65

Over and over.

Freddy held out his hand, shaking mine. “Hannah, it’s wonderful to meet you. I’ve heard lots of things about your eating habits.” He smiled.

I glanced at Declan. “My eating habits, huh?”

“Let’s get you inside and set up,” Freddy said, pressing his back against the door to give us enough room to step in.

Since I was unsure of where to go, I stopped a few feet into the hallway, Declan directly behind me, and we let Freddy pass.

As we made our way down the narrow hallway and through another door at the end, Declan’s hand went to my lower back. It stayed there, even when I stopped walking, taking in this new space we had stepped into. It was a kitchen. Not a busy one that ran the entire restaurant. This was an intimate, private room with a cooking station in the center and a large cooler in the back, a table set up along the side that I had a feeling was for us.

A woman dressed in chef’s attire stepped out of the cooler with a mixing bowl in her hand, smiling as she walked