A Love For Always (2 page)

“As you can see, I wasn’t bluffing in my text,” Giselle said, her arms crossed under her tits, pushing them up further. Nate dutifully stared at them before returning to her sneering face.
 

“Giselle.”

“I see you still want me,” she declared with satisfaction. “Well, guess what? The milk isn’t free anymore. I deserve more from you.”

“You really do,” Nate muttered.
 

His quick acquiesce threw her off, and Nate could almost see the gears working in her head, remapping her plan. He sighed. When would women ever learn that giving ultimatums never worked?

“I mean, you’re a generous lover,” Giselle said, her tone taking a condescending turn. “You’re great in bed, you shower me with gifts, but Nate I need more.”

Here we go.

“You’re emotionally closed off. I don’t feel us going anywhere. You never talk about the future.”

“You know what this is, Giselle. I never promised more. We live for the moment.”

“But you wanted exclusivity!”

“I’m faithful to the one I’m with. Is that so wrong? That’s all I can offer.”

“But I . . . I . . . love you.”

Oh, shit.

Nate remained silent and sank to the sofa. His eyes were drawn to the newspaper spread before him. Engagement announcements. Wonderful. That would explain his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend’s behavior. Not that he didn’t see this coming. Now if only she would get on with the break-up speech.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Giselle asked shrilly.

Nate scrubbed his face with his hand in frustration. “What do you want me to say?”

“That you love me too?”
 

At his continued silence, she muttered, “Or at least there’s a chance of you loving me.”

Nope.
 

Giselle appeared to be smarter than his past girlfriends and less volatile. She switched tactics when she sat beside him, making sure her already short skirt was hitched further up. That last fuck was looking more and more likely.
 

Nate mentally berated his other head.

A perfectly manicured nail stroked up his thigh. She was definitely turning on the heat, but again, it wasn’t worth the consequences afterward.
 

“Giselle, you’re an extremely attractive woman. You’re sexy,”
wily, “
successful. You’re a world-class model, sweetheart. Any man would be honored—”

She jumped to her feet and screeched, “Oh, my God, you’re breaking up with me!”

“I don’t want to lead you on—”

“Well, what do you call all those gifts and screwing me senseless?”

“That wasn’t leading you on. We were in a mature relationship that ah . . .
 
naturally included all those things. I can’t love you the way you want, Giselle, but I do care for you.”

“Don’t try to sugarcoat what you’ve done to me. You used me!”

Okay, Nate could argue that he was the one who was used, but again, he kept his mouth shut.
 

Almost there, buddy
.

He let his gaze wander back to the newspaper and tried to zone out Giselle’s ranting. He should try to be a monk. These breakups were rarely fun. Getting reacquainted with his right hand sounded like a good life plan.
 

A picture on the periodical caught his attention. Wait, was that Brad Talbot—Sylvie’s boyfriend?

He snatched the newspaper from the coffee table to take a closer look. His heart, which was mostly beating lazily the entire time, suddenly slammed painfully against his chest. Talbot was indeed engaged . . . but not to Sylvie.
 

The relief was palpable, but not lasting. This was replaced with righteous anger.
 

“Are you even listening to me?” Giselle’s voice shot up to annoying levels.

“What?” Nate asked dazedly.

“Oh, my God, you weren’t!” she yelled at him. “I’ve had it. If you want all this,” she dramatically ran her hands down her body, “you’ll have to beg for it. As of now, we’re through! I’m done with you, Nathan Reece.”

Nate barely heard her. He quickly checked his watch. Sylvie’s restaurant should still be open at nine on a Thursday night. He had not seen Sylvie in more than a year. The reason for their fallout really pissed him off, but he had lost her too many times, it was time to secure his woman. If she had another boyfriend lined up, Nate was pretty sure he’d be committing murder.

“I need to go somewhere,” Nate said, jumping to his feet and retrieving his keys from the dining table. He was behaving like an ass, but he’d already checked out on his relationship with Giselle. A stinging slap jarred him back to the present situation. He deserved it. He sighed heavily, and looked at his girlfriend—correction—ex-girlfriend.

