“It doesn’t seem large at all when we’re fully staffed and everyone’s doing a task. We push and yell and complain, but generally we all like each other and get over the cramped kitchen.” She put down her tablet. “Geoffrey, remember that chocolate sauce we were thinking about for the gala? What if you made it right now?”
“I don’t know how,” he responded slowly.
“You will. I’m going to show you.” She patted his chest. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t go with another restaurant? I’ll not only provide top-notch food, but I’m throwing in a cooking lesson. Roll up your sleeves and wash up at the scrub sink over there.”
When his hands were nice and soapy, she wiggled in to wash her own.
“You’ve been preparing food for most of the day and you’re going to give me a cooking lesson? That’s passion.”
“I love being a chef. Every day it’s almost surreal that this is my kitchen, that this world is mine.”
“So cooking professionally was something you fought for,” he said, rinsing and reaching for a paper towel.
“That’s exactly right.” The Royces hadn’t funded culinary school, but had instead shipped her off first to Harvard and then to Europe, hoping she’d come back to the States with her mind right and would attend graduate school to become either a doctor or a lawyer, as her brothers had. She’d resisted what her parents had wanted for her. That part of her life was the polar opposite of what she’d built here, so she kept her family out of the conversation. “Cutting into this industry wasn’t easy for me.”
“How’d you get your start?”
“Actually, my grandmother funded my culinary education. I couldn’t afford Le Cordon Bleu or any of my research. She gave me the money and it was up to me to make the most of it.” She smiled a little, thinking of her grandmother May. “I like to think I succeeded in that.”
“I’d say you did. My success wasn’t handed to me, either.”
“You’re as driven as I am.”
He nodded solemnly. “What else wasn’t easy, aside from the money factor?”
“There’s a lot of insincerity in culinary arts. Reminds me of the fashion world in many respects.” She dried her hands and started to pull the ingredients and utensils for the chocolate sauce. “Hey, what if we did something more with this? What about making it a peppermint sauce?”
“You’re the boss.”
“Oh, wow. You’re genuinely relinquishing control?”
“I’m not an idiot. This kitchen is your turf. I’m an interloper.”
“You are not. You’re a guest. And you’ve been delightful.” She paused with a saucepan in her hands. “I’m kind of having fun.”
“Spending the night in a kitchen figuring out menus and cooking chocolate sauce is a hell of a cry away from what I might be doing if I hadn’t met you. I’d be in somebody’s VIP lounge, surrounded by people who grin in my face while they’re holding the knife they want to put in my back.”
“That vicious, huh?”
“I wish the music industry was just ‘insincere.’”
She set up a prep station and set the pan on a burner. “So in the middle of backstabbers and gold-diggers are the rare gems who turn out to be great people to work with and who make you money. In the middle of the old boys’ network in the New York culinary world were chefs out to crush my spirit and cooking school students willing to sabotage one another for celebrity status. Could be because of my youth or my sex or the color of my skin, but I was very often shut out of opportunities. Before I began working for the resort, I was treated like a neophyte. But buried underneath all of that was food. The food is my reason for fighting through the hell.” Going to the prep station, she checked the ingredients. “Cooking has so many facets, but above everything I love the way a meal or even the aroma of one can elicit a memory.”
“What memory are you going to take away from peppermint sauce?” he asked. He didn’t look at her and she was glad, because her expression might betray her.
“Being with you.”
Well, she didn’t need her expression to give her away. Her voice did the honors.
“So to get started,” she rushed to say, “we want to achieve a sauce that has a silky texture. Now it’s time for you to make a decision. Peppermint extract is common, but some people experiment with vanilla. What’s your gut telling you?”
“That I’m hungry now, too.”
“Geoffrey,” she said on an exasperated sigh.
“Sorry. I am hungry, though. It’s all these ingredients and all the pictures we browsed online. I eat first with my eyes, then my nose, then my mouth gets in on the action.”
Kiss him. Right now.
