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

by Rebecca Norinne

  Now, he stared down at the invitation in his hand and decided it was time to make his move. Grad school or no grad school, he wanted Lizzie in his life. There had to be a way to make their relationship work. He couldn’t believe the state would try to take away her license if she were in a different job than the one she’d met Mia in, and if they did try? Well. Last night he’d realized a fairly relevant fact: he had a damned good lawyer in his back pocket.

  He picked up his phone and tapped out the message before he could think about it more.

  Max: Hey, I have a question.

  Lizzie: Go for it.

  Max: Will you go to Noah and Angelica’s wedding with me?

  Lizzie: … awkward.

  Max: It won’t be, I promise!

  Lizzie: No, I mean, I already have my own invitation.

  Max: What?

  She sent him a picture of her invitation sitting on her kitchen counter. It was addressed to Ms. Elizabeth Teague. He squinted. It also said ‘and guest,’ just like his did. Clearly, Angelica was trying to give him a heart attack.

  Max: Rehearsal dinner, too? Are you taking a plus one?

  Lizzie: Yes, rehearsal too. Not planning on a date, unless it’s Mia.

  Max: She got her own invitation.

  Lizzie: Aw, that’s so sweet of Angelica.

  He agreed. Mia’s squeal when she’d seen her name in embossed script on the elegant cream envelope had been worth every snarky comment Angelica had ever made to him.

  Max: Well, if I can’t convince you to come to the wedding as my date, can I convince you to come taste-test some final food options?

  Lizzie: Shouldn’t that be Angelica’s job?

  Max: I need to narrow things down a little more. I’d rather just give her two or three choices, but I have like fifteen different ideas.

  Lizzie: So you’re saying I should come hungry?

  Max: Are you saying you’re coming?

  Lizzie: I’ll bring my own fork.

  Max: I think I can provide a fork. My place?

  Lizzie: Not the restaurant?

  Max: Wendy’s wife sent me an email saying I wasn’t allowed to do any more wedding stuff in the kitchen until crunch time because she hasn’t budgeted for a vow renewal this year and Wendy’s getting too many ideas.

  When Lizzie sent him three laugh emojis followed quickly by a promise to meet him at his place tomorrow night, he rubbed his hands together, feeling extremely smug.

  The next night, he laid out several dishes in front of her and handed her a sheet of paper.

  She looked surprised. “You made all these just now?”

  He grinned. “No, I cheated. I added a few of my ideas to the Frankie’s menu this week, so Wendy and the crew made them.” He pointed. “That one, and that one, and the duck, over there. I did the appetizer choices here, but most of the entrees came home with me.”

  “Sneaky,” she said, an admiring tone in her voice.

  “It’s almost like I do this for a living,” he teased her.

  Her cheeks pinked. “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know,” he said quickly. “You’re right, though, I don’t usually do a ton of wedding catering. It’s usually town events or party-style stuff where I’m bringing out the chafing dishes and my staff handles a lot of it.”

  She nodded. “I remember seeing Frankie’s on a lot of advertising for events all over Sonoma. I never had time to go to any of them, though.” She sobered. “I do now, I guess.”

  The last thing he wanted her thinking about tonight was her stalled career. “Something will come up,” he said as breezily as he could manage. “In the meantime, you do have an important job. Open up that paper.”

  She unfolded the sheet he’d handed her and looked down, lips quirking to the side as she read through the chart he’d printed. “This is some pretty intense flavor profiling you’re asking me to do.”

  “Um, it’s Angelica Travis’s wedding,” he said. “Do I need to say more?”

  She laughed. “I’m not sure I’m qualified to judge if something is—” she squinted. “Flavor-popping? What’s this one? Divine intervention?”

  He leveled her with an expression of mock sternness. “Try the food before you comment on my categories.”

  She dug into her purse, hung on the back of the chair she was sitting in, and emerged triumphantly holding a utensil. “I brought a fork.”

