Innocent cravings

Chapter One :The Diner

Alice wiped her damp palms against her apron and adjusted the crooked name tag on her chest. It was nearing midnight, the slowest hour of her shift, when the smell of burnt coffee lingered stronger than the customers. She had two tables left an elderly couple sharing pie, and three men in suits who laughed a little too loudly at their own jokes.

Her back ached, her feet throbbed, and she still had a pile of assignments waiting at home. But rent came first. Rent always came first.

She refilled the coffee cups at the corner booth, nodding politely as the men ignored her, too wrapped up in a conversation about stocks and something called “mergers” that she couldn’t quite follow. Not that she needed to. Their voices alone reminded her of how far removed their world was from hers.

The bell above the diner door chimed.

She didn’t look up immediately,she was too busy gathering empty plates. But she felt it. The shift in the room, the way the air seemed to straighten itself, tense almost, as though even the walls recognized power when it entered.

When she finally glanced up, her breath caught.

He walked in with the kind of confidence that didn’t need announcing. Broad shoulders, tailored suit, wristwatch that gleamed under the fluorescent lights. Every detail screamed wealth. Authority. Untouchable. Even the three men in the corner booth quieted for a second, exchanging quick looks of recognition.

The newcomer scanned the room like it belonged to him, his gaze cool and detached  until it landed on her.

For the briefest moment, Alice swore the world slowed down. His eyes, a piercing shade of gray, locked with hers. It wasn’t curiosity. It wasn’t kindness. It was… interest. Sharp, unsettling, and impossible to ignore.

She quickly looked away, heat rushing to her cheeks. She wasn’t the type to catch a man like that staring especially not that kind of man. Maybe he was looking past her, at the menu board or the clock behind her head. Maybe she was imagining things.

Still, her hands trembled as she set the plates on the counter.

“Excuse me,” a deep voice said. Smooth, commanding. The kind of voice that made people move before they realized it.

She turned, nearly knocking over the pot of coffee. He stood there now, close enough for her to see the faint shadow of stubble on his jaw, the clean cut of his suit, the faint trace of something expensive in his cologne.

“Do you serve anything that doesn’t taste like it’s been sitting in a pot for twelve hours?”

Alice blinked. “Uh we have fresh pie.”

A corner of his mouth curved upward,not quite a smile, more like an acknowledgment. “Then I’ll have that. And coffee. Fresh, if possible.”

She nodded quickly, scribbling on her notepad though she already knew the order by heart. Her pen nearly slipped from her fingers when she glanced up again. He was still watching her,