The Chef's Cutie (The River Hill Series Book 5)

by Rebecca Norinne

  Get your shit together, Max. If she was going to be friends with his friends, he had to be able to be in the same room with her without wanting to strip her naked and claim her as his.

  No time like the present to practice. He sat down next to her, careful to keep a little distance between their bodies. Every time he touched her he lost his mind, so the first step was not to touch her no matter how much his entire body screamed out for it.

  “Happy New Year,” he said.

  “Thanks.” She gave him a smile that was a little less fake than the one she’d been wearing for the last hour or so, but her eyes were still ringed with circles the smoky eye makeup she’d applied couldn’t hide. “You too.”

  “Is … is everything okay?” he blurted. “You seem—”

  She shook her head, short and fast. “I’m fine.”

  She was definitely not fine. He frowned. “Lizzie, I know I’m not the person you want to talk about stuff with, but—”

  She interrupted him with a laugh that bordered on hysterical. “Max, I’d absolutely love to spend all my time talking to you, but I can’t. In fact, you’re the one person I’d love to talk to about anything and everything.” She winced. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say all that.”

  “I feel the same way,” he said quietly. He missed the flirty texts and memes, and the quiet, late night conversations across his dining room table. “I like being friends with you, Lizzie, not just… you know. The other stuff.”

  “The stuff we’re not talking about.” She met his gaze, and there was humor lurking under the anxiety in her eyes.

  “Yeah. That stuff.”

  She sighed. “Life just sometimes feels overwhelmingly unfair, you know?”

  “Tell me about it,” he said feelingly.

  Her lips quirked. “At least you have a job you love.”

  He frowned. “Is work stuff—”

  He was interrupted by a shriek from Jess. “It’s starting!”

  They both looked at the TV, which was showing the giant crystal ball in Times Square lit up at the top of its tower. The crowd in New York was shouting, “TEN! NINE! EIGHT!” as they counted down to midnight, and his friends were joining in. Noah had his arms around Angelica’s waist, Maeve was in Ben’s lap, Jess and Sean were wrapped up in each other, and Naomi and Iain were jammed together on one of the upholstered armchairs. Everyone was smiling, and laughing, and counting aloud, and Max turned to look at Lizzie next to him on the couch.

  Something in her face made him close the distance between them, something scared and hopeful and so, so perfect. He reached for her when the countdown got to five, and she leaned in toward him. Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea his mind was screaming as he slid his hands under all that silky hair, cupping her cheek and drawing her fully to him as the tinny voices on the TV merged with those of his friends to shout “…three! …two! …one!”

  Her eyes were locked on his, and he watched them drift shut as his lips met hers. And then he stopped thinking at all. He’d been dreaming about the way she might taste for months. His imagination hadn’t been up to the challenge. She was sweet vanilla, and starlit meadows, and the best French pastry he’d ever tasted, all rolled up with hints of savory spice and fresh air. Her lips softened against his briefly, then firmed as his tongue slid gently along their crease. She opened for him, and he was pretty sure the fireworks over the town square had taken up permanent residence in his body. And then her tongue slid against his, bold and strong, and he groaned and let his hand fall to her waist, gathering her against him.

  Somehow, somewhere, people were talking, and someone was calling his name. “Max. Max!”

  He pulled reluctantly away from Lizzie, watching her eyes open, the blue nearly swallowed by the black of her dilated pupils. “What?” he mumbled.

  Lizzie blinked, and then he watched her draw away from him, her expression shifting rapidly from dazed arousal to familiar worry.

  There was a hand on his arm. It was Angelica, her eyes dancing with both amusement and worry that matched Lizzie’s. “Max. You promised.”

  He licked his lips and tried to force his voice to work. Lizzie’s eyes followed the quick movement, and he felt his fingers tighten over her waist before she tugged herself free of his grasp. “It’s New Year’s. Everyone kisses at midnight.”

  “Not like that,” Angelica said dryly.

