Read Online The Escape Collection: (The Escape Collection) by Elena Aitken - Free Book Online Page A

Reid’s voice rang out over the alarm. He pushed past me, grabbed a tea towel, picked up the burning pan of black shrimp and dumped it fairly unceremoniously in the sink.  
    He turned the faucet on over the blackened mess and ran to open the door. I stood mute and dumb as the cool air washed over me. It took me a moment to realize the screeching of the smoke detector had stopped.  
    “Whitney.” Reid waved his hand over my face, snapping me to attention. “Are you okay? What happened?”
    “It was all going so well.”
    “Yes,” he said, with a laugh. “I can see that.”  
    I shot him a glare and went to assess the damage. Using a fork, I tried without much success to scrape a shrimp from the bottom of the pan.  
    “I hope you weren’t too attached to that skillet,” Reid said. He came up behind me and peered over my shoulder into the sink.  
    I whipped around faster then I intended to and had no idea he was standing so close. I inhaled sharply, catching a scent of him. A second later, I recovered. “This is all your fault.” I jabbed my fork in his direction and he took a few steps back, his hands in front of him.  
    “My fault?”  
    Clearly he thought the whole mess was funny, but instead of being thankful that he hadn’t burst into laughter, it just pissed me off.
    “Yes.” I jabbed again, and for a second, I think I really did want to spear him with my fork. “If it hadn’t been for you and your…” I waved the utensil in the air, trying to find the words I was looking for. It was an annoying trait that when I got angry, I couldn’t focus on what I wanted to say. It only served to make me angrier, and make me look foolish. “Stuff.” I found the word and finished lamely.
    “My stuff is to blame for this?” Reid leaned back against the counter, just out of reach of my flailing fork. His smile was a mixture of cocky and adorable, and it softened my anger. But just a little.
    “Of course it is,” I said. “I had this whole dinner planned and if I hadn’t been distracted by you and your…”
    “Stuff,” Reid supplied.
    “Yes, stuff.” I glared at him. “If it wasn’t for your stuff, I would’ve been fine. But you’ve been traipsing in and out, distracting me.”
    “I’ve been distracting you?” He raised an eyebrow and I threw my fork at him. Fortunately for him, I didn’t throw it very hard and it clattered unceremoniously to the floor at his feet.  
    “Now what am I going to do?” For the first time, I really surveyed the damage of what was supposed to be a nice, if not somewhat romantic, evening.  
    I turned the faucet off and lifted the skillet from the sink. Reid was right; it was a good thing I wasn’t very attached to it. The blackened shrimp appeared to be permanently fused. Impressive, really, for only a few minutes of negligence. I wasn’t upset at the loss of the prawns myself, since I hated them. I could never get past the fact that I was eating the tail of a buggy-looking creature. But they weren’t for me. William loved shrimp. And I was trying to make things work with him. I really was.
    The sting of tears pricked at my eyes. I would not cry, I commanded myself. Not in front of Reid. It was only shrimp, nothing worth getting worked up about. In an effort to prevent embarrassing myself by blubbering over the burnt crustaceans, I waved a hand in front of my face, and took deep breaths.  
    “Hey, Whitney,” Reid said cautiously behind me. I could tell he knew I was on the verge of losing it. Men tended to get that tone in their voice whenever a woman cried. That tone that might as well have said, get me the hell out of here. “It’s not that bad,” he said, surprising me.  
    I didn’t turn to see, but I could hear him moving around the kitchen. “Look,” he said. “You haven’t even started cooking the steaks yet. And they’re always the most important. What’s in here?”  
    At the exact moment he spoke, I remembered. “The asparagus.” I