Yes, Chef! (Innocent Series Book 1)

by Kendall Duke

  And while I was prepared, none-the-less, for some unpleasant things to come out of that inhumanly perfect mouth… I was not prepared to have it on me.

  Kinda knocked me back a bit. I’ll be honest.

  And how was I supposed to react, exactly? Because when he kissed me—and he definitely kissed me, thank you very much, no matter that I ended up kissing him back—and I felt his hands on my body and then that sharp sting of pleasure when he… Well anyway. I thought a couple of things simultaneously: oh my god, this guy is some kind of pervert. And then: oh my god, that feels way better than it should—oh my god, a pervert is making me feel good, I need to stop this now… And lastly: okay, so he’s not a pervert, exactly; he’s a ridiculously, stupidly handsome six foot tall stack of kinky sex topped with a posh British accent, far too much eye contact, and a thousand dollar suit. What the hell, right?

  What. The. Hell.

  So I tried my best to represent my own interests well; I understood some of the confusion, after all, even if I have never spanked a stranger in my cavernous executive office. A girl can be sympathetic, especially when an official apology is handed out with quietly amused eyes that somehow belie the reputation of assholedom he’s supposed to have and a sincere look of apology. I mean, I might have spanked him, if our roles were reversed. You never know.

  Well. I know. I wouldn’t have—but I can understand wanting to spank him.

  Okay, I’m making this worse. Anyway.

  “Can we start?” I looked at my phone; he was supposed to be on set at least a half hour ago. “If you need to—”

  “I’ll head down when you get the basics of what you need,” he promised, that amused curl to his lip still present. His eyes were so dark you couldn’t separate iris from pupil, with hair to match, shorn short, and an almost hawkish tint to his features. Tan skin with a touch of gold that told me he preferred the outdoors when he wasn’t in a kitchen yelling at some hapless sous-chef, a gigantic, gawdy gold watch, and he smelled good. Really, who wouldn’t have kissed him back?

  An-y-way. “Mr. Grant,” I said, settling myself on the couch as my dress whirled around me with a tad too much flounce, “can you tell me about your newest show? I understand it’s going to be about baking?”

  “Yes, well, with the push in America for British baking shows,” he said, settling in across from me and resting his ankle on his knee, a calculating look in his eye, “we thought: why not?” I suddenly had a feeling he made a lot of decisions that way, which was completely at odds with the persona I gathered from my research. We went back and forth like that for another forty five minutes, me probing, he answering, surprisingly often and with much more candor than expected; I also didn’t expect to find him charming, but he was. In that dry, painfully handsome, reserved British way. Maybe all of that reserve was how he ended up screaming at people so much? I have no idea. But I knew how I could find out, and I’d be lying if I wasn’t interested in finding out how many more of my perceptions would be altered by seeing him in his home environment.

  “Mr. Grant, would it be possible to stay and watch you at work?” He worried his lip, and I realized he might be feeling a little… Well… Blackmailed. I began to backpedal, although my interest was genuine, but he interrupted me with a wave of his hand.

  “You may, of course you may,” he said, and then he cocked his head, assessing me. “I may seem… Different. I may come across badly, in fact. Why are you interested?”

  “Well, my piece—”

  “Ah yes,” he said, and sighed. His dark eyes were locked on mine, as if he were probing something in my soul. I could almost feel his gaze dipping into me, searching for something, before he straightened his shoulders and spoke. “You may,” he said finally, “if we may go over your notes together, afterward. Perhaps over dinner. Would you be willing to join me?”

  I got the feeling that if I said no, he would stand by his agreement; he couldn’t really afford to piss me off, but he didn’t know I had already decided this was hardly the thing I wanted to do—to potentially destroy a rich and storied career because of a misunderstanding. Other journalists would; that was what I heard beneath his sigh. Other journalists would orchestrate such a ‘misunderstanding,’ if it meant getting a hot scoop. But I wasn’t actually a real journalist—I just happened to be a good writer who thought she wanted to become a journalist before she found baking. So here we were.

