Exquisite (14 page)

Mason reached up to touch his
mother’s hand then linked their fingers bringing them down to rest beside them.
“She scares me mom.”

“Why?” she asked him softly then
added, “She’s just a girl.”

He shook his head, “Maybe when you
met her, but she’s so much more now.”

Unlinking their hands his mother
rested a hand over his heart and said softly, “Be careful Mason. Tread lightly
and fall gracefully.”

He grinned now at her and chuckled,
“Have you ever known me to do that?”

She smiled and patted his cheek,
“No but it was worth a shot.”

On Friday, Lena walked down the
hospital corridor leading to the children’s oncology ward with one person in
mind, Robbie Tipton. She’d heard he was responding well to the treatment so far
but had just recently come down with a bad infection. She wanted to go down and
see the little guy. To reach out and know he was still there, that he was ok
and she’d caught the signs early enough to give him a fighting chance. As she
pushed through the airtight doors she heard the laughter of children and the
muted sounds of a TV in the rec room off to the left. She stopped by the door
and peered in noting a nurse sitting in the corner keeping an eye on the
children watching the cartoons.

It always amazed Lena when she came
down here. Children had such resilience in the face of pain and suffering. It
was more often than not that the children were the ones who would say something
so wise and profound Lena found herself wondering,
who made her think she
could tell them the outcome of their lives?
Cancer though, it was a fickle
friend that didn’t care about your age, gender or race. It would move in take
up residence and eventually kick you to the curb, it was a mean landlord and
didn’t care who it hurt in order to get what it wanted. Lena waved at the nurse
when she looked over to her and smiled, then turned and made her way down the
hall to Room 308. Knocking lightly on the door she stepped inside to see Becky
Tipton, lying on a cot the nurses had made up for her, holding little Robbie
and kissing his head. Behind her was her husband, Lena presumed, stroking a
hand through her hair and looking down at them both. They made such a beautiful
picture she was almost upset she had interrupted, until Becky looked up at her
and smiled.

“Dr O’Donnell.”

Lena stepped forward and watched as
Mr. Tipton came around the cot. He reached out offering his hand to her. “I’m
Chad, Becky’s husband. She tells me you’re the one to thank for catching
Robbie’s cancer early.”

Lena reached out and clasped his hand
then smiled when he shook it firmly. “I just ran the right blood tests, that’s
all.”

He looked over his shoulder at his
wife and child then back at her. “That’s everything. You gave him the chance to
fight.”

Lena moved back a step and placed
her hands in her lab coat pockets. “I heard he was running a fever last night?”

Becky nodded, “Yeah they said he
had a small respiratory infection. Ahh Dr, um Monroe I believe, came and
checked him ordered some tests and meds and since this morning his fever has slowly
been dropping.”

Lena smiled and nodded, “That’s
great news. I just wanted to stop by and check on my favorite little guy.” she
turned to leave when she heard Chad say, “Thanks again Dr.”

Lena smiled and made her way back
to her floor. She was just stepping off the elevator when she ran into Shelly.

“Hey there stranger.” she walked
with her friend toward the cafeteria. She hadn’t seen her since the
big date
,
so she knew she was in for it, and to be honest she was kind of looking forward
to it.

“So you know I’m dying over here.
How’d it go?”

Lena turned and grinned at her, “Oh
it went
very
well.”

Shelly grabbed her arm and shook it
like they were in high school instead of a hospital corridor. “I knew! Didn’t I
tell you?”

Lena couldn’t help the smile on her
face so she nodded and sighed, “You sure did.”

They finally reached the lunch line
and grabbed their food. Heading to a seat in the back Shelly opened her water
and took a sip. “So tell me, is he absolutely amazing in bed?”

Lena grinned, “We didn’t go to
bed.” she paused then leaned in and whispered, “Unless you mean the next day
when he called me, while I was still in bed and told me he wanted me to stroke
his naked body all over with my hair.”

Shelly’s mouth dropped open, “Shut
the hell up! He did
not
say that to you.”

Lena bit into her apple and nodded,
“Well I’m paraphrasing but that was the g rated version.”

