Who’s The Boss?

by McCarthy , Erin

  “Whoa,” was my reaction when I came into the living room. “This is amazing.” Very pink. Very full-blown. But amazing.

  “Is it too much?” Felicia asked, running her hand over her tiny baby bump.

  A bartender was setting up a pink champagne bar in the corner with coupe glasses. “It’s a lot,” I admitted. “But it’s very you. You look gorgeous, by the way.” She was wearing something designer, though I couldn’t have told you who. Fashion was her arena, not mine.

  “Are you sure? I wanted to wear black to offset the pink but then that just seemed macabre for a baby shower. So I decided to lean into the pink theme. This is Chanel.”

  “You leaned, for sure. But it works,” I reassured her. I glanced down at my own outfit. “I’m sorry, I’m wearing black. It’s just my standard uniform and I didn’t even think about it not being appropriate at a baby shower.” I’d only been to one baby shower in my entire life and that was in college when a girl in our dorm got pregnant. Some of the students in our wing had thrown her a baby shower.

  That event had been exactly nothing like this. It had been broke college kids throwing up streamers and blowing up drugstore balloons.

  “You’re totally fine,” she said. “It’s just me that shouldn’t be wearing black.” Then she rushed off, flustered, when someone asked her where she wanted the tables set up.

  This was obviously not a good time to ask her what the hell I should do about Sean and my constant overwhelming urges to get naked with him.

  Michael was in the kitchen, hand in the fridge. He slammed it shut, looking guilty, then relieved when he realized it was me.

  “Hi, Michael, how are you holding up?”

  “Sorry, I thought you were Felicia. I didn’t want her to catch me eating the sushi I had delivered. She can’t eat it right now.” He tossed a piece of sashimi into his mouth. “So I’m not supposed to either, in solidarity. Don’t rat me out, please.”

  “I never rat anyone out about food. No worries.” I glanced around their massive kitchen. “Did the delivery truck arrive yet? I wanted to get started prepping.” They were serving passed appetizers, then a sit-down dinner for forty.

  “No, not yet. Sean isn’t here yet either.” Michael nodded toward the living room. “Can you tell we’re having a girl?”

  “I don’t think it’s obvious at all.”

  He grinned. “I can’t help it. I can’t say no to Felicia. If she wants eight hundred pink balloons, she can have them.”

  I tried to imagine having a man in my life who wanted me to be happy so much he allowed his home to be fully engulfed in an avalanche of pink latex and live florals. “She’s very lucky.”

  He gave a snort. “Are you kidding? I’m the lucky one. She’s amazing.”

  That was love. I wondered what would happen if I ever opened myself up to the possibility. Would that mean someday I would have a pink baby shower?

  I doubted it. I wanted a more rock ‘n’ roll baby shower. You know. Someday. If I had kids. Which I’d never given a ton of thought too. It seemed premature to contemplate bringing a child into the world when I was single as fuck.

  An image of Sean talking to Kennedy popped into my head. He was going to make a great uncle. A great father, if he ever wanted to have kids. Not that I should be thinking about Sean’s fictitious future with a woman who wouldn’t be me.

  “Sean’s texting me,” Michael said. “He’s downstairs. Let me go let him in.”

  “Sure.” I wandered into the living room and marveled at the changes in Felicia’s life in such a short time. Was that how it went?

  One day you were doing your thing solo and then suddenly bam. Love hit you between the eyes. You had balloons and babies and sushi-bans because of love.

  I heard Sean’s voice coming up the stairs from the ground level. I had no idea why but I panicked and ran away, darting into the powder room.

  “What the hell was that? Get yourself together,” I told my image in the mirror. “He’s the enemy. He’s your boss. He can get you fired and render you homeless.”

  The woman reflected back at me didn’t look like she gave a shit about consequences. Or that she believed a word I was saying.

  Nope. She looked like she might have taken that hit between the eyes.

