“Good work, Keegan.” Sam offered a grateful smile to the maître d’, who had vacillated between pain in the ass and godsend since he’d started a few months ago. “Count on ten percent.”
He laid a wine list on her cocktail tray, threatening the delicate balance of the top-heavy martini glasses. “He tips on wine, so talk him into something from the vault. Make my cut fifteen percent and I promise you we will not run out of the tartare. It’s Sterling’s favorite.”
She grinned. “Deal, you little Irish weasel.”
After delivering the cocktails to another table, she headed toward the newly seated party, nodding to a patron who signaled for a check while she paused to top off the Cakebread chardonnay for the lovers in the corner, all the while assessing just who Joshua Sterling was entertaining tonight.
Next to him was his beautiful wife, a stunning young socialite named Devyn with sharp-edged cheekbones and waves of golden hair down to trainer-toned shoulders. Two other couples completed a glossy party of six, one of the women finishing an animated story as they settled into their seats, delivering a punch line with a finger pointed at Joshua and eliciting a hoot of laughter from the rest. Except for Devyn, who leaned back expressionless while a menu was placed in front of her.
Joshua put a light hand on his wife’s back, waving casually to someone across the dining room. He whispered to her; then he beamed at Sam as she approached the table.
“Hello, Samantha.” Of course he remembered her. That was his gift, his charm. “All ready to tackle Hahvahd?” He drew out the word, giving it an exaggerated Boston accent.
“Classes start in two months,” she said, handing over the wine list, open to the priciest selection. “So, I’m ready, but nervous.”
“From what you told me about that volunteer work of yours, I think you’ve got more legal background and experience than half that first-year class. You’ll kick butt over there.” He added a smile to his laser-blue gaze, one that had been getting more and more television airtime as a talking head for liberal issues on the cable news shows.
No one doubted that Joshua Sterling could hit the big time down in New York.
“I hope you’re right,” she said, stepping aside for the junior maître d’ to snap a black napkin on Devyn Sterling’s dark trousers. “Otherwise I’m going to give it all up and go back into advertising.”
“Don’t doubt yourself,” Joshua warned with a sharp look. “You’ve got too much upstairs to push computers and burgers. You need to save innocent victims of the screwed-up system.”
She gave him a tight smile of gratitude, wishing she were that certain of her talents. Of course, doling out bullshit was another gift of his. “What’s the occasion?” she asked, wanting to get the conversation off her and onto a nice big drink order.
Joshua waved toward the brunette who’d been telling the story. “We’re celebrating Meredith’s birthday.”
“Happy birthday.” Sam nodded to her. “We have two bottles of the ’94 Tattinger left.”
“Nice call for champagne,” he said, “but I think this is a wine crowd. You like Bordeaux, right, Meredith?”
The woman leaned forward on one elbow, a slow smile forming as she looked at him. “Something complex and elegant.”
Sam waited a beat, as the woman’s gaze stayed fixed on her host. Devyn shifted in her seat, and Sam could practically taste the tension crackling in the air.
“Let me get the sommelier,” Sam suggested quickly. “I bet he has the perfect Bordeaux.”
“I know he does.” Joshua handed Sam the wine list back without even looking at it. “Tell Rene we’d like two bottles of the 1982 Chateau Haut-Brion.”
“Excellent selection.” Was it ever. “While I get that, can we offer you sparkling water or bottled?”
They made their choices, which Sam whispered to a busboy before darting down the narrow passage from the dining area to the kitchen, her shoes bouncing on the rubber floor as she left the gentle conversation and music of the dining room for the clatter and sizzle of the kitchen.
“Where’s Rene?” she asked, a smell of buttery garlic and seared meat rolling over her.
“I’m right here.” The door to the cellars flipped open as the beefy sommelier hustled toward her, carrying far too many bottles. Two more servers came in right behind him with similar armloads.
“Rene, I need two bottles of ’82 Haut-Brion, stat.”
“After I help with the upstairs party,” he shot back.