She throttled the thought. Just because what he’d just said was exactly what she’d once told someone in cooking school years ago wasn’t cause to jump on him as if he was the last guy on earth. They were the only man and the only woman in the universe that was this kitchen.
“This won’t take long,” she promised. “If you follow my directions and this turns out perfect, I’ll feed you. So what’s it going to be? Peppermint extract or vanilla?”
“Make it peppermint. I’m going to want to pour this on some vanilla ice cream and don’t want overkill.”
“Okay, that’s sensible. Next lesson, we’re going to take some risks. You’re a big boy. You can handle it.”
As she guided him to stir in cocoa and salt, sugar and cream, they chatted at random and it felt as natural as it had to simulate dry-humping with him on the dance floor in the Ruby Retreat earlier tonight. Why was it so easy to be wrong? Why did it feel so exhilarating to be bad?
Somewhere in the process, she took the spoon and managed the constant stirring of the sauce. But he remained close, and the heat from his body rivaled the heat rising from the range.
“I want a taste, Gabby. Just one.”
“Better beware. It might be hotter than you can handle.” Giving the peppermint chocolate sauce another graceful stir, Gabrielle set the spoon on the ceramic cradle and faced Geoffrey.
Maybe she should’ve stayed where she was, confronting heat and flame. Then she wouldn’t have witnessed dark need drop over his expression, as though he accepted her warning as an invitation.
As long as she was on the “should’ve” train, she should’ve reconsidered this private baking lesson. Or at least considered why she’d changed out of her girl’s-best-friend T-shirt bra and boyfriend-style undies and into electric-blue lace before meeting him tonight.
Outside the sky was filled with secrets and silent, winking stars, and here in California’s most provocative kitchen was nothing to counteract her lust-spiced attraction to a man as bad for her as the decadence simmering in the saucepan. Nothing except a chocolate-smothered spoon.
“Well,” he said, as she picked up the spoon and held it out to ward him off while she tried to remember all the reasons why it’d be wrong to unbutton his expensive shirt and trace that buffet of muscle and almond-colored skin with her tongue, “I’m thinking there’re a couple of ways to find out.”
Gabrielle whirled to stir the sauce again. Work was the best distraction. Work was safe. Work was all she needed. “It’s not ready to be tasted, Geoffrey.”
“It is,” he said quietly. “All the ingredients are there. So first, a taste. Then I’m going to appreciate it and enjoy it.”
With a simmering saucepan in front of her, and Geoffrey Girard behind her, she was surrounded by heat. Taking the spoon, she escaped to the island. Somewhere under the array of pans and baking sheets was a countertop. “I wasn’t talking about the chocolate.”
Geoffrey cut the space between them, giving the spoon a single lick before taking it from her. Gabrielle hardly registered the noise of bakeware striking the floor, because desire drowned her every sense as he seized her hips, hefted her onto the stainless steel and licked into her needy mouth. “Neither was I.”
She was more ready for him than she would’ve ever believed. Her tongue lapped
at the sauce on his, her short fingernails dug into his shoulders. She wanted to claw through the expensive fabric to touch his bare skin.
This was their universe, wasn’t it? So if she wanted to touch him, it was her right.
“Damn,” he moaned. “Those red lips. Those beautiful red lips. I’ve been wanting to kiss you every other minute since I saw your mouth tonight.”
“You’re messing up my lipstick.”
“I don’t care.” He roughly began to peel open her shirt, revealing the lace bra. “Do you?”
“Uh-uh. Actually, I care more about the fact that I have a need to get my hands on your body and you still have your clothes on. It’s kind of a problem for me. So could you—”
“Chef Royce? Is there a problem— Whoa!”
Gabrielle squeaked and shoved at Geoffrey, but the night watchman who’d greeted her at the door had already come into the kitchen to get a clear, unmistakable view of her sitting half-naked on a counter with a music mogul between her legs.
“Shit!” she blurted, then covered her mouth with both hands when it would’ve done her more good to close her shirt. “He caught us doing it.”
“We didn’t get that far,” Geoffrey said wryly, letting her hop off the counter.
