Sun-kissed (The Au Pairs 3)

"I can't; I don't have a break."

"Ricardo--okay if Eliza takes fifteen?" he asked.

The chef nodded. Jeremy had grown up in the area and so knew almost everyone who worked at Lunch.

Eliza sighed and followed him to the parking lot.

"I know you're mad," he said. "And I want to say, I thought about it, and I did give you a hard time the other night, and I'm sorry."

"Fine. Is that it?" Eliza said.

"I'm apologizing--isn't that good enough?"

"Okay, but you shouldn't have lied to me," she accused.

Jeremy's forehead crinkled. "What do you mean? What are you talking about?"

244

"Paige. I know what happened between the two of you. She told me."

He threw his arms up. "What happened between the two of us? I'm confused. What did happen between the two of us?"

"She was your girlfriend."

He exhaled. "It was a long time ago. It was nothing," he said, biting the hangnail on his thumb.

"Nothing! You're full of it! She was the one, wasn't she? The one."

"The one?"

Eliza whispered fiercely. "The one you lost your virginity to. Your girlfriend in high school who dumped you in college."

"Hold up! Hold up!" Jeremy said. "First off, okay, yes, she was the one. But it was a long time ago, and seriously, neither of us knew what we were doing. And she didn't break up with me. I broke up with her. C'mon, now. It's ancient history."

"Not to me."

"You're really something you know?" he said, smiling.

"What are you looking so pleased about?" she asked.

"I'm not. You're being silly. Let's not fight." "I'm not fighting," Eliza said defensively.

But they continued to argue until Jeremy finally lost his temper. "You know what? You're so obsessed with Paige? Then maybe you should be more like her. At least she was passionate about her work. She doesn't just coast on her looks and connections. She never complains! She loves her job, and she does something that she loves doing."

245

"Oh--you!" Eliza said, smacking him with her apron.

It left a red mark on his cheek.

He raised his eyebrows and shook his head. He left without another word.

Eliza went back to the hot kitchen. She was utterly disgusted. Anyone could be someone's bitch, like Paige was to Sydney, but slaving away for someone didn't equal passion! How did working at Lunch indicate she was "coasting on her looks and connections"? And, she had wanted to say to him, she had found something to be passionate about--she'd loved her job at the designer label but had been fired before she could even explore it more thoroughly. She would show them! She would show Jeremy and Paige that she wasn't just some lazy rich girl who didn't do anything but shop.

It was over a hundred and ten degrees in the kitchen, and Eliza wrung sweat from the bottom of her T-shirt. She took a pair of kitchen shears and slashed the collar and the hem to make it vented and more comfortable. Then she rolled up her shorts and pinned them.

"Hey--look at that," said Margie, the Irish girl who manned the fryer station. "Can you do that to mine too?"