A Matter of Taste (Men of the Capital #2)

by Cara Nelson

  When the trays were delivered and the gratitude of weepy parents adequately conveyed to Desmond, the assistants were put to work blanching asparagus spears and making perfect hollandaise whilst the man himself blended his own proprietary recipe for the fish. It would be flaky, tart, oddly sweet and no one would suspect that there was coconut milk in the sauce. The newest assistant cut herself while chopping. While that was being bandaged, an argument broke out over the tablescape for the pasta station. Desmond charged into the fray, barked an order and tried not to box anyone’s ears. Frankly, he was twenty-seven years old, and he was rapidly deciding that he was too old for this shit. Anyone who wanted to diva up after watching too many Barefoot Contessa reruns could turn in his company paring knife and hit the road.

  A veritable military formation of servers arrayed for instruction. Desmond inspected each plate personally, snapping his fingers at one humiliated assistant who left a drip on the edge of a plate and was caught wiping it off with her thumb and licking the sauce off that offending digit. He held out his hand. She gave him her paring knife, removed her apron, and left without a word. Slovenly attitudes and careless actions had no business in Aux Delices, and everyone knew Aux Delices’s standards were really Desmond Blair’s lofty expectations. He approved the rest of the plates, ordered that they be loaded on the service elevator.

  The man himself doffed his smudged jacket and put on an immaculate, freshly pressed black chef’s jacket and rode the main elevator up to the convention rooms. He was greeted by the directors before he oversaw the placement of every last caper and wedge of cheese at the pasta station. The raw bar had been set up, but he didn’t like the look of the ice. Some of it seemed weepy instead of crisp and brittle…the seafood must be surrounded by the sharp, sparkling glint of hard frozen ice chips. Two helpers bustled for fresh ice to pack around the prawns. When the presentation was perfect, even by Desmond’s standards, and the waiters stepped forward with the precise timing of Broadway dancers, he withdrew to a corner to observe, occasionally tossing together a sauce for the odd dignitary and chatting. Mostly, though, he hung back and watched.

  People appreciated his food. They stopped their self-important tirades and turned their attention from their seatmates to their meals when they caught sight of the artful presentation, got a whiff of succulent smells and experienced the light richness of Desmond’s sea bass. It was all in the presentation, he smiled to himself. Presentation was everything. After all, Chilean sea bass was nothing more than the well-marketed nickname of an ugly creature whose real moniker was the decidedly unappetizing Patagonian toothfish.

  His thoughts drifted back to Annelise Hollingford, prickly and demanding, determined to control every last aspect of her boss’s engagement party and mightily annoyed that the previous caterer had the gall to be caught by law enforcement and inconvenience her. In any other human being, he would never have tolerated that level of attitude. She was pushy and resentful and recalcitrant. She also had the softest wave to her dark hair, and his hands itched to push through that silky tangle. Her lower lip seemed to default to a pout. On her, it was probably more qualified to be a scowl, but if she let herself relax, it would be a pout. A perpetual expression of disappointment, as if life had thwarted her plans despite her superhuman effort to bring about happiness through sheer force of her indomitable will. He had the impression she’d back over him with a steamroller if her boss had anything less than a purely delightful experience with his duck quesadillas. Desmond nearly laughed at the thought. It had been a long time since anyone had made him laugh. He’d spent the last five years building his business through innovation, persistence, caffeine and insomnia. As a result, his professional life was incredible, but the personal side was barren.

  Desmond checked his phone, ostensibly to see the time, but really to determine if she had texted him. Logically, he knew that Annelise was waiting to receive the promised quote by email. He had indulged in a decidedly illogical hope that she couldn’t quit thinking of him and might send him a message of a more personal nature. He had been genuinely disappointed when Annelise declined his invitation for a tasting session. He had wanted to cook for her.

  He had found his calling as a fifteen-year-old punk forced to do community service for a series of petty offenses. His last foray into vandalism had landed him in a soup kitchen, serving up tasteless slop to the unwashed masses. He had tinkered with the stew, using what dried herbs were on hand in the cupboard. The pleased expressions and thanks and requests for seconds that he got from the patrons had gratified him. He started reading cookbooks, checking out stacks of them from the library.

