One Night with Cinderella - Niobia Bryant Page 0,34
she leaned against the black stone counter watching him cook them dinner. He, on the other hand, wore nothing but a white apron with his buttocks exposed in the back. She gave him a mischievous look as she reached over to swat at one cheek before gripping the hard flesh in her hand as she pressed her chin into his upper arm and looked up at him.
Shit.
He couldn’t look away. He felt trapped in her gaze. And when the humor faded from her eyes to be replaced with some other emotion, his gut clenched. It wasn’t desire. He knew that look well. She felt more than just an attraction and might expect more from him than just carnal pleasure.
It was something that made him feel an odd mix of excitement and trepidation.
Bzzzzzz.
Thankful for the intrusion, Gabe shifted the pan of seared rib eye steaks from the heat of the Viking stove and picked up his phone from the table. A FaceTime call. “It’s Cole. I was supposed to meet up with them for drinks,” he said to Monica. He walked out of the kitchen and to the hall before he accepted the connection, being sure to keep his nude body out of the frame.
“What’s up, Cole?” Gabe said, looking at his brother and easily recognizing CRESS X’s upscale bar setting behind him.
“All your brothers are here. Where are you?” he asked, swiveling the phone to show the Cress men lined up at the copper-topped bar before his frowning face filled the screen again.
“I can’t make it,” he said, looking into the kitchen to see Monica glance at him before she moved to wash her hands at the rinse sink.
“Yeah, but where are you?” Cole pressed. “And with whom?”
The last thing Gabe wanted was for Monica to become a topic of discussion among his brothers. The fact she was their ex-employee would make the jokes and ribbing all the more raucous. They would assume she had been his in-house lover for the last five years. His instinct was to protect her from that. From gossip. From judgment and speculation. “I’m still at work,” he lied, seeing Monica pause in drying her hands with a dish towel. “I’ll catch up with y’all at the house later.”
“But that’s not the off—”
Beep.
Gabe ended the FaceTime call and walked back into the kitchen, setting his phone on the counter. He enjoyed the sight of Monica’s smooth legs and the way the hem of his shirt fell just beneath her bottom. When she turned and caught his eyes on her, he didn’t look away.
She frowned. “If you had plans, you didn’t have to make dinner,” Monica said, gripping the edges of the farmhouse-style sink as she leaned back against it.
Gabe used clamps to remove the steaks from the pan and set them on the cutting board to rest. He opened the top oven to remove the tray of root vegetables he’d roasted along with garlic and thyme in an olive-oil-and-lemon mixture. He took his time, thinly slicing the medium-rare steak and plating it before adding a pile of the root vegetables and garnish. Delicious and appealing to the eye.
He set the plate on the island and then poured her a glass of red wine. “I’m exactly where I want to be,” he said, handing it to her before pouring himself one, as well, then touched the rim to hers.
* * *
Monica was thankful for the shade of the trees as she took her seat on the terrace of the French bistro in the middle of Midtown Manhattan. “I’ll have a glass of the house white wine, please,” she said to the waiter, opening the tented napkin to lay on her lap across the red wide-leg pants she wore with a matching tank and gold leather flats.
She took a sip of her goblet of ice water as she looked around at the cream-and-brown decor. The terrace was surrounded by six-foot wood panels. Above the panels, the towering skyscrapers surrounded the converted town house housing the restaurant.
She had just begun to peruse the menu when her guest joined her. “Hi, Choice,” she said, rising to kiss the woman’s smooth brown cheek before they both took their seats across from each other at the bistro table. “Is it hot enough for you?”
Choice Kingsley pushed her shades atop her head and set her crocodile leather briefcase on an empty chair. “Only lunch with you could get me to leave the air-conditioning of my office,” she said with a smile.
A junior