  He gave her a pointed look, then glanced around the room. Iain’s hand was firmly ensconced on Naomi’s ass, and Maeve and Ben were still kissing.

  Angelica blew out a breath. “You can’t—”

  “It’s okay,” Lizzie said. She stood up, and Max reached for her without thinking. She evaded his hands and stepped back. “It was just a New Year’s kiss.” She darted a swift glance at him, and he knew they were both lying. “I need to go, though. Work stuff waits for no one.” The smile she offered Angelica was wavering, and she didn’t smile at Max at all. “I’ll-I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

  “Lizzie—” He stood, but she was already halfway to the door.

  “I appreciate your technique, but your timing sucks,” Angelica hissed at him. She hip-checked him, and he fell back onto the couch as she followed Lizzie out.

  He was fucked. And not in the good way.

  10

  “Coming up in the next hour, we’ve got our resident beauty expert Jessica Casillas-Moore in the studio to talk about all the tiny ways stress can manifest itself on your face, plus Professor Miranda Whitcomb-Talbot will be here to discuss her latest book, Your Boss is Sabotaging You. But first—“

  Lizzie stabbed the power button on her car radio to turn the damn thing off. She normally enjoyed Jess’s beauty segments—even more so now that she knew her outer beauty was matched only by her inner beauty—but she didn’t need to listen to her new friend outline all the ways that stress could impact one’s looks. The woman staring back at her in the bathroom mirror this morning was proof enough. Between the dark smudges under her eyes from lack of sleep, and the patchy, broken skin on her hands and elbows, it was quite obvious that stress was to blame for her haggard appearance.

  Try as Lizzie might, she hadn’t been able to erase the memory of Max’s kiss from her brain. In fact, she’d stayed up several nights in a row obsessing over it—how it impacted her career, what it meant for her future … what it might mean for their future. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days because she hadn’t.

  And when she wasn’t asking herself those Very Important Questions, she let herself imagine what would have happened if Angelica hadn’t interrupted them. Would he have laid her down on the couch and spread his big, hard body out over hers as he took the kiss deeper? Would he have trailed kisses past her jaw and down her neck until he reached the rise of her breast propped up by the sexiest bra she owned—the one she never wore because it was akin to a torture device? Would he have slid his hand up her calf and under her skirt, pulling her thigh up around his waist as he rolled his hips against her?

  No. She shook her head and refocused her eyes on the road as her core pulsed with aching need. Which reminded her—she needed to stop and get more batteries on her drive home, because lord knew that was all she could ever have of Max. Just her memories, her vibrator, and a very active imagination to see her through the cold winter nights stretching out ahead of her.

  The party had been her private goodbye to the Vergaras family. To the whole River Hill gang, in fact.

  Because as it turned out, Lizzie didn’t need to listen to a radio segment asking whether or not your boss was trying to sabotage you. She was living proof of that, too.

  Maggie had been warning Lizzie for months that Kate had it in for her, but she’d mostly ignored her colleague, hoping that it would all pass. Lately, though, it had been getting harder and harder to pretend that Maggie wasn’t right. And now, Lizzie had received a so-called “promotion” she’d neither asked for, nor wanted.

  Twenty minutes before closing down the office for the holiday, Kate had pulled
Lizzie aside and informed her that she’d be taking on a new role within the agency. A role, Lizzie seethed as she lay on her horn as an oversized pickup truck cut her off, that took everything she enjoyed about her job and replaced it with tedious paperwork better suited to an administrator. Essentially, everything Kate hated about her own job had been unceremoniously dumped on Lizzie—including a one-hundred-mile commute each way to and from Sacramento multiple times a week.

  She’d been tempted to quit right there on the spot, but her conscience had forced her to bite her tongue and calmly walk out the door before she said something she’d regret. She’d had a party to go home and get dressed for.

  Only now, she was rethinking her supposedly sensible decision to not tell Kate to take her promotion and shove it where the sun didn’t shine.

  She’d been on the road for nearly three hours and had only made it as far as Davis, and if the line of cars stretching out in front of her as far as the eye could see was any indication, she was going to be stuck here a lot longer.

