Page 65 of By His Side

Levi raised an eyebrow. “Not your personal reputation, maybe, but your professional one is at risk.”

I winced at Levi getting straight to the crux of the matter. Darien only sat up straighter, though, his gaze mutinous and his jaw set. “I’ve been thinking about that and I’ve already booked a meeting with my supervisor for early next week. I’m going to come clean about what’s been going on.”

“You’re going to do what?” The words burst out of me before I could think to censor myself. “Are you crazy?”

“Much as it pains me to agree with him…” Hayden waved a hand my way. “What he said.”

“I’ve thought it through,” Darien said, his voice never wavering. “And it’s the right thing to do. Things will be far worse for me if it comes out, anyway. Which, I don’t see how it can’t. It’s just a matter of time.”

Hayden ran a hand through his hair, leaving bits of it sticking up in tufts. “They’ll suspend you.”

Darien nodded. “Yep.”

“What about your clients?” Levi asked.

Darien sighed. “It’s not ideal, but”—his gaze swept my way with a softness in his eyes—“much as it pains me to say it, there are more important things in life.”

Hayden’s snort was loud, Darien narrowing his eyes at him. “Don’t go all judgmental on me when Levi’s sat right there. You should know more than anyone that sometimes we do what’s necessary when love’s involved.”

“And is it?” Hayden asked, his tone sharp. “Have you really fallen that deep down the rabbit hole?”

“Not a rabbit hole,” Darien said, impatience creeping into his tone for the first time. “And yes, I love Felix. And if I lose my job because of it, so be it.”

“And you?” Hayden’s eyes were assessing as his focus switched back to me. “Do you love my brother?”

I considered the question. When Darien had told me he loved me, I’d been pole-axed by it. Enough that I hadn’t said it back and still hadn’t a few days later. Did I really want other people present the first time I said it?

To not say it when it was true would be unfair, though. Instead of looking at Hayden, I snagged Darien’s gaze, making it clear my words were for him and him alone. “Yes, I love him.”

Darien’s smile was immediate, the warmth in his eyes enough to sustain a man on a freezing cold day. Why had I held back? Because of Julian? Probably. He was, after all, the only man I’d ever said those words to before, and look how that had turned out. Darien was not Julian, though, and I trusted him implicitly.

Hayden let out a breath. “I guess I’m stuck with you, then.” His gaze dropped to the array of plates on the table no one had touched. “I have no idea why you thought buying this stuff would soften me up. Where did you get it from, anyway?” He picked up one of the vol au vents and studied it like someone else might examine an archeological relic they were struggling to identify. He’d chosen the one with smoked trout, horseradish, and asparagus.

“I didn’t buy them,” Darien said. “Felix made them.”

Hayden blinked. “Huh!” he brought the vol au vent closer to his nose and gave it a cautious sniff.

“They don’t have arsenic in,” I said. “I couldn’t get hold of any.” Given my history and the fact that Hayden was still on the fence about my proposed innocence, it probably wasn’t the wisest quip to make, but I’d been well-behaved so far. Surely, I deserved at least one dig.

Hayden bit off half of it and chewed while Levi reached for one of the wild mushroom and parmesan ones. Levi’s face lit up within a few moments of chewing. “Wow! These are good. Not that I have the most sophisticated palate.”

Hayden shot him a fond look, and I saw a hint of the softness toward his fiancé that Darien had told me about. “Sweetheart, you don’t even have a palate.”

Levi didn’t argue, simply smiling like it wasn’t the first, third, or even the fifth time his fiancé had informed him of that fact.

The minutes that followed were excruciating as Hayden insisted on taking a bite out of everything, all without making a single comment. Finally, he sat back in his chair. “You clearly have some talent for cooking.” He said it the way another man might have complimented me on having a big cock.

I shrugged. “I enjoy making things. I used to potter about in the kitchen a lot before I went to prison.”

Hayden cocked his head to one side and studied me. Darien was trying not to smirk. I suspected Levi was too, but I didn’t know him well enough to know for sure. I was obviously missing something. “Hmm…” Hayden finally said. “Maybe if you stay with my brother for longer than two minutes and make him happy, we could discuss a job at the restaurant if that’s something you’d be interested in? Something extremely junior. But there’s always scope to work your way up.”

“Something extremely junior where he’d shout at you a lot,” Levi added.

“Yeah, I mean… I’d definitely be interested.” However I’d seen this meeting going, it certainly hadn’t been with it ending in an offer of a job. Reality quickly sank its claws into me, though. “I have a recognizable face. I’m not sure you’d want that in your restaurant.”

Hayden shrugged. “You’d be in the kitchen, not out front. And if any of my staff have an issue with whom I choose to hire, they know where the door is. Quinn’s Brasserie isn’t a democracy.”

Levi lifted his mug in a mock toast. “Welcome to Hayden’s work policies. I can’t complain, seeing as I benefitted from them when I got out of prison.”

---