Page 24 of In Good Company

Her lips twitch with the bloom of a smile. “It seems you always want company. I’m just throwing it out there that you don’t have to settle formycompany tonight.”

I cock my head to the side. “Who said anything about settling?”

The lights of the kitchen are dim, but not dim enough to hide the blush that spreads across her cheeks. I probably find too much pleasure in making her blush, but I don’t care. It’s just so easy to make her skin turn the perfect shade of pink. Of course, I can’t help myself.

She watches me closely for a moment before looking down. “Okay, well…” Her eyes scan the food she has laid out across the countertop. “I’m just going to finish plating the food, and then we’ll eat.”

I smile even though she doesn’t even look at me to see it. “Perfect.”

“You can go take a seat, and I’ll bring the food over when it’s ready.”

I lean in a little closer to her. “Do you not like me standing here?”

Her eyes find mine. She gives me an apologetic smile. “You’re my boss, so I probably shouldn’t say this because you can do whatever you want, but…it does make me a little nervous to have you…hovering.”

I hold my hands up in surrender. “Not trying to hover. I’ll do as I’m told, for once.” I mutter the last part under my breath.

This makes her laugh as I back away from the counter. I take a seat at the small table and pull out my phone. There’s a comfortable silence between us as she finishes plating the food and I go through the emails I’ve received since leaving my office.

It isn’t long before she’s setting a plate in front of me.

“As always, this looks incredible,” I tell her. As she said when she was recording, she’s made a lobster tail, homemade pasta, and asparagus. Everything smells so good I don’t even know what I want to take a bite of first.

She sets her own plate down and slides into the chair across from me. “Hopefully it’s good. Just a simple lemon butter sauce with the noodles and grilled lobster tail and a vegetable. Nothing too hard.”

I twirl a noodle around my fork and take a bite. My eyes fall shut with the flavor overload. I’m not the best cook and I can still tell this sauce is bursting with ingredients that aren’t just butter or lemon.

I hold my hand over my mouth as I finish chewing. “These might be the best noodles I’ve ever had.”

She rolls her eyes. “You seem like the type to have had fresh noodles in Italy. Don’t lie to me in an attempt to flatter me.”

I finish the bite of lobster tail I’d taken as a chuckle rolls through me. She’s so sweet sometimes and sassy at others. “As I’msureOliver mentioned, my mother’s family is Italian. We visit Italy often. It’s one of my favorite places to travel. But that doesn’t take away from this pasta…it’s like I’m there again, eating on a terrace with the Italian breeze blowing around me. My nonna would be very impressed if she were still here.” I smile, thinking of all the memories with Nonna. I wish she was still with us. Something tells me she’d adore Lucy.

Lucy shakes her head with a wide smile. “Don’t lie to me like that. And I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to Italy, but I’d love to someday.”

“You should.”

“It’s a dream of mine, actually, to take cooking lessons there.” There’s so much excitement in her voice I can’t help but smile. “I know there’s so much technique I could learnfirsthand. Maybe even new recipes that have been passed down from family to family that’d be shared with me.” She waves her fork in the air dismissively as she turns her attention down to her plate. “Sorry, I probably got a little too passionate there.”

I shake my head as I set my fork down, wanting to give her my full attention. “Don’t ever apologize for being excited about something, Lucy.”

She rubs her lips together as she bashfully fights a smile. “Sorry. Oliver just hated it when I talked about cooking. He said it wasn’trefined enough.”

I laugh at the way she mockingly imitates my brother. She’s not too bad at it. “Then he’s stupid and jealous because the man has never been passionate about anything in his life.”

“He was about Sophia.” Lucy’s eyes widen the moment the words leave her mouth. She places her fingertips to her lips, as if she’s in shock she even said the words in the first place.

I lift an eyebrow. This dinner is already getting more interesting than I was expecting.

“Sorry,” she mutters, shoving a bite of food into her mouth to buy more time for her to think. “I don’t know why I said that.”

“What he did was shitty,” I point out, keeping my voice as composed as possible. Anger pulses through my veins at the thought of my brother and what he did to Lucy. I’m still getting to know her, but she’s a good person. It’s hard to come by people who are actually genuine to their core anymore. It’s obvious she cares about others, and I still don’t understand how my brother chose Sophia over the woman sitting in front of me.

Lucy finishes chewing and lets out a sigh. “I know. And hopefully that didn’t come out wrong. Sometimes, I just say things before thinking. I’m happy for them.Really. He didn’t deserve me, and the moment we were over, it was obvious I deserved a love that was…” She looks away from me and instead looks around the kitchen for a moment before returning her gaze to mine once again. “Well, I deserve a love that’s actually love.”

I nod, hanging on her every word. I hate hearing her talk about my brother, but something inside me loosens at hearing her say that she didn’t actually love him.

My thumb traces over my bottom lip as I try to think of what to say to her. Finally, I come up with something. “Did you know he’s terrible with money? He keeps trying to get into crypto and has terrible intuition when it comes to investments. One of these days, Dad’s going to stop throwing money at him to bail him out, and he’ll be fucked. Sophia too. You dodged a bullet.”

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