  “You’re ridiculous,” he said fondly, letting the swell of warmth that was washing through his body as he watched her at his kitchen table seep into his voice.

  “Hey, it’s an important job. You said so yourself.” She surveyed the plates covering the table as he took a seat opposite her. “What’s first?”

  “This one.” He grabbed his own fork and stuck it into the first appetizer. “Sweet potato beignet with avocado crema.”

  She stabbed one of the little balls of fried dough and popped it into her mouth. “Mmrph nng.”

  He was distracted by watching her lips move. “What?”

  She swallowed. “This one for sure.”

  “It’s the first one you’ve tried!”

  She shrugged. “Better keep impressing me, I guess.” The corner of her lips tilted up into a sly smile, and he nearly leapt over the table to kiss her.

  In due time.

  Instead, he fed her some more. And some more after that. They made their way through a plate of smoked pork belly with apple chutney, which was promptly added to her list of keepers, and egg yolk ravioli with an herb butter sauce, which didn’t. “Jess is pregnant,” she said. “No runny egg yolks.”

  “That’s a thing?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  On to squash fritters —“Not as good as the beignets, sorry”—and cod Wellington with frizzled prosciutto. Lizzie stole his portion after she’d finished eating her own.

  “So that’s a yes, then?”

  “Shhh,” she said, chewing. “Leave me with my new best friend.”

  He laughed, and moved on to the entrees. He’d been watching his customers’ reactions to them all week, but he wanted Lizzie’s opinion even more. He wanted her opinion on everything, to be honest.

  She liked the beef tenderloin, pronounced the braised short ribs to be better, thought the chicken was boring, and declared that she wanted to write poetry about the pasta in truffle and taleggio cream sauce.

  “If Angelica doesn’t pick this one, I’m going to throw her another wedding so she can make the right choices the next time,” she said.

  “You have some sauce on your cheek.” Without thinking, Max reached across the table to remove it with his thumb. When his fingers brushed against her skin, they both froze.

  After a moment when Max was sure she could hear his heart thundering in his chest, he swiped the sauce from her face and brought his thumb to his mouth. Her eyes followed the movement, and he watched her pupils dilate as he slowly sucked the sauce from his finger. He swallowed harder than was strictly necessary for three drops of cheese sauce. “Lizzie…”

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  “Can we—-”

  “—Yes,” she answered, not bothering to hear the rest of his question before shoving her chair back. She stood, and held her hand out to him.

  He wrapped his fingers around hers and let her tug him upright, the motion carrying their bodies closer. His hands curved around her waist and his fingers dipped into the waistband of the form-fitting cotton pants that molded perfectly to the curves of her hips. An old heather-gray tee that was so thin from years of wear that parts of it were see-through completed her outfit. She’d told him with a laugh that they were her eating clothes, indicating the elastic waistband, but he could think of a lot of other uses for them. Preferably ones that involved him taking them off of her.

  “Do you know,” he said, gritting the words out low and gravelly, “how hard it has been not to undress you every time I’ve seen you over the last month?”

  Her hands were busy at his waist. “Probably about as h
ard as this.” Her fingers dove into his jeans, curving around his cock inside his boxers, and his hips thrust against the pressure helplessly.

  He groaned. “Lizzie.” He needed her naked. Immediately.

  “Bedroom?” she gasped.

  Giving fervent mental thanks to the new friend who had invited Mia over for a sleepover tonight, he maneuvered them out of the kitchen. They made it as far as the couch.

  She hooked her leg around his knee and sent him tumbling with a push to his shoulders.

  “Where’d you learn that move?” he protested as his back hit the cushions.

  “Shhh,” she said. “A magician never reveals her secrets.” Then she did something else that made his shirt fly off his chest. “Voila!”

  God, he loved her. He opened his mouth to tell her, and then paused. Was she ready to hear it? Was he definitely ready to say it? There was so much that was still so uncertain in both of their lives. For starters, he’d signed a contract last week committing himself to opening another restaurant down in Silicon Valley, two hours away from River Hill. At the time, he’d thought it would be a good distraction, not to mention it’d expand his name recognition well beyond the confines of wine country.

