by Amy Garvey
“Olivia’s fine.” She turned around and took a deep breath as he walked closer, those hound dog eyes fixed on her in confusion. “But I’m…not.”
Oh yeah. Real seductive.
But maybe it didn’t matter. Gus was near enough to touch now, and an amazing array of thoughts flashed in his eyes as Josie watched.
“You’re not?” He took her hand, and she was astounded to realize how big his hand felt, how warm and solid it was as it surrounded her fingers.
“No.” She turned her face up to him, and took another deep breath. “I…want to kiss you.”
His fingers tightened around hers. “You do?”
She nodded and took a step closer to him. “Uh-huh. In fact, I’m going to kiss you. Right now.”
Instead of the “You are?” she had expected, a slow, pleased smile lit his face as he murmured, “Oh good,” and put his arms around her.
She had to stretch up a little bit to reach him—he was taller than he seemed, especially when they were standing nose to nose. But he lowered his head to help her, and then they were kissing, his lips warm and firm against her, his arms holding her in place.
She’d worried that it might be weird. Unfamiliar, or awkward, at any rate. She didn’t go around kissing men out of the blue as a rule, even men she liked as much as she liked Gus. Kissing was usually an end-of-the-date thing, lubricated with a little wine and a few hours of working up to it.
But kissing Gus wasn’t weird—he tasted exactly the way she might have expected, if she’d thought about it beforehand. Warm and comfortable, and absolutely right.
Like coming home, she thought absently, as his hands slid up her back and his tongue licked sweetly at her bottom lip. Just exactly like coming home.
“I guess I should tell you that I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time, too,” he murmured, and trailed feathery kisses over her cheek and jaw. “You should get extra points for doing it first.”
“Yup,” she agreed with a smile, pulling away from him to take his hand and lead him into the bedroom. She stopped at the foot of the bed and kicked off her shoes. “I win.”
“You think?” He swallowed as he watched her unzip her skirt, but he toed off his sneakers and reached for his belt buckle. “We’ll see, huh?”
Naked but for her bra and panties, she climbed onto the bed and reached for him. “Yeah,” she said, grinning as he tugged his shirt over his head. She couldn’t wait to run her hands over his bare chest, and when he knelt on the bed in front of her, his fingers busy with the clasp of her bra, she whispered, “Kiss me again and we’ll call it a draw.”
Chapter 16
B loody sunshine, Rhys thought four days later as he paced the roof of the L.A. building where the Fork in the Road finale had been filmed. The sun was relentless, hot and bright and so sodding cheerful he was becoming a bit homicidal. Maybe he really was a true Londoner at heart. He would have given his left arm for a bit of drizzle.
Across the roof, his competitors, a San Francisco native named Marco and a very young woman from somewhere in the south named Elyse, were smoking cigarettes and leaning on the lip of the roof, watching the street below. It was just gone five, and the competition was finally over—the judges were downstairs deliberating even now.
At the moment, Rhys couldn’t be arsed to care who won the bloody thing. Much as he loved food, spending nine hours in the kitchen after three of the longest days of his life had about done him in. If someone asked him to choose an apple from among a pile of oranges right now he’d probably come up wrong.
His back ached, he’d burnt one hand on the handle of a hot pan, and a headache had lodged between his eyes, a dull, heavy pressure.
And the only thing he wanted by way of relief was a night in Olivia’s bed, with her stretched out beside him. No, that was bollocks. Just a moment to kiss her, feel her cool, smooth hand on his cheek and the soft give of her body against his, that was the cure.
Simple fact was, he missed her. Had missed her from the moment he tore down the gangway onto the plane four days ago, ignoring the irritation on the flight attendants’ faces. Kept waking up alone in his narrow dorm bed, wondering why she wasn’t there beside him. Kept picturing her face as he sliced peaches and chopped garlic.
Kept trying to ignore the ache in his chest when he thought of her, three thousand miles away from him.
