His gaze cut back to mine. We stared at each other, tension crackling like a live wire between us. I got the feeling he didn’t quite know what to do with me, the feisty little nobody with the big mouth. And I certainly didn’t know what to do with him.
I inhaled a steadying breath. Though this man could start an argument in an empty house, bickering with him wouldn’t get me anywhere. And I couldn’t risk him getting teed off enough to fire me. I needed the money too much.
“Look. All this food I’ve proposed”—I pointed at the pages in his hands—“was chosen specifically because it would pair well with and highlight the unique aspects of the various lines of bourbon that you sell.”
“That my family sells,” he corrected acidly.
Well fry my bacon. Talking to this man about bourbon was like navigating my way through a minefield. Whatever the story was behind his attitude toward his family business, it was a doozy.
“Excuse me,” I said primly. “That your family sells. My idea was that since you were putting on this event, as opposed to Joe Billionaire whose family makes urinal cakes, it would be nice to showcase the artistry and craftsmanship of your family’s products. I think it would be a real treat for your guests, make it more personal. I mean, if you’re going to all this trouble to make this event special, why not dazzle them with all the bells and whistles? Show them what the Boudreaux family name stands for. Show them what two hundred years of perfecting the craft of distilling tastes like. Give ’em the steak, not just the sizzle!”
He looked at me, looked down at the menu, heaved a sigh that sounded like he was deflating, and then raked both hands through his hair.
“Christ,” he muttered, lacing his hands behind his head, “would my father love you.”
That sounded distinctly like an insult, but I sensed a chink in his armor, so I forged ahead. “With the passed hors d’oeuvres, we’ll start with a sparkling prosecco-based cocktail featuring the silver-label bourbon. It’s called an Old Cuban . . . you’ll love it.”
When his brows lowered, indicating he doubted very much that he would love it, I hurried on.
“And we’ll have a classic mojito using Boudreaux Special Select white rum, which will pair wonderfully with the first course. The main course features braised beef, which will be delicious with the black label—all that smoky, muscular character will really bring out the flavors in the meat—and for dessert we can make a Honey-Hattan with the honey bourbon to pair with the ginger-orange cheesecake. My mouth is watering just thinking of it!”
Jackson stared at me for so long I thought I might have fallen asleep and missed something. Then he said, “You actually do love my family’s bourbon, don’t you?”
He said it like that made me really strange, which was confusing. “Don’t you?”
That angry muscle in his jaw made its reappearance, flexing like mad. “Sure, the same way I love getting a root canal.”
The amount of family drama contained in that sentence could choke an elephant.
I noticed that sometime during our meeting, Rayford had disappeared.
“Mr. Boudreaux, I know what I’m doing. It’s really difficult to pair cocktails with food, especially through an entire meal, which is another thing that’s going to make it so special. I’ll bet good money that none of your guests has ever had a curated bourbon pairing with a four-course dinner. Trust me. It’s going to be fantastic. And the better they think it is, the bigger they’ll open their wallets. Which is really the whole point, right?”
His look was intense and unwavering, with that gripping sense of concentrated attention that was so heavy and intimate it was almost like a touch.
It was almost sexual.
“Call me Jackson,” he said abruptly.
Gently, with a smile, I replied, “If I wanted to call you Jackson, I would have, Mr. Boudreaux.”
His intense look turned burning. “I suppose I deserve that,” he said gruffly. “In my defense, I’d had a terrible day when we first met. I might have been a little more blunt than usual.”
I laughed. “Blunt? Try tactless! Try rude! And by the way, other people have bad days all the time and don’t turn into high-and-mighty mood monsters and start insulting everyone in sight. It’s called common courtesy.”
He didn’t move. He didn’t so much as bat a lash. He simply said, “If you were mine, I’d take you over my knee for that little speech.”
I nearly fell off the stool.
Before I could recover my wits, a towheaded child about three or four years old burst into the kitchen, singing “Jingle Bells” at the top of his lungs.
