Sample - Granting Wishes
It's not Sunday, but it's still sample time! We know how it goes - I don't have a release date yet, and anything here is unedited and subject to change. Enjoy!
“Knock knock,” I called through the open doorway of Kima’s office, and waited to be invited in.She looked up from whatever she was busy with, her slanted eyes going wide when she saw me standing there. “Oh. Chef Clarke. You’re… early.”Chef Clarke?“Aiight,” I drawled, stepping in and closing the door behind me, even though we were the only ones there. “I think I see what you’re doing – the Chef Clarke thing is a way to put a wall between us, right?”“There already is a wall between us, Chef,” she insisted, using my “title” like it was some kind of jab. “A necessary one, at that. I’m just trying to reinforce it.”“Why?”Her face scrunched into a frown. “Uhhh… because you’re my boss.”“I’m not your boss,” I corrected her. “Neither is Dre, or Addison. We’re partners.”She rolled her eyes. “So you say now. But you took controlling interest for a reason.”“That was Andre’s insistence, and yeah, we do it that way to protect ourselves, because there are people who will take an opportunity like this and use our resources like a bottomless piggybank, and whatever else.”“I get that,” she insisted. “But you know who isn’t protected? Me.”“You’re protected in the contract.”Kima let out an exasperated huff. “The contract? Please? What, exactly, would I do if you and your brothers decided not to honor that, and just took over? Sue you? With what resources? You could bury me, and there wouldn’t be shit I could do about it.”“You could trust us not to take advantage of you.”“Because that’s worked out so well for me before?”I lifted my eyebrows, looking her right in the face when I said, “I’d say it worked out very much in your favor the other night at your apartment.”Her eyes went wide, her gaze dropping to her computer. “That was… something else. It has nothing to do with what we’re talking about right now.”“It has everything to do with it to me,” I countered, finally walking up to the desk. “Because I’m not in the business of working with people who feel like they can’t trust me, when I haven’t done anything to deserve that. And I’m especially not in the business of sleeping with them.”Kima’s eyes shot back to me. “Sleeping implies an ongoing arrangement, which is not what we have.”“Why the hell not?” I propped my hands on the desk, leaning over it. “As many times as you came on my face, you can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it.”She swallowed, hard, but didn’t back away from the intensity of my gaze. “It’s not about whether or not I enjoyed it, it’s about… my character. And sleeping with my boss is definitely outside of it.”“I’m not your boss,” I reminded her again. “And what’s the difference between then and now? What changed?”“Oh my God, we are supposed to be cooking,” she snapped, hurriedly pushing away from her desk to stand. “That’s what you’re here for, right?”“It was what I came for, yes, but now I’m not so sure it’s why I’m here.”Crossing her arms, she pinned me with a scowl. “And why, pray tell, do you think you’re here?”“For whatever you’d like me to be here for. Really.”“We know what you’re here for, Aiden. To watch me cook, and judge, and correct, and change everything that makes this place mine – just like the meetings I’ve already had with your brothers.”“That’s not fair. Or true.”She sucked her teeth. “Fine. Tigress is still mine, except your brothers were able to identify and highlight all the ways I couldn’t even fucking see to make it better, and more… everything. And I’m probably supposed to be grateful for that, but instead it just makes me feel worthless, and mad, and scared, and now you’re here to do the same thing, only this time with the thing that matters most. The food. So… we might as well just get it the fuck over with.”“Get it the fuck over with implies you don’t want to do this.”“Of course I don’t!”I shrugged, stepping around the desk to get right in her face and look her in the eyes. “Then… that’s not why I’m here.”
Kima – impressively – blinked back tears as she rolled her eyes, her soft, pretty lips twisted into a pout before she spoke. “So what, you’re granting wishes now or something?”“You granted mine. The least I could do is return the favor, right?”A little of the anger left her expression as she lifted an eyebrow. “What exactly are you offering?”“Whatever it is you want.”