Page 87 of Challenged By You
As soon as I’m within touching distance, I open my mouth and the first thing that comes out is “You’re awfully chatty about things in print. Think maybe you could, I don’t know, tell me what you’re thinking face-to-face?”
A wicked smile crosses Jonas’s face before he slides an arm around my waist. “Are we having mac’n’crap for dinner tonight?”
Feigning innocence, I tell him, “Probably.” But I slide my fingers up the smooth dark shirt he’s wearing as I say it.
“Then the fact I’d willing eat that over and over should have given you a clue how I felt about you long before now, Trina.” Lowering his head, Jonas takes my lips in a kiss so thorough, I’m surprised we don’t set the antique bar on fire. When he lifts his head, his lips are swollen.
Mine sting a little as they curve. “The kids missed you,” I admit.
“I missed them too. Nowhere near as much as I missed you though. Sweetheart.” His arms tighten. “Do you understand why…”
I lift a hand to lay my fingers over his mouth. “Last night was terrifying,” I admit. “I thought I lost it all.”
His face twists in pain. “I’m sorry, but I had to be impartial. I didn’t expect you to get injured so badly along the way.” His hand lifts to cup my healing jaw.
“I know. Now. But my jaw was nothing in comparison to how everything hurt when I was peeked out the door, saw you take one bite, and then leave.”
He groans. “I did the same thing to the pizza place in the Bronx.”
“Well, they should be grateful they didn’t know they were being reviewed. It was like a knife to the heart.”
“I’m so sorry, Trina. So damn sorry.”
“So am I. I should have answered.”
“We’re new. We have all the time in the world to get it right.”
I open my mouth to reply, but this time Jonas stops me by placing his lips on mine. Leaving them there, he whispers, “You continually best any challenge. It’s one of the things that has me falling in love with you.”
“I think I started to fall the night we sang in my kitchen,” I admit breathlessly.
“Then, challenge accepted?” he asks, referring to his soul-baring article but using the words I threw at him a month ago.
“Unequivocally.”
Jonas pulls back and grins. “Good. Now, I have to ask…”
“Okay?”
“Do you think Mia will let me have the rest of the cake? It was fucking delicious.”
And proving I’m meant to be where I’m supposed to be not only personally but professionally, Chef Palazzo yells from the door, “Only if you buy it, Rice. I’m running a business here. Don’t be thinking you can hit your girlfriend up for freebies,” before I hear the swoosh that indicates she’s gone back to the kitchen.
Family. They cause all kinds of challenges—the kind you’re born with and the kind you’re given. But they’re all still family. I can’t wait to explore this new that’s building with the cohesive team under Chef Sterling at Seduction.
My head falls forward and lands right over Jonas’s heart after he says, “She can charge me for the whole thing if we’re having mac’n’crap for dinner.”
In other words, as we both laugh, my heart knows this is the perfect place for it to be.
Epilogue
Three Years Later
Trina
“What’s on the menu for tonight?” I ask Elle.
“Are you poking your nose in where it doesn’t belong, Chef?” Her eyebrow raises above dancing violet eyes. “You do realize this is your rehearsal dinner, Trina, not work. I’m not required to tell you a blasted thing about it since you—”
