Her cheeks darkened briefly with that now familiar lovely blush, but that was the only evidence he’d flustered her. “My father,” she told him.
“One of those old-fashioned machismo types, huh?”
“My father owned a restaurant in Norwalk. A diner, actually. He was the boss and he never set foot in the kitchen. His idea of running a restaurant was to greet the customers when they were on their way in and take their money when they were on their way out. My mother was the head cook. I worked as a waitress and did some of the cooking, too. My father claimed he was running the place, but did he ever lend a hand in the kitchen?” She answered her own question with a snort.
“I’m not your father.”
“You’re also not a diner employee. You’re a man who grew up in this palace—” she waved at the massive brick edifice before them “—and if you keep wanting to help me, I’m going to suspect you of ulterior motives.”
“You know my motives,” he said, deciding he could be as forthright as she was. “There’s nothing ulterior about them.”
She lowered her eyes. He regretted losing sight of them, as beautiful as blue topaz, but he satisfied himself by admiring her long, tawny lashes. “The only fantasy feast you’re going to get from me is food,” she warned.
“What are you afraid of?” He tucked his thumb under her chin and lifted her face to his.
She appeared on the verge of answering. Her lips moved as she mulled over her words, then moved again. The temptation was unbearable.
Leaning across the console between their seats, he touched his mouth to hers. Just a light, tantalizing brush, scarcely a kiss. Just enough to let her know how thrilling a longer, deeper kiss would be.
She pulled back slightly and gazed at him, her eyes clouded with doubt. “I don’t even know you,” she whispered, a plea filtering through the words.
“And what little you know you invented. I grew up in this palace, so I shouldn’t help you in the kitchen. Men are bosses, women cook. It’s a sunny day, so I shouldn’t want to be with you. Well, here’s a news flash, Claudia. I’m not what you think.”
“I don’t know what I think!” She sounded frustrated.
The light kiss had left him pretty damned frustrated, too. He could tell her what to think: that some of his happiest memories of growing up at Wyatt Hall had involved sneaking into the kitchen and keeping Edie, the cook, company while she whipped up meals. That while his own culinary skills rose no higher than punching buttons on the microwave, he was a willing learner. That by running her own company, Claudia displayed a boldness and a commitment that turned him on as much as her eyes and her lips and her luscious body.
Rather than tell her with words, he slid his hand into her hair and guided her back to him. He moved his mouth gently, coaxing, skimming, teasing. When she didn’t withdraw, he let his tongue slide between her lips.
She tasted like candy, like those fatefully delicious chocolate kisses of hers. He felt overwhelmed by the need to devour her, to absorb every morsel of her, to consume her until he himself was consumed by the passion exploding to life inside them both.
He felt a shudder of pleasure seize her. He heard her shaky sigh. Abruptly she turned away and stared out the side window. She wrestled with her breath for a moment, then reached for the door handle. “Don’t do that again,” she said before shoving the door open and climbing out.
Sure, he thought sardonically. He wouldn’t do that again. Why give in to the desire that blazed between them? Why do anything as logical as admitting that they wanted each other?
He met her at the van’s rear doors. Before he could speak, let alone gather her into his arms for another kiss, she preempted him by placing into his outstretched hands a large aluminum tray.
With a wry nod, he headed for the porch. Peeking through the window next to the door, he spotted a woman with a moon-round face framed in frizzy silver hair inside the kitchen. He grinned.
Edie saw him the instant he saw her. Bursting into a smile, she hastened to the door and swung it open. “Ned! What are you doing here?”
“I should ask you that,” he said, easing past Edie’s short, bulky body and setting the tray on a counter. “Don’t tell me my sister dragged you out of retirement for this wingding of hers.”
“She didn’t have to drag me,” Edie told him. “When she told me she was opening the house for a debutante ball, I insisted on overseeing the cleaning service. Somebody has to make sure they don’t break everything.”
“Can’t Melanie handle that?”
“Your sister, Edie confided, sotto voce, “is behaving like a she-devil. You’d think it was her debut instead of her daughter’s.”