  At seventeen, he was admitted to a culinary course. On the enthusiastic recommendation of his professors, he was accepted to a course in French Regional Cuisine at le Cordon Bleu Paris. If he was the best, it was partly from announcing the fact to everyone who stood still long enough to listen. He craved the success, the awards and the adulation. But this was the first time since perhaps the days he spent working the line at the soup kitchen that Desmond Blair really yearned to please someone with his food.

  Annelise’s opinion wasn’t one he could manipulate with his charm. He couldn’t appeal to any snobbishness or pretensions of sophistication. Her mind was her own, without reference to anyone else’s valuation, and it made him want to astound her, light her up. He wanted to feed her something sumptuous and hear the involuntary exclamation of sheer pleasure when she tasted it.

  Then he wanted to take her to bed. Or more particularly, he wanted to take her on the marble countertop of his kitchen. Not that he had given a single thought to that sort of thing. Desmond was far too professional to be distracted by a secretary with an intriguing mouth and a wall around her heart six miles high that was topped with coils of razor wire. Not that he was interested in her heart. Not one bit. Women were to be enjoyed like wine…savored for their distinctive complexity and origins, and then consumed fully without lingering. Even the finest wines spoiled, went flat when exposed too long to the air. As far as Desmond Blair was concerned, women were no different.

  Something nagged at him though, something that insisted he was wrong, which seldom happened at all. Somehow, he thought Annelise was different. It bothered the hell out of him.

  Chapter 3

  “He’s a snooty bastard. You don’t want him doing the food for your engagement party. Hannah prefers takeout…she loves those street noodles, so I vote for bringing in actual noodle cooks from Singapore. It’ll impress your bride and your guests.”

  “Are you kidding?” Jasper Cates asked, exasperated. He had only the highest regard for Annelise Hollingford’s ability, but he could really do without the cheap theatrics.

  “Certainly not. I’m serious as I can be. I dealt with the baker who wanted to put nasturtium petals in the cupcake filling. I handled the koi pond fiasco. I found a photographer with a bride in his portfolio with a nose bigger than Hannah’s so she would stop being mental about her profile. Give me a break on this one, boss. The guy’s a jerk, plus, he made fun of your menu. He said duck quesadillas didn’t go with salmon and noodles and stuff and that people would get sick from it. You don’t need judgmental people like that pissing on your party.”

  “It sounds like he knows more about party menus that we do. Hire him. He’s the best. You convinced me yesterday that we had to hire him. You showed me that article. You did too good of a job persuading me. I’m sold on Aux Delices. Pay him whatever he asks.”

  “NO! I will not pay him whatever he asks. He’s going to be impossible to work with. I won’t do it.”

  “Do you want me to take the car back?” Jasper asked levelly, and she knew the threat was real.

  “What? I need that car. I may be living in that car soon.”

  “Do you still need money for a place to live?”

  “Since my lotto numbers didn’t match the ones they drew last week, yeah,” dhe said miserably.

  “You get this caterer, you make this engagement part
y work, and I’ll give you a bonus.”

  “What kind of bonus?” she asked warily.

  “I don’t know…what’s bonus money? Like twenty-five thousand?” he asked absently.

  “Fine, I’ll do the caterer,” she conceded with bad grace.

  “No one asked you to do him. Just make him sign a contract,” Jasper clarified. “He wants a piece of my ass, okay? I had to dodge him,” she mumbled.

  “Did he harass you?” Jasper threw down the stylus from his tablet and looked up at her, white with fury. No one was going to molest his secretary—she was like the extremely pushy, annoying little sister he never had growing up. He would ruin the man, dismantle his business—Jasper Cates was halfway through the formation of a drastic plan to destroy Desmond Blair when she intruded with a reply.

  “Uh, no. He didn’t actually harass me. I’d like a piece of his ass, too,” Annelise admitted. Jasper calmed down, relieved that no one was endangering Miss Hollingford, but he was irritated with her roundabout way of saying things. Why couldn’t women ever be direct? Why hadn’t she just said that she was attracted to him?

