Into the Fire

by Amanda Usen

  “Lila?”

  Her hand jerked, and she poured beer all over the bar. She grabbed a towel and focused on the spill, afraid she was hallucinating. Jack’s voice was soft, almost tentative. What if she looked up and he was still furious? Or worse, only wanted a drink? Just because he was here didn’t mean he was here for her.

  “Lila,” he called again softly.

  Slowly, she lifted her gaze.

  Her heart slammed in her chest at the sight of him. He held out a folded newspaper. “I don’t suppose you read the paper today?”

  She took it out of his hand and glanced down. Four stars. “Congratulations,” she said, filled with bittersweet happiness. “You deserve it.”

  He shook his head. “I never would have known I could do it if it weren’t for you. I never would have had enough faith in myself. Would you read the review, Lila? Please?” His green eyes were dark with torment. She looked down at the headline, Inspiration Behind Inferno, and then she couldn’t stop reading. He’d told the reporter everything—the competition, the menus, Personal Chef—and he’d given all the credit to her.

  She looked up at him, stunned. “Jack, you make it sound like…” Hope swelled inside her, so fast and hard she could barely breathe.

  He walked around to her side of the bar. “Like you’re my inspiration? You are. And not just because the menu would be entirely different if it were up to me. I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind since the competition. I looked for you for months. When I found you at Personal Chef, I talked my buddy into hiring you for his bachelor party, hoping to see you again. I told myself it was because I wanted to give you a piece of my mind. I couldn’t believe you made love to me and then lied about your competition menu. I was angry with you, but I was also confused. I’d never felt a connection with anyone like the one I felt with you. I didn’t even care about winning the stupid competition anymore. But then I woke up alone, and I saw you cooking ribs, and I just snapped. I wanted to teach you a lesson, but the joke was on me. I won, and my father gave me Inferno, but every time I walk through the door, I think about you. You deserved to win.”

  She started to protest, but he kept talking. “I want to be with you, Lila. The contract I made you sign was stupid and the truce was a pathetic excuse to spend time with you. When we’re together, I feel like a different person. I feel whole. I was devastated when I thought you’d changed the Inferno menu to hurt me. I was even more upset when I realized I was wrong and I’d sent you away. I’m so sorry, Lila. I’m a complete idiot. I’ve taken advantage of you at every turn. I’m no better than that asshole art professor, but I love you. I hope you can find it in your heart to give me another chance.”

  Tears spilled out of her eyes as she reached forward to take his hands. “I didn’t deserve to win the competition—you won it fair and square. You changed your game plan, but you didn’t choke. You cooked recipes you’d only heard me describe, and the judges loved them. In fact, you probably made my duck better than I would have.”

  She clasped his cheeks between her hands, needing to make a confession of her own. “I didn’t mean it when I said what happened between us meant nothing. It meant everything to me, and I was afraid to admit it. That’s why I kept leaving before you woke up. That’s why I kept leaving, period. I almost packed my bags and hopped on a train last night, but I decided to stay. I was hoping you’d come to your senses.”

  “I did. I totally did. I was terrified I’d lost you…” His eyes gleamed and a mischievous smile teased the corners of his mouth. “You wouldn’t believe how relieved I was when I remembered you agreed to continue working for me.”

  She jerked her hands out of his grasp and put them on her hips. “What are you talking about? You threw me out on my ear! You’re lucky I’m even talking to you.”

  Jack nodded solemnly, still grinning. “I know. But you promised to consult on the Inferno menu if I talked to my father, remember? Guess what?”

  “Really?” She launched herself into his arms.

  “Hey, you two!” Zane called from the door to the kitchen. “Get busy in your own restaurant!”

  Jack ignored him. “I held his hand all night, too. You were right about everything, including my father, and I’m so grateful to you. I didn’t need a new menu, but I do need you. Please give me another chance. I love you, Lila. Stay with me, and I’ll do everything in my power to be the man you deserve.”

  She wasn’t going anywhere. “I love you, Jack. Just the way you are. You don’t have to change a thing for me. That’s what I was trying to tell you.”

  “In that case, I have a proposition for you.” His eyes glowed with tenderness. Slowly, he lowered his head and claimed her lips. “Forever.”

