Page 52 of Operation Sunshine
The cursor blinked at him, steady, patient, waiting for an answer he didn’t have.
Ben stared at it, his list of rules and denials staring back at him. The neat structure of his thoughts had collapsed into a mess of longing and shame and—worse—want. He closed the laptop with a snap, as though he could shut Franco out of his head as easily.
But the heat of last night clung stubbornly to him. Franco’s weight pressing him down. Franco’s voice urging him to let go. Franco’s groan of pleasure when Ben did just that.
I lost control.
That realisation left him exactly where he hated to be: torn, off-balance, and dangerously tempted. Because for once in his life, Ben didn’t want control.
He wanted Franco.
Chapter Fifteen
The lunch rush had been manageable, which meant Raj was relaxed enough to hum under his breath while he chopped coriander. Ben leaned against the stainless-steel prep counter, pretending to check a delivery docket but mostly watching Raj work. The man moved like a conductor, every knife stroke precise, every pot stir perfectly timed. The kitchen was basically his orchestra pit.
Ben had been there nearly eight weeks now, and Raj was still something of an enigma. Stern, sometimes abrupt, but the staff clearly adored him. Even Franco—whose default mode with authority figures seemed to be playful provocation—lowered his volume by at least one notch when Raj was around.
“So,” Raj said without looking up, “how’s the inventory spreadsheet coming along?”
Ben blinked. “Fine. Just fine.”
“Mm-hm. That’s something you say when you haven’t touched it since yesterday.”
Ben narrowed his eyes. “Do you have cameras in my flat?”
Raj smirked but didn’t answer, sliding chopped coriander into a small ramekin.
A comfortable silence stretched between them, and then Ben noticed something. Under Raj’s cutting board was a scrap of lined notebook paper, the corner peeking out as if it was trying to escape.
“You’re hiding something,” Ben said, nodding toward it.
Raj’s shoulders went stiff. “It’s nothing.”
“‘Nothing’ is exactly what people say before it turns out to be something.”
Raj sighed, clearly debating whether to ignore him. Then, with the air of a man accepting inevitable defeat, he slid the paper free and held it out to Ben.
It was a drawing—a very, very bad drawing, a child’s attempt at a three-layer cake, complete with crooked candles. In spidery block letters beneath it was writtenHappy Birthday Uncle Raj!
“Arun’s great niece,” Raj said quickly. “She’s six. She insists I learn how to make a proper cake before her next birthday. Apparently, my last attempt was ‘structurally unsound.’”
Ben bit back a laugh. “She said that?”
Raj snorted. “Said it? She gave me notes. She’s a precocious tyrant.” There was unmistakable fondness in his voice, however. “And she also has no idea what she’s asking for. I can do a banquet for fifty people without breaking a sweat, but baking? I may as well be trying to land a plane.”
Ben chuckled. Okay, this was new. The man who commanded the kitchen like a general, brought to his knees by sponge cake. “So what’s the plan? Trial runs?”
Raj hesitated. “Arun says I should ask Franco to help. But that would mean admitting defeat, and…” He gestured vaguely with his chef’s knife.
Ben grinned. “We could do it here after hours. No one has to know.”
Raj raised his eyebrows. “You’d help?”
“Sure,” Ben said with a shrug. “But I give you fair warning—I’m more of an eater than a baker.”
Raj’s laugh was short but genuine, and for a moment, Ben caughta glimpse of the man beneath the head chef armour: family-oriented, warm, proud, maybe a little too hard on himself, but fiercely loyal to the people he loved.
The oven timer dinged somewhere behind them. Raj turned back to his station, the moment neatly filed away, but Ben carried it with him for the rest of the day.