“Then give me the key and a general idea where I can find the ’82s.”
“You’re not getting the ’82s, sister.” The faux French accent he used with customers was absent as he deftly set bottles on the prep deck. “One slip of the hand and you just cost us both a month’s pay.”
“Come on, Rene. I can get two bottles of wine, for crying out loud.”
“You can wait like everyone else, Sam.” He started handing bottles to one of the other servers, who gave her a smug look of victory.
The doors from the dining area swung open, and Sam squinted down the hallway, just in time to get a glimpse of Joshua strolling across the room, reaching out to greet a gorgeous former model and her date sitting at the deuce near the bar. So he wasn’t in a huge rush for his wine. She glanced at the plates on the stainless steel pass, calculating exactly how much time she had to get this wine poured before her four orders for the old Brahmins on ten came up.
Not much. She wanted the Haut-Brion delivered first or she’d lose her whole rhythm.
One more of the waitstaff came up from the cellar, several bottles in hand. “This is the last of it, Rene. I just have to go back down and lock up.”
“I’ll lock it,” Sam said, snatching the keys.
“No.” Rene sliced her with a glare. “I’ll get them, Sam. Five minutes is all.”
“Come on, Rene.”
The door from the dining room flung open and Keegan marched through. “Sterling wants his wine,” he announced, his gaze hard on Rene.
“Then you get it,” Rene said. “Not Sam.”
But Sam was already on her way. “Thanks, Keegan,” she said quietly as she passed. “You know I’ll slather you with payola tonight.” As she opened the door, she called back to Rene, “The Bordeaux are in the back nests, the Haut-Brion on the lower half, right?”
“Sam, if you fuck this up—”
“I will dust the bottles! You can watch the video tomorrow,” she added with a laugh. As if that prehistoric camera was ever used.
“I will!” Rene shouted. “I just put a new tape in.”
She hustled down the poorly lit stairs, brushing by one of the sous-chefs carrying a sack of flour from the dry storage pantry. Farther underground, the temperature dropped, a chill emanating from the stone walls as she reached the heavy door of the wine vault.
A breeze blew the strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail, making her pause and look down the dark hallway. Was the alley exit open again? The busboys were always out there smoking, but they sure as shit better not be taking lung therapy when Paupiette’s was this packed.
Tarragon and rosemary wafted from dry storage, but the tangy scents disappeared the moment she cranked the brass handle of the wine vault, the hinges snapping and squeaking as she entered. In this dim and dusty room, it just smelled of earth and musk.
She flipped on the overhead, but the single bare bulb did little to illuminate the long, narrow vault or the racks that jutted out to form a five-foot-high maze. She navigated her way to the back, her rubber soles soundless on the stone floor. Dust tickled her sinuses and the fifty-eight-degree air finished the job. She didn’t even fight the urge to sneeze, managing to pull out a tissue in time to catch the noisy release.
Behind the back row, she tucked into the corner where the most expensive wines were kept and started blowing and brushing the bottles, almost instantly finding the distinctive gold and white label of Haut-Brion.
Sliding the bottle out, she dusted it clean, and
read the year 2000. In racks stocked chronologically, that made her a good eighteen years from where she wanted to be. She coughed softly, more dust catching in her throat. Crouching lower, she eased out another, 1985.
Getting closer. On her haunches, her fingers closed over a bottle just as the door opened, the sound of the brass knob echoing through the vault. She started to stand but a man’s hushed voice stopped her.
“I’m in.”
Freezing, she worked to place the voice, but couldn’t. It was low, gruff, masculine.
“Now.”
There was something urgent in the tone. Something that stilled her.
She waited for a footstep; if he was another server, he’d walk to a stack to find his bottle of wine. If it was Rene, he’d call her name, knowing she was down there, and anyone else…
No one else should be down here.
Her pulse kicked up a little as she waited for the next sound, unease prickling up her spine.
Nothing moved. No one breathed.
