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“And I’m telling you, I don’t believe you. I’ve only seen that look on your face twice and the other time was when you lost the world juniors, so don’t pretend you’re fine.”
My eyes widen in surprise and his do too.
“How do you know about that?” He doesn’t answer but his jaw twitches. “Did you watch my match?”
There’s annoyance on his face and it’s clear he didn’t mean to reveal that he’d seen it.I don’t know what to make of that news. How did it even happen, I wonder. Did he go looking for videos of me?
Was he impressed with what he saw?
Why do you care, Nera?
“Yes,” he says, with a careless lift of his shoulder but a shrewd look in his eye. “Who was that man?”
He and I both know who he’s talking about.
“What man?” I ask.
“The one who spoke to you at the end of the match.”
“After I lost you mean,” I say with a humorless laugh.
“Losing happens,” he shrugs. “You can’t be perfect all the time.”
My dad wouldhatehis attitude. A ‘loser mentality’ he’d call it.
“He’s your father,” he decides. It’s not a question.
“How do you know?”
He takes the pen from his desk and begins to roll it through his fingers. “I know the type.”
I look at him, really look at him. At the way his eyes glaze over in thought, how his brow pulls down and his mouth flattens. He might understand the pressures I face more than I initially thought.
“Is yours the reason why you can’t be a chef?’
He stiffens, his eyes moving hazily from his pen to my face.
“I didn’t say I wanted to be a chef. I said I wanted to own a restaurant.” His voice isn’t censuring, it’s more… curious.
It makes me think I might have guessed correctly, even if he didn’t tell me.
“I’m sorry I got that wrong.”
He doesn’t blink. “You didn’t.”
I answer the question that goes unasked.
How did you know I want to be a chef?
“I just assumed that’s what you meant by owning a restaurant. I get the sense that you’re the type of person who wouldn’t do well only in the front of house. You’d thrive in the back, getting your hands dirty and letting your creativity drive you.”
His gaze is downright molten by the time I’m done speaking. The last time he looked at me like that, he ended up eating me out while I sat on his face.
“You got all that from one night?”
“I got the sense that you’re a man who likes to eat,” I answer, blushing but keeping eye contact.
The words come out as suggestively as I’d intended. His eyes burn hot enough on me to scorch my skin.
