I can’t help it. I break into a foolish grin, which I not so successfully try to hide behind my hand.
“No!” Tira exclaims. “You didn’t!”
“Well,” I say and nod.
“Ah!” she cries. “You two-dollar hussy!”
“Actually, I’m a four hundred- and fifty-two-dollar hussy,” I clarify for her. “And fourteen cents.”
She looks at me quizzically.
“That’s how much Trent spent on the meal last night,” I say.
She pokes me in the stomach. “‘Trent,’ is it? We graduated from ‘Mr. Stone’ to ‘Trent,’ have we?”
I grin some more. “He insisted.”
“Oh, I’ll bet he did,” Tira laughs. “I’ll bet he insisted on quite a bit. So?”
“So what?”
“Did you deliver? Or a better question—did he deliver?”
“T!” I say in mock outrage. “Those aren’t questions you ask a lady!”
“A lady who still has bed-head,” she smirks. “You might want to re-do your ponytail before you open up the doors today.”
I blush and begin doing so.
Tira giggles and drums her feet on the floor. “Ohh, this is great! I’m so happy for you! You haven’t been…ah, delivered to, in the longest time!”
If I blush any harder, I’ll probably end up looking sunburned.
“So don’t keep me in suspense!” she says. “Details! I want details! And don’t spare the adjectives!”
“Well,” I fumble. “I like him…”
“Oh, you clever wordsmith, I would hope so. Tell me the truth, is it any different, making it with a billionaire? I mean, a drop-dead gorgeous billionaire?”
“Tira,” I begin, then falter.
“Yeah?”
I go back to grinning like a moron. “I’m sore.”
She cackles and shuffles her feet some more. “So make me another drink and tell me all about it.”
“But you haven’t finished the one you’ve already got.”
“Ah, but when I say, ‘all about it,’ I mean ‘all, all about it.’ I want at least two drinks’ worth of sordid details!”
If I want to be able to get back to work, Tira must be pacified. I give in, make her another drink, and begin to talk.
It ends up being a three-drink story, and Tira leaves afterward, tottering a bit but undeniably happy. She hugs me hard at the door and insists I call her later with an update. I promise her I will, and she cabs off into the late morning.
Daniel shoots me a questioning look as I return to the kitchen, but remains silent on the subject, for which I’m grateful. Telling my tale to Tira has seriously cut into my prep time, and we are soon hustling to make it back up.
Eleven o’clock arrives, and with it, a tap at the locked front doors.
It’s Trent. I wonder how he got here since Curtis is nowhere in sight.
“Hi,” he says when I open up to let him in. “I thought you might need to eat a little early.”
For just a moment there, I had been thinking of begging off from the outing. There’s still so much to be done! But when I lay eyes on him, any thoughts of canceling fly out of my head.
Besides, my stomach reminds me that I haven’t put anything into it besides coffee so far today. I can take the time to feed myself, I reason.
Daniel assures me he can hold down the fort for a while longer. He also gives me a look that says light is dawning in his head, but he has the courtesy not to let on otherwise.
“So, where are we going?” I ask once Trent and I are out on the sidewalk.
“I should be asking you that,” he replies. “This is your territory. I know what I like, but I feel like you might have a more professional opinion.”
He’s right. It’s one of the blessings and curses of being a chef.
“How about Sandy’s?” I suggest. “It’s good food and just around the corner.”
“Sandy’s it is, then. Lead on.”
The brunch crowd at the little restaurant is gone, and the lunch crowd has yet to begin filtering in, so we are able to get a table by the windows with no trouble. We order and then regard each other.
“So,” I say.
“So,” he counters.
“I guess you’re glad I didn’t turn out to be a total firebug this time.”
He toys with his silverware. “I’m glad for lots of things.”
Here I go, blushing again. I’m beginning to feel like a human strobe light.
“Plus, I don’t hold last week’s episode against you,” he adds. “I know it wasn’t intentional.”
“I seem to remember you feeling somewhat differently at the time.”
“Heat of the moment.” He pauses. “No pun intended.”
“Curtis is great,” I say, changing the subject. “You’re lucky to have someone like him working for you.”
“You’re right about that. Lucky he’s here, lucky he stayed when my ex-wife packed up and left.”
This seems like as good an opening as any.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Melanie happened,” he sighs. “Hurricane Melanie, as I came to think of her. She’s more like a force of nature than a person.”
“Destructive?”
“Temperamental. Especially when things aren’t the way she wants them.”
“So things weren’t lining up with her plans?”
Trent looks out the window. “Oh, you know the old story—one member in the relationship feels the other works too much, wants him to back off and spend more time at home, but the workload just keeps growing and growing. He spends more and more time at the office. She goes from irritated to outright angry and ends up staying that way. Then, one day, she’s gone.
“It threw me for a bit of a loop,” he goes on. “I found myself suddenly, unexpectedly single, something I had never dreamed would happen again.”
“And did the women line up at your door?” I ask. “If nothing else, a single billionaire must have drawn them to you like sharks.”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. If they
