Just a Taste (Private Relations 1)

“When I’m done, there’s a sandwich of epic proportions in my future. When have you known me to go hungry?” she asked, gesturing to her curves.

“Pfft. None of that crap. I’m ridiculously jealous. You have curves. I have lumps,” Elle said, sticking out her tongue.

Hearing the phone ring, she hustled back to the front entrance, leaving Sara to finish up the slicing. As she had sealed up the last container, Tom walked through the door.

Sara smiled and greeted him. “There’s my favorite employee of all time.”

Narrowing his eyes, Tom said, “This is a trap. What’s left for me to do on site?”

Having been caught, Sara smiled winningly.

“Well, all you’ll need to do is to stuff the crab puffs, and top the blinis. The crudites are all ready. You’ll need to heat the cheese sauce for the mini-rarebit and drizzle the crostini. The stuffed mushrooms are good to go. Oh, and the bruschetta needs to be topped. See, not much.”

Tom frowned. “Yeah. I should totally be able to do that in two hours. I’ve got help. Oh, wait. No. I don’t,” he said, eyes narrowing slightly as he spied the empty kitchen.

Sara sighed and said, “Let me get my stuff. I’ll come with you. I’m sorry to leave you so short. It’s just that Maggie went into early labor yesterday.”

His eyes widened and he said, “Wait. So you did all this yourself? If you can turn out five hundred appetizers in a morning, then it would make me a total tool to whine about stuffing them.”

His eyes narrowed again, “Well played, Sara. Well played. Oh. And how’s Maggie? Is she okay? How is the baby?”

Frowning she said, “Everything is stable now, so that means bed rest for the next three months. I’m going to have to hire a replacement until she’s ready to come back to work. We’re going to kill ourselves with this new contract.”

“We’ll deal, boss. We always do. I’ll just browbeat one of the servers into helping me.”

With a salute, he started to gather the necessary containers and haul them onto the tray. After a beat, Sara grabbed the remaining items and followed him out.

Once the van had been packed up and Tom and the service crew were on the way to Thousand Oaks, Sara exhaled for the first time in about five hours. After making a sandwich and cleaning up the kitchen, Sara went back to her office to catch up on work.

Flopping down in her desk chair, Sara got to work on her e-mail and snacked on the sandwich. Not realizing how hungry she had been, she quickly polished it off.

Elle passed by the office after a few moments, and gave a frown and a small shake of her head.

Elle said, “No contract yet.”

Just as Sara was pressing send on her last e-mail of the day, she heard the chime from the front door of the shop. Knowing Elle had already gone home, she scooted out from behind her desk. She poked her head out the door and spotted Deacon standing at her reception counter with a blue file folder in hand.

Upon seeing her, he said, “I come bearing signed contracts,” then extended the hand holding the folder toward her.

Once she stood in front of him, she reached to take the folder from him and said, “You really didn’t have to bring these all the way down here. I was going to pick them up when I came in on Friday, remember?”

“Well,” he said, obviously hedging a bit, “That’s not really the only reason I stopped by. Delivering the contract was just a handy side benefit. Do you have a second to talk?”

“Sure. C’mon into my office. Coffee? Water?” she replied, gesturing toward one of the chairs in front of the desk. After he sat, she moved around to her desk chair and sat down.

He shook his head no, and after a moment of awkward silence he took a breath and forged on.

“So there’s clearly an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed.”

Immediately feeling the power shift, Sara widened her eyes innocently. Her lips twitched just a bit as she asked, “Oh really? What sort of elephant is that, Deacon?”

He sighed deeply and asked her, with a somewhat sardonic smile on his face, “So you’re going to make me say this, huh?”

Leaning back in her chair, enjoying herself immensely, she said, “Oh yeah. I’m going to need you to spell it out for me.”

Grimacing good naturedly, he answered, “Fair enough. I was a dickhead to you in college. We had sex and then I left without saying good-bye and never even bothered to call you. That was shitty of me.”

He paused to look at her face, which, coincidentally, had lost some of its former humor. Finishing in a serious tone, he apologized.