“I’m fine.” She looked embarrassed by the show of vulnerability. Yet this was how he liked her best—bravely facing life instead of hiding from it. “Let’s just hope she doesn’t write a hatchet job.”
“That’s the only reason I cooperated.” Seeing Colby stricken by the mention of Mark’s suicide had intensified his guilty conscience. Redemption would come only after he made this place a phenomenon and replaced that wary look on her face with her old smile.
“Let’s talk about something else.” Colby smoothed her hair and rounded her desk, putting distance between them. “Is the kitchen ready for the test run this weekend?”
“Almost, but we’ll need every bit of the extra time after the soft opening to prep for the grand opening.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest, a poor substitute for having her body pressed against it.
“Should I be worried?” Her delicate brows knit together.
“Still working on attitudes about consistency and perfection.” He tempered his concerns because he didn’t want to give her a reason to revisit his aggressive menu and last-minute changes.
Quietly, she said, “Maybe attitudes would improve if you were less tyrannical.”
This again? He refused to discuss it. The problem was that the daily coddling she’d forced was undermining his authority and making the staff feel like they were performing better than they were. That just increased his stress.
Eventually she accepted his silence and moved on to the next topic.
“I’m working on the seating. I’ve stuck Hunter with my mom, which won’t thrill him but is better than seating him with Jenna. Also, I can’t put my mom too close to Jenna and my dad.” She looked up from the paper she’d been studying, wearing a serious expression. “I’m sorry your dad won’t be coming. I know it’s because of me.”
“Even if you weren’t involved, he probably wouldn’t come. My career doesn’t exactly make him proud.” Alec shoved his hands in his pockets because he didn’t know what else to do with them.
“You’re a celebrated chef. How could he not be proud?”
He smiled at the perplexed look on her beautiful face. The depth of emotion in her voice might as well have been a kiss for how it ignited his heart.
“I’m not a cop like him and Joe, or a first responder, soldier, or pro athlete. Those are pretty much the only jobs he admires.” Alec shrugged and then joked, “Maybe he’d have accepted me as a doctor or a billionaire tech geek.”
“Well, I love that you followed your passion, come what may. That makes you very brave and committed.” She smiled—a gentle, compassionate smile meant just for him. One he’d tuck away in his memory to revisit again.
“Thanks.” He wished she were still snuggled against his chest. What if he tossed her papers off the desk, set her on top of it, and kissed her? The mere thought sent a potent shiver through him, so he gave himself a mental headshake. “Guess I’ll get back to the kitchen.”
“We have lots of work to help us forget about Melissa.” A tired grin spread across her face.
Burying pain behind a mountain of work hadn’t done the trick for him in the past, and he doubted it would help Colby now. She needed more than this restaurant if she wanted to rebuild a normal, happy life. He’d love to be the guy to get her to remove Mark’s wedding band, but he couldn’t without coming clean. Her earlier reaction to talking about Mark quieted the doubts he’d had about whether confessing might do more harm than good. Besides, he couldn’t help her or his family if he got fired.
“You should go out with that lawyer.” Hell. That’d come out without thinking it through.
“What?” She set down her pencil.
Alec gestured around the room. “This isn’t enough, Colby. Not if you really want to reclaim your life. You need more than work.”
She sat back, staring at him. “I could say the same to you—he who spends his nights in the company of puzzles.”
He’d finished the recent one, actually. Not that she’d be impressed by that particular boast. “And you’d be right.”
“Yet I don’t see you dating.”
Because I want you. “We’re talking about you.”
“You’re talking about me. And I’m not interested. Even if I were, it wouldn’t be with Todd. He’s a good man, but we’ve been friends for too long. I doubt I could ever see him as more than that.” She pressed her lips together and looked away.
Alec’s heart slowed. In fact, his body suddenly seemed ten times heavier and wilting. Against all odds, somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d apparently clung to a childlike wish that someday, in some way, she might choose him.
But he’d been her friend even longer than Todd, so she’d likely also relegate him to that sexless zone. He should count himself lucky that he’d never be forced to tell her about Mark’s letter. He didn’t feel lucky, though. He felt deprived of the one thing that might eclipse a family reconciliation.
That must be why his next thought slipped past his lips. “Maybe a man who’s been your friend for a long time is the perfect man for you.”
He willed himself not to look away while she weighed her words in heavy silence. His heart pounded out each second until her reply.
In a voice as soft as a summer breeze, she uttered, “I don’t know much, but I do know that there’s no such thing as a perfect man.”
Everything in him rebelled against the door she’d just closed. “That sounds almost like a challenge.”
She hesitated, her eyes filling with questions he hoped she wouldn’t ask. Apparently, she thought better of them, too, and simply ended the discussion by saying, “One I know I’d win.”
Chapter Eight
“The hostess said you wanted to see me?” Alec stood in the door to her office looking formidable in his freshly pressed chef’s coat. Shoulders back, spine arched, tautly strung like a crossbow. Faint circles beneath his eyes revealed the eighteen-hour workdays he’d been clocking all week in a feverish quest to make the soft opening perfect. “Doors open in less than an hour, so I don’t have much time.”
Colby had battled the butterflies of excited anticipation all afternoon. The renewed flutter in her stomach, however, had nothing to do with the soft opening and everything to do with the man in front of her. The bewildering man who’d reawakened feelings she’d rather lie dormant.
Earlier this week she’d said there was no such thing as a perfect man, and she still believed it. But Alec had worked tirelessly to help make her dream a reality, and that actually made him pretty close to perfect.
“Our hostess is named Becca, and I only need a minute of your time.” She opened her desk drawer and withdrew the gift-wrapped package she hoped he’d appreciate.
Alec’s chin jerked back. “What’s that?”
Colby circled her desk and handed him the token gift. “Something to mark the occasion.”