Emboldened by my success, I decide to venture further. The executive wing is just down the hall. It's usually off-limits after hours unless you are working directly with one of the C-suite.

But what are they going to do, fire me?

Well, that's certainly an option. God knows Mr. Hale has fired enough people for far more minor infractions. There's practically a trail of tears permanently inked into the carpet leading out from his office.

I glide my fingers along the wall, counting doorways. Conference Room A, Conference Room B, the supply closet where I once caught two sales associates in a decidedly non-professional embrace, and then⁠-

The wall ends. I know this space. It is the informal lounge area outside Mr. Hale's office, complete with gleaming leather couches and a view of the lake that I have never properly appreciated until right this moment when I can't actually see it.

Bastian Hale. The head honcho himself. He's six-foot-something of blond-and-blue perfection wrapped in Tom Ford suits and an ego with its own gravitational field. To be fair, it's sort of earned-the man built a hospitality empire from nothing before his fortieth birthday.

The first problem is that he knows he's a genius.

The other problem is that he never, ever lets anyone forget it.

He goes through assistants like tissue paper and, if the rumors are true, he goes through romantic partners even faster. Given the way half the women on staff look at him, the rumors are probably understating things.

Not that I look at him. Much. Okay, I'm human and possess functioning eyeballs-for the next ninety days, anyway-so yes, I have noticed that he is unfairly attractive in that way that makes you angry at genetics for being so unequally distributed. He's taller than seems necessary and smells better than the job requires.

But I have also noticed he is an absolute nightmare to work for. The project manager position I currently occupy only became available in the first place because he gave the last girl a mental breakdown when she used the wrong shade of cream in a menu layout.

Fortunately, his office is vacant right now. It is past nine, and even Bastian Hale has to go home sometime. Probably to his Gold Coast penthouse with its wraparound views of Lake Michigan and whichever VS supermodel is gracing his bedsheets this week.

Assuming he has bedsheets, that is. I wouldn't be surprised if he sleeps in a coffin like Dracula.

I move forward, gaining confidence little by little, step by step. Maybe it is stupid, but I feel almost giddy. Like I'm getting away with something. I'm reclaiming some tiny piece of control in a day that has stripped me of almost everything.

I pick up speed. My hands swing freely now instead of clutching at walls. I can do this. I can adapt. I can overcome all things through spite and stubbornness who strengthens me. I am strong, I am powerful, I am woman, hear me⁠-!

What.

My palms make contact with something warm. Something solid. Something that is definitely not a wall or a piece of furniture or any inanimate object that should reasonably be in an office at 9 P.M. on a Thursday.

It is skin. Warm, bare skin stretched over what feels like an absolutely ridiculous amount of muscle. The kind of torso that suggests its owner either has a serious gym addiction or was crafted by Michelangelo during a particularly inspired phase.

For one horrible, endless second, I keep my hands there. My brain short-circuits as it tries to process what is happening.

Then, slowly, with the kind of dawning horror usually reserved for people who've just realized they've replied-all to the entire company with something deeply inappropriate, I open my eyes.

It is, in fact, the worst-case scenario.

Bastian Hale stands there, topless, a white dress shirt dangling from one hand. He's looking at me with that trademark blend of scorn and weariness that he does so well. It's a look that says, You do not even deserve my attention, much less my wrath.

Unfortunately for me, he wears that look well.

I blame the chin. It's just shaped too perfectly. No one outside of Henry Cavill should have a chin that artistically cleft, that masculine, that blunt.

Although, as I gawk up at Bastian and wonder just how bad the fallout is going to be from this disaster, I'm starting to wonder if maybe the brows are also at fault here. They slice above his blue eyes, two cliffs overlooking two icy mountain lakes, set on either side of the ever-so-slightly crooked ridge of his nose. His mouth is a stern slash, twisted up, ten percent smirk and ninety percent scowl.

Aw, screw it; I can't decide. The whole face is guilty of letting him get away with saying so much toxic crap. Crap like:

"Ms. Hunter." His voice is a baritone rumble. "Care to explain what you're doing?"

My hands are still on his chest. Why are my hands still on his chest? Why can't I move? Why is he shirtless? Why is my brain choosing this exact moment to notice that he has a small scar just below his left collarbone, and a tattoo on his left pec, and a light dusting of hair leading from his chest, down the valley of his abs, and then teasing me as it descends lower and lower, into⁠-

"I-" I yank my hands back so fast I nearly lose my balance. "I wasn't- This isn't- Why are you shirtless?"

God, I hate how my voice sounds to my own ears. So squeaky and shrill. Somewhere down the block, a dog just got very concerned for me.

