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Cole stood and deeply frowned. “What?” he asked.
Jillian gave him a dramatic shove as she took quick steps to the sofa and slapped the clothing against his chest. “Bathroom,” she ordered.
“What!” he exclaimed, now holding the pile in his arms. “I’m not hiding from my mother.”
She turned to open the engraved armoire against the wall to remove a cotton robe. “Yes, you are. Because I need my job, and your mother is not firing me because she discovered The Rebel naked—”
“The Rebel?” Cole scoffed.
“Yes,” Jillian stressed as she pulled on the robe and moved to push him across the apartment.
Ding-dong.
Cole’s frown deepened as he back-stepped into the bathroom. One of her sexy heels dropped from the heap in his arms.
Jillian motioned with her hand for him to back up some more so that she could grab the doorknob. “Two rings? Your mother’s a little pushy,” she said before pulling the door closed.
Cole set their clothing in the sink before easing the door open a little. Through the crack, he watched Jillian sniff the air and survey the scene. She suddenly jumped, as if frightened, and rushed over to the sofa. Picking up the empty condom wrapper, she slid it into the pocket of her bright yellow robe. He looked down at the latex still clinging to him, filled with his release.
“Mrs. Cress?” Jillian said, feigning surprise. “It’s a little late, and I was running a bath.”
“You and I need to speak,” his mother said.
About what?
“I’m curious what we have to discuss that couldn’t wait until I got to work in the morning,” Jillian returned coolly.
Feisty.
Cole covered his mouth to trap a yawn. A night of decadent food and champagne capped off with mind-blowing sex, he wanted nothing more than to sleep it off. He leaned against the sink and crossed his arms over his chest as he listened to their conversation.
“Your dealings with my son,” Nicolette said.
Cole stiffened.
“Excuse me,” Jillian said. “You’re mistaken.”
He stepped closer to peek through the slit of the open bathroom door. His mother and his lover were facing each other. Jillian’s back was to him. He grimaced as he fought the urge to dress and leave his hiding place to admonish his mother for dipping into his business.
Her hiring of Jillian as part of her household staff was Nicolette’s business.
“Tonight, at Gabriel’s, was very revealing when Lorenzo and Cole seemed to bump heads about you,” Nicolette said, looking around at Jillian’s apartment before casting her blue gaze squarely on the chef. “That, plus Cole unable to take his eyes off you in that red dress, was telling.”
Just deny it, Jillian, and send her on her way so we can go to bed.
Jillian shook her head. “Mrs. Cress—”
His mother held up her hand to stop her. “I don’t have time for games or pretenses,” she said in her heavy French accent. “I know my sons. Probably better than they like. He wants you or has had you. Either way, I want it to end.”
Cole frowned as he straightened to his full height. Anger burned the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“And if you end whatever it is you two have going on, I will appoint you an executive chef at one of the Cress restaurants...in another state,” Nicolette finished. “So, choose. Either way, you are done at the townhouse. I won’t pay you to screw my son.”
What the hell?
This was a side of his mother Cole had never seen before. Cold. Manipulating. Controlling.
“But you will offer me an executive chef position instead?” Jillian countered with a tinge of sarcasm.