  And this was clearly an offer, not coercion. If I was really lucky, maybe he would cook for me. “I’d love that,” I said sincerely, and it was hard to describe the way his responding smile warmed my heart. We didn’t know each other—we didn’t trust each other, in fact. But I… I kind of wished we met under different circumstances, because the man I’d been expecting to meet—cold, hard, even cruel—was nothing like the one that stole my kiss.

  But how this man behaved under the floodlights downstairs was yet to be seen. He offered me his hand in a gesture so old-fashioned I couldn’t believe it was the same one that stung my bottom half an hour ago, and I took it. He helped me stand up and for a split second we were back in the same position where we’d met, my face just below his, our eyes locked… And then he took a respectful step back and offered me his arm. We made our way through the wide open doors and to the elevator without a verbal reminder from Millie that I’d made him hopelessly late, but her raised eyebrows said a lot.

  I found myself still locked arm in arm with him as he escorted me to the elevator, and when the doors opened and shut behind us, I was suddenly confronted with our image as a couple in the reflective doors. And… I was pretty stoked, actually. I found my eyes taking in his impressive figure—that suit was tailored to show off all of his assets, and believe me, there were many—and then saw his gaze tracking my own, a slight tilt to his mouth as he raised an eyebrow at me. I watched in horror as my blush crept up my neckline. “Oh, please,” he said softly, in something approximating a growl, “don’t stop on my account. I owe you a bit of a view, after all.” He turned towards me just as the elevator doors opened, then lowered his head to my ear and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “if you happen to want to return my attentions from earlier, you needn’t even ask.” And then I wasn’t just blushing, I was flaming red, and he smirked as he walked down the hall I’d sprinted through earlier, not waving or acknowledging any of the people we saw.

  It was game time, apparently, and I couldn’t tell if I was a convenient prop or what, but he didn’t let me go and he didn’t act a bit like the man I’d just spoken to upstairs. Even his face was different—chilly, haughty. Assessing. He guided me into the studio again and settled me in a chair with a flourish, as if I were a starlet he picked up on Broadway the night before instead of the writer he smooched by accident; I was immediately offered about a hundred different kinds of beverages and snacks by a team of harried looking young people—interns, I guessed—wearing the ever-present headsets. Professionals were rushing everywhere, and in the thick of it was Mr. Grant, standing like a slowly smoldering bit of blasted lava rock in the middle of the pounding surf. The air thrummed with adrenaline. Gigantic cameras rolled back and forth, people yelled in the background as pans crashed and banged, and the lights changed subtly into warmer and cooler colors as someone went through the gamut, picking out whatever worked best for the food on stage. I sat, staring, as Mr. Grant surveyed the mayhem like Lucifer in the center of his kingdom, and then he strode up onto the stage and pointed. Just once. And everything stopped.

  People slid silently by me, the camera moved again, and suddenly, we were filming.

  It was strange—I knew I was watching a show because there were cameras there, but it didn’t seem like anyone else knew they were on television. The contestants showed up last, and I guessed that they were actually sequestered in some kind of apartment or something close by, giving the whole thing a competitive, claustrophobic feel. There were clearly alliances and enemies among them, as they divided into groups and attempted to design—of all things�
��epic birthday ‘cakes’ constructed out of giant numbers of cupcakes. I knew who was going to get a good result and who wasn’t, just from watching thirty minutes; furthermore, I watched Mr. Grant and knew he knew too. And to my surprise, he didn’t pick on the failures. No, the ones he berated were all on the winning team. Was that the strategy for reality television? I didn’t know. I’d have to go back and do some more research.

  But I’d have to do it later, because I realized, just as the filming started to wrap up, that I’d been sitting there for two hours, completely enthralled.

  It wasn’t so much the baking—although it was, because, as I might have mentioned, I love baking; it was more about the way Mr. Grant monitored everything, how he seemed to offer a calculated bit of advice or redirection to this person or that one, playing the whole group like some kind of demonic conductor. It was a perfect psychological experiment. And the results did not look good for dinner.

