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Sebastian, whom she painted every night. Sebastian, whom she should run away from. Sebastian, whom she schemed over and plotted to get close to.
“Do you understand what he’s asking?” Sebastian stood up with less grace than usual.
She’d noticed that Sebastian did everything with precision and grace. From pouring wine to opening doors for ladies to simply walking across the dining room floor, there was nothing he didn’t do without his trademark care.
She had to wonder if he would make love with the same careful attention to details.
It kept her up at night, made her sweat thinking about it.
She bounced as she held the baby in her arms. She was pretty sure the biggest of the Taggarts had fallen asleep in the two point five seconds it had taken him to pass the baby off to her. Not that it was surprising. She could guess that a man who had three children under the age of four was likely sleep deprived. “I think he asked if I would bottom for you.”
She had to play this one carefully. If she sounded too eager, he might run away on his bionic legs, and that wasn’t what she wanted at all.
Sebastian stared at her for a moment and she gave him what she hoped was her most harmless of smiles. Of course, anyone who took the time to know her would have feared that smile, but luckily Sebastian tended to dismiss her. Like he did everyone. She didn’t take it seriously.
He reminded her of the old story about Androcles and the lion. In this case she was an artsy version of the Roman runaway slave who found a lion in his cave. Sebastian was the growling, wine-loving lion who had a massive thorn in his paw. She simply had to get close enough to remove said thorn and claim her super-hot lion.
He was making it difficult.
He waved a hand as though dismissing her and turned back to Chef. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Big Tag yawned and settled a pair of aviators over his eyes. “They never do. Look, wine dude, I’m going to make this easy for you. First you’re going to play the we-work-together card.”
Sebastian nodded, pointing at Big Tag as though everyone should listen to him.
Tiffany watched. It was a trap. It always was with Big Tag.
“Everyone works together.” Only Big Tag’s mouth moved. The rest of his body was perfectly still. “You’re in an industry where you don’t take days off, so unless you’re planning on being celibate or buying a fun blowup friend from the Internet, you should probably lower your standards and fuck where you eat.” He chuckled. “That’s funny because he really does eat here. Two, you’re going to say things like ‘but I couldn’t possibly attempt to deceive this poor billionaire. I’m too upstanding to ever do that.’ Screw upstanding. Have you heard what that fucker charges for an ad? Deceive him. Do it hard and charge him for it at the end.”
Sebastian sighed. “I do understand what you’re saying, but…”
“Here comes excuse number three,” Big Tag proclaimed. “But we don’t have time to work together. We’ll never look like a real live couple. Problem solved since the two of you are going to be living together.”
She understood why his wife yelled his name so often. She wasn’t Charlotte Taggart, so Tiffany very calmly made her plea as Seth kicked his little legs free of his blanket. “Don’t give him a heart attack, please, Sir.” She frowned at Chef. “I thought you were going to tell him what happened.”
“I didn’t get the chance because I was too busy trying to fire him,” Chef explained.
It was a good thing she was such a competent babysitter because she didn’t miss a beat even as righteous anger flowed through her system. She put the baby in a nice but stable football hold and stared down her boss. She’d heard the rumors that he’d been meeting with that big old wine kiss-ass som. “You can’t fire Sebastian.”
Sebastian put up a hand. “Hold on.”
“Oh, no, I would love to hear why I can’t fire you,” Chef said, a gleam in his eyes.
Something about that gleam almost made her wary, but she was too angry. When Eric had mentioned that Chef Taggart had met with another som, she’d shrugged it off because no one was better than Sebastian. “Sebastian gives everything to this restaurant. Everything. Did you know he’s often here before the line chefs even show up and that sometimes he goes to market with Eric to help him pick produce for the evening? Apparently his sense of smell is incredible. He’s like the bloodhound of grapes or something.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Sebastian began.
Because he was also incredibly humble. “He trains all of us on wine and pairings and even tests us from time to time. I personally think he should offer up some kind of reward program for getting it right because dear god, all that stuff is boring as hell, but he is on top of it. All the women love him. Have you ever watched him sell wine to the book club women?”
“That’s Charlie’s group,” Big Tag said. “Book club is a secret code name for ‘drink a shit ton of wine,’ so that’s a little like shooting fish in a barrel. Try again.”
“Well, he’s still excellent at it. Chef would be a fool to fire him. That other guy looks like a moron and he hit on me the last time he was here. Ally, too. So he’s going to be a terrible addition,” she continued. “Also, he was a crappy tipper.”
“He hit on you?” Sebastian asked, his voice dropping to a chilly tone.
“Only if you consider him asking me for a tour and then offering to spend some time in Javier’s broom closet with him to be hitting on me,” she shot back. The broom closet was famous as a place where couples would sometimes sneak away for some making out. Or in Javier’s case, some near paternity suits had happened in there.
“Yes,” Sebastian replied. “I do consider that hitting on you, and not in a proper fashion.”