  “Then go get one. I don’t care. Just sign him for the party, and for crap’s sake, don’t tell me how you have to convince him.”

  “I don’t like his attitude,” she grumbled.

  “So you only like his ass?” Jasper smirked. “I don’t care about his attitude. I want the best. You insisted he was the best. Besides, you have an attitude, and I contend with you on a daily basis. It’s exhausting but I do it, so this isn’t insurmountable,” he said coolly. She smirked at him.

  “Thirty thousand,” she countered. “He thinks he’s funny.”

  “Thirty thousand?” He scoffed. “Guarantee that there’ll be curry noodles for Hannah and I’ll make it fifty. Final offer.”

  “Fine. It’s a deal, if you insist.” She sighed as though he’d driven a hard bargain.

  She replied to his email with an acceptance of the quote and a promise to review the sample menu with Hannah later. She dreaded dealing with Hannah and the woman’s freakish inability to stick to a decision, but the fifty grand comforted her sufficiently for the task. Checking her calendar, Annelise decided to tackle the textiles next.

  She hopped in her car and made her way to a succession of linen rental outlets. She picked through musty warehouses of fabric in search of the singular, perfect, ultimate shade of hyacinth blue. Hannah had first wanted lilac, then lavender, before settling at long last on hyacinth blue with the barest touch of violet. She had provided Annelise with a screenshot of the exact shade she wanted, with a very specifically romantic dusky tinge. Annelise brought the screenshot up on her phone and compared it tirelessly against blue after blue, wondering if there was a form of blindness induced by exposure to excessive variations of the same color. It’s BLUE, she wanted to scream. The photo was of an actual hyacinth growing wild in, oh, southern Turkey or wherever that elusive blue blossom was a native.

  In the sixth showroom, in a catalog of special order fabrics that could be sourced for an extra fee, Annelise spied a damask swatch that very nearly matched the mythical hue Hannah sought. Just as she phrased the triumphant text to the bride, her phone flashed with Hannah’s number.

  “Annelise Hollingford,” she said flatly.

  “Annelise, the cake guy called and there’s a situation.” She sounded like she was hyperventilating.

  “A cake situation,” Annelise said in disbelief. She wondered nonsensically if the baker had been taken hostage and release negotiations broke down over the filling of Hannah and Jasper’s engagement pastry.

  “Yes. He wants to flavor the fondant with almond. You know how I feel about almond flavoring. Almond flavoring has that cherry undertone that makes me gag, and my throat gets scratchy. I do voiceover work...my voice is my livelihood. I can’t afford to have a scratchy throat—I’ve always half-suspected it was an allergic reaction. I don’t want almond flavoring in the fondant, Annelise!”

  “Did you tell him no?” Annelise ventured.

  “I just panicked,” Hannah said, embarrassed. “ I don’t want almond fondant. I want vanilla fondant. With real vanilla beans, not vanilla extract, and most definitely not imitation vanilla flavoring, which is disgusting.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll let him know, Hannah. Not a problem. I found a fabric I think you’ll like for the table linens.”

  “You found the daffodil? Already? Annelise, you are a wonder.” Hannah gushed.

  “Daffodil?” Dumbfounded, Annelise felt her jaw drop.

  “Yes. To match the cake I sent you. It’s going to have daffodils on each tier, and I want the linens to be classic white, with a vibrant daffodil overlay. Didn’t you get my message?”

  “Just let me check my email. I was still looking for hyacinth blue. I’m sorry, I’ll just check the message and I’ll make it work. I’ll call you when I’ve got the perfect daffodil overlay,” Annelise said, concealing her sigh. She turned back to the tables upon tables of fabric bolts and veered toward the yellow section while dialing the bakery.

  “This is Annelise Hollingford. I’m calling about the Cates party. We want vanilla flavoring in the fondant, not almond, and I want sugared daffodils. No, that’s old news. Hyacinth is over. We’re daffodils all the way now. I’ll send over a picture of the final design right now. Remember, genuine vanilla beans. The filling? I’ll call her back and let you know right away.”