  With a resigned sigh, she turned the radio back on.

  Some are calling it a post-Christmas miracle, but for the thousands of commuters stranded on the freeway, it’s more like a nightmare. We’re going live to Sacramento where a major winter snowstorm has brought the city to a standstill. Mike, what’s it like where you are?

  A snow storm? In Sacramento? Granted, she wasn’t originally from the area, but she’d lived in Northern California long enough to know that snow below the foothills wasn’t a regular occurrence. In fact, the bigger problem had always been a lack of snow in these parts. Low snowpack in the Sierras meant no spring melt, which inevitably led to drought conditions in the summer … which, more and more frequently, meant wildfires in late summer and early fall. Unfortunately, she’d seen first-hand the emotional toll the last fire storm had wrought when she’d been assigned to a group of siblings who’d lost their parents and their home at the same time. It had been one of the hardest cases Lizzie had ever worked, but by the time their aunt and uncle had formally adopted the three kids, all were on their way to healing—as much as one ever could from that sort of tragedy.

  At the memory of that case, Lizzie felt a sharp pinch from somewhere behind her breastbone. Unconsciously, she rubbed the heel of her palm back and forth over the vicinity of her heart, pushing down hard when another sharp pain stole her breath. In an effort to try and calm her emotions, she zeroed in on the voices coming out of her speakers. She had enough experience with anxiety to know she wasn’t having a heart attack, but she also knew that if she didn’t get hold of her emotions, she could spiral into a full-blown panic attack—and that was the last thing she needed right now.

  Emergency responders are dealing with a twelve-car pile up on Highway 80 at Auburn, as well as a four-car accident just outside of Roseville. Caltrans is asking motorists to stay home if at all possible as conditions are expected to deteriorate even further as the freak storm heads south.

  The report continued as Lizzie scanned the horizon. Traffic was complete chaos with motorists honking and yelling at one another as they tried to move into the far right lane to exit the freeway. Squaring her shoulders, she girded her proverbial loins and flicked on her blinker, ready to enter the fray herself when her phone rang through her car’s Bluetooth speakers. Glancing over her shoulder, she ignored the ringing and nosed her way into the next lane, lifting her hand in silent thanks to the driver now behind her. When she’d made her way across two more lanes, the ringing started anew.

  “For fuck’s sake,” she muttered, the stress from the long drive and current traffic situation causing her to let loose an uncharacteristic expletive. It was one of Max’s favorite sayings, a fact she tried to ignore as it came out of her own mouth. She pressed the button on her steering wheel to send the call through.

  “Hello?” she asked, spying a break in traffic wide enough that she could slip between two semis and exit the freeway.

  “Elizabeth,” a shrill voice sounded through the speakers.

  “I’m a little busy, Kate.”

  “Well, I can’t imagine with what since I know you missed the meeting with David and Thomas. I just got off the phone with them and—”

  “Kate, I’m kind of dealing with a mess here.”

  “Well, now I’m dealing with your mess, so—”

  Lizzie didn’t know if it was the sleepless nights, the stress of this new job, her pining over Max, or all of the above, but as she swung into the next lane and slammed her foot down on the gas pedal, sending her car skyrocketing down the exit ramp, Kate’s voice and the complaints that came with it receded until the only thing Lizzie heard was the whirring of the blood in her veins and a dull pounding in her skull. She flipped a left at the light, then another left onto the onramp going in the opposite direction, and pointed her car toward home with a vicious twist of her wrist on the wheel.

  “Listen, Kate. I should have said this before, and I’m sorry I didn’t, but I don’t want this job.” She took a deep breath and plunged on, letting the words pour out of her mouth in steady progression toward an end result her brain was only just now catching up to. “I’m not an administrator; I’m a caseworker. My clients are what make getting up every morning and coming into work worth it. Without them, I’m just a paper pusher, and while that might be good enough for you, it’s not good enough for me. It’s not what I signed up for, and it’s something I’m not willing to do.”

