Into the Fire

by Amanda Usen

  “Take this to table fourteen and give it to the guy with the short, black hair, please.” She set the glass on Sarah’s tray.

  Sarah looked over at the table and grinned. “With pleasure.”

  Lila couldn’t blame her. Objectively speaking, Jackson was smoking hot. She allowed herself another glance at him. Even from across the room he made an impact. His close-clipped hair emphasized his stark bone structure and intriguing pale-green eyes. His mouth held an inviting curve. His strong jaw was shadowed with sexy stubble. His body was tight, broad shoulders and strong arms sculpted with hard muscle. Treacherous heat stole through her.

  “Switch stations with me?” Lila begged.

  “You betcha.”

  Speaking in server short-hand, they caught each other up on the details of their tables. Lila’s gaze strayed toward Jack’s table again. He was watching her. Deliberately, she turned her back to him and slam-dunked the crumpled hundred-dollar bill into the communal tip jar on the bar. Then she headed back into the kitchen for another tray of hors d’oeuvres.

  Her phone buzzed and she pulled it out of the only place big enough to hide it in her damn uniform—her cleavage. An incoming chat request from Betsy made her smile. She pushed through the kitchen door and hit view at the same time.

  It’s raining and the French Quarter is flooding. Tell me something good…

  Lila rested a hip against a stainless steel prep table.

  You wouldn’t believe it if I told you…she quickly sent.

  Before she could get her phone stuffed back into her bra, their other culinary school BFF, Jenna, joined the chat. Dish it. The three of them had bonded under pressure in the mostly-male, testosterone-poisoned world of the Culinary Academy and had kept in touch. Despite the fact Betsy was in New Orleans and Jenna was in Los Angeles, they hadn’t missed a Sunday afternoon conference call since graduation.

  You asked for it. Lila took a quick shot of her outfit, bracing one knee on the table and contorting her body so that they could appreciate the fact she was wearing high heels. Her walk of shame from Jack’s apartment after the graduation party had made her swear off uncomfortable shoes for life, and they knew it.

  Filling in for a server and I just ran into Jack Calabrese…

  She set her phone on the table and put on a real apron, one that covered more than her belly button. She began wiping off serving trays while she waited for a reply. She knew they wouldn’t be able to resist commenting, and she wasn’t disappointed. Give Jack-ass my love, Jenna said, and don’t forget to spit in his food. A second later from Betsy: your spit is too good for him. Do you carry arsenic?

  Lila laughed out loud, imagining Betsy’s threatening suggestion drawled in her slow, sweet Southern accent. Elizabeth Contessa Mouton looked and sounded like an angel, but her temperament edged toward the other end of the firmament. I wish, Lila typed. Gotta work. Talk to you soon. She set the phone on the table again.

  As tempting as it was to poison him, she wouldn’t. But she did indulge in a very satisfying fantasy in which Jack was lying on a bed of hot coals, begging for water while she hosed him down with…hmm. She got out the components for her Mediterranean shortbread while she pondered the most painful substance to get in a burn. Vinegar? Lemon juice? Vodka?

  Yes, vodka. Nice and flammable.

  As a smile spread across her face, she realized she was doing it again. Fantasizing about Jackson Calabrese had stolen enough time from her. She wasn’t going to let him distract her. She had hors d’oeuvres to assemble then serve, and she had a kitchen to clean up. In the morning, she had to be up at five in order to get the bagels and Danish into the proofer for the continental breakfast. After that, box lunches for fifty, then another cocktail party. Her feet hurt just thinking about it, so she thought about her bigger paycheck instead.

  For a minute, she regretted putting Jackson’s tip in the jar. A hundred bucks wouldn’t put a dent in her bills, but using cash instead of credit would have made her feel less pathetic for a few days. Panic welled up hard and fast, making her vision narrow, and her feet feel glued to the floor. She leaned over and braced her hands on the table. You are making the minimum payments on your credit card. You are not in default on your loans. You have health insurance. It’s okay. You’re going to survive.

