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A dreamy smile curved over Kady’s lips. I can see myself working here every day—
A couple suddenly burst out of the kitchen, their voices easily drowning out the soothing notes of True by Spandau Ballet playing faintly in the background.
Or maybe not.
The woman was a petite golden-haired beauty who seemed to be making a conscious effort to downplay her looks, with her granny glasses, pine-cone-and-lavender printed sweater, and shapeless sweatpants. She also looked, Kady observed nervously, ready to murder someone.
“You know how I feel about him,” the other woman was snarling.
And the man currently tying apron strings behind his back growled in return, “He caught me at a bad moment, okay?”
Tall, tanned, and dark-haired, the man had the kind of chiseled features that easily placed him in Henry-Cavill levels of perfection – the farmboy Clark Kent version, Kady couldn’t help thinking, considering the amount of facial hair he was sporting, not to mention his rugged choice of clothes: red plaid shirt, faded jeans, and a well-worn pair of boots.
It didn’t exactly scream cowboy (he was patently missing a Stetson hat for that), but he definitely seemed down-to-earth enough to have the upper middle class society Kady had grown up with turn their noses in the air at him.
All the better, Kady thought, except…
“I just can’t believe you’d let something like that slip so easily!” Banging noises suddenly cut through her silent fretting and caused Kady to nearly jump out of her skin. Lord help her, but was it normal for the drop-dead gorgeous pair to fight like this? Kady hated confrontations of every kind, and yet the other woman appeared intent on creating as much furor as possible, with the way she was slamming pots and pans against each other.
“Will you fucking quit that?” Hartland Superman roared.
“Never!”
“For fuck’s sake. No wonder Steel March hasn’t ever—”
“AAAAARGH!”
Seeing that steam was about to come out of the other woman’s ears anytime, Kady slowly started backing away.
Definitely not the right place to apply for a job.
She tried to leave without drawing attention to herself, but as all best-laid plans (of hers) tended to go, she ended up doing the opposite instead, with her hip accidentally bumping against the corner of one table.
Thud!
Two pairs of eyes immediately snapped to her direction.
Oh God.
“H-Hi.” Kady’s voice came out in a squeaky little whisper, the words barely audible even to her ears with how loud and hard her heart was beating.
“Who the hell are you?” the man growled.
And he sounded more like Lex Luthor x Ted Bundy this time, Kady thought with a gulp, rather than gentle and polite like Clark Kent.
Swallowing hard, she tried to get some words out. “I…uh…” But oh dear Lord, the man terrified her so, and in the end Kady could only point at the job ad posting, stammering, “H-hire…w-waitress…me?”
Tiny. Pale. Blonde. Like a toothpick version of his baby sister Lace or a shyer version of Farica. Either way, it was clear to Slade the girl was damn near petrified of him. She was shaking like a leaf, and if he had her speak, he hadn’t any doubt the girl would end up stammering again.
So, yeah, petrified.
Petrified.
And when Farica turned to look at him over her shoulder, her wide-eyed expression told Slade that she had come to the same conclusion as he did.
The girl was petrified, just that.
And for both of them, that changed everything.
Farica quickly pasted a smile on her lips just as Slade got rid of his scowl, and throughout this they had also swiftly made their way to the newcomer, both of them intent on not letting this heaven-sent opportunity slip past their fingers.
OMG, finally, Farica was thinking. A girl who wasn’t bowled over by Slade’s looks!
Let this girl be the fucking last, Slade was thinking at the same time. He had gone through five waitresses in the past three months, and he was getting fucking tired of having to go through the whole recruitment and training process over and over.
“I’m so sorry you had to see us at each other’s throats like that,” Farica said ever so sweetly even as she determinedly took hold of the other girl’s arm, just to make sure the latter wouldn’t have any chance of escaping.
“It’s mostly my business partner’s fault, of course,” Slade inserted smoothly as he pulled a chair for the girl he was determined to have working for him.
“Yeah right,” Farica muttered.
Ignoring this, Slade flashed a wicked smile the other girl’s way, just to see how she’d react. “You believe me, don’t you?” The simple banter would’ve made most women titter and come on to him, but instead the girl was fighting against a visible urge to shrink away.
Perfect.
Farica tried not to roll her eyes at the way her billionaire friend was practically purring in a mixture of satisfaction and fiendish amusement as he continued to question the girl, who was now seated between her and Slade.
