Hard No: Secret Baby Enemies to Lovers Romance

by Hazel Parker

  “Two weeks is hardly short notice,” I say, although all of us know better. It had taken every spare waking minute I had to get this put together.

  “Still,” Monroe says, “I’m looking forward to what you serve up today. Your shopping list was quite intriguing.”

  I would be amused at his faint dismissal of my ingredients as having possibly been jotted down on the back of a car wash coupon if my guts weren’t in knots. Truth be told, I was even more nervous than Daniel, which meant I had to keep an even tighter lid on it.

  “You were very generous,” I tell Monroe. This was itself a pretty generous statement, being that the cost of the ingredients for lunch alone totaled a bit more than fourteen thousand dollars. I had checked again and again with Monroe as to whether or not the high price tag for the day was okay, and every time he had assured me that money was no object.

  “Not at all,” he declares, squinting off into the dazzling sunlight. “I just hope the meals are as gorgeous as this day is turning out to be.”

  “They absolutely will be,” I confirm. “If you’d just be good enough to show us to the kitchen, Daniel and I will go ahead and get to work so that lunch will be ready on time.”

  Monroe has a small group of helpers around him like satellites, and I expect him to task one of them with conducting us through what will no doubt be a labyrinth of corridors. Again, though, he surprises me by saying, “Right this way.” Then he’s off, his entourage drifting along behind him. Daniel and I follow, each of us trying not to gawk at the opulence of our surroundings.

  “This painting,” Monroe says, pointing as we navigate a wide, carpeted hallway. “Degas. You wouldn’t believe how much I had to insure it for to keep it on a ship, but it was worth it. Things like this are meant to be enjoyed, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, indeed,” I agree, as though I had spent time deciding whether to hang my own Monet in the living room or in the dining room.

  He points out a few more items of interest on our journey through the Wavebourne, all of them worth more than all three of my restaurants put together, probably. Daniel looks positively green. I suspect it’s because he’s afraid he’ll bump into something valuable and break it. There’s no chance he’s suffering from seasickness—the ship is completely steady under our feet, either as the result of some kind of counterbalancing mechanism or because the ship is just too damned big to rock.

  “And here we are,” Monroe says at last. “I trust the facilities will be adequate?”

  I look. It’s as though someone has teleported a full kitchen on board. Everything gleams as though it has never been used. Neatly wrapped and tied parcels are at the ready.

  “More than adequate, Mr. Monroe,” I answer. “Daniel and I will get right to work if that’s all right.”

  “Your polite way of saying to get lost and leave you to your business,” he observes, but he is smiling as he says it. “You’re the professional here, Ms. White. I will leave you to it.” He steps back and recedes into the hallway in a cloud of assistants.

  “Feel better now that you’re on familiar footing?” I ask Daniel as we unpack our gear.

  “A little,” he says. “I half-expected everything to be solid gold.”

  “Please. He’s rich, but he’s not the man on the Monopoly board.”

  “Excuse me? He’s got a Degas just hanging out there for the whole world to go up to and poke.”

  “I don’t think Monroe gets his possessions poked a great deal by the masses.”

  “Maybe.” He thinks for a moment. “Do you suppose a person can be so rich that they don’t even register how expensive things can be anymore?”

  “I guess you can get used to just about anything. Anyway, it’s game time now. We have a lot to do and lunch has to roll out at noon on the dot.” I pick up my knife and use it to pop the string on the first parcel. “Let’s get busy.”

  My first inclination is to have Daniel and I serve the meal to Monroe and his small group of guests, the same way we would for any other private cooking job. However, I feel like we’d get lost trying to find our way topside, so I grudgingly allow Monroe’s servers to do the job for us.

  We have precious little time to sit around and wonder how well the food’s going over up above, though, before we have to start prepping for dinner. For some reason, Monroe wants to eat early, at four-thirty, so we’ll really have to hustle to be ready by then.

