only telling you what I guess. I could be wrong. Maybe normally they’re the happiest couple in town, but they just buried Grandma.”
“Your first story seems more real.” She looked around some more. “Okay, what about the foursome in the middle of the room. Older couple and a younger couple?”
He barely glanced at the table in question. “Easy. He’s a rich business guy, very successful. He and the wife spend six weeks a year golfing in Palm Springs. That’s their only daughter. The young guy is the boyfriend the parents don’t think is good enough.”
“Who are you, Sherlock Holmes?”
He grinned at her. “Nope. They’re regulars.”
She laughed, enjoying his teasing.
He said, “You’re not the only one not having the greatest evening.”
She ran a finger around the stem of her wineglass, which he found ridiculously sexy. “I should have made it a coffee. Dinner’s too much of a commitment for a first date.”
“I agree. I always go with the coffee.”
She looked up. “Oh, are you—” Then she stopped herself.
“Single?” He finished her question for her in the direction he hoped it had been headed. “Yeah. I am.”
He wanted to say something more. Ask her out?
And then the douche returned. Since Sam was hanging around the table, he said, “Allow me to tempt you with Chef’s special dessert tonight. He’s calling it Valentine Fantasy. It’s made with Valrhona chocolate and fresh cream and a hint of raspberry. He says it tastes like sex.” Because he couldn’t help himself—it was that iron filing thing again—he caught her eye when he said that and experienced a sudden, hot surge of lust.
She held his gaze and he instinctively knew she was feeling the sizzle, too. Her voice was low and sexy. “I’ve always thought that if sex had a flavor it would be chocolate.”
And in that second a vision of her, naked and wet while he teased her with chocolate, took him so strongly he stopped breathing.
He wasn’t supposed to crush on the customers, he reminded himself as he took their orders, the Fantasy for her, and an overpriced crème brûlée that they kept on the menu for dickheads like her date.
* * *
Oh, no, Sam thought when he next swung out of the kitchen, the guy at table 12 was pulling out his smartphone again. Seriously?
Dude, no.
Not the fake text thing, he begged silently. Don’t do this to that sweet, sexy woman. But sure enough, bad first-date guy made a pantomime of shock, then distress. Sam could see his lips moving, saying something like, “Emergency, gotta go.” He practically leaped from his seat, putting his hand up to his ear, thumb and baby finger extended in an I’ll call you gesture. And then he charged out of the restaurant like his ass was on fire.
Sam would have bet his life savings that bad first date had set up the fake emergency when he was in the john. Classy.
As much he was glad to see the back of the guy, Sam saw two problems with his fast exit. First, he’d left a gorgeous, hot chick sitting by herself in a busy restaurant on a Friday night before she’d got to dessert. Second, he’d ditched her with the bill.
Sam hoped he was as nice as the next guy, but he was running a business. He turned tail and grabbed a server’s assistant. “Get the bill prepared for table 12 right away. But don’t put the desserts on it.” He finished delivering meals to table 3 and then grabbed the bill, already slipped into one of the black folders with the stylized B logo on the front and immediately walked to table 12.
“Will he be back?” he asked the lone woman at the table.
“God, I hope not.” She acted as if her date running out on her hadn’t bothered her at all, but he swore he could detect a hint of hurt in the depths of her clear gray eyes.
“Still want your dessert?”
She shook her head. Then she glanced at where her date had been sitting and Sam saw the moment she registered that he’d stiffed her for dinner. With a small sigh, she said, “I’ll just take the bill.”
He dropped the folder on the table, then, because it was his restaurant and what the hell, said, “We keep a car and driver. Some of our regulars like the service. He’d be happy to drive you home.”
She smiled her gratitude and again he had that odd feeling, as though there was more between them than a few hot glances and a little chitchat while he’d waited her table. “Thanks. But I’m staying locally.”
“No problem. Take your time.” He wanted to touch her, maybe brush his fingers over her shoulder to let her know she was awesome and amazing and deserved better. In fact, he wanted a lot more. Toyed with the idea of asking if he could see her, then figured he’d come across as a bigger knob than the one who’d left five minutes ago.
He did the smart thing. He went back to the kitchen where the usual organized chaos prevailed.
When he returned, the woman at table 12 was gone. He picked up the folder and flipped it open, assuming there’d be cash inside.
There wasn’t.
Nor was there a credit card.
In the space where a credit card should have been was a hotel room keycard.
She didn’t seem like the dine-and-dash type. And, while she wouldn’t be the first female customer who ever propositioned him, he doubted the room card was anything but the slipup of a distressed woman who got dumped on her first date. More likely, she’d meant to put a credit card down and, well, who knew what she’d been thinking?
All he knew was, he needed to get paid, and she needed to get into her hotel room.
He gazed toward the front door but she’d already left. He stood for a moment, thinking, then ran into the back and told Barney, the most efficient waiter he had, to take over his few remaining tables.
Eloise, one of the sous chefs, was adding the spun-sugar flourish onto the forgotten Valentine Fantasy. She drizzled the heart-shaped chocolate with raspberry reduction. On impulse, Sam said, “Box that up, will you? She’s taking dessert to go.”
Seconds later, he headed for the door out onto the street.
“Hey, Sam, you coming back?” Chef yelled.
He turned. Thought of that sweet sexy woman currently heading back to her hotel without a keycard or a date. He had no idea what was going to happen. Maybe nothing. Probably nothing.
But he recalled the instant connection they’d felt. Said, “If I’m not back, close up, will you?”
“Sure thing.”
And he jogged out onto the street.
He knew from the keycard that table 12 was staying at a trendy boutique hotel in the next block and he headed in that direction. The evening was cold and he hadn’t
