by Kira Graham
“What makes you think that I rejected Paris because of a previous relationship? Can’t it just be that I didn’t want to be with him?” I ask, cursing when she immediately shakes her head.
“Nope. Not after all that ‘I’m so sad’ and ‘I think I really like Paris’ stuff I read in your diary.”
“That was so wrong!”
“Call the cops, and have me locked up,” she quips, grinning when I hiss and bare my teeth at her.
“Goddammit. You’re really fucking annoying. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Lots of people. Who now drink their meals through straws,” she drawls, baring her teeth back at me in something that I think is a smile, but that doesn’t really look like one at all.
“Nefertiti—”
“Let me simplify things for you here, babe. I am not going to back off on this—not after the monumental ass-kicking you took after our trip to Greece. Maybe you don’t remember the truly terrible way you treated Paris, but trust me, babe, the rest of us do.”
“Like I could forget!”
“Which is my point, really. You went out of your way to reject and completely destroy anything that Paris may have felt for you, all while feeling the exact same things for him. That isn’t normal, Sin, and that tells me that whatever is going on with you, it’s got to do with more than just being too busy at work to have a relationship, and it’s definitely got to do with more than just not wanting the man. I think that your diary proved, unequivocally, that you do want the man,” she says softly and so seriously that I gulp down a lump of bile that rises in my throat. “And something else that has recently come to my attention is that you’re so out of the family loop that you hardly talk to your folks, and you don’t ever see anyone unless Honey calls and threatens you with bodily harm if you miss another family dinner—”
“To be fair, even the sweet Lord Jesus would look for an excuse to miss Honey’s cooking,” I point out, giggling when Tee titters and shudders delicately.
“Preach!”
“Tee—”
“I’m going to figure this out whether you tell me or not, Sinai, and you know it. Once I get my teeth into something, I don’t let go. Make this easier for yourself, babe, and just tell me what’s going on with you.”
I want to. God help me, I want to tell someone what I’ve been going through, and have someone comfort me. I need someone to look at me and tell me that it wasn’t my fault, even if I know that it was.
I don’t deserve that, though, and so, despite my better judgment, I shake my head and seal my lips, keeping the secrets I’ve been killing myself with deep inside.
My family has more than enough problems as it is. We all have a stalker coming after us who is more than a little willing to pick and choose who his next victim is, and after this last kidnapping—of Alex, my cousin—I don’t want to add anything else to the shit pile that’s stinking up our lives.
No, I can deal with this on my own.
I can.
As long as I don’t have to deal with Paris.
Chapter Two
Paris
I feel a dark smile pull at the corners of my mouth when I walk into Helos on a crisp Monday morning and find Sin sitting at the bar, cursing so viciously that if her mother heard her, she’d get pepper to the mouth. Or lose her tongue.
Stopping just inside the entrance, I allow myself a long, leisurely look at the woman whom I once thought I would love until my last breath, and feel that familiar kick in the gut. Sin Sweet is possibly one of the most beautiful women who has ever graced the face of this Earth. She looks like a young Grace Kelly, if, as a starlet, she had been a redhead with enough curves to make Marilyn Monroe green with envy.
Looking at her from behind, I note that a few of the curves that once had my tongue flapping down to the floor are gone, as if she’s slimmed down over the past few months. Knowing Sin, she’s probably not so much on a diet as she is so overworked and stressed out that she’d be a prime candidate for a nervous breakdown. That’s partly my fault, I think, feeling a little guilty.
During the last few months, I’ve spent more than a few hours drowning myself in work, in an attempt to avoid doing exactly what I am doing now: standing in a restaurant that I bought for Sin, under orders from my brother Adonis—who happens to be my boss. But since I bought the restaurant as an early wedding present for the woman that I was convinced would be my bride, only to get my ass completely rejected, Adonis thinks that running the place is now my responsibility.
At first, I considered just giving the place to Sin, washing my hands of it, and walking away, like my head keeps screaming at me to do. Something stopped me, though. Something always stops me from walking away from her, and as I watch her shoulders sag as she bends over piles of invoices and receipts, I understand why. Part of me still wants Sin Sweet with enough violence that just looking at her makes me hard. But another part, the part of me that was born of the hurt she caused me, wants to make her suffer. That part wants me to be here, in the front row, watching her crumble as she struggles to keep alive a dream that she’s had ever since she stepped into Helos and took over the kitchen as one of the city’s best chefs.
I shouldn’t want to see her break—or see her naked, either, for that matter, but after watching her watch me yesterday at our family dinner, I finally realized something. This wanting isn’t going to go away for me, so the best thing that I can do for myself, is to take everything that I can get from this woman.
It’s not honorable or chivalrous, but what I want is…everything. I want her to fall for me. I want to seduce her body, her mind, and her heart, and then I want to walk away from her and leave her as broken as she left me. I want her to want me so badly that when I turn away from her, the way she turned away from me, she’ll bleed as much as I did.
That’s why I finally caved under the pressures of Adonis’s dictates about taking control of the restaurant. My brothers all think that forcing me to work with Sin will somehow push us together, or, at the very least, force me to forgive her for hurting me the way she did.