Shelly sat back with a huge sigh,
“What’d I tell you huh? Lucky bitch. How was the dinner?”

Lena smiled at her friend. “He made
an absolutely mouth watering pasta then we made peach cobbler.”

Shelly cocked her head to the side,
“Ah the peach.”

Just that word alone made Lena’s
thighs clench so she sat silently.

“He made you cook your own
dessert?”

Lena took a sip of her water then,
as nonchalantly as she could manage, replied. “Yeah after we peeled and cut
them he squeezed it all over me and sucked it off.”

Shelly narrowed her eyes. “Are you
making this shit up to play with me?”

Lena stood walked around to Shelly
then leaned down to pull her shirt to the side revealing the lighter, but still
obvious, hickey. She heard Shelly’s quick gasp, smiled at her friend and raised
her eyebrows, then turned on her heel to walk away. Behind her she heard Shelly
yell.

“Lucky bitch.”

Mason yawned as he looked over at
his sister who was sitting down eating a sandwich talking to Wendy about this
evening. Friday night, one of the busiest nights of the weeks for them and he
had a food critic from
Delicious
coming in to see them. He ran a hand
over his face and looked around the dining room. His staff had done a great job
all day. Moving tables where he wanted them and setting candles, linens,
silverware, glassware, lights and music all to get the right feel for one of
the most important nights he would ever have. This review would be national and
would mean a huge deal to them and their sales. He walked over to Wendy and
reached out hugging her to his side.

“We did it you know.” he smiled
over at Rachel. “We pulled this off.”

Wendy turned and smacked him
lightly in the chest. “Don’t say that you’ll jinx us.”

He grinned at her. “Nah my week has
been going to good.” Rachel rolled her eyes and he laughed, “Like you can talk,
all we heard about for months was Charlie this and Charlie that.”

Wendy laughed and nodded along with
him.

“Yeah but we’re use to me acting
like a love sick idiot. On you it seems all wrong.”

“Hey now, who said anything about
love?” Mason sputtered.

“Oh please, you dating one woman at
a time? That has to be love.”

Mason rolled his eyes at her. “No,
she’s complicated. I need all my wits about me to work her out.”

“In other words she’s smart.” Wendy
chimed in.

“In other words she has a brain.”
Rachel added then grinned at him with the same smile he’d been born with.

“Well of course ladies,” he said
and turned to walk into the kitchen, “She’s dating me isn’t she?”

Shelly had talked Lena into going
out tonight. After all she’d said, it’s Friday and she was dating a guy who
owned the hottest restaurant in Chicago. Lena wasn’t sure it was such a great
idea. After all they’d only had one official date where they had actually
gotten along and not wanted to kill each other. He may not appreciate her just
showing up unannounced. It wasn’t as though they were a serious couple or anything
like that. So there she was sitting in Shelly’s car in the parking lot behind
Exquisite
.
It was packed this evening. She’d been here two times and on both occasions
it’d been busy, but tonight it was overflowing with people and there was a line
around the building.

“We’ll never get in there tonight.
Let’s go somewhere else.” Lena suggested hoping her plan for escape would fly.
No such luck with Shelly on the case.

“Come on! Stop whining and get out
of the car. The minute he sees you he’s going to let you in. Plus you look
amazing tonight.”

Rolling her eyes at her friend she
got out and tugged her skirt down. Wrapping herself up in her coat she followed
Shelly around the side. She went to stand in the back of the crowd when Shelly
grabbed her hand and tugged her forward. She could feel people glaring holes in
them as they watched her friend stand on tiptoe and say something to the man at
the door. He looked at them both and raised an eyebrow then disappeared.

“I told him to go and ask if we
could come in. I gave your name. I hope you don’t mind.”

Shaking her head Lena answered
sarcastically, “Sure, why would I mind?”

They stood looking at the huge
crowd and Lena asked, “Did we miss something important tonight or is this every
Friday?”

Looking around then back at her
Shelly shrugged, “I have no idea.”

The big guy who’d been at the front
came back out and gestured for them to come over. He pulled back the rope and
leaned down.