And then a miracle occurred. Jackson “the Beast” Boudreaux’s face split into a huge, genuine smile.
“Cody!” He leapt from the stool and picked up the child in a bear hug.
I watched in six different kinds of shock as the child put his little arms around Jackson’s neck and screamed in glee while Jackson spun him around and around, that happy grin still plastered on his face.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Boudreaux, he just got away from me!”
A harried, fiftyish blonde woman ran into the kitchen, panting. She had food stains on her blouse, hair escaping in every direction from her ponytail, and looked as if she hadn’t slept in about a year. Immediately I felt sorry for her.
“It’s all right, Charlie. Have a seat. I’ll take him.”
Jackson kissed Cody on the cheek and then lifted him straight up in the air, making the boy scream in delight again.
Not that I was about to ask, but the boy’s fair coloring indicated Jackson was most likely not his father. And his distinctive facial features indicated he had Down syndrome.
Charlie, who I guessed was Cody’s nanny, glanced at me. “Oh, no, sir, I can see you’re busy.”
Jackson growled, “I said sit.”
Without further argument, Charlie gratefully collapsed onto the stool next to mine. “Good morning,” she said, brushing a few stray blonde wisps from her face. “I’m Charlotte Harris.”
I shook her extended hand. “Bianca Hardwick. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Charlie’s face brightened. “You’re the new chef! Oh, thank heavens. I’m afraid my repertoire goes about as far as scrambled eggs and toast. Poor Mr. Boudreaux has been surviving on scraps since Gregory quit, and I—”
“She’s only helping with the benefit, Charlie,” said Jackson, casually tossing Cody over his shoulder. He stood holding him with one strong arm wound around the boy’s back and one hand propped on his hip, like a proud lumberjack bringing in his haul of wood.
It was adorable.
A word I never in a million years would’ve thought I’d use to describe Jackson Boudreaux.
For his part, Cody loved it. He hadn’t stopped singing, laughing, or screaming happily since he’d come into the room. He bubbled with energy. I could see why Charlie was so tired.
I said, “Well, since I’m here, would you like me to make something for lunch?”
Charlie looked like I’d just told her she’d won a million dollars. “Oh, no, I couldn’t ask you to do that,” she said, her eyes begging me to contradict her.
I smiled and squeezed her shoulder. “Sure you could. Sit a spell and let me see what’s in that airplane hangar of a refrigerator.”
I stood. Jackson and I locked eyes, and something deep in my belly fluttered. Is he angry? What’s that look he’s giving me?
I froze, uncertain if I’d just crossed a line. “I mean . . . unless you’d rather I didn’t.”
Jackson carefully set Cody on his feet. As soon as his little shoes touched the ground, he launched himself at me, arms held out, fingers grasping.
“Lady!” he shouted. “Hi, lady!”
He slammed into my leg, hooked his chubby arms around it, tilted his head back, and smiled up at me. I smiled back at him.
“Hi, Cody. I’m Bianca.” I reached down and ruffled his hair, fine as chick fluff.
Cody shouted, “Jingle bells!�
�� and laughed.
Jackson said quietly, “Yes, Miss Hardwick. I think we would all like that very much.”
I realized he’d just let Cody decide whether or not I should stay and make them lunch. Whoever this boy was to him, Jackson obviously loved him.
Why that affected me I don’t know, but it did, deeply. I looked up at Jackson and said impulsively, “Please, call me Bianca.”
His lips twitched. His eyes burned. He sent me a small, curt nod. I turned away before he could see how my face flamed with heat.
Then I set about making lunch, trying all the while not to recall the way his eyes had looked when he’d said If you were mine.
BIANCA’S OLD CUBAN
Makes 1 serving
2 ounces prosecco
1½ ounces bourbon
1 ounce simple syrup
¾ ounce fresh lime juice
2 dashes Angostura bitters
fresh mint leaves to garnish
Preparation
Combine all ingredients except prosecco in a shaker and fill with ice.
