Dinner at Wyatt's

by Victoria Gordon

  DINNER AT WYATT’S

  by

  VICTORIA GORDON

  © Victoria Gordon 1982

  CHAPTER ONE

  Justine rubbed her palms nervously along the sides of her skirt and tried to swallow the knot that seemed to have boiled into a solid lump in her throat. As she stood outside her small car, the house—the restaurant she corrected herself—looked so much more imposing than when she’d driven up the long, curving approach road. A sign, dark blue on a discreet pale blue background, proclaimed Wyatt’s in a strong, bold script. Justine took a slow, deep breath and muttered to herself, ‘Come on, stop fiddling about and get on with it! Even if it is your first job as head chef, you can’t stand out here dithering all morning.’

  The thought of anyone seeing her, shifting from foot to foot like a punch-drunk fighter, brought a wry smile to her lips and somehow broke the inertia. She moved briskly up the broad stone steps to the front door of the establishment. It took another deep breath before she finally put out one trembling hand and pushed open the carved oaken panels that gleamed with polish and care. After the heat and sunlight outside, the cool, sophisticated interior of the foyer was more than welcome and Justine looked about her with uninhibited curiosity.

  The dark and light blue motif was obviously the major colour scheme, for a pale carpet stretched out ahead of her, meeting a wide staircase at the end of the long hallway. A narrower strip of similar carpet led to the right of the stair case, into a pool of shadow.

  Probably leads to a cloakroom, though I wouldn’t envy anybody having to work back in that gloom, she thought. The mental picture she got was of dark and dwarfish creatures skulking about with the heavy tweeds and minks that patrons of such an establishment might shed before dining. She snorted aloud at the thought, a small sound that was swallowed without echo in the cavernous maw of soft carpeting and pale, polished wood panels.

  ‘Who’s that?’ came a sharp question from her right in a voice that slashed like a dagger through the softness of the atmosphere, and Justine wheeled nervously, her eyes searching through the archway that opened on a small, intimate dining salon. Facing her was a tall, lean figure, features hidden in the back-lit gloom. Her immediate impression was of a poised rapier, a weapon alert and ready for instant action.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said, fighting for calmness in her voice. ‘I’m looking for Mr Wyatt Burns.’

  The man, his face and features still shadowed by the effect of light silhouetting him from behind, replied sharply. ‘You’ve got him,’ he said, and Justine shivered at the coldness in his voice.

  ‘I’m Justine Ryan, Mr Burns,’ she said after a long, expectant silence.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So?’ she repeated his question, then said, ‘Your new chef?’

  ‘The hell you are!’ The words ripped from him with explosive force and he stalked three tigerish steps towards her with such evident menace that Justine shrank back against the opposite wall.

  Then she took hold of herself and her failing courage, lifting her head to glare back at this haughty, insolent man. ‘In your own words, the hell I am,’ she snapped. ‘Although I must admit I expected a somewhat more gracious welcome. The tone of your letter certainly didn’t indicate any such animosity—or is this simply your idea of being the boss?’

  ‘Boss!’ The word was accompanied by a barely-disguised oath as he strode forward to stand squarely before her, staring down like an avenging angel. Justine was now further at a disadvantage, since the light from behind him now struck her squarely in the eyes and his features were lost in a blur of light-haze.

  An impatient sigh gusted from him. ‘You’d better come up to the office, I think,’ he growled, turning away and moving swiftly towards the stairs. Justine stood for a moment in confusion, until his grating voice floated across to her. ‘Now, if you don’t mind!’

  Her eyes readjusted as she turned away from the direct light, and she found herself watching the broad shoulders and long, muscular legs of the man as he seemed to fly up the staircase. Then he stopped and glared back at her with obvious impatience.

  ‘I’m coming ... I’m coming,’ Justine snapped furiously, and suited actions to words by hurrying towards the stairs. It wasn’t difficult to keep the tall, angry figure in view as it strode ahead of her up the carpeted staircase and then down a hall to where huge double doors filled the end of the hallway from floor to twelve-foot-high ceiling. One of them opened smoothly and Wyatt Burns stood aside in a parody of good manners, ushering her into a large room that was light and airy with floor-to-ceiling windows opened to the spicy summer air.