As they had during the beginning of the competition, the contestants had been sequestered. That meant that calling anyone was off limits, but had that made it easier? Crikey, no.
Maybe because this time, as opposed to the first eight weeks of the show, he’d had someone he wanted to talk to.
In a few hours, this would all be over at any rate, he thought as he leaned back in the lounge chair he’d snagged. The judges—a renowned New York chef, a food writer, and a restaurateur with a dozen successful eateries to his name—would decide who had won, and the production crew would film the announcement and the contestants’ reaction.
Sneaking a glance across the roof, Rhys couldn’t imagine it would be Elyse. She was talented, yeah, but so young. Not innocent, though—she’d wielded her knives like a warrior all through the competition, talking trash about some of the others, making herself look good on camera whenever possible, and flipping her blond hair over her shoulders as if she were in a beauty pageant instead of a cookery competition.
Marco was far more experienced, and a bit easier going, but the man was all about the chile pepper. Rhys wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d turned up in one of his desserts. His culinary mantra seemed to be the hotter the better, and damn the poor fool who wasn’t ready for the heat.
“How do you think you did?” Marco called now, another cigarette lit, a pale stream of smoke issuing from it like a tail. His red-gold hair was spiked up like a parrot’s plumes.
“He’ll never tell,” Elyse laughed. Crikey, there she went with the famous hair flip. “He’s the original tight-lipped Brit.”
“It only matters what the judges think now, yeah?” Rhys said evenly. “But for the record, I was bloody brilliant.”
Marco snorted in surprise, but Elyse’s smile was patently false. She’d come on to him repeatedly since the competition started, long before he met Olivia, but he’d turned her down every time. There was no sense tangling up work and play, and Fork in the Road was very much work to Rhys.
That hadn’t mattered with Olivia, though, had it? He let his head fall back on the lounge chair, cursing the sun’s early evening warmth on his face. He’d worked the kitchen of the Coach and Four with hardly a word from her. And despite living right there in the building, at least for the duration, he’d never felt the need to escape at day’s end, had he?
His escape had been Olivia. Her soft voice, her warm brown eyes, her sweet, lush kisses, her hands on his skin…
His groin tightened uncomfortably at the thought, and he shifted in the chair, lowering his sunglasses into place over his closed eyes. Sod it all, he needed to concentrate. Any time now the judges were going to call them in and grill them about the choices they’d made in this final competition, and he needed to be ready.
The challenge had been what he’d expected—his vision for a restaurant of his own, accompanied by a five-course signature meal. Without meaning to, he’d pictured the inside of the Coach and Four, the way he would redesign it if given the chance, and the menu he would introduce there, featuring some of the things he’d made for the Halloween ball. It was American through and through, but with a funky twist, and with every course he’d heard Olivia’s sighing breaths of satisfaction as she tasted it.
A muse, he thought now. He’d gone and found himself a muse. At least he hoped that’s what she’d become. If he couldn’t drive her out of his head, using her for inspiration seemed only fitting.
He and Marco and Elyse had been given different areas of the enormous kitchen during the competition today, but he couldn’t have said what kind of food either of them had prepared. He hated com
parison, at any rate—he wanted to win or lose on his own merits.
No, sod that. He wanted to win.
A door opened at the far end of the roof, and Julie, one of the production assistants, called, “Okay, guys. Time to face the music. Come on in.”
Marco stood and brushed off his chef’s jacket, grinding his cigarette under the heel of his shoe. Elyse ran a hand through her hair, passing Rhys without a word as she followed Julie through the door.
“Luck,” Marco said and extended a hand.
“And to you, mate,” Rhys agreed. It wasn’t a lie, precisely. He hadn’t said what kind.
Down in the dining room, the remains of the contestants’ meals had been cleared away. The judges sat at a long table, their wineglasses still half full beside them, and smiled as the three chefs walked in.
“Good work, everyone,” Paula Chase said. “Congratulations for making it to this point in the competition.”
Richard Gorder and Jeff Felicia joined her in a round of applause, and they all bowed.