Shake vigorously to chill.
Strain into a chilled coupe glass.
Top with prosecco and garnish with mint.
Simple Syrup Preparation
Combine 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water in saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat. Store leftovers in airtight container in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.
NINE
JACKSON
My father once told me the only difference between a woman and a man-eating shark was the size of their teeth.
At the time I’d agreed with him. I’d had good reason to. But watching Bianca Hardwick move gracefully around my kitchen, making us lunch while chatting animatedly with Charlie and interacting with Cody as if she’d known him since birth, made me think that might have been too harsh a judgment.
And no shark on earth had an ass like Bianca’s.
Besides being a fucking masterpiece of design, the damn thing was an eyeball magnet. I’d already caught myself half a dozen times ogling it, my dick twitching under my zipper like some horny teenager’s. Even those hideous brown work pants she favored that looked like they were made from old potato sacks couldn’t diminish its appeal.
It was so round, like an apple. So taut and smooth. I wanted to bend her over the stool, yank those pants down her hips, and sink my teeth into it. I wanted to squeeze it and kiss it and stroke it and—
Christ, what was the matter with me?
Get a grip on yourself, Jackson!
“—like some pepper?”
I snapped back to myself just as Bianca was asking me a question. Something about pepper. I couldn’t quite remember because all the blood in my head had gone south.
“What? What did you say?”
Bianca tilted her head and gazed quizzically at me from under a pair of long, curving black lashes. “I said would you like some fresh-ground pepper with your pasta?”
She held my pepper mill in her hands. In front of me was a bowl of something that smelled delicious. I had no idea how long I’d been zoned out in Pert Ass Land, but I felt like I’d been caught red-handed. So I answered more forcefully than I probably should have.
“No!”
Bianca blinked. Her brows arched. She said, “Allrighty then. No need to alert the entire state.”
She turned to Charlie and asked the same question and received a far more polite response.
“I’d love some pepper, thank you! This smells amazing, Bianca.”
“There wasn’t much left in the fridge,” said Bianca, smiling, “but pasta and a few sautéed veggies always makes for a quick and tasty meal.”
“Sweet of you to make Cody mac and cheese,” said Charlie, nodding in Cody’s direction. He sat across from me at the island, happily slurping up cheese-covered pasta from a spoon and banging his feet against the metal legs of his stool.
“In my experience, kids will always go for a bowl of mac and cheese, no matter how much of a picky eater they are.”
“Do you have little ones?” asked Charlie.
The question startled me.
I guessed Bianca wasn’t married because she didn’t wear a ring, but that didn’t mean she was childless. She could be divorced. She could be a single mom. She could be all kinds of things my inner caveman instantly decided needed protecting.
Bianca laughed. “I don’t, much to my mama’s disappointment.”
Then her laughter died. Her face did something strange. Her eyes registered pain for a moment, but then she squared her shoulders and smiled.
It looked forced.
I resisted the urge to ask what was wrong, because clearly something was. But I knew she wouldn’t tell me. And besides, she was my employee now. I needed to stop thinking about her glorious ass and fixing whatever problems she might have and keep it professional.
Someone needed to tell that to my cock, because he wasn’t listening to me. Pert Ass Land was too much of a temptation.
Bianca said, “Someday, though, hopefully. I love kids.”
She loves kids. She looks like that and she loves to read and she cooks like a three-Michelin-star chef and she loves kids.
And she’s made it perfectly clear she can’t stand me.
I shoveled pasta into my mouth to stifle the groan breaking from my chest.
Bianca walked over to Cody and ruffled his hair. He grinned at her, cheese smeared all over his chin and most of his hands. Then she rinsed the dishes in the sink and loaded them into the dishwasher, like she’d been preparing meals in my kitchen for years.
I stared at her for a moment, surprised by how much I liked having her in this space. And it wasn’t just her spectacular ass that made me feel that way. It was her.
