Page 13

TWELVE

brEAKFAST

NICOLETTE

S omething’s burning.

I’m pulled out of a deep, dreamless sleep when my nose wrinkles at the acrid, smokey smell. The smoke alarm itself isn’t going off, so I’m pretty sure my mom’s house isn’t on fire, but when you’re half-asleep and wondering if the house you’re in is about to go up in flames, ‘pretty sure’ just isn’t good enough.

Sitting up, I squint as I look around the room. For a moment, I’m confused when I see the men’s button-down strewn on my floor since it’s not anything I would wear—until realization slaps me upside my head and last night comes rushing back.

That’s Royce McIntyre’s shirt.

After I initiated sex with him on the couch downstairs, he carried me upstairs and got naked before joining me in bed and giving me the best head I’ve ever had in my life. Glancing down quickly, I’m relieved to see that—while he passed out in my bed without a stitch of clothing on his amazing body—I still have my bra and sweater on. No bottoms, though my legs are twisted up in the sheets.

The empty sheets.

Royce is gone. His shirt is here, though, and now that I’m awake awake, I’m beginning to realize that my house shouldn’t be smokey for no reason.

What is he doing?

I scurry out of my bed, pausing only to throw on a pair of sweatpants to cover up as I try to tame my bedhead before heading downstairs.

He kicked off his expensive-looking shoes by the front door. They’re still here now, and when I hear the sound of metal clanging together coming from the kitchen, I figure that’s where he went. Since it’s also obviously the source of the smoke, I jog across the living room, heading right for the attached kitchen.

The first thing I notice is that he’s standing at the stove, head bowed over a pan of burning bacon. The second thing? Is a sculpted back on display that has my tongue darting out, dabbing at the corner of mouth.

Royce must have heard my footsteps coming; that, or he can feel the heat of my stare against his gorgeous back. After giving the pan another shake, he turns around.

His smile is breathtaking. “Morning, baby. Hungry? I was just about to wake you up.” He gestures at a plate piled high with fluffy yellow eggs he has sitting on the counter. “I made some scrambled eggs since I didn’t know how you take yours. The bacon’s almost done, too.”

Honestly? The eggs look alright, but that bacon was probably done five minutes ago.

I don’t tell him that, though. Why would I? Not only am I stunned that Royce just gave me a pet name—he called me ‘baby’ so casually, like it was the most normal thing in the world for him to do—but he actually got up, rifled through my kitchen, and decided to make us breakfast while I slept.

“Um, yeah. Thanks. I am a little hungry.”

Royce winks over at me. “Thought you might. I can say that I definitely worked up an appetite last night. Go on. Sit down. I’ll serve you when it’s done.”

Something about his easy-going tone still has enough of an edge to it that says he’s used to being obeyed. Whether it’s because he runs the Playground or is high up in the Sinners Syndicate, I’m not sure, but I don’t even think about refusing.

Instead, plopping down in one of the two kitchen chairs by the corner table, I watch him move around my space.

He’s got on the same slacks as last night. No socks. No shoes. No shirt, either, and I’d worry about the fat spitting up from the too-hot pan if it wasn’t for the fact that Royce obviously thought ahead.

My mother is a big woman. She has a few inches on me, with a busty chest, and a nice round belly. Her house has a state-of-the-art kitchen going to waste because cooking is her passion, but it sure the hell isn’t mine. She used to joke that the reason she snagged four of her five husbands was because of her pot roast and her apple pie; the first—my dad—liked her cooking, but loved her ass. When I try to make a meal, it looks like a bomb went off in the kitchen which is why I can’t judge Royce for trying. He’s probably doing better than I would with breakfast.

There’s no denying that ‘cooking’ is my mother’s thing, the same way as ‘musicals’ are mine. That’s why, for as long as I can remember, all of the gifts I would buy for her are cooking-themed, including a joke apron I bought her the Christmas before I moved to Willowbrook.

It’s a shocking neon pink, oversized so that it could cover her tits, wide enough to wrap around her comfortably. On the front, in a bright white print, it says: Today’s Menu: eat it or starve , with a drawing of a knife beneath it. The face she made when she unwrapped it was worth the thirty bucks I paid for it, and I knew that she would keep it, but never, ever wear it.

I left later that spring. Between Christmas and May that year, then when I spent some time with her before she went to Florida this year, she certainly didn’t. To be honest, I’d completely forgotten all about the eyesore of an apron… until I walked into my mother’s kitchen and found Royce McIntyre wearing it.

