Bought by the Ruthless CEO

Chapter 6: The Breakfast

I woke up to the smell of smoke.

Sweet, then burnt. Like bacon and regret.

I bolted upright in the massive bed, heart pounding. 8:42 AM. Bright sun over Central Park. My hoodie was twisted around me. My mouth was dry.

And the penthouse smelled like... bacon? And something burning?

Martha didn't work on Sundays. Aaron told me last night. His voice was still in my head. _Try to sleep. Day 2 starts at 7 AM._

So who was cooking? And why did it smell like a fire?

Oh God.

I ran out of my room, barefoot, hair a wild mess from crying and sleeping on the floor last night, still in my old cotton shorts and my NYU hoodie that said ALUMNI even though I hadn't even graduated yet.

The kitchen was at the end of the hall. Open concept. Marble island bigger than my whole Queens kitchen.

And there he was.

Aaron Cross was cooking breakfast.

Shirtless.

I stopped dead in the doorway and my brain completely short-circuited. Like someone pulled the plug.

He was wearing low black sweatpants. The same ones from last night at 1:17 AM. No shirt. No socks. Barefoot on his cold marble floor.

His back was to me, and his back... Jesus Christ.

Broad shoulders, muscles moving when he moved the pan, tanned skin. And a tattoo I hadn't seen before — huge, black ink wings across his shoulder blades. Like fallen angel wings. Detailed. Expensive. Painful.

Under the wings, there were letters I couldn't read from here. Small script.

His hair was still messy from sleep. He was holding a spatula like it was a foreign weapon he was trying to figure out how to use. Like the spatula might attack him.

"Don't just stand there," he said without turning around. He knew I was there. How?

"Come tell me if this is supposed to be black."

I walked closer, trying very hard to keep my eyes on the pan and not on... everything else. On his back. On his arms. On the V-line I could see from behind.

In the pan was what used to be eggs. Now it was black, smoking, sad, crunchy scrambled eggs. Like charcoal.

"Aaron... what are you doing?" I whispered.

"Cooking," he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He turned around.

And I lost the ability to breathe.

Front was worse than back. So much worse.

His chest was... cut. Not gym-bro, protein-shake cut. Like he actually fought. Abs, sharp lines, that deep V that disappeared into his low sweatpants, and more tattoos — a small black cross on his ribs, elegant script on his collarbone I couldn't read, and a fresh small burn on his forearm from the pan.

He looked at me, then his eyes dropped to my legs in my tiny shorts, then quickly snapped back up to the eggs. Like looking at my legs burned him.

"You are looking," he said, his voice low.

"You are half naked in the kitchen!" I squeaked. My voice went high. "Put a shirt on! What is wrong with you! You have house rules about my shorts but you can walk around naked?!"

"I live here," he said calmly, but his ears were red. Bright red. Aaron Cross, the man who made a grown man almost cry last night at dinner, was... blushing? Because I saw him shirtless?

"And I was trying to make us breakfast. Since you didn't eat well last night. You pushed your steak around your plate for an hour and ate three bites. Martha told me."

I stared at the burnt eggs. Then at him. Then at the burnt eggs again.

The most feared man in Manhattan. The man who bought my debt for $670,000. Standing shirtless at 8:42 AM on a Sunday burning eggs for me. Because I didn't eat.

Something in my chest did a stupid, soft, traitorous thing. Something that felt a lot like butterflies.

"You... you cooked for me?" I asked quietly.

"I attempted to," he corrected, scratching the back of his neck and leaving a smudge of black egg on his cheek. "Martha is off on Sundays. I didn't want to wake you. You looked tired last night. After... everything."

He said it like kindness embarrassed him. Like saying "you looked tired" was harder than saying "I own you."

He had egg on his cheek. I wanted to laugh and I wanted to... wipe it off.

Don't. Rule Four, Lisa. Rule Four.

"Here," I said, sighing loudly, walking around the huge island to stand next to him. So close I could feel heat coming off his skin. "Move. You're going to set off the fire alarm and then the whole building will see you like this and I'll have to fight every model in Manhattan for your burnt eggs."

He moved, but not far. He leaned against the counter right next to me, arms crossed over his bare chest, watching me. So close our arms brushed.