  As she spoke, Kate kept trying to interject with cries of “Wait!” and “Elizabeth!” and “You cannot do this!” but Lizzie wouldn’t let her get a word in edgewise. She knew if she let her boss speak, the other woman would try to talk her out of what she was about to do, and since she hadn’t thought this through very well—or at all, she conceded—there was a strong likelihood she’d capitulate to Kate’s demands. So she kept going, hardly believing what she was saying herself as she settled into a steady speed in the opposite direction. “I know this isn’t very professional, and I’m guessing this means you won’t be giving me a reference—”

  Kate snorted loudly, and Lizzie could practically picture her blue shadowed eye rolling up into the back of her head. “I should think not! You’re lucky I haven’t fired you for your insubordination before now, what with—”

  What? Her insubordination? What insubordination? Until right this very second Lizzie had been a model employee.

  Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. Unless Kate knew about how she’d kissed Max. Was that why she’d taken all of Lizzie’s cases away from her? Had someone reported her for an ethics violation? Just as quickly, she shook her head. No, this was all Kate.

  “I knew you couldn’t handle my job,” her boss—soon-to-be former boss—continued as Lizzie’s attention was yanked back to the conversation. “I told Malcom that you’re an ungrateful upstart who thinks you know better than anyone else.”

  “I’m what?” Lizzie squawked, her voice rising with shock. She’d always known she wasn’t Kate’s favorite employee, but never in a million years would she have thought Kate would describe her that way. She’d spent years helping to build their office’s reputation as one of the best in the county, and until Max and Mia came along, she’d never set a foot wrong.

  “You heard me,” Kate fired back. “I tried protecting you, Elizabeth, because that’s what was best for the agency, but I should have known the second I gave you real responsibility you’d—”

  Lizzie had had enough.

  Enough of the constant put-downs.

  Enough of the late nights with no appreciation.

  Enough of the petty, back-handed compliments.

  Enough of her job.

  Enough of putting everyone and everything ahead of her own wants and desires.

  Enough of denying herself the only man she’d ever wanted.

  Enough pretending that Max and Mia weren’t the family she’d secretly wished for at every major holiday.

 
Enough. Enough. Enough.

  A sense of renewed purpose settled over her as she made a decision. A huge, scary, life-altering decision. She’d already made it, really, but now she knew, with every particle of her being, that it was the right choice. All around her, everything was chaos—cars swerving on the increasingly slippery road surface, her wipers furiously batting away big, fat wet flakes of snow—but in her head, everything had gone quiet. Calm.

  “I’m sorry, Kate, but this conversation is over. Consider this my resignation, effective immediately. Now, if you’ll excuse me, please go fuck yourself.” Lizzie pressed the button on her steering wheel, ending the call. The second the line went quiet, all the precious calm that had previously flooded her system went flying out the window.

  “Oh my god. What have I done?” Her pulse spiked and her breath came in staccato bursts as her anxiety mounted. “I have a mortgage. I can’t go without a paycheck.”

  She was jobless, and she’d just told her best possible reference to go fuck herself. Never in the history of ever had she’d said those words to anyone—not even in the quiet of her mind when she was having one of those Ally McBeal dancing baby moments.

  Suddenly, and without warning, a crazed laugh bubbled up from her chest and burst from between her lips. “I’m so screwed,” she whispered aloud as the realization of what she’d just done settled over her. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel in time with the beat in her head. I’m so screwed, I’m so screwed, I’m so screwed.

  A handful of hours later, she’d somehow made her way to River Hill, and was inching her way down Max’s street, the deepening snow slowing her progress. She had no recollection of how she’d decided to come here instead of heading home, but it was too late now. She couldn’t get to her place even if she wanted to: the man on the radio had just announced they’d closed the road leading to her subdivision when a tree had fallen, bringing down the power lines with it. Anyone who wasn’t already tucked up safe and sound inside their home was being directed to the nearby high school until the storm passed.