  “How is your lovely wife?” I asked my brother, Michael, as I kicked off my shoes in the entry to his brownstone. Felicia had a thing about shoes in the house and I didn’t need another female annoyed with me. Dealing with Isla was hard enough, though I had some hope I was making headway there.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Michael said, frowning at me. “You’re not taking your shoes off for a baby shower.”

  “What?” I asked, glancing up. “I thought that’s what she wanted. I’m not a total asshole.” Felicia made my brother happy. That was very obvious. She had also been nothing but nice to me and now she was expecting my niece. I had exactly zero issues with Felicia these days. Even when I was right, it seemed I was wrong.

  Michael made a sound like he didn’t believe me. “She’s upstairs fretting about this party, so tread lightly, please. I’m begging you. Pregnancy hormones have her bursting into tears at least once a day.”

  Great. “So you’re sending me into a minefield. Thanks.” I peeled my jacket off and hung it on the hooks by the door. I put my shoes back on.

  The brownstone was class New York City. Soaring ceilings, elaborate molding, double doors. This one had been renovated before Michael and Felicia had moved in a month or two earlier and Felicia had been busy filling it with furniture, art, and personal items. Despite the inherent grandeur it was very homey and felt lived in. I gave Felicia credit for that because prior to meeting her, my brother had lived in a sterile box devoid of personality and clinging to remnants of his long-deceased wife’s style.

  “I guess I should be grateful you chose me to do the food.” Felicia had insisted this event be coed and more dinner party than baby shower, but I was just thrilled to be in the kitchen cooking instead. I had only a vague idea of what went down at baby showers and I wanted no part of it.

  “Well. You’re doing it with Isla.” My brother gave me a grin.

  There was so much irony in his words, and it was totally lost on him. “Yes, I’m very aware I’m doing it with Isla.” Or did. Once. I wasn’t sure where we stood now.

  “Does she still hate your guts?” Michael clapped my shoulder. “Can’t say I blame her.”

  He was joking, of course. We had spent our entire lives giving each other a hard time. But I had to admit it was hard to follow an older brother like Michael. As a kid, he’d been the star athlete, the best student, and heavily involved in charitable endeavors, even at sixteen. Now he was a surgeon and spent his free time fundraising for children’s charities. Yes, I had been a bit of a screw-off in school, not enjoying the rules of authority. My mother had claimed it was because I was a jerk, but mostly I thought it was because I’d always been creative. I liked to toss things in the air and see how they landed together.

  It was important to me to be successful in this new position because I’d spent my whole adult life working toward this goal. I didn’t compare myself to my brother anymore, but I had a thing or two to prove to myself.

  “Screw you.” I glanced around. “Give me a tour of this incredibly expensive wedding gift for your wife before I get started. I know Felicia’s been hard at work decorating it. Most guys just buy their wife a bottle of champagne on their honeymoon. Someone might say you’re overcompensating.”

  Michael gave me a look. “What exactly do you know about marriage? If I gave Felicia a bottle of champagne as a wedding gift, and nothing more, she would wonder what kind of idiot she married since she was already pregnant and can’t drink.”

  He had a point. “I know nothing about marriage. I just know I don’t see a massive brownstone in my future, but this is a pretty amazing house, I have to say.” It was a family home, no doubt about it.

  Felicia was in the kitchen. S
he was tall, thin, and very elegant. She moved with the ease of a model, which she had been in her late teens. Her small baby bump was pronounced because she was so naturally thin and she was wearing a formfitting dress with heels. I gave her a hug. “You look fantastic,” I said, and I meant it.

  “You are a terrible liar,” she said. “I feel very pale and sickly. It’s Victorian chic, I guess.”

  “You do not look sickly. At all.” I waved my hand around. “By the way, the brownstone is beautiful. Have you house-trained my brother yet?” I didn’t even wait for her answer. I wanted a look around. This kitchen was a chef’s dream. High-end Wolf appliances. Eight burners on the stove. “I still can’t get over how amazing this kitchen is.”

  “Sadly, you know it’s wasted on us,” Felicia said. “We are the king and queen of takeaway. But this will encourage us to entertain with caterers.”