  But then, this was who I signed up to speak to, to decode: Mr. Marshall Grant, public kitchen sadist. No one got screamed at in the two hours I spent sitting there, but this was a baking show—not a high speed cook-off, not a restaurant launch. Still, I felt exhausted after watching the tension on stage, and when Mr. Grant strode off, once again offering me his arm like we were about to go on a stroll through Central Park, I hesitated to take it this time.

  I was genuinely confused. Which person was real? The gentlemen who liked to spank ladies named, of all things, Rosie? Or the psycho that turned this giant kitchen into a chess set?

  I was quiet until we got to the elevator. “That was uncomfortable,” I said, and this time I didn’t bother meeting his face in the reflection. It was distracting, with all that damn handsomeness happening. But I left my arm where it was; the fantasy from earlier hadn’t entirely waned, apparently, because I just couldn’t make myself dislodge it.

  “Yes,” he said, in that bored way British men say the word ‘yes,’ which, admittedly, I’d only ever heard on television shows. “But then, people don’t want to watch me behave myself.” I could practically feel him raising his eyebrow. “Not even you, Miss March.”

  “You don’t know that,” I sniffed.

  “It seems odd, given your extremely capable right hook, that you would sit through something you deem beneath you,” he said, impeccably bored. I did sneak a glance at him this time, and sure enough, he was inspecting his cufflink.

  “That wasn’t a right hook,” I said. “That was a slap. Which you definitely deserved.”

  “True,” he said, and then he did that thing he did earlier that made all the blood drain from my thinking parts and go straight to my feeling parts—he leaned down and whispered into my ear. “Do you think I deserve another one?”

  “Maybe,” I mumbled.

  “Kitchens and bedrooms are the only places we expect to discuss the dynamics of power out in the open,” he said in a low, husky voice, far too close to my ear. How long was this damn elevator ride? “Don’t you find that to be true?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, feeling my heart stutter in my chest. “I don’t have much experience in either.”

  “I find that very hard to believe.”

  I turned to look up at him as the elevator finally slid to a halt, and the steel doors ground open. He was peering into my eyes again, and I was wrong about his earlier—I thought they were almost black, but it must have been the light. They weren’t; they were exactly the color of the deepest, darkest chocolate. The kind with a hint of bitterness—in short, the best kind. “Miss March,” he said, and I tore my eyes away from his only to find myself gazing at his lush mouth, “would you be so kind as to join me for lunch?”

  And then I totally embarrassed myself and asked, “does that mean we can’t get dinner?” Because I’m an idiot. An idiot only when confronted with the perfect mouth that only a few hours earlier kissed me so perfectly it apparently made me perfectly dumb even now, hours later.

  “Of course we can,” he said, and instead of amusement—I was starting to recognize that, believe me—I saw a bit of happiness there now, in the slight quirk of his upper lip, the corners of those chocolate eyes. “I would be most pleased if you would join me all day. It will give me plenty of opportunity to… Talk.”

  Right. Talking. That’s the other thing mouths did—I’d forgotten, because all I could think about right then was kissing.

  We were still staring at each other when Millie made a little ‘ahem’ noise from her desk. I jumped, but Mr. Grant had the gall to look annoyed. He turned us towards Millie—I was still hitched to his arm—and sauntered over to her. “Milicent,” he said, “I do apologize for the misunderstanding earlier. As you can see, Miss March and I are spending some time on this article together, and I’m sure it will be to everyone’s satisfaction.” She flared her nostrils at him, and I wondered at his words. Was this all some kind of act—was he seducing me in order to get me to write a good article? I wouldn’t put it past the Machiavellian villain I just watched downstairs to orchestrate the scene earlier; the only thing that made it difficult to imagine him planning this was the fact that it would require someone to research me. But he had plenty of interns at his disposal—I’m sure one of them could’ve made it out to good old Bread in the Bronx at some point. And then here I was, Target A, obviously boy-friendless, obsessed with baking weird cupcakes and making even weirder clothes—how hard would it be to win me over?

