“Bear with us. We’re recovering from unusual circumstances right now.”
“Look, I didn’t order my Cobb salad with a side of PR doublespeak. Can I get the plate or do I get in my ride and find somewhere else to go for lunch?”
“I’ve already apologized, so I’m not going to again. But what I told you isn’t ‘PR doublespeak.’ It’s true that this restaurant doesn’t normally see one of its best international chefs taken away in an ambulance with scald burns and a broken leg.” Gabrielle ignored the swift change in his disposition, which made him as hot and mesmerizing as a flame. She had better command of the sense she was born with when she wasn’t thinking dirty things about this man’s jaw and goatee and rude mouth. “If you’d like to repeat your order, I’ll personally bring it to your table along with a complimentary wine.”
“Cobb salad, no eggs, blue cheese dressing on the side.”
“Might I suggest sauvignon blanc? The bouquet is an excellent complement to the garden flavors in your meal.”
“Sauvignon blanc,” he conceded, stepping back and letting the doors finally close.
“You’re cute when you’re all pissed off and horny.” Even when Gabrielle spun and pretended to uppercut him, Stu didn’t relent. “What are you going to do about that?”
“Fix what he ordered.”
“No, I’ll prepare the Cobb salad. You blot your face, gloss that luscious mouth of yours and get the blanc.”
“He’s a guest, Chef Merritt.”
“Who’s also sexy. You heard what Chef Smirnov said earlier. If he turns out to be eligible, you have a decision to make.” Stu leaned toward her ear, thumping back her curls. “In case you make the wrong decision, take a break and hose yourself down before your pheromones start throwing everyone off.”
Chapter 2
If a man can’t trust himself, he’s screwed.
Geoffrey Girard’s philosophy had hauled him through some rough times, taught him to never question his instincts and maneuvers and had been all the reason in the world to never lie to himself. That was before he’d swaggered into the Pearl and had a faceoff with that smokin’-fine smartass waitress.
Now his philosophy was a handful of empty words strung together that didn’t mean anything concrete. He wasn’t confident in his decision to stay at this restaurant and wait for her to come to him. And, damned straight, he was lying to himself when he silently said he could accept his meal and walk away without wanting to claim what wasn’t on some fancy silver menu.
Returning to his private table in front of an arched window exposing a complicated-looking abstract water feature and mountains that stabbed the afternoon sky, he tried to convince himself that the reason he hadn’t taken his Bugatti Veyron from the valet and put the Belleza and all its hedonistic luxuries in the rearview mirror was because he was owed the meal he’d spent valuable time ordering and to prove to this restaurant—from the waitress to the corporates signing her checks—that no one ignored him without regretting it.
She’d said she hadn’t seen him wave from his table, but he didn’t trust that.
She had been in perfect view, crossing through the dining room with a leap in her step that made all that curly hair bounce in rhythm with her breasts. In a white top and black bottoms, she matched the other servers—except, she didn’t exactly. The shirt was cut at a slanted angle, the pants were smooth, tight leather and on her feet were pink Chuck Taylor high-tops. Quirk or kink, he couldn’t call it, but underlying that mismatched creative strangeness was something high maintenance about her. She was art, a piece that was too expensive and something you didn’t understand, but you had to have it anyway.
Cutting past him, she’d chatted it up with that hostess, the hot blonde who’d earlier brushed her fingers over his Bulgari wristwatch and handed him a business card that read Charlene Vincent, Model, Actress & Voice Talent. Her nails had been painted to look like starry skies, and she’d appraised him with sex and opportunity in her eyes. He’d taken the card but wouldn’t be taking hot Charlene up on what she was offering. And if she and the waitress were tight enough to be whispering secrets at the hostess station, then he didn’t need to be sitting at this table tensed up with a semi for either one of them.
Plenty of women had reddish-gold curls that he could fall asleep counting. Skin the color of the palest caramel couldn’t be that damned hard to find. And she couldn’t be the only woman in this town who was working with all her original parts. Hell, could be she was saving up her tips for some surgical enhancements. God knew he’d been with too many LA groupies and Beverly Hills hotties who thought fake tits and toxin injections and bolts of weave were requisites to getting ahead.