“Poor Amy,” Ned murmured. He wondered whether his niece had any interest at all in debuting or was simply a prop in her mother’s ostentatious pageantry.
“Don’t worry about Amy,” Edie assured him. “She’s never done anything she didn’t want to do.”
A knock on the kitchen door interrupted Edie. Ned turned to see Claudia balancing a tray of meat and watching them through the window. “Let’s prop the door open,” he said, hurrying over to let Claudia in. “We’ve got more trays to unload.”
“We?” Edie asked before scowling at Claudia. “You’re the cook Melanie hired, I take it.”
“I’m the caterer,” Claudia introduced herself. She set down the tray and extended her hand. “Claudia Mulcahey.”
“I’m Edie Mueller,” Edie said haughtily. “Head cook at Wyatt Hall for thirty-two years.” She sized Claudia up with a deprecating look, then eyed the trays disdainfully. “I don’t know why Melanie felt it necessary to go outside for a cook.”
“She hired Claudia because you’re retired,” Ned said gently. “She wasn’t going to ask you to put together a feast for hundreds of people.”
“One hundred fifty-two,” Edie declared. “And just because I’m retired doesn’t mean I couldn’t have done it.”
“You’re one of the family, Edie. Why don’t you relax and let Claudia and me do the work?”
“You’re one of the family, too, Ned,” Claudia remarked, putting a frost on the words. “Why don’t you both relax?” Pivoting on her heel, she stalked out of the kitchen.
“Feisty little snip, isn’t she?” Edie muttered.
Ned gazed after Claudia and sighed. “Yeah,” he said, picturing the flash of ire in her eyes. She could act as aloof as she wanted; her eyes gave her away. They seethed with emotion: sometimes anger, sometimes amusement and sometimes irrepressible longing.
“Your sister should have let me handle this party,” Edie groused. “Allowing a stranger to take over my kitchen… She should have let me do it.”
Ned could have argued that, for all her skill as a cook, Edie had never concocted anything quite as exciting as Claudia’s chocolate kisses. But that would only have increased Edie’s resentment.
“My sister,” he said with a genial smile, “obviously wanted you to be in charge of monitoring the cleaning crew. You can’t do everything, so Melanie asked you to help out where she needs you the most.”
“Well, I suppose,” Edie conceded, puffing up a bit at the magnitude of her responsibility.
“In fact, you’d better go see what they’re doing,” he urged her. “And check their pockets. You never know what they might steal.”
As Edie scurried off to guard the cleaning crew, Ned went back outside to the van. He found Claudia trying to balance two trays of shrimp and took one from her. “Edie’s been with my family for ages,” he explained.
“How lucky for you,” Claudia said archly.
“It’s just that she doesn’t like the thought of being replaced.”
“You can assure her that I’m not replacing her,” said Claudia. “I’m a caterer. She’s a cook. That may be putting a fine point on it, but—”
“Claudia.” His temper was unraveling and he clung tightly to the platter of shrimp to keep himself from grabbing her by the shoulders and giving her a ha
rd shake. “What are you getting at?”
Claudia gave him a deceptively innocent look, her eyes round. “Nothing, Ned. I think it’s just lovely that your family has servants. I think you and Edie ought to go somewhere and watch reruns of ‘Upstairs, Downstairs.’ I’ll take care of this.” She lifted her tray and stalked toward the house.
Ned ground his teeth and chased after her. “I’m going to help you.”
“If you keep swinging that tray back and forth, you’re going to spill those shrimp. And if you do that, I swear, Ned, I’ll dump the new batch of yogurt dip on your head.” She stomped into the kitchen and let the screen door slam shut behind her.
He took a deep breath and another, until his irritation began to wane. All right. He’d been a rich kid and he’d made it all the way to rich adulthood without ever having to sling hash at a diner like her father’s. That was a fact. He couldn’t change it. he was a Wyatt.
And she was a Mulcahey. And she was working for his sister.
It was a professional arrangement, just as his parents’ employment of Edie Mueller had been a professional arrangement. Just as certain business people’s employment of Ned was a professional arrangement. He billed them for his services and they paid him handsomely for his talents. Did that make him a servant?