Praying her knees wouldn’t creak and give her away, she rose an inch, wanting to get high enough to see over the stack. As she did, the knob cracked again, and this time the squeak of the hinges dragged out as though the door were being opened very slowly. She rose a little higher to peek over the top rack of bottles.
A man stood flattened against the wall, his hand to his chest, inside a jacket, his head turned to face the door. In the shadows, she could hardly make out his profile, taking in his black shirt, the way his dark hair blended into the wall behind him. Not a server. No one she’d ever seen before.
He stood perfectly still as the door opened wider, and Sam tore her gaze from the stranger to the new arrival. The overhead bulb caught a glimmer of silver hair, instantly recognizable. What the hell was Josh—
The move was so fast, Sam barely saw the man’s hand flip from the jacket. She might have gasped at the sight of a freakishly long pistol, but the whoomf of sound covered her breath, the blast muffled like a fist into a pillow.
Joshua’s face contorted, then froze in shock. He folded to the floor, disappearing from her sight.
The instinct for self-preservation pushed Sam down behind the rack, her head suddenly light, her thoughts so electrified that she couldn’t pull a coherent one to the forefront. Only that image of Joshua Sterling getting a bullet in his head.
She closed her eyes but the mental snapshot didn’t disappear. It seared her lids, branded her brain.
Something scraped the floor and her whole being tensed. She squeezed the bottle in her right hand, finding balance on the balls of her feet, ready to pounce on whoever came around the corner.
She could blind him with the bottle. Crash it on his head. Buy time and help.
But no one came around the rack. Instead, she heard the sound of metal on metal, a click, and a low grunt from the front of the vault. What the hell?
Still primed to fight for her life, she stood again, just high enough to see the man up on a crate, deftly removing the video camera.
The security camera that was aimed directly at the back stacks.
She ducked again, but it was too late. She heard him working the screws in the wall, trying to memorize his profile. A bump in a patrician nose. A high forehead. Pockmarks in a grouping low on his cheek.
Dust danced under and up her nose, tickling, tormenting, teasing a sneeze. Oh, please, no.
She held her breath as the camera cracked off the wall, and the man’s feet hit the floor. In one more second, the door squeaked, slammed shut, and he was gone.
Could Joshua still be alive? She had to help him. She waited exactly five strangling heartbeats before sliding around the stacks and running up the middle aisle.
Lifeless blue eyes stared back at her, his face colorless as a stream of deep red blood oozed from a single hole in his temple. The bottle slipped out of her hands, the explosion of glass barely registering as she stared at the dead man.
God, no. God, no. Not again.
She dropped to her hands and knees with a whimper of disbelief, fighting the urge to reach out and touch the man who just minutes ago laughed with friends, explained a joke to his wife, ordered rare, expensive Bordeaux.
This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be.
The blood pooled by his cheek, mixing with the wine. The smell roiled her stomach, gagging her as bile rose in her throat and broken glass sliced her knees and palms.
For the second time in her life, she’d seen one man take another’s life. Only this time, her face was caught on tape.
THE DISH
Where authors give you the inside scoop!
From the desk of Roxanne St. Claire
Dear Reader,
I know it’s right out of the Romancing The Stone opening credits, but I do usually get a little teary when writing the final scene of a book. Maybe my heart and head are fried from months of storytelling, maybe the looming deadline gets the best of me, or maybe I just adore a good Happily Ever After and can’t resist writing one that tugs at my heartstrings.
But when I wrote SHIVER OF FEAR, I admit I shed some serious waterworks—and not just because the hero, Marc Rossi, has found true love after never believing he could again… and the heroine, Devyn Sterling, is finally part of a big, happy family after a lifetime of loneliness. I was emotional because I set the scene during La Vigilia, also known to Italian families as The Feast of the Seven Fishes. What better place for a happy ending than around the dining room table during a meal that has deep personal meaning for me and for most members of a big Italian clan? No, I’m not Italian by descent, but my husband is “first generation”—the son of an immigrant and, therefore, deeply entrenched in some of the country’s best customs. I have no doubt that the fictional blended family that peppers the pages of The Guardian Angelinos series would embrace this time-honored tradition as we do.
