I stopped talking for once and just stood there, staring back at him expectantly. Chase’s emerald eyes had a pained look to them.
What’s his deal?
Whatever it was, he was struggling with it on some deep, internal level. Like he had something he definitely wanted to say… but for some reason, he just couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, slowly lowering his gaze.
I nodded politely. “You said that one already.”
Half a minute later I was back in the hall, trying to put the whole weird thing out of my head. There was plenty of work to be done in the kitchen. And the sooner I got started, the bett--
“Hey…”
The voice came from a room on the other side of the hall. Nathan stood in his doorway, his long arms stretched overhead. He was wearing cargo shorts, and a threadbare white T-shirt that had seen at least a decade’s worth of service.
“Talk to you for a second?”
I froze in my tracks. His shirt rode up high on his lithe, muscular body, revealing a set of ridiculously sculpted abs. Washboard abs. No, really — the type of abs you could actually do your wash on.
My heart skipped two beats, maybe three.
“Sure,” I said.
Four
NATHAN
She was beautiful more than drop-dead gorgeous. Sexy and sensual, especially around her pouty little mouth.
It was that mouth that attracted me the most. Slightly downturned, with full, luscious lips. The kind of lips you really don’t need to paint, but when you do paint them they look absolutely stunning.
“What’s up?” she asked again.
God, that mouth. It made me a little frightened of her, really. Even so, I found my mind wandering. It would be insane to kiss her…
“Walk with me,” I said, leading our cute little chef down the hallway.
Kayleen followed, and I could tell she was confused. The way Chase had spoken to her, it was easy to understand why. I’d been listening in the whole time, trying to guess how he’d explain things to her. Just as I expected, he hadn’t.
Should you, though?
It was a dilemma, really. I could leave her in the dark, but eventually she’d find out. Especially if we happened to be successful. At that point she’d be more pissed than anything, and I didn’t want to lose Kayleen. She was a good person as well as a great chef.
Yet if I told her, that could scare her away as well. The whole thing was a catch-22. A big, unorthodox, clusterfuck of a problem — all because Chase had kissed her.
“Look, the kitchen’s that way,” she said, a little exasperated. “I have a shit-ton of prep-work, so maybe we could talk in there?”
I stopped at the end of the hall. Our shared computer was set up there in a little alcove, networked to the other three in our bedrooms.
“So he kissed you.”
Kayleen’s pouty mouth got a little more pouty. It was cute.
“How do you know I didn’t kiss him?”
“Well you did,” I smiled. “But that’s beside the point. The issue here is what happened afterward. Chase acted like a complete idiot, and left you in the dark about something. I’m about to enlighten you.”
She stopped right in the middle of folding her arms. I saw her expression soften. “Go on.”