  I was glaring at him by the time we entered his office and Millie looked anything but appeased, which made me glad; if she wasn’t in on his little scheme then there was a chance it wasn’t a scheme. Right? And a part of me really wanted to believe that this absurdly handsome, stupidly sexy man had enjoyed kissing me so much he did it twice.

  And slapped my bottom.

  You know. Savor the small things in life.

  “Alright,” I said, whipping my arm away as we walked towards the couch. “Come clean. Did you arrange that little fete this morning just to make me feel—I don’t know, all… Ambivalent about your stage performance? Because—”

  “No,” he said bluntly, and sat down in the same chair he used earlier.

  “Because the man I just spent two hours watching could definitely have done that,” I continued, placing my hands on my hips; he settled into the chair and gave me an appreciative glance, so I crossed my arms over my chest. His eyes lingered there instead, and I could feel my skin heating again.

  “He could have,” agreed Mr. Grant. “I could have. But I didn’t.”

  “How can I believe that? It wouldn’t exactly be out of character, as far as your antics go—”

  “I disagree,” he said, frowning at me. “And given the depth of your probing inquiries earlier, I imagine you can see why. I don’t have sexual scandals, Miss March. I avoid them at all costs.”

  “But you—”

  “Yes, I do have a bit of a temper,” he said, some of that temper revealing itself in the slight growl that threaded through his voice. “But it is reserved for opportunistic, talentless sycophants and blustering, bullying kitchen tyrants. I would hardly raise my voice to someone as lovely as you, for example. In fact,” he said, leaning forward and looking up at me in a way I can only describe as persuasive, “I would prefer to find entirely different way to communicate with you altogether.”

  “Stop flirting with me.”

  “I don’t think I can,” he said, leaning back and stretching his shoulders across the length of the loveseat, knowing, I am absolutely sure, that the pose made every woman wonder what the muscles under that suit looked like. “I think you are… Exquisite. And I hate to think of how we met—such a careless, blundering mistake—and yet…” His dark eyes flashed. “I can’t stop thinking about that mouth.”

  “I need you to stop flirting with me so I can think about—”

  “Miss March,” he said, his eyes boring into mine. “I think you quite like flirting with me.”

  “Everybody likes flirting.”

 
; “No,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “I distinctly do not. I prefer to avoid any banalities at all, if I can—it makes my life simpler to clean out every interaction, to make it as bare as possible. Flirting requires nuance, and attention. Neither is my strong suit.”

  “Then why…? I really feel…” I squared my shoulders and looked down at him; he wasn’t amused now. “I don’t want to be manipulated. I want to write a good article so I can secure a decent, regular gig with a company I don’t hate. And I don’t trust at all that you aren’t doing something to sway me in a particular direction so that I don’t write anything bad about you.”

  “I am not manipulating you.”

  “How could I possibly know that?” I finally sat down across from him and watched him closely. “The woman this morning—did you really meet her on a dating app?”

  “Not a dating app,” he said. “An app that matches sexual interests. No date necessary.”

  “So… A dating app, but a—”

  “BDSM, quickies, no talking, no thanks,” he said softly, watching my skin as it flushed under his gaze—flushed with the idea of it. Of just arranging to come here and… Do that. With him.

  “So you met her through the app?”

  “Yes,” he said, and sighed again, the only sign he found this line of conversation tedious at all. “I didn’t meet her so much as match well with her. I have to screen everyone very thoroughly, so we’d… Chatted, I guess you could say, for several weeks. Today I was here, in New York for filming, and we arranged to get together. I…” He ran his hands through his dark hair, mussing some of his perfection; it should’ve made him less appealing, but no dice. “I don’t do relationships of any kind—as I said, I don’t have the patience it takes to develop an ordinary conversation with a woman, let alone a relationship. I’m busy, and furthermore, I’m not interested.”