Ironically, they’d almost literally hit each other instantly. At the time they’d met, they’d both been dating the same woman. And hadn’t known it.
Turned out to be a fortuitous encounter. Because here they were, twelve years later, still best friends and business partners. Still sharing thei
r women …
But that wasn’t something for Rory to think about at the moment. He had cutthroat foodies to win over.
He hefted the tray, flattened his palm in the center, and carried it above shoulder height through the kitchen and out the pass-through door. He only made it one step beyond the wide doorframe when he kicked something hard and unyielding. At first. Then the object gave way and a delicate shriek shattered the silence.
Just as Rory tripped—over a body.
“Jesus Christ!” he bellowed.
The tray went flying, slamming into the far wall of the servers’ station, the painstakingly chosen china crashing to the tile floor and resonating throughout the narrow space and nearly empty restaurant as Rory fell to his knees. Next to the body.
A very svelte, gorgeous body. One that shouldn’t have been squatting anywhere near the entrance to his kitchen.
The woman who was sprawled partially on the floor alongside him blurted, “Oh, my God! I’m so sorry!”
Pierre swooped in to hastily clean the mess while Rory hopped to his feet. His hand shot out in the general direction of the startled woman. He curtly said, “You must be Bayli Styles. Hostess wannabe?” His next words came on a near growl. “You’re early.”
She stared at him, a little rocked by the incident if he read her stunned expression accurately. Then she seemed to come around and actually glared. “Bayli, yes.”
He smirked at how she neither confirmed nor denied the tidbit about whether she now wanted to be a Davila’s hostess. Feisty thing that she apparently was.
With her head tilted back to look up at him, Rory got the full effect of her sculpted face, unbelievably long black lashes, and the most tempting crimson-colored mouth he’d ever seen.
He didn’t even have time to process the natural sparkle in her tawny eyes, because her palm slipped into his and everything in his brain went haywire. Her touch was warm and velvety and … electrifying. Jolting Rory.
She gripped his hand tightly, either fearing he might let go and cause her to fall back on her ass or to prove she wasn’t intimidated by him. He burned with curiosity to know which was more accurate.
He helped her up, and as Bayli Styles stood before him—almost eye to eye given the tall heels she wore—something even more profound happened to Rory.
A click. In his brain. In his gut.
His gaze slid over her, taking in every glamorous inch but mostly fixating on legs that didn’t quit. Holy hell, she had incredible legs. Bare, sleek, and sexy looking. They’d feel fucking fantastic wrapped around his hips.
But no. That wasn’t what the click was about. Not entirely, anyway.
She was insanely beautiful, yes. Poised, even after he’d laid her flat. Squared shoulders. Lifted chin. She was … sensational.
Not just in the way that instantly charged him, sexually. Especially as her nipples pebbled beneath her tight black dress. While Rory’s groin tightened at her physical response to him, his mind suddenly whirled with other thoughts. Potentially the solution to a professional problem that had plagued him and Christian the past several months. A project that had tanked miserably, with no plausible way in sight to rectify it. Until now. Because a new vision stood right before his very eyes.
But Rory wasn’t one to give anything away. He had to further gauge the situation, assess the ebb and flow between Bayli and his sometimes overpowering demeanor before he jumped to any brilliant conclusions about whether he was staring at the Holy Grail he and Christian desperately sought.
First, Rory would have to determine if this woman was a flight-or-fight one.
He sensed it would be the latter. Hoped it would be the latter.
“Are you all right?” he demanded, not curbing his annoyance that she’d disrupted his lunch service, had effectively made a calamity of it. He wanted her full-on, unchecked reaction to him not going all soft on her because of her pretty face and haunting eyes.
Bayli ripped her hand from his as though she’d been scalded, and rubbed her shapely left hip where he’d accidentally kicked her. In a husky tone that confirmed she felt the spontaneous chemistry as well, she told him, “Think you’ll leave a mark, but I’m sure I’ll survive.”
There was a tinge of sass to her voice, a flicker of it in her shimmering irises.
Definitely fight.
“Good to hear.” That sentiment held dual meaning for him.