What they don’t know is that I don’t want to forgive her, and I don’t think I ever will. I want her. I want her body under mine, her screams in my mouth, and her sex taking every nasty, dirty fantasy that I have had since the first time I met her.
And I will have that, I’ve decided, even if I have to be cunning and ruthless, and play as dirty as I once accused Adonis of playing when he realized that he wanted Cleo as his wife.
“You’ve lost weight,” I say into the silent restaurant, enjoying the scream that leaves Sin as she whips around and almost falls off her bar stool.
In the past, I would have rushed forward to stop her fall, and it would have made me pathetically happy to have her in my arms, even if only for a few seconds. Now, I watch as she almost crashes face-first onto the floor, stopping herself only by throwing out an arm right before impact.
“I—”
“Where’s the staff?” I cut in, not wanting another babbling attempt at an apology from her.
My email is full of those attempts, as is my voicemail and the old answering machine I keep because I like the older technology, even if hunting for cassette tapes is a pain in the ass.
Sin goes stiff as she straightens up, and I watch her like a hawk as she glances around the pristine restaurant, where the tables are clothed in snow-white tablecloths, and the floor is so clean that the wood gleams under the low lights.
“I, uh…gave them some time off,” she says softly, wringing her hands and barely meeting my eyes when I quirk an eyebrow.
I know that for the lie it is the moment the words leave her lips. I may not have wanted to be near her or help her run this restaurant, but I do know everything that’s been happening here since the day I took possession of the place. Half the staff members have walked out in the last three months, the waitresses are all mutinying, and Sin has exactly two chefs left to help her work the orders because the others have all ab
andoned her for bigger and brighter things.
When I first heard about her staffing problems, along with how her suppliers were pulling out and forcing her to find new sources of produce, I laughed about them. In fact, I took great delight in knowing that her life was falling apart as hard and as fast as mine was. Now, looking at the leaner, more fatigued and stressed-out version of Sinai, it strikes me that…I don’t like seeing her this way.
And that pisses me off more than is healthy because I do not want to care about her. Caring about this woman led me to make a fool of myself, turning me into some weak, pathetic version of myself that was willing to take all kinds of abuse just for one measly little word of kindness from her. I will not ever be that man again, but maybe…Christ, maybe I could give her a break and help her out a little. We are family, after all, at least in a weird way that makes me want to laugh most days.
“They walked out. Don’t lie to me, Sinai. This is my restaurant, and I know everything that happens here. Starting with the fact that we’re bleeding money so fast that we haven’t made a profit in over two months,” I say, my voice harsher than I want it to be as I feel my dick stir when she licks her pink lips.
My words make her flinch, and, sickly, that makes my dick harder, especially when I watch her delicate throat work, as if she’s having trouble swallowing the words that I know she’s dying to say to me.
“If you know, then why ask?”
“Maybe because I wanted to see if you were going to keep lying to me and fucking up the financials,” I muse, my mouth quirking when she flinches. “Oh yeah, honey, I know that you’ve been cooking the books and dumping your own money into this place for over two months now. I also know that it’s going to take me weeks to fix what you’ve done so that the IRS doesn’t come after this place and throw the book at you.”
Which is why I finally cracked and came over here, I think. It’s one thing to imagine the woman I hate—hate as much as I once loved her—cracking under the strain, but it’s another to actually witness just how badly she’s breaking apart at the seams.
Most people would never understand why she’s so willing to get herself thrown in jail for a restaurant—but I do. Because I know Sinai. While I spent months chasing her and trying to wear her down, I got to know a lot more about her than most people know, even her own family. When Sinai was no more than a teenager, she walked into this very same restaurant, met Costa Helos-Veldman, and fell in love. Not with the old man running his family’s restaurant, but with the restaurant itself. To hear Sin tell it, it was a magical place that held immeasurable secrets and a pull so strong that it shaped the rest of her life. She’s worked here for years now, starting with bussing tables, moving up to being a server, and then, after college, returning to become the best chef this city has ever seen.
Sin is so good that the place is booked two years in advance, and getting a table on the fly can be accomplished only if you’re family, so famous that you know the president, or are the president. Not the current one, to be clear. We don’t serve orangutans.
And so Helos, under the watchful and talented eye of Sinai, has become more than a success; it’s a rising star that lacks only one thing—something that Sin has been working towards ever since she donned her first apron. That elusive, magical Michelin star that she covets with her every breath.
And yet now, suddenly, the restaurant is failing and likely to get her arrested because she’s dropped the ball somewhere and is doing things that no sane person would do.
“That money—”
“Shouldn’t be there,” I cut in as I turn to lock the door and stroll closer, my eyes taking in the ragged calluses on her hands and the dark circles beneath her eyes.
She looks…spent. Done.
“It should! That’s the point, dammit. We made two hundred thousand dollars just last month, in clean profit,” she insists, her fingers digging into her temples as she sighs and turns back to retake her seat at the bar, her shoulders hunching in defense when I come around and take up a position behind it and right in front of her.