“I heard the crash,” the guard said. His face was calm except for the deep ruddiness coloring his cheeks. “Uh, the Parkers doubled up on security after the fire and everybody’s extra cautious with the stuff that’s been happening.”
“We knocked over some pans,” she said lamely. “I’m sorry.”
“Whatever you’re boiling here? It doesn’t look too good.”
The sauce! What had gotten into her? She knew what had been about to get into her, but as Geoffrey had said, they didn’t get that far.
“Anybody been stirring this?” the guard asked, turning off the burner. “Not to tell you how to do your job, Chef Royce, but when it comes to sauce, you gotta keep stirring.”
“I’m aware of that.” I got distracted trying to screw Geoffrey Girard while also baking peppermint chocolate sauce. Multitasking isn’t for the weak.
“Uh,” the guard said, “your shirt.”
She pinched the front together while grabbing a clean spoon and taking it to the range. “Thank you, but I’ve got things under control now.”
“You sure?” His narrow-eyed glance landed on Geoffrey, then back.
“I’m sure.” She wouldn’t lose herself with Geoffrey. It was more dangerous than she’d expected. She’d left sauce burning in a pan and had gotten caught with her hands full of his shirt. She’d better have things under control. “There was no incident here, so if you could give me your discretion, I’d be grateful.”
Again he looked at the two of them, then he sighed. “All right. No incident, nothing to report to nobody.”
“Thank you.” When he left, she studied the contents of the saucepan then faced Geoffrey. “This didn’t turn out the way I thought it would. I don’t think we should do this again.”
“You didn’t become a master chef by giving up after the first try.”
“Not the chocolate sauce. I’m talking about the night.” It was cowardly of her, but she avoided his eyes. “I’ll clean this up. You should go. Since you’re checking out tomorrow—oh, technically today—we should communicate by phone and email and you can get a hold of my assistant to schedule the next appointment. We should also be keeping our lead event planner in the loop.”
“Back to strictly business, Gabrielle?”
“I’ve never burned sauce and gotten caught with my bra out when I was strictly business with a client, so yes. Strictly business.” She waited until she heard the doors open with a swish and his footsteps fade before she said, “Good night, Geoffrey.”
Chapter 6
Geoffrey had messed up. He’d fallen for a woman desperate to resist what they mutually wanted and now he couldn’t even move on. Only hours after leaving Gabrielle at the Pearl, he leaned against the doorjamb of his rental cottage at the Belleza and watched his neighbor sashay away, taking her smooth long legs and kinky proposition with her.
At five o’clock this morning she’d begun mixing cocktails on her balcony. He knew that because dreams starring a very unattainable woman had forced him out of bed and to his living area to work out his frustrations on his dumbbells and bench press. The resort had a state-of-the-art gym, but he wasn’t in the mood for conversation. At some point his neighbor had noticed the lights on in his cottage and made a trip across the courtyard clad in nothing more than a red silk bathrobe and a sly grin on her deep brown face.
And he’d declined her offer. Stupid. The twinkle in her eyes and the way she trailed a pink lacquered nail down his sweat-dampened chest told him she was fully capable of giving him a better workout than his weight bench.
But when he looked at her his raw male instincts suddenly shut off. Dora Truman was all wrong for the part. She was a few inches too tall, her hair the wrong color and her voice far too eager. Since the day he checked in and accidentally caught full view of her sunbathing stark naked on her balcony, he’d been curious about the woman other neighbors referred to as erratic and a charity case with more money than brains. As simple as it would’ve been to take her up on her offer, having her on a silver platter didn’t stir a reaction.
Dora wasn’t the woman he’d dreamed about introducing to completely untamed, and in some states illegal, sex.
That woman was cautiously making her way to his door. As the two women passed each other, Gabrielle paused to respond to something Dora said. Her soft laughter sounded strained and polite and wrapped around Geoffrey.
“Morning.” When she didn’t answer right off, he nudged the door open wider and offered, “Why don’t you come in and have a cup of coffee while I hop in the shower for a sec?”