  Annelise hung up on the baker and was texting Hannah about the filling, which had been blueberry for the color during the hyacinth phase, but now might be lemon curd to match the daffodils, or else passionfruit…she felt a headache coming on. Desmond’s number lit up her phone and she answered it, fearing that he was cancelling because her boss’s fiancée was certifiably nuts.

  “Annelise?” He said her name in that smoky voice that made her feel warm all over.

  “Yes. This is the caterer, right? What’s the problem?” she asked, exhaustion creeping into her voice.

  “I’m not calling on food business. I’m just calling to ask you out,” he said, his voice warm.

  “I can’t talk about this right now. There’s a cake crisis, and I need a photo off my email, and I have to get Hannah to tell me—“

  “Then just say yes and I’ll let you go,” Desmond Blair reasoned persuasively.

  “Yes,” she blurted, hanging up on him. She texted Hannah and, once she was secure in the knowledge that a passionfruit filling was acceptable and the bakery had received the cake picture, she experienced dater’s remorse.

  Annelise called Shannon in a panic.

  “The caterer asked me out. I said yes because I wanted to get off the phone and it seemed expedient, but now I don’t want to go out with him.”

  “Is he ugly?”

  “No.”

  “Why don’t you want to go out with him?”

  “I am done with men. After what that rat Roger did to me—“

  “So you’re going to call the one and only caterer that Jasper Cates insists upon for this party and piss him off?” Shannon challenged.

  “You’re saying that I have to go out with him?” Annelise moaned.

  “I’m saying I thought you liked him, and it’s a safe bet that he’ll be a lot more troublesome if you blow him off now,” Shannon said rationally.

  Rational was not what Annelise was looking for—she’d more hoped for sympathy. “I don’t want a relationship.” Annelise said flatly.

  “Did he ask you to have a relationship with him, Annelise?” Shannon asked.

  “No. He asked me out for tonight.”

  “So go out tonight. Then if you don’t like him, tell him you’ve decided to become a lesbian but thanks anyway.”

  “I don’t think you just decide to be a lesbian, Shan,” Annelise said hesitantly.

  “Oh shut up, am I not allowed to be sarcastic?”

  “Don’t try to be funny now. It’s too late. You just scare me. I’m the funny one. What if I go out with thi
s guy and I can’t control myself? Like, what if I have sex with him and then start crying or something horrible?”

  “Then you’ll be really embarrassed and you’ll still have to work with him for the next three weeks,” Shannon said bluntly.

  “Why did I quit braiding hair? It was so simple. No drama, no ridiculous men demanding that I go out with them—“

  “Let me get this straight. Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones talking, but are you or are you not calling me to complain that the hot, successful guy you like asked you out and you said yes?”

  “It sounds stupid when you put it like that. I’m calling you because I’m afraid I’ll jeopardize the professional relationship with the caterer by crossing the line into my personal life.”

  “It’s practically a guarantee, but it’s still a stupid thing to call me about. I have real problems. Nobody leased me a car.”

  “Fine. Go eat some chips. You’re cranky again,” Annelise said. She hung up on Shannon.

  Back at Edna the cafeteria lady’s apartment, Annelise wriggled into a short blue dress, trying not to compare it to the hyacinth color sample she’d obsessed over earlier. She curled her lashes, primped a little, and texted Desmond to find out where to meet him.

  I’ll pick you up. What’s the address? Desmond responded.

  No way. Bunking with a friend. I’ll meet you, Annelise replied.

  Esperanza’s, he said.

  What’s that? Annelise asked with curiosity.

  Salsa club. Meet there you in fifteen, Desmond replied.

  Annelise grinned at the prospect and changed into to her high silver strappy heels. Instead of an awkward dinner at a snooty restaurant, he was taking her dancing! This called for perfume. She dug in her duffel bag until she uncovered the nearly empty bottle of Jo Malone and spritzed some pink grapefruit at her throat and a little behind her knees. She smiled at her own reflection and took off for the stairs.