Maybe that was what had him all jacked up in the head today. He was done with the monotony of fakeness and deception tattooed on the R&B world and was getting all hard up because he thought that a waitress with wild hair, a soft-looking ass and an outfit that didn’t make all that much sense might show him a way out.
Geoffrey would really be lying to himself if he tried to believe he wanted out of R&B. He moved around in that realm like a god, had built his empire from the ground up and it had saved him from the ghetto he’d been born into. But once in a while a man had a taste for something real, and invading this restaurant’s kitchen, he thought he’d found it in a waitress.
It would do him good to take his food and leave, and hand off the rest of his dealings with the Belleza to any of his assistants. He paid them for more than discretion and schedule managing, didn’t he?
He set his smartphone on the table. Everything from the tablecloth to the long-stemmed flowers standing at attention in a crystal centerpiece was crisp and pristine—no doubt masterminded by a perfectionist with an obsession for symmetry and a control complex.
Not that he was hatin’ on them—after all, he was the same way.
And that was why he didn’t get further than fingerprint-unlocking his phone. He wouldn’t be passing tomorrow’s meeting with the Belleza’s big-hype master chef off to one of his assistants. The celebration honoring Phenom Jones, G&G Records’s record-shattering artist who’d just hit platinum, was Geoffrey’s project. He was a wanted man, on clubs’ VIP lists and in front of paparazzi’s cameras and in high-priced gold diggers’ dreams, but he carved out time for the people whose talent, charisma and perseverance made his company money in a brutal-as-hell industry.
Coming here on another client’s recommendation, he’d intended to spend a few days at the resort and form his own perception. No honest man with an appetite for the hottest of luxuries could deny the Belleza’s appeal, but so far the only thing that had impressed him about the Pearl was its competence in recruiting sexy women.
Speaking of sexy…
The waitress closed in on his table, carrying a bottle of wine and a tray heavy enough to accentuate her delicate biceps. Regarding her with appreciation, he got a frown in return. And he didn’t like that he deserved that frown and every profane word behind it.
“We can’t start over?”
“And pretend you didn’t barge into that kitchen like some lord-of-everything invading enemy territory?” A bubble of silence followed, giving her a chance to frown again and him ample time to come to the conclusion that hell, no, they couldn’t start over. She pierced the bubble with, “Cobb salad, no eggs, blue cheese dressing on the side, and sauvignon blanc. May I?”
Nodding, he let her uncover the food, then she presented the chilled wine with the kind of animation and knowledge that could fool anyone into thinking she had years of experience indulging in vineyards all over the world. Her delivery was professional, her words intelligent and her attitude confident. Another point for the Pearl, then. The place knew how to train its people.
When she poured and started to step away, he pointed to the opposite gray chair. “Take a seat. Please?”
“How is it that you made a perfectly polite word sound like a warning?”
The corner of Geoffrey’s mouth rose. “
Please,” he said again, softer, thinking he’d like nothing more than to watch the word drift from her supple mouth. “Was that better?”
Lazily, she blinked at him, and a deep hint of color surfaced on her cheeks and down the line of her neck. Continuing on that trajectory, he saw that her shirt was stretched tight over a pair of beaded nipples. She was aroused, for him, and he couldn’t let her leave now.
“I want you to taste it first.” Geoffrey pointed to the chair again. “And then there’s something I need to say.”
“Sitting with guests and drinking isn’t something I normally do on shift,” she said, her focus darting between the chair and the direction of the kitchen. People clustered around the tables and wait staff wheeled about the place taking orders, delivering entrées and plucking tips. “Do you think you’d like a different wine?”
“If you’re really interested in finding out what I’d like,” he said, sitting back against his chair, “take a seat and I’ll tell you.”
Another hesitant beat passed before she slid into the vacant chair. Something was different about her. Her mouth. She’d put on makeup, and those satiny pink lips tantalized him as they hovered over his wineglass.
