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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DOMINIC
Dammit, she was angry. Even worse, she seemed hurt. I should’ve guessed she would be. I had tried to tell myself she’d be relieved rather than wounded. But Melanie wasn’t the kind of girl who messed around casually and then blew it off with a laugh. Touching her had consequences, and I knew it.
When I’d arrived at Espo 1 earlier, Melanie was so busy working that she didn’t notice my entrance. That might have been a good thing; I couldn’t really talk to her in the middle of all the chaos. Somehow I didn’t think it was a good idea to approach her at the display counter with fifty pairs of eyes on us and say, “Hey, I know I got you off in the kitchen at Espo 2 last night. Yeah, that was totally uncool of me.”
Instead I kept to the kitchen and watched her when she didn’t know I was watching her. Today she’d paired a restaurant logo T-shirt with a loose black skirt that moved freely when she walked and came down to her knees. On another woman that getup might have looked cheap, but Melanie made it work, adding a touch of class with a silver bracelet and matching delicate necklace. Her long dark hair was tied back loosely with a red ribbon, and a strand of hair escaped, brushing over her left cheek as she moved purposely from one task to another. She was about the best-looking thing I’d ever laid eyes on. God, how I wished I’d met her at another point, in another place where there were no rules to break, no restaurants to open. A place that included only us and the luxury of time.
I was in the kitchen giving some of the new staff tips on speeding up the assembly line when I heard a crash followed by something that sounded like a cat getting stepped on.
Just outside the kitchen I found Melanie cleaning up a tray of drinks that had been dropped by one of the new servers. She didn’t seem happy to see me. She grew even more pissed off when I suggested that she’d put in enough time for the day. I wasn’t trying to be an asshole, but I couldn’t very well bring up subjects like orgasms in the kitchen with half the staff listening.
Melanie didn’t argue with me. She straightened up, walked her tight little ass in the opposite direction, and emerged from the break room a moment later with her purse. She didn’t even look my way when she stalked out the door. I threw a wad of soggy napkins down and chased her. I knew it might attract some attention, but I couldn’t let this go for another minute.
She was sitting in her car and punching the steering wheel. She jumped when I busted into the passenger seat. I tried to say the right thing, but she gave me tight-lipped answers, and, in her narrowed eyes, I saw hurt and confusion. I told her the truth, that it had all been my fault. I apologized. I told her I would do anything to resolve this so that she was comfortable working with me.
In the end I got out of her car and waved, feeling every ounce the brainless jackass as she ignored me and peeled out of the parking lot. It was tough to remember when I’d felt like such a big pile of shit.
The rest of the night was uneventful, and I was glad to close the doors at ten. When the staff was gone, I turned the lights off and sank into the nearest chair. Tomorrow Melanie might walk into work all forgiving and coolly professional. We might get over this little bump in the road and manage to eke out a typical working relationship with no lusting and no touching and no sexy gazes and no shower time jerk off fantasies.
Yeah, things might work out that way. I just didn’t want them to.
I had to follow through with my decision and leave Melanie alone. She wasn’t just important to me, she was important to Esposito’s. It would be tough pulling off the grand opening without her full participation, not to mention the disastrous effect on the staff if she suddenly left. As far as I could tell, every one of them adored Melanie. They needed her. We all needed her. What we didn’t need was a heavy dose of drama and gossip right now. I had to put Esposito’s ahead of my own personal desires. I owed it to Gio and to the staff.
But there was more than that. The problem wasn’t Melanie. The problem was me. In my twenty-eight years I’d never had a meaningful relationship. The one time I’d ever come close was something that never should have started in the first place and then ended so badly I couldn’t even stand to think about it. I didn’t give a damn if I got hurt. If Melanie shrugged and decided I wasn’t worth all the trouble, then life would go on. But I couldn’t stand the idea that she might be the one who ended up devastated. I could be a real bastard sometimes, and I knew it. Selfish, stubborn, and driven to the point of tunnel vision. Work had been my primary companion for so long I didn’t know if I had the ability to be normal, to be a man who walked through the front door in time for dinner, and enjoyed lazy Sundays on the couch eating nachos and watching football or whatever the hell regular men did. And she deserved better than that, she deserved normal. I didn’t know if I could put energy into anything other than Esposito’s at the moment.
While I was sitting in the dark dining room and brooding over my inner struggle, a young couple came to the door. It was already locked, and the “Closed” sign was on display.
“Oh, it’s closed,” I heard the girl say in a voice of disappointment. I could see her through the glass door. She was pretty, with long brown waves of hair cascading over her thin shoulders. The guy beside her had college jock written all over him with his backward baseball cap and university football jersey.
“Sorry, babe,” he said. “How about we go to IHOP? I’ll buy you the biggest stack of pancakes on the menu.” He slung an affectionate arm around the girl’s shoulders and pulled her close.
“Pancakes won’t really fill my extreme pizza craving,” laughed the girl. Then she reached up and kissed the guy on the cheek. “But I’ll go anywhere with you.”
He grinned and tugged on a strand of her brown hair. “How about I bring you back here again tomorrow night? When they’re open, that is.”
“Sure, but I’ve heard Esposito’s is super crowded on the weekends. Might be quite a wait and I know you don’t even like pizza.”
He kissed her forehead. “I don’t mind waiting. You’re worth it, babe.”
They walked off into the darkness together, and I couldn’t hear them anymore. Two kids, hand in hand, either in love or something close to it. Somehow I was reminded of Tara and Gio who were as close to perfect when it came to couples as anything I’d ever seen. Gio managed to have it all. Love, family, work. So maybe it was possible after all.
A surge of sudden determination launched me to my feet. I couldn’t leave things this way with Melanie, not if there was even a vague chance that we might figure out how to make this work.
Suddenly I heard the echo of my own words inside my head.
“I will never touch you at work again.”
And I wouldn’t. That wasn’t a promise I planned to break. Work was still work, and it needed to be kept separate.
But I was going to break a different promise. I was going to break my earlier promise to Gio. I didn’t have any intention of getting a good night’s rest tonight.
As I locked up and made a beeline for my truck, I figured I would be at my destination in fifteen minutes. And I knew sleep wasn’t going to be a priority once I got there.
