A Passionate Love

by Delaney Diamond

  Once he got older, the skills he learned served him well, paving the pathway to the hearts—and beds—of many young women. His passion for cooking eventually led to a career in restaurant and hospitality management, where he worked for years before taking over his parents’ nightclub with his siblings three years ago.

  Thirty minutes into the class, Cameron had placed the fresh pasta for the ravioli aside to rest, when the click-clack of heels on tile caused him to lift his gaze from the counter. Simone strutted down the middle of the room like a runway model, looking completely unruffled in a black-belted orange dress with three-quarter length sleeves. A black Fendi Peekaboo hung in the crook of her arm, and the only reason he knew anything about the expensive purse was because his sister, Harper, had shown him a picture and gushed about it the week before.

  “I’m here.” She plunked the purse on the counter. Those weren’t exactly the words he expected to hear. She made it sound as if he should be grateful she’d arrived at all. And to his chagrin, that’s exactly how he felt.

  Grateful. Relieved.

  “I said seven o’clock.”

  “I know, but I got busy. Since you have no cell phone, I couldn’t call you.”

  Cameron didn’t miss the snide undertone in the last sentence. “Was that comment meant to diss me?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  She opened wide, guileless eyes, and the next thing he knew, the corners of his mouth were twitching in a fight to keep from smiling.

  “I thought you’d stood me up.”

  “I couldn’t possibly do that. I owe you, remember? You made that very clear.” Behind the very proper speech was a sarcastic sense of humor.

  “All right, smart ass. Get an apron and let’s get to work.”

  She gave him a saucy salute. “Yes, sir.”

  They dived into meal prep. Well, at least Cameron did. Halfway through chopping onions, Simone stopped to send a text. Two minutes later when the instructor advised them to prepare the ground beef and lamb, Simone wandered into a corner to speak privately into her phone. When the phone chimed for the third time, Cameron had had enough. He snatched the diamond-encrusted device off the counter, turned it off, and shoved it into his pants pocket.

  Her mouth fell open. “Hey, you can’t take my phone!”

  The couple at the station next to them looked over at the outburst.

  Bending close to her ear, Cameron inhaled the muted sent of a flowery fragrance that tickled his nostrils and made him want to press his nose against her skin. “I just did.”

  “Give it back,” she said through tight lips and in a lower tone. “That’s a Boucheron-designed phone. I don’t want to lose it.”

  “I don’t care if it was made by the Queen of England. You’re not getting it back.”

  “I have important things to take care of.” Angry eyes challenged him.

  Unbelievable.

  Standing with his feet set apart, Cameron crossed his arms and met her glower with one of his own. “Is someone you know dying?”

  She blinked. “No.”

  “Is someone you know in labor?”

  Simone sighed. “No.”

  “Then what’s so important you can’t spare me another hour of your undivided attention? We’re on a date. You owe me, remember?”

  She opened her mouth and he quirked a brow, daring her to argue.

  She set her mouth in a mutinous pout before muttering, “Fine. I’m all yours.”

  His heart jumped. That was the plan—to make her his.

  “What do you want me to do?” Simone asked, completely unaware of the inner turmoil caused by her flippant remark.

  “Make yourself useful and wash the spinach.”

  With a final glare from the corner of her eye, Simone turned to the sink in a huff. She emptied the spinach into a bowl and turned on the faucet.

  Cameron didn’t say another word to her, and they set about making dinner.

  Chapter 5

  It wasn’t that bad.

  Although upset by the way he took her phone, Simone secretly tingled at Cameron’s take charge attitude. He even impressed her with such an unusual date choice.

  Most men would have tried to do something a bit grander or extravagant, like an expensive meal somewhere. Or, like one man did, hire a helicopter to fly them over the city. She had been impressed, but the trip hadn’t been conducive to talking and getting to know each other. Even worse, when her date turned green from motion sickness, they were forced to cut the ride short.

  “Now add your olive oil and butter to the saucepan and sauté the onions and garlic,” the instructor said from the front of the class.

  Cameron poured olive oil into the pan and handed two ramekins with the vegetables to Simone.

  She took the dishes, uncertain what to do with them. “Just dump them in?” she asked hesitantly, keeping her voice low so no one else could hear.

  “Yes. Add the butter first and stir them, so they cook evenly.” His face softened, offering encouragement. At least he didn’t seem annoyed anymore.

  Simone added the butter and let it melt, and then dumped in the vegetables and stirred, and the scent of onions and garlic filled the kitchen as all around them, their kitchen mates did the same. Students at each station worked diligently, cutting, chopping, and stirring.

  She smiled to herself, feeling silly, but liking the activity. Cooking! Simone was cooking and actually enjoying it. She’d have to let her housekeeper know. Martha would definitely get a good laugh out of that.

  Head bent, Cameron chopped spinach for the cream sauce with swift but even strokes. He moved around the kitchen in a more fluid and graceful manner than one would expect for a man his size. The light blue sleeves of his shirt were pushed up almost to his elbows, the tendons in his forearms bunching and flexing as he sliced through the greens with precision.

