The Billionaire's Assistant

Chapter 41

He was scrolling through his phone before Kat could answer, his eyes flickering as they scanned over what Kat assumed to be a DineDashed menu, before he pressed a button and held the phone up to his ears.

"Hey," he said after less than a second. "Can you bring breakfast by the office?" Another second of pause, then "Yea, two poached, regular fruit assortment but leave off the raspberries, turkey bacon omelet with arugula." He lowered the phone.

"What do you want?" He asked Kat quietly.

Kat faltered, unsure of how to proceed.

"What," she began, confused. "Where is it? What do they have?"

"It's my chef," Jove whispered. "He has everything, anything you'd want."

Kat thinks for a moment. "Oatmeal?" she asked finally.

Jove gave her a look. "Oatmeal?"

"He doesn't do oatmeal?"

Jove wrinkled his nose in disgust. "He does anything. The question is, why would he do oatmeal?"

"I like it!" Kat protested.

"Alright alright," Jove conceded. "Just oatmeal?"

Kat nodded.

"And some oatmeal Benoit," Jove said at a normal volume, lifting the phone back to his face. "And some juices, orange, dragon fruit, you know. And actually," he said, catching Kat with a playful look, "Bring some pancakes, just in case the oatmeal tastes anything like oatmeal." He laughed. "Thanks Benoit. Yea."

He ended the call and set the phone back down, lifting his eyebrows when he saw Kat staring at him.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"You're making fun of me, but you ordered two different types of eggs," she pointed out, giggling.

"Hey," he retorted. "You haven't had Benoit's eggs."

Less than 20 minutes later, after a lively, then heated discussion about favorite foods, a knock on the door heralded the arrival of their breakfast. Kat pushed her chair back to stand but Jove was already up, striding towards the door. She turned to watch him open it, give the woman who'd brought the silver domed topped tray a smile, and stride back towards her, the chrome reflective tray and domed top looking as if they belonged in a museum and not the modern day.

Kat guffawed. "Why do you have that?" she blurted.

"What?" asked Jove absentmindedly, setting the tray on the desk between them and resuming his seat.

"That tray," Kat said, pointing. She studied the ornately designed dish, its handle an interworking of intricate hard edged curves and delicate swirls of metal. The front was embossed lightly, an image that she couldn't quite make out. "It looks like something the queen of England would use."

Jove smiled.

Kat's eyes widened. "No. Don't tell me this is the Queen of Englands."

"It's not, it's not," Jove assured her. "It was a gift from her though. From her estate probably. I'm sure she had nothing to do with it other than paying for it."

Kat's jaw dropped. "Why," she started incredulously, "Are you being brought breakfast on the literal queens table service. Tupperware wouldn't have worked?"

Jove laughed, the mirthful one that eased her spirit, and she smiled despite herself.

"It's Benoit!" he defended. "He likes the set, it's the only thing he uses when he has to send food."

"Yea, yea" said Kat. "Don't blame Benoit, I bet you like it just as much."

Jove cocked his head at her, the smile still on his face but taking on a different lilt.

"Yea?" He asked, staring her more deeply in the eyes. "You think you know what I like?"

Kat flushed instantly and looked away.

"Well," she said, looking around as she tried to conceal her mental fumble for a response. Her eyes fell on the tray. "Clearly you like eggs."

He laughed, and lifted the tray's top.

A delicious, fragrant spread lay underneath: a plate with two delicate, poached, translucent white eggs topped with thin slivers of chives, a blue and white china bowl heaping with a glistening assortment of fruit, a perfect semicircle of an omelet, fluffy pale yellow and topped with meat and greens. A china bowl of oatmeal, complete with a small saucer of milk and a miniaturized matching sugar bowl was placed next to a plate heaping with a tower of golden brown pancakes, steam still curling from their top. A small pitcher of syrup was tucked onto the plate's corner, and three larger pitchers, one containing orange juice and the other two containing a pink and red juice respectively, were aligned next to it. Small crystal glasses lay on the right side of the pitchers, and silver, heavy handled utensils wrapped with cloth napkins were tucked snuggly on the left.

Jove placed her bowl in front of her, handed her a bundle of cutlery, then placed one of the small crystal glasses in front of her.

"Orange, pomegranate, or dragon fruit?" he asked, gesturing to the pitchers.

Kat smiled. "Orange, please."

Jove grabbed the pitcher and filled her glass, Kat studying him intently while he did so.

"I thought I was supposed to be doing stuff for you," she said, a hint of a tease slipping into her tone. "Why are you doing stuff for your assistant, shouldn't it be the other way around?"

Jove was pouring his own juice in the crystalline glass, and chuckled without looking up.

"It will be," he said casually, turning his attention to unwrapping his fork and starting in on his omelet.

Kat flushed and went silent, feeling the burn travel up to her ears. She took a hurried bite of oatmeal to distract herself and was delighted to note it was delicious, nutty, warm, homey. Better than her mother made on cold winter mornings, although she'd never tell her that.

"Good?" Jove asked her, pointing with his fork.

She nodded, still too caught up in thoughts of his double entendres to trust herself to speak. Why was he doing this to her? This gradual torture, teasing her, knowing what he does to her and making little comments to drive her crazy. She swallowed hard.

"Here," he said, picking up another, smaller fork and spearing a slice of strawberry from the bowl. "You want?"

He reached across the desk, extending the strawberry to Kat's mouth. "C'mon," he pressed at her hesitation. "We fly them in from Tohoku, they're the best in the world."

Kat opened her mouth and accepted the strawberry, closing her lips around the fork in a way she prayed didn't look strange. I can't even remember how to eat normally around him, she thought.

"Good," he said slowly, eyes locked on her. He smiled at her expression, as if he knew exactly how many times she'd replayed him calling her good in her mind. "Right?" he asked

Kat nodded quickly, caught up in his gaze.

He shot her a devilish grin. "Eat up, we have work to do."