I threw his burnt, smoking eggs away into the trash, washed the pan with soap, found real eggs in his fridge — his fridge was full of things I couldn't even name, organic things, things in glass jars — butter, salt, pepper, and made actual scrambled eggs. Soft, fluffy, yellow, not black. Like my mom taught me.

"Where did you learn to cook?" he asked, watching my hands, not the pan. His eyes were on my fingers.

"My mom's boutique failed, remember? We ate a lot of eggs for dinner for two years. You learn how to make eggs ten different ways so you don't cry," I said, not looking at him. Because if I looked at him shirtless this close, I would forget how to c***k an egg and burn us both.

He was quiet for a second. The only sound was eggs sizzling.

"I never learned," he said quietly. "My mother tried to teach me before she left. I was 12. She made pancakes every Sunday. Then my father said men who cook are weak and he sent her away. So I stopped learning."

There it was again. A little c***k in the devil armor. A glimpse of a 12-year-old boy who wanted pancakes.

I slid the eggs onto two white plates. Added toast I found and didn't burn. Added bacon that he had actually not burned — miracle.

We sat at his huge dining table, me in my hoodie and tiny shorts, him still shirtless, eating breakfast in a penthouse that overlooked all of Central Park in the morning sun. It felt so domestic it was scary. Like we were... a couple. Like we lived here together.

"This is good," he said after a bite, genuinely surprised, like good eggs were a new concept.

"Thank you. It's just eggs, billionaire."

"They're not just eggs. You made them," he said, looking at me.

My cheeks went hot.

"Lisa?"

"Hmm?"

"Rule Seven."

I groaned, putting my fork down. "Another one? You have a rule factory in your head?"

"Rule Seven: You don't wear those shorts outside this penthouse. Ever again. Not even to take out trash."

I choked on my toast. "Excuse me?!"

"Your shorts," he said, gesturing with his fork, his eyes dropping to my bare thighs under the table for just a second before snapping back up like it physically burned him to look. "They are too short. Too... distracting."

"Distracting to who? You?"

"To everyone. Julian saw a photo of you yesterday — I don't know how, probably the doorman took it when you came in — and he texted me at 6 AM asking if you were single and if he could take you to his boat. I told him you are not single."

My mouth opened. "I AM single! You said Rule Four is don't fall in love with you! You don't get to tell me what shorts to wear! You bought my time, not my body!"

"I get to tell you everything," he interrupted, but his voice was low, not cold. Possessive, not mean. "For 365 days, remember? Contract. And for those 365 days, no man looks at you like that. Only I get to..."

He stopped himself. He realized what he almost said out loud.

Only I get to look at you like that.

The air in the kitchen went thick. So thick I could barely breathe. The only sound was the AC humming.

He cleared his throat, stood up abruptly, plate half-finished, his chair screeching.

"I have a meeting. At 10. In my home office. Video call. Tokyo. You will come with me. Wear something... appropriate. Not shorts. Not hoodies. There will be men on the screen. And I don't want them looking."

He walked away, toward his bedroom, and I stared at his wings tattoo disappearing down the hall. Now I could read the letters under it clearly:

_MELISSA 1978-2009_

His mother? 2009... she died when he was...

He came back twenty minutes later, fully dressed — white shirt, black pants, hair combed back, cold mask back on. The soft, burnt-egg, blushing Aaron was gone. CEO Aaron was back. The devil in a nice shirt.

But he had a small white bandage on his forearm where the burn was.

"Let's go," he said, not looking at me.

I followed him into his home office — dark wood, no windows, wall of monitors showing stocks and buildings — and he pointed to a small desk in the corner that wasn't there yesterday. Brand new. With flowers.

"Your desk," he said. "From now on, you work in here with me. So I can see you. So you don't sit on floors at 1 AM."

I sat down at the tiny desk. It had a new MacBook on it. Still in box.

And a small yellow sticky note on top of it, in sharp handwriting:

_You looked cute in the hoodie, by the way. Even if it has a hole._

_- A_

I looked up at him. He was already on a call, wearing AirPods, pretending he didn't write it, pretending he was very busy and important.

But his ears were red again.

And I hid my huge, stupid smile behind the laptop, so he wouldn't see that Rule Four was already in very, very big danger on Day 2.