  Daniel looks noticeably less green about the gills as we work around each other in the ridiculously spacious kitchen. He’s like me in the respect that when he has his game face on, nothing can bother him.

  Myself, I’m in the zone, too. Soon it will be all over, time for champagne back at the restaurant to celebrate.

  Or maybe champagne with Trent, I think. That would be even better.

  These two weeks would have gone by in the blink of an eye if it hadn’t been for the fact that I hadn’t seen Trent at all during them, so busy had I been with planning today. Not that we’d been completely out of contact, though. He had called me often and texted me even more often to see how I was doing.

  Not once had he suggested that I take a night off, though, or even take a break of any kind. I appreciated that. He knew how much today means to me, and he wanted to give me all the space I needed.

  I wonder if I could be so accommodating if our roles were reversed. After all, we are in the fledgling stages of…whatever this is, when the two people involved want nothing more than to be around each other twenty-four-seven. Joined at the hip, as it were.

  You mean, at the hips, the devil on my shoulder says. That would go down even better than champagne.

  I try to settle the butterflies in my stomach that this last thought stirs up. Have to concentrate on the right here, the right now.

  I am putting the finishing touches on the plates with two minutes to spare when the servers reappear. When they leave, Daniel and I high-five, just like contestants on one of those cable cooking shows. Yes, it’s definitely going to be champagne time back at the home base later today.

  Not half an hour goes by before one of the servers comes to fetch us.

  “Mr. Monroe would greatly enjoy your presence on deck,” he says.

  “We have been summoned,” I murmur to Daniel, who’s gone back to looking slightly ill. “Relax, I don’t think we’re going to have to walk the plank.”

  “If you say so,” he says unhappily but follows along gamely enough as we are led topside.

  The late afternoon is even more gorgeous than the morning had been, the sun shining down from a clear blue sky and the barest hint of a breeze blowing across the water. Monroe sees Daniel and me coming and rises from his seat.

  “Ah, Ms. White! Mr. Jeffreys! Excellent!” He raises his arm for attention, which is a little unnecessary, as everyone’s eyes snapped to him the instant he stood up.

  “These are the ones responsible for today’s excellent meals,” Monroe announces. “I can’t speak for anyone else here, but I can say that I myself have never had better.” He raises his wineglass high. “To the chefs,” he toasts.

  “To the chefs,” repeat the voices all around us, including one right behind me that strikes me as familiar. I turn.

  Holding aloft her glass and studying me is Jamie Wells, the model who so recently fled a housefire of my own making.

  She looks singularly beautiful in a light dress with her auburn hair pinned up. An emerald pendant gleams mellowly in the hollow of her throat like a tiger’s eye.

  She does not look overjoyed to see me. This is unfortunate, but, to be fair, understandable.

  “Ms. Wells,” I say. “It’s good to see you again.” She doesn’t reply. “Under better circumstances,” I try. Still nothing.

  I’m wondering how long this awkward scene is going to draw itself out when she finally speaks directly to me.

  “It’s a good thing we’re on the water,” she says. “Just in case.”

  Absurdly, I glance around for Trent. Of course
, he’s not there. The only person I have in my corner at the moment is Daniel, who looks appropriately outraged, but keeps his mouth shut. That’s good. We are, after all, still on the job. It wouldn’t do to serve up a large piece of his mind to one of the boss’s guests.

  Jamie notices Daniel’s glare, though, and laughs a little. “I’m only joking,” she says, reaching out and touching my arm, only she’s using the tone of someone who is anything but joking around.

  “Ah,” I say. This clever response is the best I can come up with, so I use it again. “Ah.”

  “The food really was amazing,” she says, and I can tell she means it. My shoulders are almost beginning to untense when she follows that up with, “Trent really knows what he’s doing.”

  I blink. “Excuse me?” I look around for Trent again, who continues not to be there.

  She gives her fragile-sounding laugh again. “I guess it never hurts to have friends in high places.”

  I’m mystified. I’m still in a tailspin just from running into Jamie again, so my powers of deduction probably aren’t firing on all cylinders at the moment.