Lucky friggin’ wineglass.
“Fantastic aroma. My senses are really open to the oak.”
With a pleased little nod, she said, “I’ll get you a fresh glass.”
“This one’s good,” he interrupted, taking it. The fruit flavors were dominant but the oak held its own. “Is your chef going to be all right?”
“Shoshanna Smirnov. The Pearl’s best sous-chef. ‘All right’ is hard to say. The medical center reported second-and third-degree burns, and a broken leg. A cart lost a wheel and came down on her while she was carrying a pot of boiling water. Freak accident, if you buy into that as an explanation.” She sighed. “I’m worried about her. She’s my friend.”
“Close staff, for chefs and waitresses to be friends,” he commented.
“Friendships don’t make this restaurant a success. There’s a huge cast of personalities behind the scenes— we don’t always get along and there are occasions when not everyone pulls their weight. What we have is a common interest in providing an incomparable dining experience to each of our guests.”
“Yeah, arguing with kitchen staff was something I’d never experienced, so thanks for that.”
She laughed, and the sound seemed to grab him and hold him still. So beautiful. Man, if he could get her to laugh again…
Before he could attempt it, her expression retreated to guarded.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry for speaking to you the way I did before,” he said. “Freak accidents, mixed-up orders and folks not pulling their weight, that comes from the top. Management. Subpar management isn’t your fault.” A crooked eyebrow answered him. “Look, food service is a stressful business as it is without people treating your space like—what’d you call it?—enemy territory.”
“Can I ask what you’d know about food service?”
“I bused tables in college, for a work-study program.”
“Work-study?”
“Yeah.” He considered her. The small frame and girlish way she strutted around the restaurant might deceive some at first, but the woman in front of him was an expert wine presenter and watched him with eyes that shone with blunt wisdom, not naiveté. “I’m living in Beverly Hills and driving sports cars now, but I came from the other side. I know there are folks praying for miracles and turning to crime to survive another day. When you’ve got a chance to make something better for yourself, through college work-study or waiting tables at a resort, you’ll put up with anything to hang on to it. So what I’m saying is, I understand what this gig means to you and I’m thinking you got the skills to make something solid out of this. And I want to thank you for handling our…run-in…with professionalism even when I didn’t. Don’t have to believe me, but my mama would’ve put a hand upside my head for talking to you that way.”
“Mine would lecture me for talking back to a man.” Her brown eyes bolted open, and he detected a confidence she hadn’t meant to share. “What I should say is some people wouldn’t find it very professional of me to strike back like that. But that’s how fighting works—swing at me and I’ll swing back.”
“I wasn’t trying to pick a fight,” he said, starting in on the salad.
“I wasn’t trying to finish one.” She shrugged. “So here we are.”
“I like where we are right now. I think you do, too.”
Conflict rode her features, but she sat there mutely until another female voice levitated over the hubbub around them. A svelte African American woman had her finger in a waiter’s face. Talking fast, the only word she insisted on emphasizing was endives.
“My intervention’s needed at that table.”
“Shouldn’t management get involved?”
Pausing as if to explain something, she appeared to change tracks. “I know her. Trina Erickson. If anyone at the Pearl can handle her malfunction, it’s me.”
*
Maybe the guy wasn’t an asshole.
After dealing with produce drama, courtesy of Trina Erickson, who’d been doubling as a friend and an enemy since Merriweather Academy in Massachusetts, Gabrielle had admittedly been excited to revisit the man who’d irked her with his rudeness then had charmed her stupid.
If snapping at a guest was unprofessional in her book, then what would she call keeping him company at his table, sharing his wine and feeling her undies become moister by the moment? Oh, yup, stupid.
Anyone could have come upon them and misconstrued the situation. Or, worse, gotten the situation exactly right. The Pearl’s executive chef had been hot, bothered and unable to clearly think beyond the erotic demand drumming through her system. In a crazy way Trina’s endive crisis had been just the interruption Gabrielle needed to break away and regroup.
