Taste of the Dark - A Mafia Romance

I turn to leave, and the kitchen staff parts like the Red Sea. No one makes eye contact. Someone-I think it is the pastry chef who cried in her car-squeezes my arm as I pass, but I can't look at her. Can't look at anyone.

But as I'm passing by, Bastian's hand flies out and catches me by the wrist. It's like last night's fantasy, but turned into a nightmare. His palm is hot and heavy even through the wool of my sweater. I could almost swear I smell the fabric burning.

His eyes bore into the side of my face. I keep mine straight ahead, locked on the double doors that lead away from him, away from this.

"This is a place of business, Eliana. Not a charity. And certainly not a social club for employees who can't seem to understand their place in the hierarchy."

Last night, I touched his skin.

Last night, he touched me back.

This morning, he puts me firmly and brutally in my place.

3

ELIANA

de·glaze: /dēˈɡlāz/: verb

1: to add liquid to a pan to dissolve the browned bits and create a flavorful sauce.

2: to salvage something worthwhile from what appears to be completely ruined.

"He said what?!" Yasmin's voice carries across half the restaurant. Several heads turn our way in alarm.

"Yas, volume," I hiss. "We've talked about this."

Honestly, though, I'm grateful for her outrage. After this morning's humiliation, I need someone in my corner.

Even if that someone has the discretion of a foghorn.

We're at Noodle Theory, this cute little ramen place tucked between a dry cleaner and a tax office that serves steaming bowls of heaven for nine bucks a pop. It's become our spot over the past two years-close enough to our office building for lunch breaks, cheap enough that I can afford it, and loud enough that we can have actual conversations without corporate eavesdroppers.

"I don't give a rat's ass who hears me." Yasmin stabs her chopsticks into her tonkotsu like she's imagining them going through Bastian's eye socket. "The man's a sociopath. First, he's all flirty and shirtless 'n' shit-which, sidebar, we need to discuss that whole situation, you shameless tease-and then he publicly flames you for bringing pastries? Pastries, El! Pastries!"

"I know." I push a soft-boiled egg around my bowl. All morning long, my appetite has wavered somewhere between nonexistent and actively hostile. "I just don't understand what I did wrong."

"You didn't do anything wrong, babe. That's the point." Yasmin scowls at me fiercely. She's been my best friend since I started at Hale, the only other woman in our department full of frat bros in Patagonia vests who pop Zyns like it's a full-time job, the only one who understands what it's like to work twice as hard for half the recognition. "You know what this is? This is him putting you back in your place because you saw him vulnerable."

"He was just shirtless, not vulnerable. And given the way his abs look, he's not exactly-you know what, I'm getting off track here."

"Elly, the man runs this company like Seal Team Six. You've seen his calendar. You've seen his clothes. You've seen his whole, y'know, aura. And yet you caught him off-guard. That probably scared the shit out of him."

I want to argue, but something about what she's saying feels kinda right. The Bastian from last night was a completely different person from this morning's ice sculpture with an attitude.

"It doesn't matter anyway," I say, forcing myself to take a bite of noodles. They taste like cardboard, but that's not the ramen's fault. Everything has tasted like cardboard since Dr. Haggerty's life-ruiner of a prognosis. "He made it very clear where I stand. Just another employee."

"Fuck. That," Yasmin declares. "You want to know where you stand? You're the woman who walked into that building six years ago with a community college degree and holes in her shoes, and worked your way up to senior project manager through sheer fucking brilliance. You're a fuckin' rock star, El."

"Somehow, I don't think he sees it that way."

"So then quit! Screw him! He needs you way more than you need him. You'd find another job like that-" She snaps her fingers. "-because you're great and he sucks and them's the facts, girl."

Quit. God, that's a terrifying word. I've been thinking it all morning, this wild, reckless idea that keeps sticking a toe in the deep end of my mind. Quit. Walk away. Use these precious ninety days-eighty-eight and a half now-for something more fulfilling than dealing with Bastian Hale's temper tantrums.

"I can't quit," I whisper into my bowl.

"Why the hell not?"

"Health insurance, for one. Plus, y'know, like, rent, food, the radical idea that I need money to live."

"You're brilliant, Elly. Anyone in this industry who knows anything would be licking their lips at the thought of stealing you away from the blue-eyed bastard."

"Yeah, sure. I mean, maybe. But I⁠-"

Yasmin puts her hand on mine. "Look, I've watched you kill yourself for this man," she continues, softer now. "Always first in, last out. You do the most and you never ask for the easy way out. And for what? So some trust fund sociopath can humiliate you for being kind? For caring? Nuh-uh. Again, I say unto you: Fuck. that."