Page 16 of Beautiful Sin
“Three years!” She jabbed a finger at me, nearly taking out my eye. “Three years I’ve been watching this slow-motion train wreck of pining and meaningful glances. I swear, if you don’t confess soon, I’m going to write your love story myself and sell it as a novel.”
“Ouch! Ouch!” I yelped as she pinched my cheeks, her usual method of expressing frustration with my romantic incompetence. For someone so delicate-looking, she had a grip like a vise.
“Bree!” Terrence called from the kitchen, amusement clear in his voice. “What’s our favorite disaster done now?”
“Being a disaster,” Bree replied, finally releasing my poor face. “As usual.”
I rubbed my cheeks, painfully aware that Jaxson was watching our little scene from across the restaurant. Because apparently, the universe hadn’t humiliated me enough tonight. “I was not.”
“You were absolutely being a disaster,” she insisted, flicking my forehead for good measure. “A beautiful, lovable disaster who needs to get his act together before someone else snatches up that dark-haired Adonis of a stepbrother.”
Warren’s timely announcement of “Table twenty ready!” saved me from another round of cheek abuse. We loaded up our arms with plates, a skill that should definitely count as an Olympic sport, and headed back out into the chaos. If I happened to take the long way around to avoid a certain table by the silk screen, well, that was just efficient route planning, wasn’t it?
Quarter to ten found me clearing tables and questioning my life choices when Jaxson materialized out of nowhere like some stupidly attractive ninja. I nearly sent both myself and an armful of crystal crashing to the floor—which would’ve been a fantastic addition to my evening, and Eleanor’s expression would have been the last thing I ever saw—but his arms caught me before gravity could finish what it started. My face ended up pressed against his chest, which was both heavenly and torture, because now his scent was all I could smell and my brain was rapidly short-circuiting.
The familiar scent wrapped around me—expensive cologne with notes of sandalwood and something uniquely Jaxson that always made my knees weak. But beneath it was another scent—feminine perfume clinging to his suit—and my stomach did an unpleasant flip. Right.Her.
I extracted myself from his arms like he was on fire, which, given how hot my face felt, he might as well have been. “Why didyou just appear like that?” I managed, trying to sound annoyed rather than flustered. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
He had the audacity to chuckle, his eyes doing that thing where they made me feel like I was the only person in the room. The way the amber lighting of Eight Dynasties caught in his eyes, turning them to something closer to gold, should have been illegal. “I was trying to get your attention, but you were too busy.”
“Yeah, it’s Friday,” I said, gesturing vaguely at the chaos around us. “Been on my feet since five, living the dream. Some of us have to work for a living instead of just looking pretty in suits.”
“When’s your break?” he asked, his eyes traveling over my face with an intensity that made my skin tingle.
“It was supposed to be at nine, but the universe had other plans. Probably soon, though.” I adjusted my grip on the crystal, using the mundane task to ground myself. “Why?”
“Good. Come sit with us,” he said, turning away like he’d just announced the weather rather than my personal nightmare.
“Huh?” I frowned at his retreating back, admiring the way his suit jacket hugged his broad shoulders before I caught myself. “But what about your client friend?”
“You mean Sara?” The name rolled off his tongue like expensive wine. “She’s fine with it. She wants to meet you.”
I wanted to tell him that I’d rather drink chili oil by the spoonful, but he was already walking away, leaving me with dirty crystal and a growing sense of doom.
After dealing with the crystal and clearing tables—and seriously considering faking food poisoning—I grabbed a soft drink and found myself heading toward Jaxson’s table like a moth to an extremely well-dressed flame.
What are you doing?my brain screamed.The staff room exists for a reason. There’s a perfectly good chair in there withyour name on it. Literally, because Bree labeled it ‘Disaster’s Throne’ last week.
But my feet kept moving, because apparently, they’d decided to side with my heart rather than my brain. Traitors, the lot of them.
I reached the table to find Jaxson already sliding over in the booth, making space next to him like this was totally normal and not slowly killing me. The booth’s imperial red silk was warm where he’d been sitting, and I tried not to think about how close we were about to be in the small space. Sara’s eyes locked on me like a heat-seeking missile, her perfect smile not quite reaching her eyes as she assessed me from head to toe.
“You’re Jaxson’s brother?” she asked, her tone suggesting she found this about as believable as the menu’s braised abalone being anything less than exceptional.
“Stepbrother,” I corrected, twisting open my drink like it required all my concentration. “I’m Lan.” As if the family resemblance—or complete lack thereof—wasn’t obvious enough. Jaxson was all commanding dark hair and amber-gold eyes and six foot three of presence that made entire rooms rearrange themselves around him, while I was something else entirely. Though I’m from the Ji family—one of mainland China’s oldest lineages—genetics had played an interesting trick. Instead of inheriting my Han Chinese ancestors’ typical features, I’d somehow drawn the genetic lottery for my father’s Western looks and the trace of Xinjiang blood from my mother’s side. The result was a face that never quite fit anywhere, with features too delicate for Western standards and bone structure that didn’t quite match typical Chinese expectations. We couldn’t look more different if we tried.
Sara’s perfectly glossed lips curved into what might generously be called a smile. “So you’re the youngest, right? The college student?”
I nodded, trying not to choke on the cloud of designer perfume surrounding us. At this point, I wasn’t sure if I was smelling her perfume or being personally attacked by it.
“Eight Dynasties,” she mused, examining the embroidered emblem on my uniform jacket with a critical eye. “Isn’t that the restaurant with the impossible reservation list? What an… interesting choice for someone from Jaxson’s family.”
I felt Jaxson tense beside me, his arm pressing against mine as he subtly shifted his posture. The protective gesture wasn’t lost on me, nor on Sara, whose eyes narrowed slightly.
“The family connection didn’t get me the job, if that’s what you’re implying,” I replied, keeping my tone light despite the irritation building beneath my skin. “Eleanor Fang doesn’t hire on nepotism. She has standards that would make most fashion houses look lenient.”
“Eleanor Fang?” Sara’s eyebrows rose a fraction. “TheEleanor Fang?”