  Justine had time for one quick sweep of the room before her eyes were drawn to the saturnine face that stared bleakly at her from across half an acre of walnut desk-top. Wyatt Burns, she thought, had features that suited the crystalline chillness of his voice. Black hair, black eyes, the dark line of beard shadow along his jaw merging to a harsh-planed face that was dark as the desk-top. Every aspect of his carriage shouted a jungle fierceness, a vivid masculinity held only just in check. He had dropped into a huge winged chair behind the desk, but made no offer of a seat to Justine.

  Her eyes narrowed a touch and she tilted her chin before moving smoothly into a soft armchair directly opposite his, dropping her handbag and crossing her legs neatly before meeting his chilly stare. Wyatt Burns’ dark eyes seemed bottomless as they first met her glance, then roved casually over her body, appraising with frank regard her long legs and the curves of a slim body beneath her two-piece cheesecloth summer suit.

  One sooty eyebrow was raised in ... was it approval or disdain? she wondered, before his lips flickered into what could only be considered a sneer.

  Justine allowed herself no obvious reaction; only her eyes revealed the growing anger inside her. They were, she knew, a sparkling emerald green, reflecting her mood of the moment without any intimation that in other moods they could shift from blue for happiness to grey for uncertainty or sadness.

  This man’s eyes held no such flexibility, she thought, but would be that same hot charcoal hue whether angry or in the throes of other passions. Suddenly she realised that he’d been speaking while her thoughts had wandered, but she caught only the final words, ‘... false pretences.’

  What? ‘What false pretences?’ she demanded, sitting up abruptly. What was this arrogant person talking about?

  A dark and biting glance took in her furious face, and she fancied he was truly enjoying the confrontation. ‘The false pretences,’ he said deliberately, ‘that you employed to get yourself hired here, despite knowing I wouldn’t have a female chef on the premises!’ He spat out the final words with a sneer of frank distaste.

  Justine’s jaw dropped. Stunned, she could only stare at him in silence, until finally he sneered, ‘Cat got your tongue. Miss Ryan?’

  ‘Why, you ...’ Justine spluttered, then hauled in a deep breath as she grabbed for the remnants of her tattered composure. In a rigid, controlled voice, she said carefully, ‘I had no idea that you were so set against female chefs, Mr Burns, or I would never have bothered to reply to your advertisement. Since I did, however, and since I’m obviously female, why on earth did you hire me in the first place?’ She couldn’t control the slight softening of inflection as she continued, ‘Oh, I know I never actually stated my sex one way or another in my letter of application, but I certainly wouldn’t have thought with a name like Justine ...’ She faltered there at the mocking sneer on his face.

  ‘Very clever,’ he retorted. ‘Excellent explanation, despite you knowing damned well why I didn’t pick up your sex straight away.’ He flicked his wrist and a sheet of paper fluttered over the desk to sail down at her feet. She bent to retrieve it, suddenly all too conscio
us of the gaping neckline of her suit as she did so.

  It was, as she’d half suspected, her letter of application for the job at Wyatt’s, but a quick perusal brought her no closer to understanding than she’d been before.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said uncertainly.

  Silence.

  ‘Well?’ Her voice squeaked childishly and she winced.

  ‘Well? Well, look at it!’ he snarled. ‘How many people do you know that would spell Justine as Justin—e?’

  Justine’s eyes flew back to the page, only to lift again in horror. Her ineffectual typing had finally caught up with her. Colour flooded her face as the mocking voice taunted her.

  ‘I thought all I was in for was a slightly mad chef who had peculiar ideas about how he wanted his name and initial on the pay cheque,’ Wyatt Burns snorted. ‘But what do I get instead? A blushing blonde female!’ Contempt dripped from his voice like acid, stinging Justine to fury.

  ‘I’m a chef, not a typist!’ she stormed, glaring across the desk as if looks could kill. ‘You ought to be damned well pleased that I even bothered to type the application in the first place!’ As she stopped for a much-needed breath, a sudden thought occurred to her. ‘Didn’t you even check out my references? Surely to goodness my last employer would have told you I was female?’