Get on with it, yeah? Rhys kept his smile in place as the judges began with a rundown of Marco’s meal, but he couldn’t concentrate on the details. Something about a Southwestern theme—what a shocker, Rhys thought with an inward roll of his eyes—and one miss with a rice dish that had been too soupy for their taste. When they moved on to Elyse’s fare, Rhys only kept from gritting his teeth with effort. She’d gone new-wave French, apparently, and fouled up her pastry course as well as the Provençale chicken entrée.
Bloody hell, he just didn’t care. He wanted to win, yeah, but he wanted to win and then fish his mobile phone out of his luggage and call Olivia.
“Rhys,” Paula said with a slow, satisfied smile. “Your take on modern American was really well done—maybe especially given the fact that you hail from the United Kingdom.”
Hail from the United Kingdom? Did she think that would sound sophisticated for the viewing audience? Doesn’t matter, he reminded himself, fixing his own smile firmly in place as she continued.
“The pork tenderloin with the roasted vegetables was absolutely my favorite,” she said, and turned to look at Richard. “It was moist, full of flavor, and perfectly plated. But I know the others have their own preferences.”
“I could eat the pumpkin ravioli every day,” Jeff told him, grinning over his folded hands, his gold watch flashing in the camera lights. “That and the turkey sausage were perfect beginnings to the meal.”
“I agree,” Richard chimed in, his neat goatee bobbing as he nodded. “And the dessert was the finishing touch. Showcasing all those American flavors with the pecans and the peaches, you really pulled out a showstopper for the finale.”
Without realizing it, Rhys’s pulse had kicked up. They liked his meal, all right. They’d fucking loved it, in fact. He fisted his hands behind his back, strung taut with anticipation.
“After much deliberation, we’d like to announce that Fork in the Road has a winner,” Paula said her gaze traveling over each of the contestants. “And the winner is…Rhys Spencer.”
He heard the words, recognized the sound of applause as the judges stood and clapped, but the truth hadn’t quite sunk in yet. He’d won, he told himself as Marco gave him a hug. He’d won. But as a grin spread over his face and he accepted the congratulations, he realized with a start that his only thought was, Wait until I tell Olivia.
“Are you telling me that the only thing you managed to do was cut the electricity and spill some paint?”
Seated at his desk, his chair turned toward the window, Stuart Callender addressed Marty and Davey in a tone Marty hadn’t heard before.
It sounded a little bit like a snake might, if snakes could talk, he thought, uncomfortably aware of a bead of sweat on his brow. Kind of a hiss.
He didn’t like it. But then, it was pretty clear Mr. Callender didn’t like them at the moment.
“We busted the dishwasher,” Davey said. Christ, he sounded like a pouting kid, Marty thought. “Fucked up dinner pretty good.”
After a moment’s silence, the chair swiveled toward them and Callender narrowed his eyes. “Fucked up dinner pretty good? Did you drop out of school in the eighth grade, Mr. O’Brian?”
Davey blinked, just like the asshole he was. “Ninth grade,” he muttered.
For a moment, Marty thought Callender was going to bust a vein screaming at them, but instead he smiled. A snake’s smile, Marty thought, swallowing hard. Vicious and thin.
“Well, think back to those glorious days, will you?” Standing up, Callender leaned over his desk, his fists planted on its smooth, shiny surface. “Think about all the trouble you might have caused, if you’d had the chance. Then take it a step further, yes? I want Olivia thwarted at every turn. I want her to give up, to give in. I want that place to be constant chaos. Do you understand me?”
Davey answered with a sullen nod, but Marty made sure to say, “Yes, sir.”
Callender was the boss, after all, and Marty knew in his bones the man liked to hear the proof of it out loud.
What sucked was working for him, this time around. The cash was great, sure, but every day he and Davey clocked in at the hotel, guilt crept over him like a rash. He liked Angel, and even more, he liked Olivia. He even liked the damn hotel.
