Chapter 105

Levi
“If you don’t want this job,” I said, my voice like steel, “which, let me remind you, is more for your benefit than mine—since it gets you off your feet and out of waiting tables—then walk. That door’s right there. I won’t lose sleep over it. There’s always someone else willing to do this for the money. But as long as you’re here, you’ll watch your damn mouth.”
She didn’t move. Not even a flinch. Just a subtle shake of her head that told me everything I needed to know. She wasn’t going anywhere.
I could see the gears turning behind her eyes—quiet calculation. She needed this. She needed the paycheck. The fantasy of a new life somewhere far from here—New York or wherever she dreamed of starting over—wasn’t something she’d let go of easily.
Her gaze dropped, and I felt my jaw lock. Not out of guilt. She wasn’t apologizing. She just didn’t want me to see the smug little curve on her lips. That barely-there smile that said she knew she still had leverage.
I leaned back in my chair, eyes on the ceiling, letting the silence stretch between us. I needed to cool down before I said something worse. But I could feel it—her satisfaction. Like she enjoyed tugging at the threads of my control just to see if I’d unravel. And hell, maybe I was.
She didn’t want to lose this job. That much was clear.
“I don’t want to lose my job, sir,” she said finally, sickly sweet. Her tone dipped with sarcasm—sharp enough to cut.
I let out a long breath, shook off the tension like it was something clinging to my skin. Fine. If that’s how she wanted to play it.
“Well, sir,” she continued, mocking me again with that infuriating lilt, “you still haven’t told me what you do for fun.”
I glanced her way. Her expression was carefully blank, but the challenge was there. She was waiting for something. A slip. A reveal. A crack in the armor.
“I don’t have fun,” I said flatly.
Let her chew on that. It was easier than admitting the truth. That I hadn’t allowed myself to enjoy anything in a long time. Not since… well. Long enough that I couldn’t even remember what fun felt like.
“But,” I added after a beat, “sometimes I cook.”
That caught her off guard. I could see it in the way her brow lifted, surprised.
“Wow. You cook for fun? That’s interesting, considering I hardly cook myself.”
I rolled my eyes. Classic Isabella. One innocent comment, and now she was latching onto it, twisting it. I tried to end the conversation with that gesture—dismiss her like I usually did.
But then the words slipped out, sharp and unfiltered. “How bad a cook are you?”
The shift in her was immediate. Her eyes blazed, spine snapping straight like a whip crack. Her whole body turned into a storm.
“I am not a bad cook!” she snapped. “I only said I hardly cook. That doesn’t mean I’m terrible at it!” She tapped her temple like I was too dense to grasp the concept. “Get that into your thick skull.”
God, that temper. It made her radiant. I should’ve stopped. Should’ve walked away.
But I didn’t.
“You don’t look like someone who’d be a good cook,” I said slowly, watching her bristle with every word, “and you definitely don’t seem like someone who could please a man in bed.”
The moment I said it, I knew I’d hit something raw. Her whole body froze. Her breath hitched. And for the first time, she didn’t have a retort locked and loaded.
Her lips parted. Nothing came out. Then she closed them again. Her cheeks flushed deep crimson, and I watched as something shifted behind her eyes—shock, nerves… and something else. Something hotter.
Bullseye.
I leaned back, satisfaction settling into my bones. Watching her scramble for a comeback was like watching a fire ignite in slow motion. Her full lips opened, closed, opened again—like she didn’t know if she wanted to scream or strangle me.
For the first time in a long damn while, I felt alive.
God, had I really been dead this long? Numb? What the hell had my life been before her—before this constant tug-of-war that left my head spinning and my body aching?
What would touching her do to me?
What would having her undo?
Finally, she found her voice, spitting the words at me like venom.
“You’ve never tasted my cooking,” she said, eyes burning, “or had me in bed, so you’re completely clueless. You fucking jerk.”
She was furious. Absolutely seething. And beautiful in it. Every emotion flickered across her face, honest and wild and alive. If her glare could kill, I’d be a pile of ash on the floor.
Being around her was maddening—and addictive. One second I wanted to push her further, the next I wanted to pull her into my lap and see what that fire felt like against my skin.
So I pushed again.
“Why not prove me wrong?” I said, my voice deliberately calm. “You see, I’ve already decided—you’re not good in the kitchen. And you’re definitely not good in bed. Maybe you should come to my place and correct my mistaken beliefs?”
Her jaw dropped. She stared at me like I’d lost my mind.
“The nerve of you,” she whispered, stunned.
I glanced around with exaggerated confusion, like I wasn’t sure who she was talking to.
“How about for a few thousand dollars?” I asked smoothly. “A million, maybe?”
That did it. A pause—small, but real. Her eyes darted, her breath caught. Disbelief warred with something else—temptation, maybe. Or curiosity. Either way, I saw the flicker.
But she recovered fast.
“Fuck you and your dollars,” she said coldly. “I’m not going to have sex with you for payment.”
I smiled, but it didn’t reach my chest. Something twisted in me. Not because she said no—I’d expected that—but because she thought that was all it was. A dirty deal. An exchange.
As if that’s all I saw when I looked at her.
“You’re not doing it for the money,” I said, my tone dropping low. “You’d be doing it to prove me wrong.”
She stared at me like I’d grown two heads. “That sounds even worse. You think I’d go to your place just to cook and pleasure you because you doubt my abilities?”
I nodded slowly, unable to stop myself. God help me, I enjoyed this far too much.
“Exactly.”