“Alice?”
“You know Alice?” I ask, surprised Edward would have spoken about her.
She cocks one of her perfectly threaded eyebrows. “Are you kidding me? I only know about her from the Google. Your brother tells me nothing.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “Yes, Alice. She’s working for me now.”
“Way to go, mate,” my father says and my mother shoots him a disapproving glare.
“Ethan, please tell me you and Edward are not double-teaming her.”
“Excuse me?” I say, unable to comprehend how my mother knows this sexual term, much less that she’d use it in a conversation with me. “No! We are not double-teaming Alice. Bloody hell.”
“Then, what is the problem?” she asks, appearing somewhat bored with the conversation now that I’ve clearly steered it away from the topic of a ménage à trois.
“The problem is I chucked him out of the restaurant after I found out the reason he and Alice broke up. He was a complete bastard to her, Mum.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know where we went wrong with that boy.”
“Yeah, well, his narcissism is really the least of my issues. The real problem is he’s holding my feelings for Alice over me. Somehow, I let him get the best of me. And now he has the power to get my restaurant taken away if he finds out I’m…”
My mom leans forward curiously. “In love with Alice?”
“What? No! I’m not in love with her. I—” The cheeky grin on her face stops me. “I’m not in love with her,” I insist.
She nods as if she believes me. “Okay. Whatever you say, baba.”
She only calls me baba when she’s buttering me up or get me to see things her way.
“I’m not falling for that.”
“For what?” she replies innocently.
“That emotional manipulation. I know what you’re doing.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, and takes another sip of tea. “Maybe we should discuss something else. You know, I was talking to your cousin Ian the other day about his girlfriend and I told him that saying. Do you remember the one I’m talking about? Bhālōbāsi yakhana pārō, kālakē pratiśruti dē'ōẏā haẏani.”
I down the rest of my whiskey and sit back on the sofa as I realize I won’t be getting any advice from my mother today. “Mum, you know my Bengali is beyond rusty. What does that mean?”
“It means: Love when you can, tomorrow is not promised. And it’s not Bengali. It’s an old Sanskrit saying.” She looks to my father. “You know there’s eighty-six different ways to say love in Sanskrit and only one way to say it in English.”
“Probably because if you’re English there’s only one meaning: pain,” I grumble.
“Oh, stop it,” she chides me. “You should be grateful if love has come into your life. And I will leave it at that. I have to go. I have dough rising.”
“Are you making naan?” I ask, the memory of my mother’s amazing garlic naan making me homesick.
“Goodbye, darling,” she says, ending the call without answering my question, making certain she leaves me with her parting thoughts on love.
Unfortunately, I’m not in love with Alice, so my mum’s wisdom does nothing to ease my worries about the situation I’ve gotten myself into.
Alice and I barely know each other.
Unless you count the fact that, through Edward, she’s essentially already seen me naked many more times than I care to admit or imagine. And there’s no denying the way she reminds me so much of Priya, the last and only girl I’ve ever loved.
But I can’t be in love with a woman I’ve only known for a fortnight.
A woman I’ve worked closely with.
A woman I’ve hand-fed.
A woman I’ve kissed.
A woman I’ve slept with.
A woman whose honor I defended…against my own brother...in public.
I curse so loudly, my neighbor in the flat next door pounds on the wall between us, but I can’t be bothered to apologize. My mind is focused on one thing only. A single question. A question with an answer that could complicate my life beyond measure.
Am I really in love with Alice?
Chapter 13
ALICE
It’s been almost a week since we kissed in Ethan’s office, and I’ve arrived early to work three times in the hopes of catching him alone again. Working in the front of the house, I hardly ever see the inside of the kitchen where Ethan spends all his time. I’ve tried sneaking in there to breathe in the hectic atmosphere I miss so much. But every time I steal away, I run into Ollie, who wants to know why I’m not manning the reception desk.
I told myself this morning, when I left forty-five minutes earlier than necessary, that this would be the last time I try to catch Ethan alone. But fate smiles down on me when I find him in his office, moving sticky notes around on the whiteboard he uses for tracking projects.
“Are you busy?” I ask. “I can come back later.”
Please tell me I can come back later.
He whips his head around. “Alice…” His voice trails off as a smile spreads across his handsome face. “Aren’t you a tad early for your shift?”
I glance at the clock on the wall as if I’m unaware what time it is. “Just a few minutes, I think.”
“Well, that actually works out, because you’re just the person I wanted to see.”
“Really?” I reply, feigning surprise.
“Yes, I have something very important to discuss with you. Please shut the door.”
I try not to look too excited by his request as I turn around to close it behind me. But I wonder if the way I shut the door very slowly, so as not to call attention to the sound it makes, gives away my not-so-secret desires. As stealthily as I can, I twist the locking mechanism. When I turn around, Ethan is right in front of me.
His eyes are blazing with hunger. I gasp as he grabs my face and presses his lips to mine. His kiss ravages me. There’s an intoxicating urgency to it, yet it still feels methodical and precise, like every tilt of his head and brush of his tongue is meant to hit a different pleasure center.
My knees turn to jelly as his tongue slides in and out of my mouth in a suggestive way. I reach up to grab fistfuls of his dark hair to steady myself as his teeth nip at my bruised lips. He takes this as an invitation for his hands to caress their way down my body, one grasping my neck as his other hand squeezes my breast.
“Oh, God,” I moan the words against his mouth as his thumb brushes the fabric over my hardened nipple.
“We have to be quiet,” he whispers as his hand cups my breast.
“I thought we had to discuss something very important,” I murmur as his lips land on my jaw.
He licks my skin, tracing a line to my ear, and whispers, “We should discuss how much I want to be inside you right now.”
The throbbing between my legs turns into a deep ache. “How… How much is that?”
His hand slides away from my breast, moving down my waist, over the small of my back, and lands on my ass. He pulls me closer as he presses his hips against mine, allowing me to feel how much he wants to be inside me.