When you were a Wyatt, he supposed, you were born into a certain social class and it didn’t matter what you did—that class always remained with you.
Ned would just have to prove to Claudia Mulcahey that class could mean many different things.
***
“THERE YOU ARE!” Melanie squawked.
After leaving her tray of shrimp on the kitchen counter, Claudia had walked down the hall to the dining room to see how the buffet was going to be set up. The room was large, with cherry wainscoting and hunter green walls, a Queen Anne’s table polished as bright as a mirror and long enough to seat thirty comfortably, and three crystal chandeliers. While regal, the room was oddly oppressive. Claudia couldn’t imagine eating in it.
The room transformed to stultifying when Melanie Wyatt Steele swept in from the ballroom. Almost at once, Claudia noticed the resemblance between Melanie and her younger brother. She and Ned both had handsome features, but on Ned they looked, well, handsome.
At the moment, Melanie was clad in an expensive-looking warm-up suit and appeared frantic. “Have you brought the cakes?”
“I’m afraid not,” Claudia said with uncharacteristic diffidence. For all she knew, this could cause Melanie Steele to blackball her all over town.
“I want everything perfect tonight,” Melanie went on, fussing with the pile of neatly folded lace napery that lay waiting on the sideboard. “My daughter and her friends have been looking forward to this moment all their lives.”
I doubt that, Claudia thought.
“And the cakes—when you described those valentine-shaped cakes, well, that was what won you this commission, Claudia. Everything has to be perfect, especially the cakes.”
“Everything will be perfect,” Claudia promised.
“Because there will be tears if something goes wrong. Tears.” The way she stressed the word implied that if one girl shed one tear that night, Claudia would be sentenced to death.
“My, my,” came a deep, husky voice from just beyond the doorway. “You’re certainly on today, Mel.”
“Ned! What are you doing here?”
Ned sauntered into the room. His gaze flickered toward Claudia before coming to rest on his sister. “I’m helping Ms. Mulcahey,” he said, turning to Claudia. She might have just imagined it, but she thought she saw him wink. “Should the meat be refrigerated, or does it go in the oven?”
“I’ll take care of it,” she mumbled.
“Wait a minute,” Melanie said as Claudia neared the doorway. “What’s going on, Ned?”
Ned’s smile grew roguish, one corner of his mouth rising higher than the other, the way it had earlier that day. “Nothing’s going on with me. What’s going on with you?”
“So help me, if you’re trying to interfere with Claudia’s work—”
“Interfere? Me?”
“I’m warning you, Ned. Tonight’s too important for you to be getting in Claudia’s way. Run along now, Claudia,” Melanie imperiously dismissed her. “You take care of the meat. I’d like to talk to my brother.
Run along now, Claudia repeated silently, doing her best to stifle her annoyance. Pressing her lips together, she headed for the door. Ned stepped aside to let her pass, but he discreetly reached out and gave her hand a squeeze.
Her palm burned where his thumb had pressed into it. Her fingers tingled. She loathed him as much for having such an effect on her as she loathed his sister for behaving so condescendingly toward her.
Halfway down the hall, she paused to compose herself. God knew whether that gorgon of a cook would be lying in wait for her in the kitchen. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.
“Good God, Ned.” Melanie’s voice was muted, but Claudia was able to make out the words. “Don’t you have enough to do today? You shouldn’t be fooling around with that girl. You were supposed to go to Mother’s and keep her happy until I could get over there and help her with her dress.”
“It amazes me that you can run everybody’s life so well,” Ned said caustically. “Mellow out, sis. You take care of you and I’ll take care of me. And I’ll take care of Mom, too, although you know as well as I do that she doesn’t want anyone taking care of her.”
“And for God’s sake, stay away from the caterer. I know she’s cute in an Irish sort of way, but really, Ned—don’t waste your time.”
“I’ll decide what’s worth my time and what isn’t.”