One of Bastian's eyebrows floats up. "Generally, that's what happens when one changes clothes."

"It's nine at night!"

"How remarkably observant of you. And here I thought you had your eyes closed." He tilts his head. "Which brings us to the more interesting question: Why were you wandering around my office in the dark, looking for victims to grope?"

I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again.

What am I supposed to say? Hey, boss, funny story: I'm going blind in three months, so I thought I'd practice navigating the office and accidentally felt you up instead? Sort of a "task failed successfully" situation.

"I was... testing something."

"Were the results satisfactory?"

There is something in his tone that makes heat crawl up my neck. Which is ridiculous, obviously. This is Bastian Hale. He dates women with billboards of their faces and sexually explicit pop songs on the radio. He is genetically incapable of innuendo with anyone below the executive level. I am not a potential sex partner in his eyes-I am a worm, a speck of dirt.

"I'd call it a work-in-progress." I start to turn. "I should go. It's been a long day."

"Hm." He doesn't move out of my way. "And your solution to this long day was to wander around in the dark?"

"It's been a long, complicated day."

"I run a multi-billion-dollar hospitality empire, Hunter. I eat complicated for breakfast. Usually with a side of impossible and a light garnish of inadvisable."

Despite everything-the diagnosis, the darkness, the fact that I just had my hands all over my boss's chesticles-I feel my lips twitch into something like a smile. "That's a lot of adjectives for breakfast."

"I'm a hungry man." He is still standing too close, close enough that I can see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw. "Try me."

I look up at him. At Bastian Hale, the talent, the terror, the bane of my existence and the name signed on the bottom of my paychecks.

And for just a second, I consider telling him.

Because God knows I've been bearing so much for so long. Dad left when I was too young to even memorize his face, and Mom has always been basically a child in a grown woman's body, so I raised her far more than she ever raised me. And life is hard enough on people who get lots of lucky breaks, but I've never gotten one of those, not once, not ever-I've gotten food stamps and bruised shins and syrup-less lattes, and I've worked until my eyes ached and my fingernails cracked for nothing but pitiful pennies, but I did it because I had to, because someone has to, because it's a brutal world and the only way to make it through is to put your head down and work, and work, and work. And for once, just once, it would be nice to look someone in the eye and tell them that I could use a bit of kindness today, because it's been a long life and kindness has been in short supply since the start of it.

But I don't. I don't say any of that. Why would I? What would it get me-especially from this man?

Bastian Hale doesn't do vulnerability. He does efficiency and excellence and probably some other e-words that I can't think of right now because my brain is still processing the whole shirtless thing. But vulnerability?

No. Not once. Not ever.

As if to prove me wrong, though, Bastian's face softens just a fraction. "Go home, Hunter. Whatever's going on, it'll still be there in the morning."

That is the problem, though: It won't be. Not quite. Every morning, there'll be a little less. A little less light, a little less color, a little less of everything I've taken for granted.

And then in ninety days, there won't be anything.

2

ELIANA

mis·fire: /ˈmisˌfī(ə)r/: noun

1: when a dish doesn't cook as intended.

2: when a perfectly nice gesture gets torched to bits by a pompous, self-important bosshole.

I give up on sleep around 3 A.M., which is probably for the best, since my brain has decided to run a highlight reel of last night's mortification on loop.

But that brain, being the saucy little minx that it sometimes likes to be, has scripted a very different ending for the encounter.

In real life, the whole debacle couldn't have lasted more than five minutes, tops. Deep in the throes of this REM cycle, though, five minutes becomes five centuries. Every detail gets magnified.

It's not just Bastian Hale's chest I'm seeing anymore. It's every blonde hair on said chest, enhanced into ultra-crystal-clear 4K HD. Every curve of every muscle is there like brushstrokes on a painting when you're close enough for your nose to almost graze the canvas.

It's not just "tattoo." It's the spread wings of an eagle, inked into skin that's tan and warm and smells like soap and wintergreen.

And it's not just "Care to explain what you're doing?" Now, because I'm sick, because my thoughts are sick and my fantasies are sick (and probably also because I haven't experienced sexual contact since the last presidential administration), it's Bastian's voice purring something very, very different:

I thought you'd never ask.

It goes completely off the rails from there. Instead of his fingers gently encircling my wrist and peeling me off of him, those fingers now nudge my hands down, down, down. Past the soft thickets of chest hair, past the rivulets of six, count 'em, six defined abs, toward where the V points directly to the buckle of his belt.

Then he keeps going.

