Page 199 of Sweet Ruin

“Let him.”

I return my hand to my lap. “I was being polite.”

“You were trying to work at your own dinner.”

I grimace. “You… might be correct with that accusation.”

The waiter smiles and departs. I force myself to leave the candle alone, even though it remains off-center.

Once we have wine and sparkling water, Kane settles back in his seat and asks me about work. I immediately launch into my anxiety-driven thought process.

“—so if I move the sheet cakes to Thursday bake, that frees the deck oven Friday morning, and then Presidents’ Day weekend, we can do the pre-order thing again but capped, because eighteen a week is working pretty well, and I want to look at the compressor again, because if that walk-in dies in July, then I’m⁠—”

“Lilah.”

“What?”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“But didn’t you ask…? Actually, now that I think about it, I’m not sure I heard the question.”

His mouth twists into a half-smile as he sips his wine. “I asked how you felt about work. Not what you were doing about it.”

I return his smile with a confused frown. “Is that not the same thing?”

“No, sladkaya, it’s not.” He laces his hands together and leans over the table. “Tell me something else instead. Out of today, what decision are you proudest of?”

“Uhh… I fail to see the relevance here.”

“Then just humor me. It can be anything. But it has to be something you did that made you proud of yourself.”

I think about it while the first course comes out, a strange but gorgeous little salad with beets and horseradish snow on top.

“Okay,” I say. “There is one thing. Like, one tiny, itsy-bitsy, probably inconsequential thing that nobody else cares about but me.”

“And me,” Kane says. He waves a hand. “Go on.”

“Around ten this morning, the second batch of raspberry buttercream split. The powder went in too fast and it broke. It still tasted fine, but it looked grainy.”

“What did you do?”

“I dumped it.” I push a beet around with my fork. “Priya wanted to keep it. She said nobody would notice under the piping, and she wasn’t wrong. Nobody would have. But I made her pull fresh butter and start over. It cost us at least an hour and probably two hundred dollars in ingredients, and it’s why Cameron had a nervous breakdown in the middle of my kitchen. But…”

“And you’re proud of that.”

“I am, actually.” I look up. “We sure as hell could’ve used the lost time, and throwing away good money is never fun. Also, the customers weren’t standing there. They would have taken the box and said thank you and gone home. But I still dumped it.”

Kane sits back, that half-smile still simmering on his face. “That’s integrity,” he says at last.

“More like silliness.”

He picks up his wine and toasts me with it. “Anybody can hold a standard when they’re being observed. You stuck to your ethics even when it would have benefitted you to abandon them. Most men who work for me can’t do that, and they’re paid a great deal more than two hundred dollars.”

“Well, it’s like I’ve always said: When you compare me to violent criminals, I really shine.”

“Don’t do that,” he scolds. “You’re deflecting again. Sit with the compliment for a moment. It won’t kill you.”

I do as he says, even though it makes my skin crawl like I’m developing an emotional rash at speeds that humankind has never before seen.