wanted to exhaust all possibilities before deciding on that. Over the weekend, I discovered that an Italian fisherman named Genaro was hands down the best distributor in the city. Even though it wasn’t my job to find suppliers, I wanted to do this.

"You won't be able to convince him to sell to us. We already tried a few times," Joel said.

"It doesn't hurt to try again."

He smiled. "You're determined, aren't you, chef?"

"Yes, I am."

Finding Genaro's whereabouts was easy. Setting up a meeting with him was another story altogether. The man simply didn't pick up his phone. But that was okay. I had a plan for that as well.

On Tuesday morning, I went to the spot where Genaro's boat was docked. Unfortunately, the man himself was already out at sea. Tomorrow, I'd have to come even earlier.

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