“I can say my piece quickly and leave.” She plastered an incredibly fake smile to her face. “Obviously, I’m interrupting something.” Her gaze wandered to the uncovered picture windows in his living room and landed on Dora, who had now returned to her cocktails. “She looks like she’s not planning to drink alone. Were you going to go over there and join her?”
“I told you I don’t drink often. Especially not at sunrise when I have a drive to Beverly Hills ahead of me.”
Yanking himself from a memory of Gabrielle in his arms at the Pearl, he forced a cough to clear his throat. He looked at her to read her thoughts but ended up focusing on the enticing way her slinky white top clung to her torso and how her designer jeans hugged her hips just right. It would be so easy to forget his purpose and just kiss her. One little taste was all he needed to soothe the boil of his blood.
Gabrielle met his gaze dead-on. “She’s pretty. Extravagant. An extrovert. She’s your type, you know.”
“You said that about Charlene.”
“Your neighbor fits the profile, too. Your type is uncomplicated. Easygoing. Decisive when it comes to finding a man they want and going after him. I’m not like that.” A slight frown had worked its way to her lush mouth, and her shoulders, bared by the skimpy cut of her top, were rigid with tension.
Could it be…? Geoffrey’s eyes flickered behind Gabrielle to Dora’s front porch and his ego purred like a kitten. She was jealous. “Dora’s friendly.”
“That she is,” she said. She shifted her oversized tote bag against her side and cast a leisurely look from his head down.
Immediately, he became fully conscious that he was standing a few feet from her shirtless, rumpled and sweaty. “I was going to shower but Dora came over and now you.”
“Uh, I’m intruding. I just got the idea to come here and talk to you, but this is a bad time. Your basic hygiene overrules my need to babble an apology for what happened at the restaurant.”
“You were going to apologize to me?”
“Yeah.”
“Then don’t leave. Be back in five,” he said.
“No, ten. You need to shave. You look dangerous. You look like a threat
to my virtue.”
“I’m getting damn good at deciphering your sarcasm.”
“Good for you.”
He ignored the clipped edge in her tone. He didn’t want to provoke an argument. It would only make extracting that apology from her more difficult. And he could do without more difficulties. “Go ahead and have a seat. Remote’s on the coffee table and there’s coffee in the kitchen.”
Her shoes clicked against the hardwood floor as she headed to the door. “Thanks, but no. I’ll wait in my truck until you’re ready to hear what I came here to say.”
“No problem here. Shut the door behind you.” With that, he strode off down the short hallway and went into the bathroom.
*
Gabrielle had gone from in control to out of control in sixty flat. She hurried down the front walk of the cottage, sucking in what was supposed to be a deep cleansing breath but ended up filling her lungs with the scent of saltwater, charcoal and grilled meat—a weird combo for such an early hour. She glanced over her shoulder at Geoffrey’s rental cottage.
She’d come so close to launching at him and demanding that he take her. That would’ve been a horrible choice, being that probably no less than a half hour ago that Dora woman was wrapped around him like a ribbon.
It crushed her balloon of hope that he was still interested in her, but at the same time it sort of relieved her. The thought of him sleeping with someone else kept her focused on what her objective was: to make his company’s gala a perfect event and promote the Belleza without letting anyone or anything get in her way.
If only she could brush off the part of her that went certifiable whenever he was near. The way his eyes flickered, how his muscles bunched when he crossed his arms, and the sexy half smile his mouth curved into when he was being a cocky jerk completely turned her on.
Apparently, it also turned on Neighbor Dora.
Gabrielle leaned her backside against the side of her car, grabbed her cell phone and dialed her assistant’s number, trying hard not to compare herself to Geoffrey’s Barbie-esque neighbor. When an automated voice mail greeted her, she put the phone in her bag and compared away. Dora was super tall and Gabrielle was not. Dora probably wore an E-cup, and Gabrielle filled a 32B. Dora was obviously a woman who went after whatever and whomever she wanted.
Hot Summer Nights Page 9
