Page 67 of The Reaper
The air was already warm from the ovens, bright with the smell of reduced stock and the citrus-and-herb brine Finn had set simmering for the chicken.
It was the kind of prep day that could make or break a dinner service, and I should’ve been thinking only about the food. Instead, I kept picturing Caleb’s hands on my hips in my office earlier, the slow drag of his mouth over mine, the quiet way he’d saidwe.
We’d already been stretched thin from lunch—an experiment I’d agreed to try, even though Promenade was built on the intimacy of dinner. The dining room had been packed, every table turning twice, and the kitchen had barely come up for air before we were staring down the next service. It proved we coulddo it, sure, but the chaos still hummed in my veins, and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever put us through it again.
Finn glanced up from the cutting board where he was quartering artichokes, catching me zoning out. “Don’t tell me you’re nervous about Dean and Trish coming for dinner.”
“I’m not nervous,” I said automatically, sliding a pan onto the burner. “I’m … focused.”
“You’re lying.” He pointed a knife at me like an accusation. “Your eye’s been twitching since you walked in.”
“That’s because you keep talking to me while I’m calculating cooking times in my head.”
“Uh-huh. And that has nothing to do with Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Devastating meeting the family tonight?”
I ignored him, but my stomach did this ridiculous little twist at the reminder.
The truth? I’d dated. I’d had lovers. More than a few, although it had been a while. But letting a man meet family—my family—wasn’t something I did. Not because I was hiding them, but because letting someone into that circle felt like letting them into the parts of me I kept armored. The parts still shaped by the smell of my mother’s marinara, the sound of my father humming over a prep list at Meggie’s, the ache of losing both far too soon.
Family meant roots. And roots meant risk.
But Caleb had slipped past every guard I thought I’d nailed down. He hadn’t kicked in the door. He hadn’t stormed the gates. He’d just … found the weak points, the cracks I’d stopped noticing, and pressed until I couldn’t pretend they weren’t there.
I tossed a handful of chopped shallots into a pan, the sizzle loud in the quiet between us. “You do realize,” I said to Finn, “that I’ve known Caleb for less than a week.”
“Uh-huh. And in that time, how many hours have you spent together?”
“That’s not?—”
“How many,” he pressed, smirking.
I shot him a look. “Enough.”
“Enough that you’d trust him to watch your place at night? Enough that you’d let him kiss you in your office in broad daylight?”
The heat in my cheeks was not from the burners. “You don’t miss much, do you?”
“I miss plenty,” he said, returning to his artichokes. “But not that.”
God, help me, I could still feel Caleb’s kiss, like an imprint on my mouth. Slow but deliberate. And under that—a tension that was all teeth and restraint, the sense that he could have pushed me against that desk and taken me apart right there if he’d wanted to.
I would’ve let him.
That was the dangerous part. I liked control. I liked deciding when, where, and for how long. But with him, every line I’d drawn felt like something to cross.
I checked the oven temp, more to have something to do than because it needed checking. “It’s not like I planned this.”
“Meeting the family?”
“Meeting him,” I said. “I just wanted—” I broke off, unsure how to phrase it without giving Finn enough ammo to tease me for the rest of my life.
He arched a brow. “Sex?”
I sighed. “Distraction. Stress relief. Something uncomplicated.”
Finn laughed, low and knowing. “And now you’re making braised rabbit while wondering if your uncle’s going to approve of your not-boyfriend.”
“He’s not?—”
