“So that’s it?” His sneer came back, twisting his features into a terrifying snarl. “You’re just going to give up on us? Walk away after all the time and energy I put into making you happy? You’re going to turn your back on me after everything?”
I nodded, surprised to find tears lurking in the corners of my eyes. “I am.”
“Vera,” he growled, low and menacing. “This is a big mistake.”
The next words took the most amount of courage I had ever used. It was one thing to run away without facing him. It was one thing to have the men in my life chase him away when I couldn’t protect myself. But it was an entirely other thing to stand up for myself, to speak the threat that needed to be said. “And I’m filing a restraining order. Today. I told you in my text that I would if you bothered me again. You chose not to listen to my warning. So now I have no choice but to follow through.”
He lunged forward, bringing us nose to nose. “Bullshit!” he yelled, snapping whatever restraint had been holding him back. “Bullshit, Vera! A restraining order? Are you fucking kidding me? What is wrong with you?”
“Hey!” Vann rushed out of Foodie at the same time Killian darted across the street, shouting the same thing.
Both men surrounded me, pulling me back from Derrek and stepping in between us. “Back off,” Killian yelled.
“Get out of my way, Quinn,” Derrek barked. “This isn’t your business.”
“Wrong.” Killian rolled his shoulders, and even under his chef coat, they were intimidating. “She’s absolutely my business. What she isn’t is yours. She wants nothing to do with you, man, so back the fuck off.”
Vann stood at my side, his arm wrapped around my shoulders protectively. “Leave, Derrek, before we call the cops.”
Derrek laughed, but it sounded slightly hysterical. “That’s ridiculous! I haven’t done anything wrong. We were just talking.”
Killian had zero patience for his lies. “Leave,” he ordered. “Or I’m going to make this very public. And that would be very bad business.”
Derrek ground his teeth together, the muscles in his jaw popping and flexing. He looked at me, ignoring the men at my sides. “This is really what you want? After all we’ve been through? This is how you want to end it?”
I felt sick, irrationally guilty and overwhelmed at the same time. “Yes.” My voice was stronger than I felt. Despite my earlier bravado, this was hard as hell. “This is what I want, Derrek. It’s over between us. I’m filing the restraining order today. I don’t want to see you again.”
“It’s done then,” he spat. “You don’t have to file a fucking restraining order. I get the message.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t going to argue this with him. He could leave and maybe I really would never see him again. But I wasn’t going to take the chance.
He glared at me for another long moment, conveying hate and anger and maybe even something like surprise. But eventually, he turned around and walked back to his car. He didn’t look at me again. His tires ground against the pavement as he peeled away from the sidewalk, plunging into traffic like a bat out of hell.
His silver Lexus disappeared in the crush of Saturday evening traffic, and then he was gone. Hopefully forever.
My entire body slumped with relief. Vann caught me against him, squeezing my arm tight with encouragement.
Killian turned around and practically snatched me from Vann’s arms. He crushed me against his chest, holding me tightly to him as if I’d just been through some traumatic life or death accident.
The truth was, Derrek hadn’t even gotten physical. This last exchange of ours was mild compared to others. And yet it felt like a kick in the gut.
Adrenaline slipped from my blood, leaving me weakened and shaky. I couldn’t get over the feeling that I’d just fought some major battle and won. From the outside, it might have seemed anticlimactic, but to me, to my heart, to my fragile spirit that had fought so hard to get away from Derrek, that confrontation had been years in the making.
I’d gone through hell to get here. My soul had been razed and rebuilt. My dreams had been lost and then found again. I’d given myself up to someone who didn’t deserve me, and then I’d fought tooth and nail to have a life I did deserve—the happiness and relationship and man I deserved.
Killian’s strong arms were like a brace around me, holding me up and reminding me that he was here for me, that he wasn’t going anywhere.
When my mind finally stopped spinning and my body evened out, I pulled back and looked at him, traced the lines of his face and the depths of his eyes. I saw the answer to the coin toss there. I felt the disappointment fresh and fierce as I remembered the coin showing Bianca on the floor.
I didn’t want Bianca.
And I didn’t want Foodie unless Killian was involved.
I wanted this man. I wanted him more than I had even wanted culinary school or my own kitchen or the food truck that saved my life. I wanted him and a future with him and to work side by side with him for as long as I was able.
He cradled my face in his hands, calloused palms scratching against my jawline. “I love you,” he whispered. He didn’t ask if I was okay. He didn’t ask me how I felt. He told me the words I needed to heal, to move on, to remember the life I wanted and the future I was willing to work so hard for.
“Yes.”
One side of his mouth lifted in that arrogant smile and his green eyes twinkled knowingly. “Yes to what?”
“Yes to everything.”
His smirk became a smile. “And what else?”
I laughed, because seriously. This man. “And I love you.”
His eyes warmed, and he looked down at me with so much adoration and awe that I felt it all the way to my bones. “Yes, to everything.” His thumb slid over my cheekbone. “And I love you.” When he kissed me, it wasn’t gentle or sweet, it was demanding and desperate. He kissed me with the promise of a future in front of us. He kissed me with the truth of who he was, the man he would always be, but also the man he would become because of me. And I kissed him back, promising those same things.
When he pulled back, I missed him immediately. A secret smile still danced in the corners of his mouth, hidden by his beard unless you knew where to look. He held me close and said, “Now can we please go file that damn restraining order.”
Laughing because I couldn’t contain my happiness, I looked across the street. “What about Lilou?”
“They’re going to have to learn how to survive without me. They might as well start tonight.”
“But there’s no chef!” Even through my happiness, I knew that Ezra Baptiste was not someone you made an enemy.
“Eh,” Killian shrugged, knowing, confident, cocky as hell, “I was planning on recommending Wyatt for the position anyway. Ezra won’t notice.”
“Ezra’s going to notice,” I protested.
Killian gave me a mischievous side eye, “But what can he do about it?” While I sputtered for an answer, Killian grabbed my hand and pulled me toward Foodie. “Now let’s lock up and get to the police station. I have other plans tonight, so we’re going to need to wrap this up as quickly as possible.”