  The teacher came by to check on them but quickly moved along, spending more time assisting the other students.

  “You must cook a lot,” Simone said.

  “It’s one of my favorite pastimes, along with doing anything outdoors. Hiking, jogging, whitewater rafting—those are my loves.”

  “I can tell.”

  One of his eyebrows lifted high. “What does that mean?”

  “I can tell. You know, you look…fit.”

  Her gaze skimmed the biceps hinted at under his sleeves, the wide trunk of his body, and lean waist. When she brought her eyes back to his, he was watching her with a little smile on his face.

  “Yeah?” he said. A flirtatious smile crossed his lips.

  “Yeah.” Simone bit the corner of her lip and returned her attention to the pan, stirring furiously. Cameron made her feel unbalanced. She never got off balance.

  He leaned close and she went still, tensing.

  “You look pretty fit yourself. Your legs look amazing in those heels,” he whispered. Then he slid away and went back to work.

  Meanwhile, her skin tingled where his breath brushed her ear and sent ripples of excitement scampering down the side of her neck. She’d wondered if her attraction to him in their first meeting was a fluke. Apparently not.

  “So what do you like to do in your spare time?” Cameron asked, scooping spinach into a bowl.

  “I prefer staying in, watching movies.” Simone shrugged.

  “Oh come on, that’s all? You don’t like to do anything else?”

  The teasing note in his voice encouraged her to open up. “Well, I love to ski,” she said, venturing a look at him to gauge his reaction. He appeared interested, and didn’t seem to have jumped to the conclusion that she was being pretentious or showing off.

  “Where do you go to ski?” Wholly interested in the conversation, he turned in her direction with curious eyes.

  “I’ve skied all over. There are excellent spots in Colorado, Canada, and Switzerland, but my favorite is the Sella Ronda circuit in Italy. They don’t have the best snow, but it’s a great place to ski, and there’s this
beautiful hidden valley at Lagazuoi with frozen waterfalls and majestic mountains on either side. Oh, it’s gorgeous. Worth the trip for that alone.”

  “Sounds nice. Maybe I’ll get to see it sometime.”

  “Do you ski?”

  “No.”

  “You have to learn to ski first,” she teased.

  “Are you offering to teach me?” That little smile again, across his decadent lips. Did he have any idea how sexy that smile was? He must, because he wielded it often, like a weapon against her.

  “If you’re willing to learn, I’m willing to teach.”

  “That means you’ll have to see more of me.”

  Simone lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “That wouldn’t be so bad.” Her heart raced a little faster as she awaited his answer.

  Cameron’s eyelids lowered to half-mast. “Nah, that wouldn’t be so bad at all. We have a deal,” he said.

  They smiled at each other and then went back to work. Cameron was very patient, pointing out the liquid measuring cup they needed to measure two cups of heavy cream, and answering questions she suspected were pretty basic but he never made her feel foolish for asking.

  They worked well together. While he took the lead, she worked beside him as a sous chef and made sure their station stayed clean as they went along, wiping down the counters and removing pots and utensils once they’d been used.

  “How long have you and your siblings been running Club Masquerade? I don’t remember that club when I used to live here before.”

  Cameron came to stand beside her and peered into the pan. His hip touched hers, and the mouth-watering aroma of the food was replaced by the mouth-watering scent of his skin and cologne. Over the course of the evening they brushed against each other a few times, but standing so close, lined up and touching, made the breath tremble from her lungs at the intense warmth that bathed the entire right side of her body.

  “Club Masquerade has been around for a while, but under a different name. It used to be Club Zenith and owned by my parents.”

  He told her the story about how he’d worked as a general manager of a restaurant in a popular chain. After a personal issue with a higher up, he left.

  “That was three years ago, and around the same time, my parents told me and my siblings that they planned to sell the club. Revenue had declined over the years, they didn’t know what to do to turn things around, and weren’t interested in investing any more money into it.”

  He continued to say he had seen an opportunity to finally run his own business and have the autonomy he’d secretly craved. He convinced his brother and sister to take over the club with him. They invested in new technology, changed the decor, improved marketing, and expanded the events business by inviting celebrities to have album release parties and other events there.

  Another bold step was to serve gourmet meals at the club. He’d wanted a diverse menu, and to be known not only for a party atmosphere, but excellent food. To do so, they’d hired away a chef from one of the most popular restaurants in South Carolina to cook Southern cuisine with a modern twist.

  “I work closely with the chef, and a few of my recipes have made it onto the menu. My pineapple and hibiscus cocktail is popular, and so are the beer-battered broccoli bites.”

  “I ate broccoli bites at the divorce party. They were delicious.”

  “That was all me, sweetheart.” He grinned. “Anyway, we renamed the nightclub Club Masquerade, and it’s now the most popular nightclub in Atlanta, where the motto is, ‘If it’s not happening at Club Masquerade, it’s not happening.’ And the rest, as they say, is history.”

  “Your parents must be very proud,” Simone said.

  “They are, and happily retired.” He glanced down at the saucepan. “It’s ready.”