I force myself awake there, because Bastian's inked, scarred, calloused hands tempting my very innocent, very demure, very well-lotioned hands into performing heinous sexual acts in the middle of the workplace is a bridge too far.

Also, getting my fantastical rocks off-with my boss, no less-is not high on my priority list.

I have bigger things to worry about. My eyes are trying to quiet quit on me, which is frankly very rude. I ought to focus on that, not on the thick blue vein in my boss's bicep or the glint in his eye when he looked at me and smirked.

Come 4 A.M., I am showered, dressed, and staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, trying to memorize the exact shade of green in my irises. Turns out they have little flecks of hazel in them. Who knew?

By the time 5 A.M. rolls around, I'm standing outside Grain & Gather, the bougie bakery three blocks from the office that charges twelve dollars for a croissant. That's a crime, but the real felony is that it's worth every penny.

The owner, Fletcher, is just flipping the sign to Open. "Eliana!" His face lights up when he sees me. "You're early, even for you."

"That's how you get the worm, right?"

I grin for a second before my sick, depraved brain starts thinking of other "worms" it would like to get and I have to shake my head to dispel the unwelcome horny thoughts.

"Anyway, I couldn't sleep." I take a deep inhale, soaking up the aromas of fresh bread and butter and a cinnamon-y sweetness that makes my stomach growl. Just like that, I'm grinning again. "Okay, that smells insanely delicious. I need... three of everything."

He laughs. "You sure about that? That's a lot of carbs for a little lady."

"First of all, how dare you disrespect my ability to inhale sugar? Secondly, it's not for me. Well, not all for me. I'm feeding the test kitchen crew."

Fletcher's eyebrows go up. The test kitchen at Hale Hospitality is legendary-fifteen of the most talented chefs in Chicago, plus a small army of sous chefs, stagiaires, dishwashers, prep staff, and more, all working around the clock to develop bold new concepts for Bastian's ever-expanding culinary empire. They're the best of the best.

They are also, currently, miserable. Bastian has been in rare form all week, rejecting dish after dish, sending entire menus back to the drawing board with scathing comments. He's taken to just scrawling NGE across the top in huge, red letters. That stands for Not Good Enough. It's honestly kind of impressive how concisely he manages to be a giant asshole.

"That's kind of you," Fletcher says with a whistle as he reaches for boxes to start loading me up with kilograms of sugary goodness. "What's the occasion?"

I watch him work, his hands quick and practiced as he selects pastries. Chicago dawn catches the glaze on a row of kouign-amann. The dusty cocoa on fresh bomboloni. The perfect spiral of a morning bun.

It's borderline pornographic for a sweet treat addict like me.

"Well, the boss is grinding everyone into useless little nubs since we're getting close to the Project Olympus launch. He's a sadist, I think. I just do what I can to lighten the load for my fellow sufferers."

That is partly true-with the completion of Project Olympus finally on the near horizon, Bastian has been more monstrous than usual.

The other part is something that was percolating in my head as I tossed and turned in the wee hours of the night.

I have ninety days left-well, ninety minus one-and that's just not a lot of time. I want to taste everything, see everything, experience everything while I still can. And if I can do that while also bringing a small taste of joy to a group of stressed-out chefs?

Well, that's killing two birds with one scone.

Two hundred dollars later, I struggle through the revolving doors of the Hale building, juggling a trio of pastry boxes and a tray of coffees. The security guard, Kyle (not incompetent-spreadsheet Kyle, different Kyle), jumps up to help.

"Ms. Hunter, let me⁠-"

"I've got it," I say, then immediately prove myself wrong by nearly dropping the coffee tray. "Okay, maybe just the coffee."

He takes the tray with a grin. "Test kitchen?"

"How'd you know?"

"Only reason anyone brings this much sugar before 6 A.M. Plus, Chef Rubio texted me that Mr. Hale made three people cry yesterday."

"Three? I heard two."

"Pastry chef had a delayed reaction. Didn't hit until she got to her car."

We ride the elevator to the fifteenth floor, where the test kitchen occupies half the level. It is Bastian's pet project, a state-of-the-art facility that looks more like a spaceship than a kitchen. He makes sure that the crew keeps it spic-and-span, too-we're talking "toothbrushes scrubbing the grout" levels of cleanliness-so it's a glistening, unblemished ocean of white and stainless steel as far as the eye can see. Legend has it that the health inspector fell to his knees and wept tears of joy when he first came to approve the place's opening.

The doors haven't even fully opened when Chef Rubio appears. Under normal circumstances, she's an espresso in human form: Puerto Rican, loud as hell, with an irrepressible smile and hips that constantly swing to salsa music that no one else can hear.