“I spoke to Wendy, the manager, she
said that was fine but you’d have to sit at the bar.”

Shelly grinned and grabbed Lena’s
arm, “Not a problem big guy.” and just like that they were in.

Mason was going insane. He had
orders coming in and out of the dining room faster than he could blink and
Rachel was having a fit because one of her blow torches had gone missing, which
she needed to make over two hundred Crème Brule’s. He’d been told table twenty
three had the food critic on it and a waiter was now in the process of
delivering their meals. Mason took a deep breath and saw Wendy motion him over
to the corner of the kitchen pass.

“What’s wrong?” he asked
automatically.

She shook her head quickly to
reassure him. “Nothing’s wrong, in fact everything is going great and you have
a line wrapped around your building. However, I did manage to sneak in two
people, even though we’re at full capacity.”

He raised his eyebrows, “Who?”

“She’s at the bar.”

Mason looked around her and spotted
who Wendy was referring to right at the very end of his old mahogany bar. The
lights were low tonight and all he could see was a faint shadow of her, but her
hair was falling down her back freely and suddenly he felt his stomach clench.
He straightened back up and looked at Wendy. “When did she get here?”

She looked at her watch, “Oh about
forty minutes ago, right during the rush. I figured I’d let you know when it
slowed down a little.”

He nodded appreciating the thought,
and the fact that he hadn’t been distracted by her for the last hour, but now
he wanted to go and see her. He still had his interview to do but everything
else was taken care of. He wiped his hands down his apron and moved over to the
bar.

Lena was on her fourth Cosmo and
feeling quiet relaxed as Shelly wandered off to flirt with a man sitting on the
other side of the bar. She’d found herself looking around the dining room all
night for Mason but she hadn’t seen him once. Deciding he was either way to
busy to deal with her, or he was avoiding her, she picked her glass up and took
another sip. Then she started to get annoyed because the man next to her kept
trying to buy her drinks and in the end she’d accepted because he just didn’t
seem to be taking a hint. So there she was, dressed up to impress a man who may
or may not be avoiding her, drinking her third drink purchased by an annoying
man who couldn’t take no for an answer, quickly working her way to drunk. She
placed the empty glass back on the bar and looked up when she saw the bartender
had stopped in front of her.

“What can I get for you tonight
Miss?” Mason asked as he watched Lena’s face register shock first then
embarrassment, if her flushed cheeks were telling the truth. He finally got his
first close up look of her tonight and he was having a hard time staying on his
side of the bar. She was dressed in a little black dress,
little being the
operative word
. Since she was seated he couldn’t see much but what he could
see he liked a lot. The dress had three quarter sleeves then scooped down low
across her chest, showing off her amazing breasts, that seemed to be enhanced
by a magical bra tonight, and her hair had been left out and was waving down
over one of her shoulders. Her legs were crossed and the skirt had ridden up
high on her thigh leaving her smooth legs bare to him and she’d finished the
look with black killer spike stilettos. She finally seemed to gather her wits
about her, even though he noticed she looked a little glassy eyed, then sat
forward resting her hands on the bar and pushing her delectable breasts closer too
him as she continued to drain all the blood from his head by opening her mouth.

“Hmmm. I was just thinking I would
like an Orgasm.”

Lena wasn’t sure at what point she
would call herself drunk, all she knew was she felt good and relaxed as she sat
there in front of the sexy as hell Mason Langley. He was dressed, as usual to
work tonight, in a white chef’s smock that had two rows of black buttons
running up and down his fit body and slung low and tight around his hips was a
long black apron. He looked as though he’d run his hands through his hair on
his way over and currently he was standing in front of her speechless. It
wasn’t until the idiot next to her decided to add in, “I’ll get that for you
honey.” that she watched him raise his brow and say softly.

“I’ll take care of that for her,
sir.”

Lena didn’t give two hoots about
the man next to her but he didn’t seem to be giving up without a fight. “Come
on man, don’t poach. I’ve bought her drinks all night, at least let me give her
an Orgasm.”