Page 9 of Falling For The Boss

We need to talk.

What’s the deal with all these unfulfilled promises?

You promised me pool parties and endless vacations.

You promised summer love and long nights under the stars.

And what do I get? A stupid summer job that I loathe.

Because there’s definitely no beach vacations or attractive single guys in my future.

There’s only unending toil at this horrible restaurant.

And that’s if I survive the summer.

Signed,

A very disgruntled anti-summer fan

“If I survive tonight, I only have three more months of torture,” I whisper to my friend Jadyn as I crumple my note.

There are worse jobs in life than waitressing in Asheville’s newest fine dining restaurant. Like scraping gum off the floor of a public restroom. Or plucking someone’s nose hairs that aren’t yours. But for now I’m trying to survive one more night of what feels like indentured servitude.

“Eighty-nine days until you’re leaving me,” Jadyn says with a pout.

“I’ll visit during my research internship.”

“That’s what you say now, Gianna,” she says. “But I’ll be stuck here without you. How will I survive?”

“But you get to see the hot chef. That’s something.”

Lucas is hands down the best-looking chef in Asheville and probably the state. Though I hate waitressing, at least I get to see Lucas. The only bright spot in my day.

“What are you writing anyway? Love poems about Lucas?”

I tuck the crumpled note in my pocket. “For a man who doesn’t know I exist? Hardly. It’s an exercise my therapist assigned me.” It’s supposed to help me deal with the disappointment of this season, but so far, I think it’s backfiring. Because my life is nothing but one unending waitress shift all summer long.

I need something wonderful to turn around my summer.

As luck would have it, the job I had lined up for the summer—the one that was supposed to help me afford my dream internship—fell through at the last minute. I’m not exactly ticking items off my bucket list, but waitressing is a paying gig. Which means I’m not living in my car. And by the end of summer, I’ll have earned enough money to fund my real passion: interning at a psychological research center on relationships.

No more serving guests with a smile that’s as fake as our customers’ Botox-injected foreheads. No more having to deal with uptight restaurant tycoon, Henrique Delacroix, who’s like Gordon Ramsey on steroids.

Lucas Jaxson—the hottest chef in town and the subject of all my daydreaming—is the only reason to stay in this summer job.

Besides being insanely talented in the kitchen, Lucas was blessed with the body of a Greek god. He commands the kitchen with his towering frame and chiseled features like he was carved out of a block of ice. How’s it possible that a chef who uses copious amounts of butter doesn’t have an ounce of fat on his body?

Even though he’s technically my boss, Lucas has become the subject of my daydreams. I like to imagine him spilling red wine down the front of his chef’s uniform and whipping off his white coat while finishing the dish shirtless to much applause from the kitchen staff.

That’s how I spend my tedious working hours. Daydreaming that Lucas will notice me in between searing a salmon steak and flambéing vanilla poached pears.

In my one week of working here, the most interaction we’ve had is when he handed me a filet mignon and proclaimed it “the most beautiful steak ever,” a phrase that is not even remotely romantic. But for a brief second, his eyes flicked to mine and his lips curled into a smile, causing my skin to flush hot. Never mind that he’s complimenting a steak. If he uses the word beautiful around me, that’s enough to give me a buzz.

Just then, a silver-haired man walks into the restaurant and jolts me from my Lucas fantasy. “Ten minutes until we open the doors, people. This is the most important night of our lives.”

Henrique Delacroix is the financial backer of the restaurant, but he’s not the reason this restaurant will survive. Lucas’s cooking genius is. But Lucas needed Henrique’s money to open the restaurant. And Henrique adores Lucas’s talent.

Two bosses who are complete opposites. One might be Satan’s brother while the other is clearly a former GQ model turned chef. No one this handsome should be hidden in a kitchen.

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