  So what if she wasn’t able to save any money? She was making ends meet. Barely.

  “Shut up,” she said firmly as she began lining up the shortbread rounds on the trays. The orderly, even rows reminded her of a painting she’d seen in college, and the shapes and colors comforted her. Culinary school had turned her half-finished art degree into something that would keep her from starving, even if the loan had increased her debt by a zillion percent. Most cooking jobs offered a free meal, and she took full advantage of the privilege. As if on cue, her stomach growled.

  She liked the slimmer figure that had emerged after she left the rich meals of culinary school behind her, but she’d trade it in a minute for enough cash to indulge her appetite for good food. Was it time to give up on artistic expression and try her hand at something with more earning potential? Maybe she wasn’t cut out for this either. Panic welled up again. She popped an hors d’oeuvre into her mouth and discovered flavor was even more comforting than shapes and colors.

  An image flitted into her mind’s eye. The sensuous look on Jackson’s face as he chewed her salmon scone had told her how much he’d enjoyed it. Not that she cared. And she didn’t give two figs whether he liked her rosemary shortbread, either. The rapid jolt of her pulse called her a liar, so she laid out more trays and picked up the pace, determined not to give Jackson Calabrese another thought. She wouldn’t even look at him for the rest of the night. Unless, of course, he happened to catch fire. Then she would reach for the vodka.

  …

  The sight of Lila hurrying away from his table made Jack stifle a groan. He hoped she’d hurry back with his water and give him the front view of all those hot curves in motion, not that he would show his appreciation. Doing anything of the sort would likely get him skewered with the closest available sharp instrument. Clearly, she was holding a grudge.

  A too-skinny blonde set a glass of water in front of him and gave him a sultry smile. Disappointment shot through him. He nodded his thanks but ignored the water, reaching instead for the bourbon he had been nursing all night. He polished it off in one long swallow and stood. She wasn’t going to get away from him that easily. Not when it had taken him so long to find her, and he’d had to work so hard to get his buddy to hire Personal Chef to cater his bachelor party.

  He had Lila cornered now, and he wanted answers. He wasn’t expecting an apology, and he certainly wasn’t going to give her one, but he deserved some sort of explanation. He gritted his teeth, ignoring the pain in his jaw. He should have known she was playing him for a fool when he woke up alone…or when he’d arrived in the kitchen and she wouldn’t look at him. Or touch him. Unfortunately, he’d been riding high on pouring his heart out to her. He had told her things he’d never told anyone, and he felt like she’d actually understood him. God, she must have laughed her ass off watching him clean that lamb rack and make googly eyes at her until he came to his senses. Well, he’d certainly shown her.

  Too bad she’d turned his triumph into a hollow victory by flat-out disintegrating during the end of the competition. She’d barely plated on time and her rib dish, although inspired, was obviously rushed. And what the hell had happened with her sauce? Curious enough to ignore his pride and look for her after the awards ceremony, he found she’d simply vanished. She hadn’t even shown up at graduation. She had disappeared, cut and run, and her friends had refused to tell him where she’d gone. He would have insisted if he’d known how much it was going to eat at him. But he’d finally found her, and now she was going to give him some answers.

  He made his way across the room to the back hallway where Lila had disappeared, heading toward the kitchen, he assumed. He peered through the window on a swingin
g door and saw ovens and a dishwasher. Bingo. He pushed through and found Lila standing to his right, spooning tapenade onto small rounds of shortbread.

  He walked up to the table. “Those look good.” He reached for one.

  She scowled. “They’re not finished.”

  He ate it anyway. It was rosemary shortbread, and it melted in his mouth. “You haven’t lost your touch. Your recipes?”

  “Why? Do you want to steal them?”

  Definitely still holding a grudge.

  He didn’t blame her. After all, he hadn’t exactly beaten her fair and square, but she deserved it for lying to him. Only one of them could win the competition, and winning had brought him a double victory. His restaurant would open in two weeks. The prize money hadn’t meant much to him. It was a drop in the bucket compared to his trust fund, but the restaurant meant…everything.

