With an opportunity of a lifetime to make her entrepreneurial dreams come true, Thea finds it getting increasingly harder to hide her attraction to her boss, Aiden Steele - not knowing that the man under all the cold layers has a secret worth millio...
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Tomatina was closed to the general public; lunch hours were closed long ago. Of course, being Aiden Steele opens a lot of doors for you, including doors to the kitchens of Tomatina, where Aiden stood talking to the head chef about his work and passions.
I stayed silent after being introduced, just watching how freely Aiden spoke and how easily he was able to make anyone comfortable.
"Well, money's tight, but it's just how the restaurant business is. You've gotta put in years before something turns right." Max, the chef told Aiden. Aiden flashed a smile, and it seemed as if that smile would have been enough to win a couple of battles in one go, "It'll get better soon, you know it."
Max nodded, taking Aiden's hand in a warm gesture, before taking us to what he called were the best seats. He took it upon himself to decide the menu for our meals, checking if we had any allergies. I shook my head, and Aiden listed cilantro as one of his allergies.
Cilantro, really? It was probably a matter of tastes and preferences. When I was younger, I absolutely hated the textures of mushrooms, so I spent all my time explaining to people that I was indeed allergic to mushrooms and I should never be in the vicinity of one.
Maybe Aiden Steele was just a little like me too.
Or maybe he was just fucking allergic to cilantro, you fool.
While the food was being prepared, Max had left us with a bowl of tortilla chips and guacamole, which I decided to dig into, fuck the manners. I was starving at this point, and everyone loved guacamole, right?
Aiden took a sip of his water before bringing up contracts again, and I almost sunk in my seat. Did he ever get tired of all this at all? Soon enough, if life went according to plan, this would be my life as well. Maybe even worse, since I was building something from the ground up. Businesses were a lot more about mental exhaustion over physical, and I had been losing my edge slowly. I needed to get back into this before I'm declared hopeless.
"I couldn't come up with any reason why I could bring you to work for me except hiring you as an intern," he said finally, "which doesn't make sense personally seeing as you're overqualified for this role. A year at B-school puts you ahead of most entry-level jobs here, much less an interning role."
"What do you have in mind?"
"What makes you think I have something in mind?"
"You have a contract written out in front of you. Clearly, you came up with some explanation. I still don't understand why you can't just tell people you're mentoring me, I mean, what's wrong with that?"
Aiden sighed, closing the folder, "Alright, here's the thing. The COO of Steele Insurance came to me a few weeks ago. His daughter had a business idea too, and he asked me if I would mentor her. I said no, partly because the proposal did not excite me but partly because it just felt like an elaborate scheme to reel me in, you know, for something else. I don't know how to explain this to him without making it awkward. He's good at his job, so I can't really lose him either, which is why we need a separate reason to have you here."