No one really knows the origin of the required “seven” fishes that are served on Christmas Eve in Italian families. Some say the number reflects the seven sacraments and others believe the “fishes” represent the seven hills of Rome. It doesn’t matter, because most of us go way past seven that night. From the scungilli salad to the baccala amalfi and all of the salmon, swordfish, clams, scallops, shrimp, lobster, and calamari in between… it’s a night to celebrate the gifts of the sea and the season. I rarely make it through the evening without looking around at my loved ones, blinking back a tear of gratitude, and going back for seconds on the lobster.
During an earlier scene in SHIVER OF FEAR, I used Marc’s description of the evening to highlight Devyn’s aching for a family and intensify her belief that she isn’t destined to have that kind of love in her life. While he takes the tradition for granted, she is left to imagine the magic of that night and the warmth that comes from celebrating with food and family. Most of the story is set in Northern Ireland, where Devyn and Marc are on a hunt to find her birth mother and discover a hornet’s nest of terrorist activity along with an unexpected attraction that soon blooms into love. But when it came time to give the reader the ultimate dolce moment—the sweet dessert of a lifetime together—it seemed natural to set that scene on a snowy Christmas Eve with the loud, laughing, loving Angelino and Rossi families gathered to celebrate.
So, I wiped a few tears when I typed “the end” of SHIVER OF FEAR and hoped that whatever traditions my readers honor and celebrate, they can relate to the atmosphere of joy that fills a home during The Feast of the Seven Fishes. If nothing else, I’ll send them all out in search of good seafood!
Best,
www.roxannestclaire.com
From the desk of Eileen Dreyer
Dear Reader,
Marriage of Convenience. Those three words alone will convince me to buy a book. I can’t think of anything I enjoy more than a romance where two people who would never have chosen each other, find themselves having to negotiate a marriage neither one wanted. So when I had the chance to write historical romance, I knew that it wouldn’t be lon
g before I wrote a Marriage of Convenience book.
NEVER A GENTLEMAN is that book. Diccan Hilliard is known among Society as The Perfection. Suave, smooth, sophisticated, with a taste for only the most beautiful women, he has a keen wit and rapier tongue. The fact that he is also a member of Drake’s Rakes, a group of aristocrats caught up in espionage, is a well-guarded secret. That secret, though, leads to marriage vows, when he wakes to find that his enemies have left him naked in bed with Grace Fairchild, the woman known to his friends as The Most Notorious Virgin in Britain.
Poor Grace. As tall as a man, painfully plain with an ungainly limp, Grace has spent her life following her father around the world with the army. She has no female accomplishments, no wish to mingle in a society that has long since shunned her, and even less desire to be shackled to a man who did not choose her, especially since she has long been fascinated by him. But Grace has secrets too. The question is, will those secrets help her gain Diccan’s love, or condemn her to loneliness? And will Diccan’s secrets cost them not just the chance at a lasting love, but their very lives?
Do you like Marriage of Convenience books as much as I do? What draws you to them? Let me know at my website, www.eileendreyer.com.
Enjoy!
From the desk of Jill Shalvis
Dear Reader,
Writing a romance called THE SWEETEST THING, which centers around a decidedly not sweet heroine, amused me. Tara Daniels is wound a little tightly and likes things her way. She’s also a former southern belle who appreciates the fact that she’s right. A lot.
The Sweetest Thing? Not exactly.
But her heart’s in the right place, always. And, as it turns out, there’s a man who melts her like butter on a hot roll. Not only that, but he can soften her in a way that she isn’t sure she likes. See, Tara thinks she has it all together, but it turns out she doesn’t. She doesn’t know a lot about herself. About all she has is the fact that she can cook like nobody’s business. Oh, how she loves to cook.
Shiver of Fear Page 32