  He decided to just get it out there. “Why did you tell me you were making duck for the competition? Considering what happened between us, I think I deserved the truth.”

  Her hand jerked and slopped tapenade all over the tray. “Damn it.” She cleaned up the mess and began again, her motions focused and precise, a fascinating contrast to the hectic flush that spread over her cheeks and chest. His fingers itched to trace the path of heat flowing across her skin, so he clenched his hands into fists.

  “That’s all you have to say?” he asked.

  She continued to dollop tapenade on shortbread, making him want to snatch the spoon and container from her hands, fling them to the tile, and force her to pay attention to him. Finally, she raised her head. Her gaze was defiant and color blazed in her cheeks. “Why do you think, Jack? It was a competition, and I needed that prize money. All is fair in love and war, right?”

  Disappointment punched a hole in his gut as he realized he’d been hoping she would say something else, something that would give him an opening, maybe even an excuse to touch her. Instead, it was just as he’d thought. She hadn’t trusted him to play fair. Clearly, the connection between them had been one-sided.

  He crossed his arms. “Money, huh? So does that mean your father really did lose his job? Do you really have loans? I assumed those were lies, too,” he scoffed.

  She put her hands on her hips. “Why don’t we talk about how you cheated and used my ideas to win? Let’s focus on the fact I was right to not trust you.”

  She looked astonished and furious—just as she had when he announced his dish at the competition. Privately, he had to admit she was correct. No matter what had inspired his actions, he had won using her ideas. He owed her something for that. “Why don’t you let me give you some money—”

  “Hell, no,” she interrupted, closing her fist over the handle of a paring knife.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Are you planning to use that knife on me, Delilah? I don’t remember meat fabrication as being your strong suit, but I suppose I could give you some tips…up to a certain point, of course.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I won’t serve you up for dinner unless you do something that makes you too stupid to live—like offer me cash to assuage your guilty conscience.”

  “Exactly how broke are you, Delilah?”

  “None of your goddamn business, and stop calling me Delilah.” She glared at him and fingered the knife in her hand.

  “But it’s your name, isn’t it? And it fits so well.” She was a seductress, just like her namesake from the Bible, stealing his strength, ruining his concentration. “You aren’t planning on giving me a haircut with that that tiny thing, are you?”

  She rolled her eyes. “As if I’d get that close.”

  He grinned. “Too bad.” For a second, their eyes met and he felt it again, the connection that had haunted him for six months. Then she looked down at her trays, leaving him hungrily staring at her. Now that the novelty of the French maid uniform had worn off, he realized she looked different.

  “Have you lost weight?” He tensed, wondering if that were a safe question to ask a woman holding a sharp object, no matter how small.

  She snorted. “Only twenty pounds.”

  “Why? You weren’t overweight.”

  “Hunger will do that to a girl. It also helps that I never make that truffled mac and cheese I couldn’t resist back in school.” Her eyes were blue and sharp as she raked him from head to toe. “You don’t look like you’ve spent much time being hungry, but I imagine the prince of the Calabrese restaurant empire doesn’t suffer from plebeian problems like where his next meal is coming from. You have more important things to worry about—like where to buy the biggest, fattest goose livers.”

  He had more to worry about than that, but he wasn’t looking for her sympathy. He picked up another hors d’oeuvre and stuffed it into his mouth. “Yup, got no problem keeping my weight up.”

  She snorted again and bent to cut even strips from a roasted red pepper. She set the knife aside and coiled a strip on top of each shortbread. After the red pepper came a lump of creamy goat cheese. He could imagine how good they would taste now. Woodsy rosemary. Earthy mushrooms and olives. Sharp pepper and tangy goat cheese. He reached for one more, but she batted his hand away from the tray.

  All the way through culinary school, they’d battled for top ranking, his speed and technical brilliance competing with her ability to take a classic flavor profile and turn it into something new and exciting. He looked at the tray of exquisite hors d’oeuvres, and tension shot up the back of his neck. If he had her gift for flavors, he wouldn’t be working twelve-hour days and his new menu would be ready to roll.