  It took her a second to realize it wasn’t her heart thundering—the crowd sitting at the bar was pounding and clapping. She pulled his head back down for another long kiss. “Finally, an offer I can’t refuse.”

  Acknowledgements

  I am profoundly grateful to my yoga instructor, Becky Gleason, for teaching me to shine my heart forward. Her strength, balance, grace, and joyful energy are a constant inspiration. Namaste, Becky! Without you, I would curl over my keyboard like a cooked shrimp.

  My agent, Nalini Akolekar of Spencerhill Associates, suggested I shine my heart forward in another way and deserves the credit for Into The Fire. Why don’t you write a sexy contemporary for Entangled? she asked, handing me a large glass of wine. Nalini, you’re a genius! Jack and Lila were so much fun to write, and working with Entangled Publishing was pure pleasure.

  My heartfelt thanks to Liz Pelletier for saying yes and giving me such an amazing creative team. The only thing more fun than writing the book was revising it based on dazzling editorial suggestions. My passionate and perspicacious editors, Alethea Spiridon Hopson and Lewis Pollak, rocked my written world.

  My eternal appreciation to the Western New York Romance Writers for making this journey with me, particularly Jessica Topper, Alison Stone, and Natasha Moore. You guys are the best! A huge thank you to my wingwoman, Erin Kelly-Park, for celebrating our long friendship with a Blackberry Smash on Venice Beach last summer, and to Melissa Cook, yoga-buddy and partner-in-daily-chaos, for drinking them with me until I got the recipe right!

  But life isn’t only about work…or so I’m told. The guy who truly keeps me balanced is my husband. I’m darn certain my heart wouldn’t be shining, forward or otherwise, without him—or you. Thank you for reading Into The Fire.

  May your heart shine, too!

  About the Author

  Amanda Usen knows two things for certain: chocolate cheesecake is good for breakfast, and a hot chef can steal your heart. Her husband stole hers the first day of class at the Culinary Institute of America. She married him after graduation in a lovely French Quarter restaurant in New Orleans, and they spent a few years enjoying the food and the fun in the Big Easy. Now they live in Western New York with their three children, one hamster, two guinea pigs, a tortoise, and a new-to-them beagle. Amanda spends her days teaching pastry arts classes and her nights writing romance. If she isn’t baking or writing, she can usually be found chasing the kids around the yard with her very own hot chef husband.

  Want chimichurri, chocolate cake or Chicken Alighieri? Visit Amanda at http://www.amandausen.com, where you can find recipes for many of the yummy dishes in her books. She can also be found on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/amandausen)and Twitter (https://twitter.com/#!/AmandaUsen) if you want to chat about romance, writing, or recipes.

  Want more? Turn the page for a sneak peak at another Indulgence released this month!

  Italian Affair

  by Annie Seaton

  Chapter One

  The waiting taxi driver tooted his horn and she waved at him to stay. “Five minutes,” she called out, her voice shaking. He stepped out of the car and yelled out to her across the rows of headstones.

  “Look, love, I don’t want to be rude, but if you want to get to the airport in
time, we’ll have to go now. We’re still in morning peak hour and the traffic will be heavy.”

  Brianna Ballantyne’s whole life had turned upside down when she’d received the two-page letter from the Italian lawyer three days ago, and her plan to spend twelve months in Australia writing her psychology book flew out the window when she read the typed words she had waited so long to hear.

  The letter had led her to her mother’s graveside in a small cemetery in Sydney. The grave was unkempt and the long grass brushed against her bare knees. She’d run her fingers over the cold marble and traced the words. Her throat clogged and the backs of her eyes pricked with unshed tears.

  “Rosa Caranto. b. September 15 1949, Lipari Island – d. March 11 2009, Sydney. A loving daughter.”

  Her birth mother had died before her sixtieth birthday. Brianna had never met her, despite working through an intermediary agency to locate her for more than two years. When they’d notified her that they had located her mother, all they would disclose was that she lived in Sydney, Australia. She knew when a person was located they had to give their consent for the applicant to be told their name and to make contact. Her mother had declined, so she had followed the paper trail from Scotland to Australia herself, determined not to give up.