  Now, with Lizzie in his arms pulling her own shirt up over her head, he wondered if he was just avoiding the hard truth about their future together. She still hadn’t heard about any of the jobs she’d applied to, or graduate school. But when she did—

  “If you’re thinking about Angelica’s wedding right now, I will actually murder you,” she said pleasantly.

  “I’m thinking about you.” He reached for her. The best way to stop thinking was to act, after all.

  His hands skimmed over her sides as he drew her down to him, her body covering his in a way that made every nerve thrum with pleasure. He kissed her, and she slid her tongue along the seam of his lips. They opened to each other, and she made a sound that went straight to his groin as he drove his fingers into her hair to cup the back of her head.

  Writhing and twisting against each other, they somehow managed to remove their pants and underwear without him being aware of actually doing it. Skin to skin, suddenly, everything was faster, harder, hotter. She handed him a condom—where had that come from? She really was a magician—and he tore it open and rolled it on as she slid her cool fingers around his balls, making him moan. Then she rose up over him, hair falling down around her shoulders like a goddess, and slid herself up, over, and down. She paused, thighs trembling, with the tip of his cock barely inside her. He looked up at her to find her staring down at him with a whole world in her eyes. And when she sank down, taking him deep inside her, he kept his eyes open, letting her see what he couldn’t say.

  He loved her. He wanted her. He didn’t know what their future might hold, but he’d fight for them as long as he could.

  18

  Lizzie lifted her glass to toast to Angelica and Noah’s happiness. For the past hour, she’d listened as those gathered at Frankie’s to celebrate the couple’s upcoming nuptials told both hilarious and touching stories about how the two had found love.

  Lizzie had heard Angelica’s condensed version of the story at book club, of course, and Max had once told her that Noah had done a complete one-eighty once he realized he needed to soften his hard edges if he was going to convince Angelica to give him a chance, but it was heartwarming nonetheless to hear these small anecdotes from others. As the toasts and stories continued, Noah ate it up. She’d never seen him more confident, or more in his element.

  Every so often, Lizzie had wondered how his and Angelica’s relationship worked. While he’d been nothing but kind to her, she knew how to read people—see the things they wouldn’t say aloud—and she’d sensed that underneath his indulgent smiles and good-natured joking was a man who had fought hard to get to a place where those things came easy to him. Once, she’d spied him taking a phone call as he was on his way out of the inn just as she was coming in, and he’d been wearing a scowl so fierce it had nearly stopped her in her tracks. By way of apology, Angelica had said, “Don’t mind him. He’s not always this grumpy, he’s just had a bad day.”

  On the flip side, she wasn’t sure Angelica had ever had a bad day. Or if she had, she’d turned it into something better by sheer force of will. Lizzie had never met someone who was so fundamentally positive about everything without being remotely obnoxious about it. If a situation was less than ideal, Angelica would acknowledge it, determine how best to deal with it, and then move on. Frankly, the woman was a force of nature.

  Now that she thought about it, maybe that was what made Angelica and Noah’s relationship work. Perhaps opposites really did attract, and the two were stronger as a unit than as individuals. It was a cliche as old as time, and yet, there was no denying that Noah and Angelica were two of the most solidly in love people Lizzie had ever met.

  Maybe there’s something in the water here, she thought as her gaze drifted fondly over her friends. They were all like that.

  Intentionally childfree and committed to never getting married, Iain and Naomi had the most unconventional relationship of the group, whereas Sean and Jess were the most traditional, especially now that they were gearing up to expand their little family. And yet, she wouldn’t say one couple was more in love than the other. Their love was just … different.

  And then there were Maeve and Ben, a couple that was so sweet and caring toward one another, while somehow managing to also be so utterly hot that more than once Lizzie’d had to excuse herself when all they’d been doing was looking at each other.

