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Chapter One: Sophia
I should have known.
The command in those eyes held the same intensity as the glare that gave me goosebumps every time I walked to The Dish office every morning. There was a larger than life display on the side of a building on 10th Street, each window of the skyscraper creating a fearsome tribute to Desmond O’Connell’s likeness. Below his powerful stance was ‘America's Chef’, emblazoned with the time and date one could tune in and watch him rip people apart, in living color.
I knew those eyes, the piercing green eyes that I could only stand for a few seconds before I backed down and looked away. The dusting of dark brown hair that was just the right amount of tailored, yet effortlessly swept across his forehead. That strong, almost noble jawline, set, powerful, and intensified by his scowl. The flash of his muscular forearms, the broad shoulders, and now that I’d seen him, all of him, I knew that beneath the white chef's jacket there was even more perfection.
I was intimately familiar with his glistening abs, every firm square solid and stutter inducing. ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ inducing. Especially now that I knew that this larger than life man who had a reputation for chewing people up and spitting them out was, in fact, larger than freaking life. He was the profanity spewing, two piece suit wearing host of America's Chef and a handful of shows with the same premise: take untrained, bare bones cooks, put them in a room, and let them duke it out.
Desmond O’Connell was also the only man that I let hurt me, because somehow, I felt safe with him.
I could tell from the way he was staring at me, slack jawed and worried, he wasn't feeling very safe.
My knee sang, throbbing where I'd connected with the edge of the coffee table. Reminding me of my recent dive away from the truth. He's just given me the story that would make me a household name. With a quick tug of his mask, he reminded me why I’m here in the first place—and everything I could lose.
If I didn't write this story, I'd miss the opportunity to be known for anything other than captions and stories about which celebrity wore that dazzling, crazy expensive dress best. If I wrote it, I would lose Desmond, along with any chance at exploring what this thing, this magic was between us.
Neither of the options mattered at the moment, because I couldn't think, couldn't do much else besides repeat his name.
"You're Desmond O'Connell," I said hoarsely, blinking at him in disbelief.
The first time I said his name, he'd locked his jaw like he was hoping that I lived under some rock and wouldn't recognize him. This time, he folded his arms against his chest in a silent gesture that spoke louder than any words would.
This man would destroy me without hesitation. Without care of anything that happened between us.
And our future? Please...as far as he was concerned, the question would be, ‘what future?’.
My hair was loose and all over the place, the dark brown strands intent on doing the job my mask used to be responsible for. Spilling into my eyes. Hiding what was beneath.
"I used to watch your show, but you can be a bit..." I held onto the final syllable, cautiously slipping my fingers through my stubborn locks. I needed something to do with my hands, some way to channel the nervous energy that was making me shake like I was coming down from some massive high. He wasn't offering me any lifelines, his face as stoic and unmoving as if he had pulled his mask back on.
If we were a couple, I'd go to him. Shake him, try and ply him with charm; something, anything to get a reaction. But I kept my distance. The past ten minutes had shown me just how little we knew about each other outside of this room. Sure, the Internet could spit out his birthday, where he grew up, the first job he had before he began the journey to stardom, maybe even an ex girlfriend or two. But those were just facts. A census report. No amount of Googling would help me determine if the look on his face, or the absence of a look on his face, meant that he was angry, hurting, or in the throes of any other emotion. It wouldn't tell me if I should just cut my losses and leave because the odds of salvaging this, whatever it was, were slim to none.
I scraped my teeth along my bottom lip, fighting the urge to go to him like I had before he matched my gift of openness. I wanted to go to him like I had before, when I stopped him before he picked up the familiar weight of guilt about what happened with his ex fiancé. I wanted to be close to him, skim my fingers through his brown strands and look him deep in the eyes. Tell him the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
And that truth was this: I came to Hush under false pretenses, but after meeting him, Mary, and the other people on staff, I had pause about going forward with the story.
And now, the only story I cared about, was our story.
Something about the way he was looking right through me made me feel like it would be wasted breath. With my recoil, coupled with my ensuing awkwardness, I knew that he was regretting revealing himself. He was already backtracking, and I hadn't said anything besides his name and that I'd watched his show.
I smoothed my palms down the front of my dress, grateful that for the first time, my nerves weren't manifesting themselves in sweat. Instead, the knots that usually twisted my stomach were wrapped around my throat, robbing me of the ability to speak. To say something. To say what he needed to hear. To say what I needed to say.
Just tell him the truth.
I took a step toward him, the five feet that separated us suddenly tripled by the far away look in his eyes.
I licked my lips and croaked, "I don't know what to say."
That got a reaction from him, his mouth twisting in disbelief. "You don't have anything to say?" His gaze nailed me in place. "You've been a stream of consciousness since we met, Sophia. I show you who I am beneath the mask and suddenly, you're speechless?"
"I've seen America's Chef," I said with a low chuckle. "Surely you know the effect you have on people."
"So you're afraid of me."
The man I'd seen in the snippets of his cooking show seemed to thrive on that fact. The music would go still, or turn ominous as the contestants all looked toward the door. He'd fill it with his body, all muscles and influence in a dark two piece suit or something similarly sleek. He'd speak and everyone would fall quiet. He wore that power with pride and he wielded it like a weapon.
But when I looked at him, I didn't see any sign of satisfaction. There was no smug gleam in his eye, basking in the fact that another one was well on its way to biting the dust.
He cared. I saw it brimming in the way he looked at me. He looked at me like a man who wanted to be seen, who wanted me to know that he was so much more than what meets the eye.
I took his hand, static electricity bringing to life the thrill that exploded in my chest. "I knew I was right about you. That there was something more happening here."
He looked down at our hands like he was in a daze, but when he raised his eyes back to mine, he never looked more sure of anything.
How could I not take this leap? How could I not fall for him?
I cleared my throat and began the hardest part. "I think I was worried that I'd tell you what I do for a living and you'd run screaming in the opposite direction."
He lifted my hand, still intertwined with his, and pressed his lips against my knuckles. "Sophia, unless you're about to tell me you're a reporter and this was all for some story, I think we're good."
My heart, moments ago so full and ready to jump right out of my chest, screeched to a halt.
The smile that was sneaking its way across his face slammed to a stop too.
I never had much of a poker face. It probably didn't help that all color had been drained from it, either.
"You're shitting me." His tone was two notches below the sexy timbre that drove me wild. When he asked me for my color. When he asked how it felt when he was inside me. But he posed no question now. It was clear that I'd just answered the only question that mattered: is this real?
And now that he knew what I did for a living, the answer, as far as Desmond was concerned, was a resounding 'no'.
We were back to the first night we met, not in the main room after I took out the douchebag, but when we saw each other in the hall and he really was a stranger and he’d gawked at me when I tried to shake his hand.
