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disappeared into the kitchen, Bates cleared his throat. “Dax is the maître d’,” he said as though that explained everything.
    Adam offered a silent prayer to whatever deity might be listening that this was all just a bad dream, that this was not Lia’s restaurant.
    The gods weren’t on his side.
    The chef who emerged from the kitchen had the same golden brown curls, the same bright green eyes, the same luscious lips as the woman he’d almost slept with last night. Her smile faded when she saw him. “Adam, what are you doing here?”
    Shit, shit, shit, shit!
    Bates’s gaze travelled between them. “You two know each other?”
    “We met yesterday at his mother’s lake house.”
    Adam tried to form coherent words, but his mind was still populating four-letter words. How the hell did someone like Lia land one of the hottest real estate venues in Chicago?
    When he continued to remain speechless, Bates stepped in. “Mr. Kelly wanted to speak to you about your lease.”
    The corners of her mouth twitched higher into a nervous smile. “I’m ready to sign the renewal whenever you are. As you may have heard, business is booming here.”
    It was time to end this agony as quickly as possible. “I’m not renewing your lease.”
    There. He said it. Now he was ready to be damned to hell and suffer whatever punishment awaited him.
    The color drained from Lia’s face. “Not renewing my lease?” Her bottom lip trembled. “Why?”
    In took every ounce of strength not to take her into his arms and comfort her, but he needed to stay in control if he wanted his plan to go smoothly. “Amadeus Schlittler wants to open his restaurant here.”
    Her disbelief faded into barely contained rage. The tremulous tone in her voice revealed how hard she fought not to scream at him. “You’re evicting me for him ?”
    “You said it yourself last night—I’d be a fool to let this opportunity slip through my fingers.” The stark emotion of his words rattled him. He sounded like a complete dick.
    Her nostrils flared and the bottom lid of her right eye twitched, but she remained rigidly still otherwise. Her mouth opened and snapped shut several times. Finally she said, “Well, I have two months left on my sublease, and I’m not leaving until then.”
    Lia spun around on her heel and marched into the kitchen, her back and arms still ramrod straight. Her flamboyant maître d’ backpedaled several feet before following her. The rest of the wait staff all glared at him as though he’d just kicked the crutch out from under Tiny Tim.
    The room temperature seemed to have jumped twenty degrees too high for his comfort. “Let’s go, Bates.”
    “Yes, Mr. Kelly.” He waited until they were safely in the elevator before saying, “I take it you were unaware she was your tenant.”
    “Completely unaware. I don’t remember her name on the lease.” If he’d known that, he would have stayed the hell away from her last night. Rule number one was never to mix business with pleasure, and he’d already more than overstepped that boundary.
    “It was a sublease, sir. And are still certain you want to evict her in favor of Mr. Schlittler?”
    Doubt wormed through him, making him pause a second. “What’s done is done, Bates. The Schlittler deal is contingent on him getting this space. He’s the chef my investors want and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
    Bates cleared his throat again. “That’s a pity, sir. Ms. Mantovani has proven to be an ideal tenant.”
    And one helluva kisser, but that didn’t change things. “Please inform Mr. Schlittler that the space will be his on the first of next month.”
    ****
    Lia barged straight through the kitchen and into her office. Her lungs burned for air, and her chest heaved at an unnatural rate. A sob choked her throat. What the hell just happened?
    Julie, her sous chef, peeked in. Worry replaced her normally cheerful smile. “Dax, honey, get Lia a shot of grappa.”
    Lia opened her mouth