  Wyatt had the grace to stop sneering, but he didn’t seem ready to accept her questions. ‘I did,’ he said, ‘but with that atrocious pseudo-French accent, Justine and Justin are pretty damned close. Your femininity didn’t come into the discussion because it hadn’t occurred to me, and personally I doubt if it ever occurred to him, either.’

  ‘Well, that’s true enough,’ she muttered, ‘but nonetheless, I certainly didn’t set out to deceive you — although,’ and her anger was growing again, fanned by his insolence, ‘I don’t much care, either. So if that’s it, I’m off. You can take your damned job and shove it where it’ll do you the most good — sideways!’

  Grabbing up her handbag, she leapt from the chair as if it was on fire, and actually had her hand on the doorknob before his voice cracked out like a whiplash to stop her.

  ‘Come back here and sit down,’ he snapped. Justine stopped, half turned, then turned fully to face him, her eyes bleak.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she replied coldly. ‘I think I’ve listened to quite enough chauvinistic rubbish for one day. If I leave now I can be back in Sydney in time to start looking for a job. You and I have nothing left to discuss.’

  ‘I disagree,’ he said, uncoiling from his chair and moving to stand only inches in front of her, eyes flowing across her heavy coronet of strawberry-blonde hair.

  Then his eyes met hers again, and his dark brows drew together in a quizzical frown. ‘How tall are you?’ he asked abruptly, and the irrelevance of the question startled her.

  ‘Five foot ten,’ she replied without thinking, then realised just how far up she was forced to look in order to meet his daunting black eyes.

  They seemed warmer, somehow, though still speculative, and she found herself wondering if she dared throw the same question back at him. The thought brought a tiny quirk to one corner of her lips.

  ‘A hundred and ninety-six centimetres,’ he replied soberly, not waiting for the question but suddenly grinning hugely at the look on her face. ‘That’s six foot five — and yes, I was reading your mind. It wasn’t that difficult.’

  Before she could think, he had taken her arm and gently led her to where a plush settee filled the alcove between two sets of bay windows.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said gently. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  Justine shook her head mutely. The last thing she needed at this precise moment was a drink, but when he asked if she minded him having one, she merely shook her head again.

  Three ice cubes and a splash of expensive whisky tinkled into a thick glass, and she found herself thinking how much the drink suited him. No fancy cocktail drinker, this man. Tall, dark and devilish, with a strong, thick neck, massive shoulders, yet astonishingly slender hips, he didn’t look gangly or unfinished as so many really tall men do, nor yet gigantic or clumsy. He moved ... economically. Like a great cat, she thought, and suddenly found he had turned to find her watching him, appraising him.

  Something flashed briefly in his eyes, but his voice was butter-smooth and suave when he drifted over to sit beside her, glass in hand. ‘Now, Justine,’ he said softly, accenting the final e in her name, ‘why have you so definitely decided you don’t want to work for me?’

  Justine stared, wordless. The unexpected phrasing of the question had taken her by surprise. A puzzled frown furrowed her forehead and she licked her full lips as she struggled for a reply.

  ‘1 thought it was rather the other way round,’ she said finally. ‘I wanted to work here or I wouldn’t have applied. It wasn’t me who decided I’m not suitable.’

  She looked down then, waiting vainly for a reply as her eyes focused on the long, lean fingers that curled like talons around the glass. When he didn’t reply, she continued without looking up.

  ‘And since you made your position clear — abundantly clear — I don’t quite see why you asked me that question.’

  He sipped at the drink, the lifting of the glass bringing her eyes up with it until he could lock her glance with his own as his tongue moved idly around the rim of the glass. It was a slow, deliberately sensual motion that quite matched the look in his eye.

  ‘Maybe I’ve changed my mind,’ he said carelessly. And as she flashed astonishment with her eyes, his lips parted in a glimmering smile. ‘It’s not only a feminine prerogative, you know.’

  Amusement crinkled his eyes, altering his expression totally. He looked ... almost boyish, Justine found to her surprise.