  I eyed her. “Wasting this kitchen is a sin. You two need to learn how to cook. You cannot feed my niece pad thai from the restaurant on the corner every night. She’ll be three years old with the sodium levels of a grown man.” I take vegetables seriously. We served a lot of meat at Bone, but I firmly believed in eating lots of greens alongside the fun stuff. “I can give you some cooking lessons.”

  Felicia blanched. “Oh, hell. Please don’t. I’d rather scrub toilets than cook.”

  That was an attitude I just couldn’t wrap my head around. “That’s insane.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get that,” Michael said.

  “Is that Isla?” Instantly, I thought I sounded a little too eager.

  “I think it’s the food delivery.”

  Felicia gave me a sweet smile. “Isla’s already here somewhere. It’s so lovely of both of you to offer to do the food for our baby shower.”

  Lovely wasn’t the right word. My brother would kill me if I didn’t. But I was also too proud to let my brother and sister-in-law hire an outside caterer. That was not going to happen. “We’re going to zone cook. Isla can do the apps and I’ll do a main dish.”

  “Why don’t you do apps and I do the main course?” Isla asked, coming into the kitchen, her voice lifted in a challenge.

  It should have annoyed me. Instead the sound of her voice turned me on. I liked how she stood up to me, said what she was thinking, held me accountable. The woman was the most amazing combination of sexy and exasperating. Her words made me want to grind my teeth, but when I turned around and took in the sight of her, there were a whole lot of other things I wanted to do with my mouth. She was wearing jeans that hugged every curve of her delicious body, and she had a black leather jacket on over a band T-shirt. But the best part was the black boots that had spiky high heels and came not to her knee, which would have been sexy enough, but over her knee, which was criminal.

  “Nice shoes,” I said.

  The memory of us together in her bed was burned into my brain, and when I thought about that hot, quick, sex and saw those boots, I wanted nothing more on the entire planet than to see her in just that T-shirt and the boots. While I took her hard against the nearest wall.

  Something about my expression must have given my thoughts away because her eyes widened and her tongue peeked out to moisten her bottom lip.

  “I’m a guest, not just the chef,” she said. “I needed party footwear.”

  “I thought this was a baby shower, not a party.”

  “Why are you fighting with me?” she asked. “This is a joyous occasion.” But she gave me a smile, like we had a private joke, which maybe we did.

  Damn, I wanted her.

  “You can do the main course,” I said. “I’m not going to fight with you, Isla. I respect you as both a person and a chef.”

  Now her smile turned into a smirk. “That almost sounds believable.”

  “I’ll prove it to you. You can be the head chef for this party and I’ll be your sous chef.” How could she resist having sex with me after I gave her control in the kitchen? I was guaranteed a spot in her bed again.

  Besides, it was still looming over my head that we had to get along or I was going to lose my job and that was a big fat hell no.

  “Oh, really?” Her voice was dripping with suspicion. “What’s the catch?”

  “There’s no catch. Why would you assume there’s a catch? We need a plan to divvy up responsibilities and we can’t both be in charge. Show me what you got, Chef.”

  “It’s not as fun to know you’re allowing me to order you around, but I’ll take what I can get.” Isla peeled off her leather jacket and tossed it on the back of one of the stools pushed up to the massive kitchen island. “Let’s do this.”

  “Fantastic.” I turned to Felicia. “Any last minute special requests?” I asked. “We can get creative.”

  “Oh, no, I don’t want to be creative. I’m creating an infant, that’s enough for me,” she said, pulling open the refrigerator door. “Would anyone like a drink while you’re locked in a battle of wills?” She gave me a look. “I admit it, your brother was right.”

  “My brother was right? About what? He’s never right.”

  “He said you and Isla would bicker. He wasn’t wrong, was he?”

  “I don’t bicker,” Isla said.

  “Bollocks,” was Felicia’s response to that. “I’ve never heard anything so absurd in my entire life.” She pulled out sparkling water and set three bottles on the marble island.

