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“Okay, what can I do to help?” Zoey asks, as she watches me pull out the ingredients and put things away, before turning on the oven.
Chuckling, I look across the kitchen island at her, brow raised as I tease, “Um if memory serves, didn’t you say you don’t cook?”
She hits me with a smirk as she throws an apple at me, which I catch easily. “I can still help.”
Pointing a knife at the wine sitting on the counter, I say, “Alright, how about you pick us a color and pour us a glass,” I suggest. “Wine glasses are in the cabinet over there.”
Zoey’s smirk turns into a smile as she does a mini curtsy at me before pouring us two glasses of white wine and putting the bottles in the fridge to stay cold. “Okay, what next?”
I grab a glass and hold it up in a cheers to her. “Sit, relax.”
She taps her glass against mine before taking a sip. “I can help you know,” she says, smiling. “Tell me what to do.”
And as I stare across the island at her all I can think is how much I want to tell her to come over here and kiss me again.
Chapter16
Zoey
The way he’s looking at me has my heart racing and I suddenly want to rub my eyes to make sure this is all real. This view, this day, this food, this wine, and this guy. It all feels hard to believe, but I’m going to make the most of this.
After that kiss in the hotel bar last night, I’ve been dreaming of ways to tell Ethan I want more than a fake kiss, more than whatever this is between us now.
“So are you going to tell me what I can help with?” I ask, breaking the silence between us. “Or am I just to sit here and look pretty?” I bat my eyelashes as I hold up my glass of wine, indicating that this is all I’m doing at the moment.
“I think you’re doing a damn good job of looking pretty, but I wouldn’t dare tell you that’s all you’re good at, so how about you get the salad ready?”
“Recipe?” I ask, getting up from the island and walking over to stand next to Ethan as he preps the salmon. I let my fingers trail down his arm, feeling the outline of his muscles through his fitted white dress shirt.
He looks incredible in these perfectly fitting jeans and a white button down with his sleeves rolled up just slightly. There’s something so sexy about his simplicity, about his casualness in his kitchen.
“Dice up these apples,” he replies, handing me a couple of large red apples, motioning to the knife block and cutting board.
He opens a cabinet door and pulls out a gorgeous wooden bowl, dumping some arugula in, he passes it to me.
“Add the apples when you’re done,” he says, hitting me with a wink, and my heart flutters in my chest, pushing up into my throat.
“Anything else you want me to add?”
“There’s some crumbled goat cheese in the fridge and some candied walnuts here,” he replies indicating to the packet on the counter, and I giggle. This is not at all what I expected Ethan to be like.
Wealthy and living in that beautiful house in the mountains of Badger Creek, and now this condo with the million-dollar view, I always expected him to have a chef or at least have his meals prepared for him. Not that I grew up like that.
My mom and dad always cooked dinner and forced Max and I to eat dinner at the table with them almost every night. If we weren’t skiing, we were required to be at the dinner table telling them about our day. Unfortunately for Ethan, I never took up my mom’s love of cooking, sticking mostly to frozen pizza and discount meals from The Matterhorn.
“Any plans since graduating? After the mentorship program?” Ethan asks, starting up a new conversation as we work side by side at the kitchen island.
“Why, you worried I’m going to leave?” I tease, looking over at him. His dark eyes focus on me, and my eyes fall to his lips. All it does is remind me what it was like to kiss him and how all I want is to do it again.
“Maybe a little,” he admits, chuckling as he puts the salmon in the oven and then drops the asparagus in the pan on the stove, sizzling as soon as he does.
“Obviously you know I already graduated and I have no plans to leave Badger Creek. It’s what I’ve been going to school for, and I have this great boss who gave me a chance before I even finished school.”
I scoop up the diced apples, adding them to the arugula, and then I turn to grab the goat cheese from the fridge, topping the salad with it as Ethan adds the walnuts.
“Any plans beyond managing the lodge then?” he now asks, and it almost feels like he is asking out of fear that I might leave.
I can’t help but read into it. Is he worried about having to replace me? Or does this have something to do with the feelings I think he might be having about me? There’s no way he didn’t feel something when we kissed in that bar or when he found ways to subtly touch me.