Being this close lets me get a whiff of her perfume and a scent that I call all Sin. It has my dick throbbing more than it already was, and reminds me just why I didn’t want to come near her in the first place. I will always want her, always, though now I tell myself that that’s just because we have unfinished business.
“No, we didn’t, honey—”
“Would you stop that? Stop calling me honey, as if you and I are friends, dammit. You and I both know that you hate me, and that you’re only here to gloat about what a mess I’ve made of things,” she hisses, though the words hold no heat.
There’s no fire left in her, I see, a realization that makes me go stiff with anger. I don’t want her broken, I realize, as I take in her slumped, hunched posture and defensive aura. I want her raging hot so that when I finally take her, we’ll both burn alive.
“I don’t hate you,” I lie, sighing loudly when she scoffs and whips her head up to meet my eyes.
“Yeah,” she mutters, her throat working while she blinks and looks away sharply, her jaw tight. “Tell that to someone who doesn’t have to look you in the eyes.”
Goddammit.
“I don’t. I don’t like you all that much, thanks to the way you’ve handled…things, but I don’t hate you, Sin. I’m mostly just a little resentful that you’ve taken something that we both want to see prosper and run it into the ground—”
“Me? What about you? You own this place, Paris. You bought it and then promptly walked away, leaving me holding the bag. You want to come in here and start talking about how I’ve messed up? The only reason this place is still in business is because I keep putting money into it! You don’t release funds for produce or deliveries. You don’t release funds for payroll! Why do you think half the staff left, asshole? How the hell did you expect them to get paid if I couldn’t pay them?” she demands, reminding me of my own guilt.
I want to wince because she’s right. I bought Helos and then stepped back after she rejected me, mostly because I wasn’t in a place to be anywhere near her or the dream that I had so foolishly tried to give her, and also because I think I enjoyed watching her scramble to save this place, even as I purposely set out to destroy it.
I’m not proud to admit that, and I’m even more ashamed to admit that if it hadn’t been for the way she looked at me yesterday, I wouldn’t have come here at all. Not even after seeing the books and knowing just how deep of a grave she’s been digging for herself.
“It seems like you’ve done just fine in the last three months,” I muse, ignoring her barbs.
“Fine? I’ve lost Vinny, Cal, and Andrea, three of the best chefs in this city. The servers are all walking, and the few people I‘ve managed to hire aren’t trained well enough to keep up the level of service we’re famous for. I’ve been killing myself to keep this place going, and while I understand why you don’t want to be involved in things, I don’t understand how you can willfully drive a good business into the ground.”
Those are the exact words that Adonis threw at me a week ago, and the truth is, I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking, if I’m being honest. I’ve been drinking, partying, and fucking my way through so much of my anger that I only snapped out of it yesterday and finally realized just where I’m driving things. Sin, to be specific. I’ve been purposely driving her to the brink of madness in an effort to break her, and that isn’t me. It’s not something that I would ever knowingly do, and yet it’s exactly what I have been doing.
Yesterday was a deciding moment for me. One casual glance around the room, one meeting of our eyes, one moment in which I knew that she was watching me, and I suddenly snapped out of the booze-and-pussy-induced stupor that I’ve been drowning myself in.
I can’t tell you exactly what it was about looking into her eyes and seeing…sadness shining back at me, but what I can say is that it was enough to bring me here today, and it’s enough that I’m not
running from her anymore. I’m going to fix the mess that we’ve both made, and then I am going to get revenge—a revenge that I think we both need.
“Well, that’s done now. Stop! I’m not here to argue with you, Sinai, though it seems like that’s exactly what you’re going for here. Let’s agree to a truce of sorts, and do something to fix the mess we’ve created. Starting with the money. I gave the books to Zeus this morning, and he and Rosetta are going to do everything they can to rectify things before you get your ass in hot water. As for the rest, I’ve opened the accounts and put your name on them so that you have signing power. You can pay the staff, rehire people, and set up a new line of suppliers,” I tell her, ignoring her glare as I grab a bottle of scotch and pour two glasses.
I don’t even bother to keep it to two fingers. We both need something a lot more than a shot of booze, and from the way I see her jaw clenching, she’s going to need half the bottle before she can talk to me with anything more than venom.
Not that I blame her.
“You think it’s that easy? My suppliers aren’t willing to deal with me anymore,” she huffs, her cheeks flushing bright red when I quirk a brow.
“It can’t be about the money. From what little Z told me this morning, I know that you drained your own accounts to keep things paid,” I point out, grinning when she grumbles something under her breath and blows out a sigh.
“I’ve been a little…unpleasant lately. Joe told me that he’d rather supply to Satan than give me one lettuce leaf from his garden, and Arden and Sons won’t supply meat to me anymore. I believe his words were, ‘I’d rather lose everything than deal with you again,’” she admits, causing me to smirk and shake my head.
I may not have been involved in the running of things, but I know everything there is to know about this place, and so I know the stories and reasons behind a lot of its downward spiral. To say that Sin has been unpleasant is like saying that Honey Sweet doesn’t mouth-kiss everyone she meets. It’s a lie. The only question now, and one that’s been bugging me ever since I sat down last night and started looking through everything, is what the hell is going on with Sinai.