My laugh catches in my throat. Any nerves I might have had about the morning after—or the fact that he’s my boss —evaporate when I see him in neon pink like that.

He raises his eyebrows at me.

I gesture at him. “Love the apron.”

Royce grins. A spatula in one hand, he plucks at the front of the apron with the other. “I hope you don’t mind me borrowing this.”

Oh, god. He thinks that thing belongs to me .

“No, no, no. That, uh, that’s not mine. It’s my mom’s. But it’s okay. I’m sure she wouldn’t care that you’re using it.”

Of course not. Mom would be way more concerned with the fact that I assaulted this man with a frying pan, felt so guilty that I invited him into her house, and somehow ended up sleeping with him. And if that wasn’t bad enough, once the deed was done, I didn’t help him gather up his clothes and boot him out the door like I’ve done with the handful of lovers I had since escaping Kieran. Oh, no. Breaking every rule Mom had when I was living under her roof as a teen, I allowed a guy to spend the night.

Poor Mom. After the stigma she dealt with all her life, she did everything she could to keep me from becoming a teen mother myself. She had no idea at the time that by forbidding me from dating, she was leaving me ripe for the pickings for her stepson. Kieran lived in this house until Mom and Dave called it quits. Kinda hard to hold up the ‘no guys sleeping over’ rule when the one I was fucking under her nose lived here.

For her own sanity, I let her think that my relationship with Kieran didn’t start until after he and Dave moved out. I was nineteen at that point—not the sixteen-year-old he groomed into taking her virginity the first time, or the fourteen-year-old prey he set his eyes on when he first moved in—and she had to admit that it made sense. We hadn’t grown up together, and since Kieran is five years older than me, it never would have occurred to her that he had eyes for her teenage daughter.

It took me a long time to admit that I was groomed into being everything he wanted. Some part of me still believes it was my fault. I could have said ‘no’. At the time, I thought he was the man of my dreams… only to discover that he really was the reason for my nightmares. Mom would blame herself if she knew—which is why I’ve made sure she never, ever found out.

Royce is different. I might have initiated sex last night as one more ‘fuck you’ to Kieran, but when we were finished, I didn’t want him to leave. In the heat of the moment, I could forget that this whole thing started because of a bet, because he has this ‘white knight’ thing going on, that he thinks I need saving… and because I did, didn’t I?

But that was last night. Now? Watching him poke at the smoking bacon with his spatula, jumping back when a sizzle of the fat finds skin beneath the apron built for a body-type way different than his, I’m torn between being amazed at this other side of the formerly aloof gangster—and remembering again with a swift kick in the ass that this man is my boss .

The nerves were gone, but as he turns to fiddle with the bacon, my stomach sinks as they return.

Oh, boy. Did I really allow my attraction to Royce—and my dysfunctional relationship with Kieran—to overrule my brain? Sleeping with another guy to prove to myself that Kieran no longer has any hold on me is one thing. But complicating my employment after what happened with that fateful poker game?

What was I thinking?

Well. That’s easy enough to admit: I wasn’t , was I?

Shit .

What am I going to do?

What is Royce going to do?

My boss is currently occupied in the kitchen, leaving me to watch—and worry.

“Goddamn it,” he mutters, the metal spatula scraping against the pan. It’s non-stick, and even I know you shouldn’t use a metal tool when you’re cooking with a non-stick pan, but that’s the least of his worries. Somehow, while he was flexing and I was staring—at him, at the apron, at him —the bacon got so burnt, it’s stuck to the pan. He grunts, knocking the black hunks of shriveled meat around before realizing it’s no use.

Shutting off the burner, he glances over his shoulder at me again. “I hope you like your bacon extra crispy.” He frowns, seeing something in my face I wasn’t quick enough to hide. “Hey. Nic. You okay?”

No .

“I’m fine. Just hungry.” Though there’s no way I’m going to try that bacon. I appreciate the effort, but… “Thanks. I wasn’t expecting breakfast. No one’s ever done that for me before.”

“Then your previous lovers were all assholes,” Royce says. “And, for the sake of me keeping my appetite, we won’t talk about any of them. I’m your lover now. Get used to breakfast.”

He sets the plate of eggs on the kitchen table. In his other hand, he’s holding the pan of burnt bacon. With another frown, he shrugs, then places the whole pan on top of the wooden tabletop.

Royce’s hands are free now. Turning toward me, he brushes his thumb along my cheek. He’s already lowering his head, prepared to take a morning kiss as his thanks.

I jump up, avoiding him. “Plates,” I blurt out. “We need plates.”

“Nic—”

“Two secs. I’ll be right back.”