Mouthy, bossy, yet surprisingly non-shark-like her.
Who can’t stand me.
Who was now in my employ.
Goddamnit.
“And now I really need to get back to the restaurant. I’ll give both coordinators a call this afternoon,” she said, turning to me, “and let you know if I have any other questions.”
“Fine,” I growled into my bowl of delicious pasta. Then, because my dick was throbbing and she was leaving when I wanted her to stay and I fucking hate feeling confused and I’m shit with good-byes, I snapped, “Rayford will give you the check for your fee on your way out.”
Even with a solid slab of marble separating us, I felt Bianca’s anger flare at the sharp, dismissive tone I’d used. I glanced up to find her staring at me with fire burning in those beautiful, dark eyes.
“It’s always a pleasure, Mr. Boudreaux,” she said with quiet sarcasm.
And we’re back to Mr. Boudreaux. Fuck.
She exchanged good-byes with Charlie and then turned and walked out.
I swear I tried not to stare at her ass as she went, but even Achilles had a weakness.
TEN
BIANCA
The first thing I did after Rayford dropped me off at the restaurant was hustle over to the bank to deposit Jackson’s check into my mama’s account. We’d scheduled her initial round of chemo for a few days away, and I didn’t want to take any chances that Jackson, in one of his inexplicable beastie moods, would put a stop payment on the check.
With that done, I felt better.
Until I ran smack into my ex in the bank’s parking lot. Literally into him.
The noise I made when I collided with his chest was something so unladylike my mama would’ve pitched a hissy fit if she’d heard it. It was part grunt, part groan, and part something that sounded like it shot out of my butthole on a hot burst of air, excuse my French. Hands flailing, I dropped my pocketbook on the ground and stumbled back in surprise.
“Whoa!” A pair of strong hands gripped my upper arms to steady me. “Easy, girl. I know I’m handsome as sin, but there’s no need to throw yourself at me.”
I looked up—and there he was. The Devil himself. Beautiful as a sculpture and just
as soulless.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” I shrugged off Trace’s hands. “I just wasn’t watching where I was going.”
Looking me up and down, Trace smiled.
Let me put that in perspective.
Trace looks like Denzel Washington, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Momoa, and a hot Tahitian swimsuit model had a wild orgy and nine months later he popped out, with equal parts of all their perfect genes. When he smiles at you, it feels like the clouds suddenly opened up on a rainy day and a sunbeam illuminated your head in a brilliant, heavenly glow.
You feel special. You feel like a special little snowflake twinkling in the sun, until you realize he smiles that way at every single woman he comes into contact with, and then you just feel like a dope.
He said, “Where you going in such a hurry, bumble bee?”
Hearing him call me by my old nickname made me grind my back teeth together. “Away from you,” I said, and picked up my purse. When I straightened and moved to go around him, Trace stepped in my way.
“Wait,” he said, suddenly serious. “I want to talk to you.”
“No.” I tried to move past him again, but he didn’t let me.
“Bianca, please,” he said in a low, pleading tone I’d never heard. “I really want to talk to you.”
I looked him right in his eyes. In his gorgeous, caramel-flecked-with-gold eyes that used to be able to coerce me into anything. Not anymore.
I said, “I know you’re not really clear on this, Trace, so let me break it down for you. When a woman says no, she doesn’t mean yes. She doesn’t mean maybe. She doesn’t mean please try to talk me out of it because I really don’t mean it, but I just want you to work a little harder. She means no. N. O. Now get out of my way.”
“But you never gave me a chance to explain—”
“Explain! ” Astonished by his nerve, I laughed. “Explain what? That you tripped and fell and your penis accidentally landed inside my best friend? And the checkout girl at Halley’s Market? And the waitress at Dooley’s? And whoever the bimbo was who kept texting you for a booty call at two a.m.? That’s a lot of tripping, Romeo. You need to see a doctor for your balance problem.”
Burn for You (Slow Burn Book 1) Page 9