  Daniel, however, suddenly looks as though he is putting two and two together and begins tugging at my sleeve. “We should get back to the kitchen,” he says, and I don’t like the urgency in his voice. What has he figured out that my dazed brain hasn’t tipped to just yet?

  Like a Bond villain, though, Jamie appears more than happy to shine a light into the well of my ignorance.

  “Lucas wasn’t a bit put out when his previous chef quit,” she says. “He’s used to changing his staff around all the time anyway. And he was honestly amused when he found out that it was because Trent had paid her off to take another job. I guess it didn’t hurt, though, that Trent was immediately able to recommend the city’s best chef to Lucas to use for today.”

  She looks at me and tilts her head slightly. “Trent didn’t tell you,” she says, with a hint of mock disbelief. “Oops. Guess I let the cat out of the bag, didn’t I?”

  “‘Cat’ is right,” Daniel says, taking my arm in earnest now and leading me towards the stairs. “Come on, Steph, let’s go.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” I protest, planting my feet. Then, to Jamie, “Who told you this?”

  She tilts her head the other way and looks at me pityingly. “Why, Lucas, of course. Like I said, he thinks it was a pretty good joke on Trent’s part to snatch his private chef out from under him and install you in her place. It’s all right, though. Lucas has a sense of humor.” She pauses, maybe for effect, maybe to enjoy the look on my face.

  “He must,” she says. “He’s been sharing the story with everyone.”

  “Okay,” Daniel announces, “we’re going now.”

  I’m too stunned to say or do otherwise. I let Daniel guide me below deck and back to the fabulous floating kitchen.

  Even though he’s not a nail-biter, Daniel gnaws a thumbnail as he regards me anxiously in the passing minutes.

  “You figured it out for yourself,” I say, and my voice sounds thin and faint.

  He shrugs.

  “How?” I ask.

  He looks like he’d rather do anything in the world than reply to my question, so I ask him again.

  His eyes are downcast. “You’ve heard the saying, ‘if a thing sounds too good to be true, then it probably is’? This is a solid-gold, platinum-dipped, diamond-encrusted gig, Steph. Do you deserve it? Sure, you do. But it was weird how it just materialized out of thin air and dropped right into your lap, don’t you think?”

  “But—”

  “Things like this don’t just happen,” he swept on. “They’re made to happen, and who do we know who’s got the kind of resources to make something like this happen? Only one that I can think of.”

  “But…why?”

  Daniel shrugs again. “I guess maybe he feels like flowers aren’t enough this time.”

  As if on cue, my phone pings. With numb fingers, I retrieve it from my pocket and look at the screen. It’s a text message from Trent.

  “So, how’d it go?” it reads.

  Daniel is watching me closely. He apparently doesn’t like the look on my face, because he suggests, “Maybe you should cool down a little before—”

  I hit the “Call Back” button on my phone.

  Chapter 20 - Trent

  My phone rings almost immediately after my text to Steph has been shown as delivered. It must have gone really well indeed then.

  “Hi,” I say when I pick up. “That was fast. Got lots of details to share?”

  “Oh, yes,” she replies, and I immediately get a bad feeling when I hear the tone of her voice. “I have details. I think you do, too.”

  “Me? I’m on the other side of town. You’re the one who’s been in the trenches all day.”

  “That I have been,” she agrees, and it’s a good thing a literal chill can’t be transmitted via phone. I’d be looking at a frostbitten ear.

  “What’s going on? You sound mad as hell. Did something go wrong?”

  “Oh, no,” she says, and I swear it sounds like the words are coming through clenched teeth. “Everything went according to plan, right up until the point where I crossed paths with Jamie Wells.”

  I winced. So that explained it.

  “Jamie was there? Oh, hey, I had no idea that would happen. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to run interference for you.”

  “Interesting choice of words.”

  “What’s that mean?” I ask. “Did she say something to you?”