He’d never worked in a place where you got treated like family right from the start. Hell, he’d never worked in a place like that at all. But Olivia was always checking in, handing out bottles of water or a tray of snacks from the kitchen, making sure they had their breaks and they knew to ask Angel for help if they needed it.
If he had his way, he’d quit Stuart Callender and keep his job at the hotel. Mopping floors and repairing molding and leaky faucets would be worth it if he didn’t have to think about Olivia’s face every time something went wrong.
Davey hadn’t mentioned the other afternoon, when they’d overflowed the toilets in the lobby rest room, or the day after the Halloween party when they’d trashed three guest rooms while the others were cleaning up from the ball.
Of course, neither of them mentioned that in each case, they’d been the ones cleaning up the mess, too, which kind of sucked.
The whole deal sucked, Marty thought as they walked out of Callender’s office and got into the elevator. And he didn’t feel even a twinge of remorse when he realized that he was rooting for Olivia to knock Callender off his high horse and stomp on him.
Ringing. Something was ringing, Olivia thought blearily, coming awake in the dark quiet of her apartment. She hit out for the alarm clock without thinking, and then realized it was the phone.
The phone? It was almost one in the morning, she saw when she blinked at the clock.
Oh God. As long as it wasn’t Angel or one of his crew reporting another disaster, she didn’t care who it was. She grabbed the receiver and mumbled, “Hello?”
“Liv?”
Liv? Her heart pounded in answer. No one called her Liv but Rhys, and unless she was dreaming that was his crisp British voice on the other end. Oh God. He’d called. He’d called.
“Liv? Are you there, love?”
Oh. Shoot. “I’m here,” she said, a ridiculous grin stretched across her face. “I’m…Wait, where are you? Are you still in L.A.?”
He chuckled, and she could picture the wicked curve of his lips as he did. “Yeah. Sorry, love. It must be—Oh, bloody hell, I didn’t look at the time. You were asleep, yeah?”
“That’s okay.” She hoped he couldn’t hear her yawning. And she wished she knew what to say. I love you? Come back, please? She could have described the last few days in detail, of course, but that would have involved little more than saying, “I missed you. And then I missed you some more. And then the toilets got backed up, and I missed you. And then I made more plans for the hotel and missed you…”
Silence.
She froze, blinking in the darkness, suddenly aware that the room was freezing, too. What happened to the heat? It definitely hadn’t been this cold when sh
e went to bed. She shivered, holding her breath, waiting, scrambling for something to say…
And Rhys said softly, “Liv? I won.”
“You won?” God, she’d actually squealed, she thought, sitting up straight. “You won! I knew it! I knew you would win!”
He laughed again, his voice low and husky, as if he’d been talking all night. “Well, it’s brilliant to hear you had faith in me. I wasn’t so sure there for awhile. It’s a secret, though—I’m not supposed to tell anyone, so the finale won’t get spoiled.”
God, he sounded so familiar, so close, she couldn’t quite believe he was all the way across the country. And he’d won! He’d won.
But…what did that mean?
“I’m so proud of you,” she said softly and tried to ignore the way her heart was fluttering. He’d won, and he’d called to share the news with her. She was thrilled for him, but more than anything else she wondered what this unexpected conversation meant.
He was silent for another moment, and when he spoke again his voice was even huskier. “Proud of me? That’s…Well, that’s a brilliant thing to hear, Liv. Thank you.”
“I mean it,” she said, and frowned when she saw Eloise hop onto the bedside table. “This is huge. You must be…Well, you must be absolutely over the moon.”
He laughed. “Over the moon? Yeah, there and back again.”
She swatted a hand at Eloise, who was nosing delicately around the glass of water Olivia had left on the table before she went to sleep. “Stop that,” she mouthed at the cat and shifted closer to the edge of the bed. Wow, it really was freezing. Her bare arm had goose bumps already, and she couldn’t imagine how chilly the floor was going to be. “So tell me about it,” she said to Rhys. “What did you make?”