But at some point during the bustle of tending to her former classmate’s produce dilemma, giving the hot stranger his check and offering Trina’s waiter a few encouraging words, Gabrielle had started to feel mighty craptastic for allowing the guest to assume she was a waitress. She hadn’t gone out of her way to lie, but she’d allowed him to veer onto the wrong path when it came to her role at the Pearl—and that wasn’t good business.
Choosing to rectify things, she’d circled around to his table to find his chair empty and the leather check presenter stuffed with cash to cover his meal plus a tip in the form of a crisp-enough-to-slice-you C-note.
Gripping the check presenter, Gabrielle stared at the wineglass they’d shared and found the faint press of her lip gloss there.
You naughty, naughty chef. Quit cooking up scandal.
They hadn’t exchanged names. She supposed she could ask Charlene if she’d gotten details, but the hostess would angle a way to benefit from sharing any info. But if she were being practical—and even a free spirit needed to be practical sometimes—she shouldn’t care too much. More important than attraction was the reality that he was forbidden real estate.
That condom Gabrielle had been carrying in her compact mirror since spring might linger through summer, but at least she wouldn’t end up a hypocrite for a little dirty fraternizing with a Belleza guest.
As the bussers arrived at the table, she went to the register then stuffed the one-hundred-dollar tip into an apothecary jar in the kitchen. The kitchen and serving staff voluntarily added money to the jar, and each month the funds were donated to a Los Angeles homeless shelter.
“Swing and a miss?” Stu asked as she washed her hands at the scrub sink.
“I wouldn’t say I even picked up the bat.” Gabrielle tossed her head. “It’s all right. Que sera, sera.”
“You’re breaking my heart.”
“I’m not.” She smiled. “You’re as bad as Robyn and Kim. Except you just want me taken so I don’t go tagging along with you to all of LA’s hotspots.”
“That’s not true, Chef Royce.” Stu’s blue
eyes rolled. “No, okay, it is true. But you have to lift your head up one day and see that your career won’t vanish if you go on a date off the clock. One night, just put on something slutty and have a good time.”
“Or not put on something slutty, and have a good time anyway?”
“Brilliant.”
*
After taking a break to call the Belleza Medical Center to check up on Shoshanna and then to visit Kimberly Parker’s office for a much-needed friend-to-friend talk that had remained locked on Shoshanna’s incident and all the other recent spookiness, Gabrielle worked in the kitchen through the dinner rush. In recent weeks it had shifted to seven to nine. It was after ten-thirty when she took her jacket and purse and left the Pearl for the night.
Yawning, she opened the door to the stylish home-magazine condo that housed several members of the resort’s top employees. The place had amenities and luxuries her most fanciful dreams hadn’t imagined, and a view that for a good week had poked the sensitive side of her that cried over wonders like haunting fiction, bigheaded kittens and California dawns. Her neighbors were her two best friends. No hassled staff or overindulged celebrities could invade this space.
So she ought to be deliriously happy to turn on the lights, break out her favorite shower gel, wash the day away…and pass out cold at eleven o’clock on a balmy summer night.
Tomorrow she was expected to work a half day, as she was preparing a menu for a potential new client. At one o’clock she’d be meeting with him. An R&B mogul, her assistants had told her. A music producer. Jeffrey something. She tried to recall the name, but her brain was still poached. After some rest and perhaps a nice woodsy wine, she’d be on all cylinders again.
Showered and snuggled-up on the custom-designed upholstered sofa, her face peeking out from beneath a pillow just so she could clearly hear Guns N’ Roses on her Bluetooth speaker, she was fidgety.
“I’m exhausted but I can’t rest, and keyed up but I can’t do anything about it.” Gabrielle shoved the pillow aside and rolled off the sofa. Staring up at the leisurely whir of the Tahitian-style ceiling fan, she decided that in limbo was a hell of an awful place to be. Love had hit close to home, and soon Kimberly would be marrying a man who was meant for her in every conceivable way. Then Cupid would probably come a knockin’ on Robyn’s door. And that would leave Gabrielle left with the Pearl and a serious bout of happy-ever-after envy.
Hot Summer Nights Page 3