“Trust me, Neddy—she isn’t. If you’re looking for fun and games, go back to New York. Here in Glenwood people take these things seriously. I won’t have you tarnishing your reputation—”
“My reputation? If I have a reputation, I’m sure it’s already tarnished beyond redemption. At least, I hope it is.”
“Don’t joke about it. You’re thirty-four years old and you’re still single. People are going to start wondering.”
“Wondering what? That I’m gay or that I’m a sleazy womanizer?”
“Both, probably.”
“Wow. That’s a lot to live up to.”
“I’m serious.”
“Indeed you are, babe. You’re beyond serious. You’re critical.”
Hearing footsteps approaching the doorway, Claudia turned and raced down the hall to the kitchen. To her great relief, the room was empty.
Her temper remained white-hot as she slid the platters of meat into the refrigerator. The hell with all of them, she fumed. Melanie, Ned—and Edie, too. She was part of the family, wasn’t she?
She felt hands on her waist and flinched, jerking the tray in her hands. A half dozen shrimp tumbled onto the floor, looking like succulent pink-and-white parentheses.
“Damn it!” She’d seen more food spilled in the past two hours than she had in her entire career.
“No swearing, Ned whispered, his hands still spanning her waist and his lips close to her ear. “If anything makes Melanie mad, it’s naughty language.”
“Maybe I should expose her to my complete vocabulary.”
“Let her be mad at me, not you,” he advised. His fingers felt strong, his thumbs digging into the cramped muscles of her lower back, his palms molding to the curves of her hips.
It took all her willpower not to lean into him, to draw his arms fully around her. His breath ruffled her hair, warming the nape of her neck while the refrigerator continued to throw cold air in her face. “I’m mad at you, too,” she muttered, easing out of his grip. “Do you know what shrimp costs?”
He scooped up the shrimp nearest his feet. “Edie always said her floors were clean enough to eat off.”
“You seem to have quite a habit of eating off floors.”
“These are edible,” he said, collecting the last of the shrimp. “We’l
l rinse them off in the sink. It’ll be our little secret.”
“They’ve been steamed in champagne,” she argued. “If you rinse them off, they’ll lose the flavor.”
“Steamed in champagne?” He appeared intrigued. “You actually boiled champagne?”
“Cheap stuff.”
He ran the shrimp under the faucet. Then he shook them off and took a bite of one. “It tastes great.”
“Can you taste the champagne?”
“I don’t know what I’m tasting. All I know is, I like it.” He held the end of one curling pink shrimp and jabbed the other end between her teeth. She remembered the way his chocolate-covered finger had felt in her mouth. The shrimp made a poor substitute.
She mustn’t think that way. She mustn’t keep eating out of his hand. The symbolism of it was as alarming as the act itself.
Ned seemed unnaturally fascinated by the motions of her mouth as she chewed. She turned away and forced herself to replay his sister’s ugly words.
One thing Melanie had said was true: Claudia wasn’t going to be Ned’s fun and games.
“I’m done here,” she said quietly, closing the refrigerator door. “I have more food to bring over. Why don’t you get the cookie basket out of the van and go on to your mother’s?”
He regarded her for a minute, his eyes filled with questions. “I can’t ride the bicycle with that basket,” he finally said. “It was hard enough balancing the candy box on the handlebars.”
For her own well-being, she knew she should get away from Ned before he had the chance to stick anything else in her mouth. She should tell him getting the cookies to his mother was his problem, he’d just have to find a way. Instead, when she opened her mouth, what came out was: “I’ll drop you off at your mother’s on my way home.”
Seeing the way his face lit up made her regret the offer…and then made her not regret it quite so much.
She liked Ned Wyatt. More than she should. More than was safe or wise. She liked the way his hands had felt on her, the way his mouth had mirrored hers, opening as he slid the shrimp between her teeth and closing as she bit down on it. She liked the way his eyes danced with color and emotion, with challenges and all those questions she couldn’t begin to interpret, let alone answer. She liked the way he smelled, the way he sounded when he told her she was beautiful. She liked the way he kissed her.
Chocolate Kisses Page 3