  ‘Your application was the best I received,’ he told her. ‘I need a head chef and I need one immediately; the incumbent left yesterday and tomorrow we’ve got virtually a full house expected.’ He swirled the shrinking islands of ice in his glass, staring at them meditatively before continuing, ‘So I propose to give you a month’s trial. That should settle the matter one way or the other, and give me time to find somebody else if you decide not to stay. Agreed?’

  Too smooth, too suave, too easy. Justine’s temper slipped its controls as she flew to her feet, grabbing up her handbag on the way.

  ‘Well, thanks a lot!’ she cried. ‘All you’re looking for, Mr Wyatt Burns, is a fill-in to carry you until you’ve found the male chef you wanted in the first place. Anybody could do that job, but not me! Nooo way! I came all the way out here in good faith to take a job I rightfully believed I’d been hired for and which I know damned well I can do to the satisfaction of any reasonable employer. I have absolutely no intention of providing you with nuisance value for a month while you’re busy advertising behind my back to get the person you really want!’

  On that note, she stormed full steam ahead for the door, only to find herself restrained on the threshold by steely fingers that clamped round her upper arm like a vice. Wyatt Burns swung her back to face him, his face dark with barely-suppressed anger.

  ‘I would not be advertising behind your back,’ he growled. ‘And I was not — repeat, not — looking at you as somebody to fill in, as you put it. I offered you a month’s trial exactly as I would have offered it to anyone else under the circumstances. Anyone else — male or female or neuter. If you’d managed to keep that childish temper of yours under control long enough to try my offer, you’d have found soon enough that it’s a condition all of my staff have endured.’

  Whereupon he released her arm disdainfully, indeed with a gesture that conveyed only a distaste, as if he’d picked up a toad and found it slimy. Then he turned on his heel and stalked back into his office, shutting the door quietly but firmly behind him.

  Justine stood, shaken, on the top of the stairs, rather astonished at the directness of his charges. Childish? Well, maybe. Certainly she had a quick temper, and at twenty-six she was wise enough t
o realise it. And, she admitted ruefully, usually wise enough also to control it. Still, there had been a ring of truth in Wyatt Burns’ final words. But I was just as truthful, she cried silently and belligerently, only to find her truculence fading and slowly being replaced by a sense of guilt. Perhaps she had misjudged him. The way he’d explained it, with her own poor typing to back up his claim, perhaps he should be forgiven for being surprised and annoyed at finding she was female.

  Moreover, she did want to work at Wyatt’s. So before she could give herself time to change her mind or do anything foolish, she turned back to the forbidding office door, tapped lightly on it with her fingernails, and stepped inside without waiting for a summons.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Burns. I’m Justine Ryan, your new probationary head chef,’ she said past a brilliant but much-forced smile. ‘Your month’s trial sounds like an excellent idea, and I’m quite prepared to accept those terms if you are.’

  She reached out, stretching her arm across the vast expanse of desk-top and fighting against the desire to close her eyes. What if he ignored her, refused to shake hands? Or, worse yet, threw her bodily out of his restaurant?

  She didn’t bother to try and hide her sigh of relief as his black, beetling brows lifted first in surprise, then in accompaniment to a broad smile as he rose and took her fingers gently in his own.

  ‘I’m delighted to meet you again so soon. Miss Ryan,’ he said smoothly. ‘It’s rather a pleasure to meet someone who can quickly grasp the essence of a situation and respond accordingly.’ Without freeing her fingers, he slipped round the comer of the desk and led her graciously towards the plush sofa. ‘Please, sit down and I’ll get us a drink. Then we can discuss the job and all that’s involved.’

  Justine sank into the plush luxury, her knees suddenly weak. ‘Brandy and lemonade for mc, thanks,’ she replied to a querying eyebrow as he reached the drinks cabinet.

  A moment later he placed the drink in her hand, ignoring the tremble in fingers that took it gingerly from him with every expectation of dropping the heavy glass. ‘Now, Justine, let me say first that I’m very impressed by your resume and references. Your application is one of the best I’ve seen in years, bar the typing of course.’ And he grinned mischievously at her. ‘What made you decide to leave your last position and seek a job here at Wyatt’s?’