  “Me, either,” I said. “I think you enjoy bickering with me.” Got off bickering with me. That’s what she did. It was foreplay for us. “She also likes to throw drinks in my face. Or tries to, anyway.”

  Isla looked like she wanted to repeat the project. “Once! And thanks for tattling on me.”

  That made me laugh. “I didn’t know it was a secret.” I eyed her. “Is anything else a secret?”

  She knew exactly what I was referring to. To my surprise she stared me boldly down. “I have no secrets.”

  That unnerved me. Had she already told Felicia about the other night in her apartment? Or was it too inconsequential to her to be deemed worthy of being called a secret?

  “Everyone has secrets.”

  “I don’t.” She gave me a look that could have seduced the enemy.

  A mysterious, sensual, teasing look that made my cock instantly hard.

  “A secret implies you’re ashamed of something you’ve done. I don’t live my life like that.”

  She was saying she didn’t regret having sex with me.

  I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self respect.

  Holy. Shit. I could fall in love with Isla.

  Nine

  “What’s taking so long with that foie?” I asked Sean. “You’re putting us behind schedule.”

  “Sorry, Chef,” Sean said, sounding appropriately deferential. “I’ll pick up the pace.”

  Oh, this was fun. It must be killing him to take orders from me. On the other hand, I was loving every single second of it. Not out of spite, because if I were totally honest, Sean wasn’t a difficult boss. No, it was more like a combination of therapy, letting go of the initial anger I’d had over losing the position to him, and increasing the sexual tension between us.

  Felicia had chosen a modern twist on a traditional British menu, which wasn’t our usual arena, but it was fun to do something different. Her requests had been that nothing could be difficult or messy to eat and that it didn’t conflict with the champagne she was serving.

  Sean and I had taken over the entire kitchen island with our prep and I’d already heard Felicia fretting that the open floor plan made the catering entirely too visible to arriving guests. She had floated the idea of adding a catering kitchen in the future past her husband. I hadn’t heard his response, but I had to give her props. She was pregnant with his baby girl. This was the golden opportunity to ask for anything and everything she wanted. Other people might think a catering kitchen was over-the-top but as a chef, I appreciated the separation.


  It wasn’t that I disliked the idea of working where guests could see me, it was just that it was distracting. But we still had almost an hour until anyone was due to arrive, at which point Felicia and Michael had hired serving staff to take over.

  “Taste this,” I said to Sean, lifting a spoon of horseradish sauce to his lips. “More pepper?” I trusted my seasoning just fine, I just wanted to touch him.

  I know. I know. I was asking for trouble, but something about Sean being vulnerable in the cooler had made me see him in a different light. He also hadn’t made me regret telling him about my parents. The anger I’d felt for him now seemed to simmer more as a sexual tension, a desire to tease him. A competitive energy between us.

  He opened his mouth dutifully and stared me down as he swallowed. “It’s perfect,” he said, his voice low, leg brushing mine.

  It felt like he was talking about me. “Thanks.”

  “It comes in with a bite and mellows at the end.” He gave me a wink.

  Yep. He was talking about me. I didn’t hate that description of me either. I reached out and used the back of my thumb to wipe his lip where a little bit of the white sauce clung.

  I would have pulled my finger away and wiped it on a towel, but he pulled it between his lips and sucked the tip. His eyes darkened. I felt the answering tug between my thighs. Damn, I wanted him. And not on impulse. I wanted a deliberate, slow, exploration of what kind of pleasure we could bring to each other.

  “The mushroom duxelle, on the other hand, needs some help,” he said, giving me a smile.

  “Shut up,” I said, good-naturedly, yanking my finger away.

  Sean laughed. “Touchy, diva chef. I knew that’s how you would be.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You didn’t know anything about me.”

  “I knew you were passionate that very first night in the elevator. And irrational.”

  He was enjoying teasing me. I waved a knife at him. “Be careful what you say when I have a very sharp weapon in my hand.”