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me!” Another slap came his way. Okay, did he deserve that second one?

Definitely not a third one. He caught her hand mid-strike and firmly set it to her side.

“Enough!” Nate growled. “There’s no need for violence, Giselle. Lowering yourself to such levels is not worth it.”

Her lips trembled. “I hate you.”

Ah, that thin line between love and hate.

She yanked her wrist out of his grasp and stomped to where the suitcases sat.

“Let me help you—”

“Don’t bother,” she snapped. “It isn’t enough that we broke up. You couldn’t wait to help me leave your house.”

She had a point, however twisted that sounded, so Nate watched her roll the designer suitcases out. He was on edge to leave immediately, but waited until he heard her car pull away. Not exactly a clean amiable breakup, but then again they rarely were. He hopped on his vintage BMW bike, deciding he needed to feel the ride to calm down the sudden rush of emotions. The last thing he wanted was to storm into Sylvie’s place of business and have it out with her. Somehow, he knew he would end up doing exactly just that.

CHAPTER TWO

“Eighty-six on Tonkotsu ramen!”

She heard Rick Meyer yell from the ramen bar. Sylvie brushed the sleeve of her chef jacket on her forehead even if she was wearing a bandana. It was a crazy busy night. Full house since 5:30 p.m. and she was loving it.

She opened Sapporo Ramen two years ago in the half basement of an old building located at the edge of Washington, D.C. At first, she debated the prudence of a restaurant that was lower than street level, but the whole idea of an underground eatery appealed to her. The constraints of operating in a tight space necessitated she set some rules. No reservations. No substitutions. What was on the menu was what was served, as is. Cash only. She’d been so busy keeping the restaurant afloat those first few months, she didn’t realize she earned herself the reputation as the Soup Nazi of Washington, D.C.
 

Sylvie quickly coated the chicken pieces in a potato starch mixture and tossed them into the deep fryer. Besides ramen, which was the house specialty, Sapporo also served karaage—Japanese fried chicken and steamed buns. She would often concoct a special ramen for the night depending on seasonal ingredients.

She quickly ran down the tasks she needed to do next. She had three people working the ramen bar. Contrary to popular belief, ramen was not simple to make. It was far from the microwavable crap the general public was used to. It took her almost a year to perfect the texture of her noodles. These needed to be cooked for exactly ninety seconds, rinsed off with a ladle of broth to remove flour residue, and laid in a bowl as a ready bed for the other toppings. Each topping was arranged reverently, from the pork belly and bamboo shoots to the shoyu tamago (marinated egg) and seaweed (fresh or roasted).
 

The oven timer dinged. Those were the soup bones for the next day.
 

“Kato,” Sylvie called out to her kitchen assistant who did most of the prep work. He was a young man of twenty-one who was half Japanese and half American just like her. “Can you take out those neck bones and set them to cool? Also, peel the eggs so I can put them in a marinade.”

“Roger that, chef.”

She loved her crew. They worked well as a unit. Most of them had worked for her since the beginning. Rick was the newcomer, and even he had been with her for a year. She had been hesitant to hire Rick at first. He was quite a bruiser of a guy, more ruggedly attractive than handsome. Tall, with well-defined muscles and sleeve tattoos on both arms, his shoulder-length hair was held back with a piece of worn leather. He looked like he belonged to a motorcycle club instead of practicing Zen in the art of ramen behind a bar. He convinced her to hire him though. He pointed out that his charm was the perfect foil to her anti-social behavior, kind of like a good cop, bad cop scenario. She corrected him saying she wasn’t anti-social, just focused when she was in the kitchen. He added he could play up his tattoos and say he’d been a member of the Yakuza to “sorta” propagate the myth. Sylvie didn’t think it was funny. Anyway, he was handy in hauling those big stock pots, and he was quite nimble behind that narrow counter given his bulk.

“You can’t go in there, asshole!” Rick’s pissed-off warning got her tensing up. Last time he said those exact same words in that exact same tone, an irate customer barged into her kitchen because she refused to make substitutions.

“Watch me.” Came the challenging response.
 

