Chapter 2

Jade

Olivia glanced at me. I watched how she made her food look like a work of art. She always said that if it looked good, it tasted better. I wasn’t sure her food could taste any better––it could look like sludge in a bowl, and I would still eat it all.

“I thought you and Hannah got along so well,” Olivia said.

I nodded. “That was before we started working together. They had a point when they said not to work with family.” “Who’s they?” Olivia asked.

I waved my hand around my head. “You know…people.” Olivia smirked.

“Anyway,” I continued. “I have to figure out what I’m doing with my life. It’s just a matter of time before this thing doesn’t work anymore, and if

I don’t have a backup plan, I’m in trouble.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

“You have a lot of faith in me,” I groaned. “I’m starting to think it’s illplaced.”

“Nonsense,” Olivia said firmly. “Look where I started, and look at what I’m doing now.”

I nodded. Olivia and I had met in college, where she’d studied Communications. She hadn’t liked it, dropped out, studied to be a chef instead, and now she had a great job with the freedom to do whatever she wanted, and her boss loved it.

“I don’t know if I can do that,” I said. “We’re not the same. I’m not daring like you. I don’t have it all together…that’s what’s messing me up so much.”

“You’re just too hard on yourself,” Olivia said. “Learn to have a little fun. You know, let your hair down. Get laid.”

I burst out laughing. “Getting laid isn’t going to fix my job situation.”

“No, but it will loosen you up, and the rest will follow.”

I laughed and shook my head. “Sex doesn’t get me a job. Besides, it hasn’t been that long, you know. It can’t actually affect my life that much if it’s been––”

Olivia gave me a hard look. “It’s been nearly a year.”

“You’re keeping tabs on my love life!?”

“Did you sleep with someone I don’t know about since you and Mike broke up?” She narrowed her eyes at me.

I swallowed hard and shook my head slowly.

“The defense rests,” she said simply.

I giggled.

I hadn’t been with anyone else since Mike because I’d been licking my wounds. I hadn’t been able to open up to someone because Mike had promised me a fairy tale, the palace, the happiness, the prince…and then it had turned out he’d never wanted to give any of that to me. He’d just told me what I wanted to hear.

Even Olivia didn’t know how much it had hurt me and how many nights I’d cried myself to sleep, knowing that I’d hoped I’d have a ring on my finger by now. All she knew was that I’d dumped Mike on the night I’d thought he would ask me to marry him because he’d given me yet another excuse why he couldn’t prioritize me. An excuse like maybe he might want to see other people, perhaps he might want to take a break, maybe he needed to take time to find himself.

As if we didn’t both know exactly where he had been all along.

“I’m serious, Jade. Get out there, have some fun, and do something reckless for a change. You’re way too careful and way too hard on yourself. All you need is to learn how to jump with your eyes closed.”

I studied Olivia while she finished her new dish, garnished with dark green arugula leaves.

Maybe she was right. I had to take a leap and do something daring for a change.

“Liv?” Claire, the girl who manned the takeout counter, asked. “Did you prepare that order I put through?”

“Yeah,” Olivia said and reached across me, grabbing a paper bag with Skylark printed across it. “Here.” She looked at me, and her eyes twinkled.

“Look at this.”

I hopped off the counter and followed her. I stood on my toes, looking through the round glass window in the kitchen door at the customers in the front of the shop.

“Do you see that guy?” Olivia asked, looking out through the other window. “That’s Aaron Steele.”

I stared at the hot-as-fuck, tall-dark-and-delicious man who walked up to the counter with a smooth swagger that made me melt.

“Are you kidding me? Why would Aaron Steele order here?”

Aaron Steele was a hotshot investment banker with a name that preceded him. He was one of the Seattle Steeles. With so much money, everyone knew who he was, and everyone who didn’t, wanted to know who he was. They moved in totally different circles. They didn’t even rub shoulders with peasants like us.

Olivia shrugged. “Beats me. He comes in here every week, though, since last month and orders a meal for two. Something different from the menu every time––I think he’s working his way through it with whatever girl he’s with now.”

“That’s insane,” I breathed. “Aaron Steele, here…” My breath fogged up a patch on the window in front of me. “Better enjoy it while you can.”

Olivia nodded. “Yeah, it won’t last. I’m surprised it’s lasted this long.”

I nodded. Aaron Steele didn’t only have a reputation of being one of the wealthiest men in town. He also had a reputation for having a return rate of his women quicker than the public library dished out and got back their books. He wasn’t an outright player––he was discreet enough that there wasn’t ever a scandal surrounding him, but he had a different woman on his arm for most social events.

Aaron Steele was a lot of things, which made women fall at his feet in worship, hoping they would be the ones who actually stuck it out with him.

“I love this job,” Olivia said with a sigh, stepping away from the window when Aaron Steele turned to leave after paying.

“Why can’t I find a man like that?” I asked. “Can you imagine what life would be like if I had a man like that, and I didn’t have to worry about anything at all?”

“So, get yourself a man like that. You’re pretty enough,” Olivia said and walked back to her cooking station.

I rolled my eyes. “And be a trophy wife? No, thanks. I don’t just want to sit on a shelf and look pretty. I want to make something of myself.” Olivia nodded.

“So, make something of yourself.” She said it like it was so simple.