  But she had arrived too late. The letter had reached her three days after she’d arrived. It had been forwarded to her Sydney hotel from Scotland, and now she finally knew her mother’s name. Instead of giving her the details to contact her mother, the lawyer informed her of her mother’s death and the place she was buried. Closing her eyes, she tried to remember where she’d been in March when her mother had passed, but emotion overwhelmed her and she couldn’t think straight.

  Damn it all. If only she’d started looking earlier, she might have made it in time and met her. Why didn’t she want me? When I was born and when I found her?

  She brushed away the tears as they wet her cheeks and gripped the piece of paper that had led her to this small beachside cemetery thousands of miles away from her Scottish home. And not only did it tell her about Rosa’s death, but about the inheritance of her mother’s cottage in Italy and the bizarre conditions attached to it.

  She had to be married to get the cottage.

  Well, dammit, if that was what it took to find her birth family, she’d bloody well find someone to marry.

  “Rosa.” She whispered her mother’s name as she traced the letters on the small headstone. “What happened to you? Why didn’t you didn’t want me? Why do you want me married?”

  The horn of the taxi blared again and the driver revved the engine. Brianna pulled herself to her feet. Looking around, she spotted a clump of white daisies growing wild at the base of a nearby gum tree. She reached down, picked one, walked back to the grave, and placed it gently beneath the headstone.

  “Good-bye, Rosa…Mother,” she whispered. “I’ll be back, one day.”

  Climbing into the backseat of the taxi, she composed herself before leaning forward. “An extra twenty dollars if you get me there on time.” She slipped the letter into the side of her rucksack and fell back in the seat when the driver hit the gas and they sped off toward Sydney Airport.

  Thanks to the strategic, but wild, driving of her taxi driver, she made the airport in time. She unzipped her money belt and handed him a fifty-dollar note when he pulled her suitcase and laptop bag from the trunk and placed them on the curb.

  “Thanks, love. Have a good trip.” He nodded at her as a waiting passenger opened the front door of the taxi and climbed in. Brianna hitched the computer bag onto her shoulder and turned to pick up her suitcase.

  “Oh, shit!” Her rucksack was still on the floor of the back of the taxi. She waved madly as the rear of the taxi disappeared around the corner, but it was too late. Thank God her passport and travel documents were in her money belt. She closed her eyes, trying to remember what was in her rucksack, and groaned when she thought of the letter from the lawyer. She had slipped it into the side pocket when she got back in the taxi.

  Shit. She hadn’t taken any notice of his details once she’d read the contents. All she knew was the office was on Lipari Island.

  Wheeling her suitcase behind her, she decided there was nothing she could do about it now without missing her check-in. Squaring her shoulders, she moved to the end of the check-in queue and vowed to be more careful in future.

  Ha! As if.

  The queue was moving slowly and Brianna tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for her turn. No matter how hard she tried, things never came together for her. Her throat clogged. Maybe if she’d been more organized, she may have found her mother somewhere other than her grave? Never mind, she’d survive without the letter. All she had to do was buy a new toothbrush and some underwear, and remember the name of the lawyer once she arrived on Lipari.

  Thank goodness she’d kept her computer out of the rucksack and hadn’t lost her manuscript as well. Which reminded her, she’d forgotten to back it up. First job once she was settled on the plane. That was an easy problem to address. Then all she had to do was find someone who was willing to play the part of a loving fiancé.

  She had four days to figure that one out.

  If only she had more time, she was sure one of her mates from Scotland would have played the part for a holiday in Italy.

  Of course…that was it! She would pay someone. Surely she would be able find someone to play a role for a couple of days while she checked out the lawyer and Lipari. And found out about this inheritance and the conditions attached. All she wanted was to find out about her mother and why she’d left her thirty years ago. It wouldn’t hurt to playact for a few days.

  Four days…for someone who usually did things at the last minute, that would be plenty of time.

  Her phone beeped in her pocket and she pulled it out.

  “Oh my God.” Heads turned and Brianna grinned back as curious looks were directed her way. For once things were going her way. Phil was flying back into Sydney from Bali and his flight was on time. He was through customs and she’d get to see him before she turned around and flew back to Europe. Now all she had to do was find the coffee shop he was waiting in after she checked in.