  Briefly, she wondered what people would say about her and Max. The man was patience and sweetness personified—look at how he’d welcomed Mia into his life, or how he’d spent his entire career feeding people just to see them happy. But he was also damned sexy. And all that goodness, and sweetness, and just sheer wonderfulness didn’t mean he wasn’t good in bed. In fact, she’d argue that was what made him the best damn lover she’d ever had. Just thinking about their time together last weekend had her toes curling in her heels.

  “Penny for your thoughts?”

  Lizzie jumped, bringing her palm flat against her chest. “Oh my god, Maeve. You scared me.”

  The Irish woman peered at her curiously. “I can see that.”

  “I was just thinking …”

  “—About how ridiculously happy Noah looks today?”

  Lizzie nodded, relief washing through her. From the way Maeve was watching her, she’d been worried she was about to be grilled about the specifics of those thoughts. “He can’t stop smiling.”

  Maeve chuckled. “I should think not. He’s been trying to get Angelica to marry him for a long time. It wasn’t until Jess and Sean came home from Costa Rica with a ring on her finger that she finally relented.”

  “Well, Angelica does love jewelry,” Lizzie chuckled.

  “That she does,” Maeve said. “What about you?”

  Lizzie swung her gaze from the soon-to-be-married couple to the younger woman at her side. “What about me?” she asked cautiously.

  “You don’t wear much jewelry,” Maeve pointed out, doing a visual once-over of Lizzie. Aside from a pair of tiny diamond studs she’d worn every day since her uncles gave them to her on her eighteenth birthday, she was unadorned.

  “Noooo … but then, you don’t either,” Lizzie deflected. She didn’t know where this conversation was heading, but she was distinctly uncomfortable with the increasingly assessing look on the other woman’s face.

  Maeve fingered the delicate gold chain at her wrist, her eyes briefly darting across the room to where Ben and Max were chatting near the bar. “I can’t wear jewelry at work, of course. As for when I’m off, well, I might not have been a fan of it in the past … but you never know.”

  From Maeve’s tone, Lizzie got the distinct impression they weren’t talking about just any old piece of jewelry anymore. Maybe it was the two glasses of champagne she’d had, or maybe it was the setting
and overall mood of the rehearsal dinner, but Lizzie found her tongue loosening. “What about Ben? How does he feel about, um, jewelry?”

  Slowly, Maeve brought her gaze back around, her smile sly and knowing. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well,” Lizzie said, nervously shifting her weight onto her other foot. She didn’t want to pry, but if she was reading the undertones of their conversation correctly, marriage was the next logical step for the couple. Not that she was one to talk about what was logical when it came to relationships. After all, she’d let herself fall for a man she knew was off limits. “I just mean, um, do you think you’ll ever …” She twirled her finger in the air as if to indicate all the pomp and circumstance of the pre-wedding celebration.

  Maeve lifted her shoulders in a light shrug. “You never do know.” Her eyes landed on something over Lizzie’s shoulder, and her easy smile morphed into one that belied much deeper feelings. “I hate to be rude,” she said, setting a hand on Lizzie’s arm, “but if you’ll excuse me …”

  She was gone before Lizzie could even say goodbye.

  With an empty glass and no one else around who she knew well enough to talk to, Lizzie used Maeve’s departure as an excuse to visit the ladies’ room. Frankly, their conversation had unnerved her. If she were being honest with herself, practically everything about this night had been unnerving.

  While she and Max had exchanged warm hellos upon her arrival, they’d barely spoken ten words since. Not that she’d expected anything more than that. When she’d left his house the other day, things had still been so uncertain between them. With so much of her life currently up in the air, she’d been unable to commit to him the way she knew he wanted her to.

  But as with everything else about their relationship, he’d been so good about it. So understanding. “Take all the time you need,” he’d said with a lingering kiss to her forehead as he ushered her to her car before Mia returned home from her sleepover.