Three Little Mistakes (Blindfold Club 3)

chapter

SIX

NOEMI

I’d wanted to be bad and failed. Twice.

Failure wasn’t allowed in my vocabulary. I scoured the Internet for any detail about Joseph, but there was nothing. It took two days before I gave in to the dark thoughts whispering to find him. I returned to Dune, stalking a man I’d turned down. I would not do it a third time.

The man I found fascinating hadn’t been at Dune all week. I’d struck up a conversation with the bartender and learned the owner didn’t visit much. I’d need to look for him elsewhere.

The crazy ideas kept coming, like a train I couldn’t stop, and I no longer cared. My regret over backing out the second time was so enormous I had a hard time focusing during class. I fantasized about lying on his desk in his darkened office while he commanded me to touch him. To tell him how good it felt. I wanted him to have total control over me. What would we have done if sensible Noemi hadn’t been there? That shuddering, scared little girl was messing up my life, and I wanted her gone.

I’d destroy her, and use Joseph Monsato to do it. He was perfect, and I wanted him. I longed to know what he’d do to me, and what he’d get me to do to him.

Google said he owned two more establishments in the downtown area. One was a comedy club over on Wells, and the other was a restaurant that wasn’t too far from my apartment.

I’d waited tables a few summers at a country club, so getting the waitress job there was easy. I didn’t learn much from the staff about him. Mr. Monsato was as much of a mystery to them as he was to me, but I’d heard he liked to come in some mornings for an early lunch before the restaurant was open.

So I took every lunch shift I could get with my class schedule. Nine long days passed before the hostess flitted through the prep station and asked the chef if the owner’s lunch was ready.

“Where is he seated?” I tried to sound casual.

She studied me for a moment. “Table twenty-six. You want to take it?”

Yes. Hell yes. “Sure, it’s no problem.”

She shrugged and gestured to the plate the chef set on the pass. “Have at it.”

The ceramic was warm in my clammy hands and I gripped it tightly. Every day that passed without seeing him made the legend grow larger in my mind. He couldn’t be as stunning and magnetic as I remembered, I warned myself while I made my way out of the kitchen.

Table twenty-six was a four-top tucked away at the back corner of the empty dining room. There he sat, his back to the wall and his attention buried on his cell phone screen. The legend I remembered didn’t do him justice when he was wearing a three-piece black suit. A silver tie was knotted at his neck. The dangerous, sexual man I’d fantasized about paled in comparison to this one.

My chest tightened and it became hard to breathe as I planted one foot in front of the other, willing myself across the carpet toward him. My heart slammed against my ribs as I set the plate on the table with a quiet thud.

Joseph didn’t look up at the sound, and I froze. What now? This was the moment I’d been waiting for, and he was oblivious.

“Can I get you anything else, sir?”

“No,” he said, glancing at the plate. “Thank—”

Our gazes locked and time slowed painfully.

He blinked. His expression was a total mystery. “Noemi?” He scanned the room once, then focused back on me. “What are you doing here?”

I’d rehearsed all of this in my head countless times, but now my mind was blank. “I work here.”

Skepticism passed through his eyes. “You do? Are you aware I’m the owner?”

“Yes.”

His phone was abandoned on the table top and he scrutinized me, considering my answer. “And is that why you work here?”

I swallowed hard. “Yes.”

Joseph leaned back in his chair and his gaze drifted down slowly, taking in the uniform. The red button-down shirt and black necktie, which was tucked into the black waist apron, tied over my fitted black pants. Oh, no. Was I wearing something wrong? The gaze drifted back up to meet mine, and it was heated. No, better. It had a look I’d seen from him before, the look that made my knees go soft.

Lust. But it faded as quickly as it had appeared.