My first thought today, though, is that she looks beyond exhausted. She's practically got piping bags under her eyes.

"Please tell me those are from Grain & Gather," she says to me in a hushed rasp when she sees what I'm carrying.

I wink. "Would I bring you anything else?"

"Mija, I could kiss you. On the mouth. With tongue." Thankfully, she spares me the early morning tongue bath. Instead, she grabs two boxes, then calls over her shoulder in rapid Spanish. Within seconds, I am surrounded by chefs, all of them clawing for the goodies and groaning wordlessly like a zombie horde.

"Oh my God, kouign-amann," someone moans.

"Are these the brown butter croissants? Eliana, you angel."

"Coffee's still hot!"

I ask how things are going, someone starts explaining the difference between lamination techniques in French versus Austrian pastries, and for a few minutes, everything feels normal.

Better than normal, actually. There is something beautiful about watching people's faces light up over simple pleasures.

Chef Rubio closes her eyes and sighs when she bites into a morning bun. The newest line cook, barely out of culinary school, holds his croissant aloft like it's made of gold.

"You know what? You're officially my favorite person," he says, his mouth still full. His name tag reads Samuel, and he's got an eager energy that hasn't been beaten out of him by the industry yet, though his hair is standing straight up like he either just stuck a spatula in an electrical socket or he's been running his hands through it all night long in frustration.

Another one of the chefs guffaws, spraying a mouthful of blueberry muffin everywhere. "You sure it's not LeBastard?"

At the mention of the big boss, everyone groans in unison. One of the French stagiaires mutters the nickname again under his breath with such visceral hatred that it makes me flinch. "LeBastard. Ce fils de pute."

I don't have to speak French to understand that they're not exactly singing his praises.

Wincing, I make eye contact with Samuel. "It's been that bad?"

"Worse than you could possibly imagine," he says vehemently.

I glance at Rubio, who nods in confirmation. "We're three weeks out from the investor preview for Project Olympus and he's rejected every single dish we've presented."

Project Olympus-Bastian's baby, his magnum opus. It's a skyscraper-sized ode to fine dining. A fourteen-story complex with a dozen restaurant concepts under one roof, each one with the oh-so-humble goal of revolutionizing a world cuisine. Italian, Korean, Chicago's finest-Bastian has pulled out all the stops to make it a mecca of good eats.

That comes with a price tag, of course. Meaning that the investor preview dinner is make-or-break for the project's funding. I've seen the numbers; we're talking about a potential three-billion-dollar valuation if he can pull it off.

The "if" is the part that's got everyone burning the midnight oil.

"Maybe someone needs to get him laid. Make the grouchy motherfucker a little less grouchy, you know?" suggests Tony, one of the sous chefs. To my horror, he turns and starts waggling his eyebrows at me. "Take one for the team, Eliana. You're pretty enough, and God knows he needs to release some tension."

My face goes nuclear. Last night's delusional fantasies flood back-warm skin, soapy scent, hands coaxing lower... What if I had? What if we had?

"Pfft, please," I snort, aiming for what I hope and pray comes off as casual, I-would-never dismissiveness. "Bastian Hale doesn't even see me as human, much less as a woman. I'm basically sentient office furniture to him."

"I don't know," Chef Rubio says, giving me a sly look. "You've got some legs on you, chica. And you're single, yeah? I see sparks. And I think that stubborn hijo de puta sees 'em, too. He looks at you, you know."

"Probably just wondering if he can legally make me work the dish pit," I say, but my mind is racing and my pulse is racing even faster than that.

Tony chuckles. "Spoken like someone who's been here too long. Remember when you could have hope? Dreams? Basic human dignity?"

"Vaguely," I say, and everyone laughs again, but there's an edge of truth to it. For six years, I've been clawing my way up from receptionist, putting in seventy-hour weeks, skipping vacations, missing birthdays. Just like Mom always said: Keep your head down, stay quiet, don't make waves. Of course, Mom also said that about her various post-Dad boyfriends' drinking habits, about the landlord who used to let himself into our apartment, about every disappointment life ever threw at us.

Don't make waves, Eliana. That only makes things worse. Just endure.

Well, look where that got me: twenty-seven years old, depressingly single, and about to go blind.

Maybe "enduring" is overrated.

"Besides," I continue, "can you imagine? Me and Bastian? He'd probably make me submit a PowerPoint presentation before we could do the deed."

The kitchen erupts in laughter, and I feel the spotlight shift away from my burning face. Thank God.

"Oh my God, yes," Samuel wheezes. "He'd have performance metrics!"