Shadow’s Edge

Jenna drew in a breath and shifted her weight onto her other foot. She suddenly wished to be anywhere else than here at this moment. She was tired and behaving badly.

All at once the anger drained away, leaving only a faint residue of embarrassment and the strong desire to go home, climb into bed, and pull the covers over her head.

She closed her eyes and swallowed. “Geoffrey was right, that wasn’t well done of me.” She sighed and passed a hand over her forehead. “I’m sorry, it’s been a long night. I’ll bring the Latour straightaway.”

She turned to leave the table, wondering where she was going to find her next job, when Leander’s soft voice called her back.

“Wait, Jenna, please.”

He was half out of the booth already, rising to stand before caution held him back, reaching toward her with his hand, his face shadowed by the raphis palm near the table, his eyes troubled.

She looked up at him, surprised by his height and his sudden proximity. He gazed down at her intently, his hand still reaching toward her arm. The intoxicating and eerily familiar scent of spice and night air and virile man swirled around her, filling her nose.

“The ’61 Latour was my father’s favorite wine,” Leander murmured. His eyes gleamed in the low light like polished gems. “He served it at his wedding to my mother, thirty-five years ago.”

He inhaled and lightly brushed her bare arm with his fingertips, which sent a current of heat zinging through every nerve. “They were both killed in a car accident three years past. On the rare occasion I find it on a wine list, I order it in memory of them.”

Jenna momentarily lost the power of speech. She was, however, acutely aware of his fingers on her skin, the heat and tension that ached between them, and the curious eyes of everyone in the restaurant.

“Oh—I...I’m so—I’m so sorry,” she stammered, blushing. His fingers kept a light, distracting pressure on her arm. She confounded herself by blurting out, “My parents are both gone too.”

Jenna hadn’t spoken of this to anyone in years.

In response, he simply murmured, “Yes.”

And then she was falling into his eyes, sucked into their bottomless emerald depths like a swimmer losing the fight against a riptide, a swimmer who wanted to drown. A dark, startling rush of deja vu swept through her, so strong and clear she felt overwhelmed by it.

Yes, her mind echoed. Yes.

“Do I know you?” she whispered, urgent. “Have we met somewhere before?”

He remained perfectly still, so motionless and coiled he seemed otherworldly, like he was carved from stone, a piece of marble with incandescent eyes.

He increased the pressure on her arm by a fraction yet didn’t speak. “It was you in the parking lot at the store, wasn’t it? I saw you there...didn’t I?” she pressed, breathless. Her heart leapt as their eyes clung together.

A ripple of tension rolled through his chest. His lips parted and he stared down at her, his face blazing with heat. “We—I—”

He seemed just about to say more, but a woman at one of the tables near the piano burst into peals of high, raucous laughter and the moment was gone.

“We have never met before tonight,” he said quietly and dropped his hand from her arm. He turned away, then stepped back, angling himself toward his table.

“But—”

“Would you mind—if you please—may I have the Latour?” he asked politely, looking down, hesitating before taking his seat once again. He folded his hands together with his forearms resting against the edge of the table and leaned over, staring down at his plate, his hair gleaming ebony as it brushed against his cheekbone, hiding his expression. He didn’t look up.

A flush of scarlet crept up Jenna’s neck toward her ears. Idiot.

“Certainly,” she murmured stiffly, “I’ll be right back.”

She willed herself to move calmly away from the table, willed her eyes to stare straight ahead to avoid meeting dozens of other inquisitive pairs directed her way as she wove through the restaurant, her legs stiff as boards.

She didn’t remember walking to the kitchen, she only knew she had arrived there when Geoffrey found her standing like a zombie in the middle of it, staring into space.

“You are finished!” he screeched, his neck veins bulging blue against the starched collar of his shirt.

“Geoffrey—”

“I knew we shouldn’t have hired a female sommelier! I knew it! Too emotional, too unpredictable, too unprofessional!”

Jenna winced and wiped away a fleck of spittle from her cheek while Geoffrey stalked back and forth in front of her, arms flailing.

“We’re ruined, you know.” He swung around and stabbed his finger into the air in front of Jenna’s face. “Ruined! What do you think is going to happen when he tells the owner about this? I’ll be held responsible for your disgusting display of feminism! And the press!”

He froze. His skin took on the pallor of a bed sheet. His beady eyes bulged out of his head until she thought they might actually be ejected from their sockets.

“The press,” he whispered, his face ashen. He lifted his hands to the sides of his head. “If word gets out to the press that you called His Holy Dignity a dick—”

“I did not —”

“Geoffrey!”

The hostess, a busty brunette in a clingy black dress with a plunging neckline, burst through the swinging steel doors of the kitchen and looked wildly around, almost panting in panic. “Geoffrey!”

“For God’s sake, Tiffany, I’m right here! What is it?” he spat, turning with a huff.

“The earl,” she breathed, pointing over her shoulder toward the dining room. “He’s asking for you.” She twirled back out through the doors with a flash of tanned leg above a platinum gold Jimmy Choo pump.

Geoffrey turned back to Jenna and narrowed his eyes. “Your employment with Melisse is terminated, effective immediately. Get out of my restaurant,” he snarled.

Before she could open her mouth to speak, Geoffrey vanished through the kitchen doors like an angry poltergeist, leaving only the metallic scent of fury lingering behind.

Jenna drew in a slow breath, checking her anger. She looked around the open kitchen with its black-and- white-tiled floor, enormous walk-in refrigerator, stainless steel sinks, and bustling activity, and said a silent good- bye. She had only her jacket and handbag to retrieve; all the papers and files in her small windowless office belonged to the restaurant.

Once she stepped out the door, it would be as if she hadn’t spent the past two years of her life here. It would be as if she’d never existed.

In a daze, she moved through the kitchen toward her tiny office at the back. She slammed the door behind her to block out the snickering from the sous chef and picked up her handbag from the chair where she’d tossed it as she rushed out at the beginning of her shift.

She looked around one final time. The shape of the room, the bookshelves lining one wall, the master sommelier certificate framed above her small desk. The thought that she’d be able to take one thing after all—the certificate earned through her own hard work and talent—did nothing to cheer her. After being fired from Melisse, she doubted she could work anywhere in the city again. She’d soon be bartending at the strip club near the airport.

The pounding of fists against the office door made her jump and spin around.

“Jenna!”

It was Geoffrey, hissing, probably come to take her head away on a platter.