  He took a deep breath and slowly released it, dispelling the headache before it could get its claws into him. He imagined her offering the tray of hors d’oeuvres to him with a seductive smile instead of smacking his hand. He replaced her French maid’s uniform with something even sexier—a silky, black negligee that displayed her magnificent breasts and made her red-gold hair glow. He added a glass of champagne to her imaginary tray. Then he added another one.

  “Take a picture, it will last longer.” Her voice shattered the inviting image in his head. He blinked and found her glaring at him. “Have you seen enough yet? Or have you run so low on inspiration you want to see the rest of my hors d’oeuvre menu? Here,” she thrust a paper into his hand, “let me spare you the time and trouble. You can have my notes, with all the components neatly labeled. I’ll come up with some new ones.”

  He feigned nonchalance as he glanced at the list, but every item made him hungry. “If it were that easy for you, you would have beaten me.”

  The cold fury in her blue eyes warned him to step back from the table. Instead, he leaned closer. There was one more thing he wanted to know. Maybe it would help him put this whole thing behind him. She was too good a chef to go down in flames without a damn good reason. “Why did you choke during the competition?”

  The anger in her eyes went from ice to blue fire. “That’s low, even for you, Calabrese,” she hissed. “I don’t know why you came back here, but you aren’t going to get an apology from me, and I’ll be damned if I’ll offer congratulations. How about this? You’re welcome. Now get the hell out of my kitchen.”

  “Make me.” He snagged an hors d’oeuvre from the center of her tray and popped it in his mouth. It was every bit as good as he had imagined. His alluring mental picture of Lila returned, but this time, she was in his bed. “Come on—I dare you to throw me out of your kitchen. I bet we’ll both enjoy it.”

  He didn’t think she’d actually do it, and her rough shove caught him by surprise. He stumbled as she bulldozed him across the room, fortunately catching his balance before they reached the door. He swerved to the right, spinning so that his back hit the wall instead. Expecting to push him out into the hall, she kept going and slammed into him. He wrapped his arms around her waist. “Now this is what I’m talking about.”

  He expected her to protest, to yell, or maybe even slap him, but instead she gasped and froze. Her eyes were shut and when she opened t
hem, he saw the same stark desire that had consumed him for months. He couldn’t have stopped, even if he’d wanted to. He bent his head and kissed her.

  Her lips opened instantly and he sank into her. He caught her moan in his mouth. Her hands clutched his hair. He reached to untie the string on her long kitchen apron, throwing it to the floor. A sound from the hall made him break their kiss. Anybody could barge through the door at any minute and interrupt them. He hauled her up against his body and moved them into a small dark room off the kitchen. The dry storage room. Perfect. He kicked the stopper out from beneath the door. It swung shut.

  “You have got to be kidding me. This is a cliché.” But her voice was faint, with need, he hoped.

  “This is brilliant,” he argued, kissing his way down her neck and across the tops of her breasts. He felt like a starving man in front of a buffet that could disappear any minute. He unbuttoned her blouse, groaning as the fabric parted to display her gorgeous breasts, covered in sheer black lace. He tongued her nipple through the lace. She whimpered and thrust her hips impatiently against his thigh.

  He reached down to yank her skirt up to her waist. He cupped her mound through her panties then slid one finger beneath, finding her wet. She arced into his touch. “This means nothing,” she whispered.

  “Nothing,” he echoed, falling to his knees. He glanced up. Her head was thrown back and her elbows rested on a shelf next to number ten cans of tomatoes. Her shirt gaped provocatively over her breasts. His gaze traveled down her body, and he sucked in a harsh breath. “Oh my God. You’re wearing a garter belt.”

  “All part of the uniform.”

  He slid her panties down her legs. He couldn’t get them all of the way off, but he didn’t need to. He met her gaze as he leaned forward, loving the electricity between them. Her eyes shut, and she took a deep breath. When her hands caressed his head, it felt like a blessing.