  “Quite a bit, actually. We had a most enlightening little chat, her and me.”

  My bad feeling is getting worse. “You’re going to have to bring me up to speed here because I’m a little lost. What happened?”

  “Trent, what happened to Monroe’s original chef? The one who was going to cook for him and his friends at the Regatta?”

  Uh-oh.

  “She quit,” I say, not looking forward to where this is heading. “She left to take another job.”

  “And did you drop my name into Monroe’s ear afterward?”

  I sigh. “Okay, yes. You got me. I knew he needed a chef, and I know the best one in town. It seemed like a win-win scenario to me.”

  She is silent for a moment. The chilliness in her voice drops another few degrees when she asks, “How did you know he needed a chef? You already told me you don’t know him personally.”

  “I don’t,” I say. “I just…”

  “Just what? Heard about it on the gossip hotline? Is that what happened?”

  She was speaking more loudly now. No, this was not going to end well at all.

  “What is it you think happened?” I ask.

  “I don’t think,” she replies, not yelling but not far away from it, either. “I know! Jamie told me what you did! How you bribed Monroe’s chef to take a hike and then got him to hire me in her place!”

  “Steph, I—”

  “How could you?” she interrupts, and now she’s yelling. “How could you just butt in and manipulate my life like that? How could you do this to me?”

  That raises my hackles a little. “Do this to you?” I repeat. “I didn’t do this to you; I did it for you!”

  “I didn’t ask you to!” The phone in my hand is practically vibrating with the volume of her voice over the line. “And I would never ask anyone to do something like this! I don’t need things done for me! I got to where I am today on my own! No favors, no interference from anyone else!”

  My temper is getting piqued here. “Oh, so now I’m interfering? If I hadn’t, you wouldn’t have gotten the gig!”

  “Well, then I wouldn’t have gotten it!” she immediately shouts.

  “So you’d rather miss out on a golden opportunity if I had a hand in helping you to get it?”

  “If I didn’t earn it, then yes! God, Trent, do you have any idea how humiliated I was? Not just in front of Jamie, but in front of everyone! Monroe told everyone what happened! He laughed it off as
a joke on your part, just another case of the shenanigans of the rich and famous, but what do you think something like this does to my pride?”

  “Steph, come on—it was a recommendation, for God’s sake! It happens all the time!”

  “Not like this!” she retorts. “You think that money just lets you go around doing whatever you want!”

  “I was trying to do something nice for you,” I say, trying not to shout myself. If we start hollering at each other, there’ll be no way to defuse the situation. “Like a present.”

  “I don’t need presents, not when it comes to my career! That’s mine, all mine, win or lose, stand or fall, on my own terms! I can’t believe you don’t know that about me by now!”

  “It’s because I know you that I was sure you’d hit a home run with this! All I did was nudge things along in the right direction!”

  “The direction I was going in was just fine without any meddling, in case you hadn’t noticed!”

  I realize that anything I say at this point is just going to inflame her even more.

  “Steph, I think we both need to calm down here,” I say.

  My words are just more water thrown onto an already raging grease fire.

  “‘We’ need to calm down?” she shouts. “‘We?’ Since when do you have any right to be upset by any of this?”

  I’ve gone my whole adult life without a crack in the screen of my phone. I’m wondering if now my streak, and my phone, may end up being broken, I’m squeezing the device so hard.

  I’m taking in a deep breath to try to say something that will begin to reign in this conversation when I realize I’m listening to a dead line. She’s hung up.

  This has been a real day for firsts for me—I’ve been screamed at, raked over the coals, and hung up on, all in the space of five minutes.

  My initial inclination is to throw my phone across the room. Instead, I set it down on my desktop. Then I pick it up, do a quick search, and dial. I’m not about to call Curtis to pick me up. He has no idea what’s happened, so there’s no chance he’d give me an “I told you so,” but if he had known what I’d been planning, he would have told me it was a bad idea from the start and been perfectly justified in saying “I told you so.”