  He took over and added the spinach leaves. While they wilted in the hot liquid, he explained that he was the eldest of a set of triplets, and they were all very close. Working together had only brought them closer.

  She told him about her older sister, Ella, and her two younger brothers, and that her parents had divorced when she was fifteen.

  “That must have been rough,” Cameron said.

  “It was, but it was rougher on my mother.”

  “She didn’t want the divorce?”

  “No.”

  Her mother, a strong, self-composed businesswoman, cried for days after her husband left, eventually escaping to Ecuador where she owned a home. She stayed for a week, and when she returned, the woman she was today had emerged—harder and more determined than ever to prove to her ex-husband and the world that she was self-sufficient and didn’t need him.

  The cooked ravioli went into the pan next, and Cameron tossed the pasta in the succulent-smelling sauce, topping off the entire dish with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

  Simone’s mouth watered at the aroma emitting from the saucepan. With the dish finished, Cameron scooped the meal onto two plates, and Simone set about plating the salads.

  “What about your father?” he asked.

  “He lives in Florida, and from what I can tell, he’s very happy that he’s single. He and Mother…let’s just say they fought a lot.”

  “Sometimes people get together and they’re not compatible. It’s better to be apart than to fight,” Cameron said. “My parents were lucky to find each other. They celebrate two anniversaries every year. This year they’ll celebrate forty years as a couple and thirty-six years of marriage.”

  “That’s wonderful.” Simone could only hope to find that kind of longevity in a relationship one day. As she arranged the salads on the plate and topped them with prosciutto-wrapped figs, she glanced sideways at Cameron.

  “Are you looking for a perfect relationship like that, Cameron?” She asked the question lightly, but was overly interested in the answer.

  He laughed. “My parents’ relationship isn’t perfect.”

  “Celebrating forty years together sounds pretty perfect to me.”

  “They have their problems, but…I guess their love for each other is stronger than the problems. They just work through whatever comes up.” Cameron picked up the two plates of food. “Come on, let’s eat.”

  Simone grabbed the salads and followed.

  Chapter 6

  Dinner had been great. The salad had been a good starter to the ravioli, which had been cooked to perfection. Now it was time to go their separate ways.

  Outside the store, Simone and Cameron said goodbye to their classmates, who waved as they wandered off to their cars at the back of the building. When they were all alone, Simone fell quiet, wondering what to do next. Cameron had stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked off into the distance.

  The lights inside the storefront went out, turning the spot where they stood even darker.

  Simone cleared her throat. “Well…my obligation to you is over. I should call my driver, but you still have my phone.” She’d been halfway through the meal, talking and laughing at a four-top with the couple they’d worked beside, before she remembered he still held her phone.

  Cameron didn’t move, and she sensed that he didn’t really want to leave any more than she did.

  “So if I don’t give back your phone, you can’t call your driver?” A mischievous glint entered his eyes.

  “That’s right.”

  “Huh.” He rolled onto the balls of his feet.

  “You’re not planning to keep me hostage, are you?” She tilted her chin in fake indignation.

  “Not quite.”

  “Then what did you have in mind?”

  He stroked his jaw. “Well, you know, we didn’t have dessert.”

  “No we didn’t. A meal like that definitely deserves dessert.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.” He grinned, such a sexy smile and one that filled her chest cavity with warmth.

  Simone wasn’t just attracted to Cameron. She felt completely at ease with him—her mind at rest in a way that didn’t usually occur when she first st
arted dating other men. Usually there was an awkward stage where she tried to get a feel for their personality, and they tried to get a feel for her. While there was a bit of that, she recognized that she was way more relaxed. Playful, teasing, open with him.

  She once heard a comedian say that when you first start dating someone, you meet their “representative.” Only later do you get to know the real person. But Simone suspected that was not the case with him. This was the real Cameron and not his representative. This smiling, friendly, cooking man was the same person today that she would know six months from now. Six years from now.

  Her heart tripped over the fact that she was thinking that far in advance about him.

  Before she could fully examine her thoughts, Cameron said, “I know where we can get some great tiramisu.”

  “Where?”

  “My place.”

  He answered with aplomb, as if his home were a well-known restaurant.

  Pulse rate spiking, Simone played along with his game. “You made it?”

  “Not this time. I picked up a nice hunk from a bakery that makes the best desserts.” He kissed his fingertips. “It’s absolutely delicious.”

  “That good?”

  “It’s criminal.”

  “Says who?”

  “Everybody.”

  Simone giggled. “With an endorsement like that, I have to try it.”

  He looked at her then. Really looked at her. While she couldn’t discern his thoughts, Simone guessed he was making his own internal assessment of her.

  “You have to come to my house to do that. So what do you say? You want to get some dessert?”

  There was much more to the question than the surface, and when he extended his hand, Simone hesitated for three seconds before taking it.

  His hand swallowed hers, and sparks flew across her nerves, igniting her skin. They both tightened their fingers at the same time. He must have felt it, too. A strong attraction, a sizzling chemistry blatantly on display since the moment they met.