I should go home. I should go home and take a bitterly cold shower and remind myself that Bastian Hale is my boss who’s paying me a million dollars to tolerate him, not to notice how solid his chest feels or how his rare smiles transform his whole face.
But my mouth, backstabbing b***h that it is, says, “I’ve never had oysters before.”
In a night full of firsts, Bastian’s jaw falling open is maybe the most unexpected of them. He looks utterly dumbstruck. As if I just confessed some unspeakable sin. Murder. Arson. Never tasting oysters. All basically equivalent and equally heinous, in the eyes of God and the law, right? Well, in the eyes of Bastian Hale, they are.
“Eliana.” The way he says my name stops me cold. Not Ms. Hunter, not Hunter. Eliana. “It wasn’t a question.”
And just like t