She knew that voice. Sure enough, when she raised her eyes from bobbing pieces of chicken, she was slammed speechless by the sight of heated brown eyes drinking her up. It also bore saying, the kitchen had become considerably smaller given the entrance of a six foot three hunk of man.
 

She forced herself to relax. “Nate. Good to see you.”

“Good to see you?” His words were scathing. “Is that all you have to say, Sylvie?”

“I’m kinda busy here,” she replied tersely. Thankfully, the chicken was done. Timing was everything to her. She fished out the karaage with the spider ladle.

“You heard her, man,” Rick stepped into the kitchen. Great. The last available inch of kitchen space disappeared.
 

“Take my advice and back off,” Nate shot back.

Both men squared off in a death glare. Sylvie looked around her kitchen for breakable items. The expensive sake, which she had neglected to move to storage, and aged soy sauce sat on a shelf near the two men.

“Rick, I got this,” Sylvie said sharply. “I swear if you guys get into a scuffle and break my precious sake, I’m going to castrate both of you and turn your balls into the next ramen special.”

Both men winced.

“The swinging steak ramen,” Kato chortled. Her assistant was technically wrong because swinging steak referred to bull testicles, but Sylvie had to admit it had a good ring to it.

Both men turned their glares on her kitchen assistant, effectively shutting him up.

Nate cleared his throat. “Rick, huh?” The two men dialed down the hostility, but the look that passed between them was undecipherable. Weird.

“Rick,” Sylvie repeated. “You’re needed at the bar.”

Her sous chef nodded and backed out of the kitchen. Sylvie folded her arms in front of her and nodded for Kato to leave the kitchen. She knew why Nate was here.

“I’m surprised you check engagement announcements,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Why didn’t you contact me when you broke up with Talbot?”

“Nate, now is not the time,” Sylvie pleaded. “In case you haven’t noticed, the floor is packed.”

Nate smiled. There was a hint of pride in that smile. He was proud of her. His next words confirmed this. “You did good, firecracker.”

Her heart doubled in size. Tripled even. Amazing how a few words from this man could affect her.

The monitor hanging over the prep area popped with two more orders of karaage and several pork belly buns.

“Thanks,” she replied with a shy smile. “But shoo. I’m busy. You can wait for me outside.”

“No seats available. Can’t I wait in here?”

“Look at my kitchen, Nate. If you can’t prep or cook worth a damn, you’re wasting real estate—”

“Ouch,” he had a silly grin on his face. “Can I wait out back? In the parking lot behind the building?”

Sylvie sighed. She knew better than to blow him off. Nate could be the most bullheaded man when he chose to be.

“I’ll talk to you after dinner service.”

“Works for me.”

“It could be a while.”

“I can wait.” He moved closer, ducked his head and brushed his lips against hers. “I miss you, babe.”

“Nate—”

“We’ll talk. I’m not rushing you into anything.”

Her defenses were rapidly crumbling. She couldn’t fall for him. It wasn’t a good idea before, and her life had just gotten more complicated. She had until the end of dinner service to think of a good excuse to rebuff him. Even friendship wasn’t an option any longer.

She simply nodded.

*****

Two hours.

He’d been waiting for two fucking hours, leaning against his bike, which was parked parallel against the wall of the building. The back of the restaurant led out to the parking lot where there were steps that rounded the building, leading up to the entrance of Sapporo Ramen. It was unusual why Sylvie made it so inaccessible, and yet there was a long line of customers waiting to be seated.
 

This night had taken a strange turn, and he was still trying to figure out what was going on. He was confused as fuck, but nothing would make sense until someone started talking.

The backdoor swung open, and that Rick guy stepped out.

The man scowled at him and muttered, “You nearly blew my cover, asshole.”

“Hardly,” Nate replied tersely.
 
“What I want to know is why a DEA agent is moonlighting as a ramen chef?”

“Would you be quiet,” Rick, also known as Cade Bowen, cautioned in an angry whisper. Cade walked away from the building, gesturing for Nate to follow him. Nate had worked with Cade in Afghanistan when the DEA agent was part of the Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Team (DEA FAST).
 

When they were a distance away, the DEA agent turned to Nate. “How do you know Sylvie?”