¼ cup shortening
1 quart vegetable oil
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
Preparation
Mix water, sugar, and yeast in large bowl and let sit for 10 minutes.
In another bowl, beat the eggs, salt, and evaporated milk together. Stir egg mixture into yeast mixture.
Add 3 cups of the flour to the egg/yeast mixture. Stir to combine.
Add the shortening and mix. Continue to stir while slowly adding the remaining flour until all ingredients are well combined.
Place dough on lightly floured surface and knead until smooth.
Cover dough with plastic wrap or towel. Let rise at room temperature for 2–3 hours.
Preheat oil in a deep fryer to 350 degrees.
Roll the dough out to ¼² thickness and cut into 2² squares. Deep fry in batches, flipping constantly, until golden. (If beignets don’t pop up, oil isn’t hot enough.)
Drain on paper towels.
Shake confectioners’ sugar onto hot beignets. Serve warm.
NINETEEN
BIANCA
I left the same way I arrived: in a cab, by myself, fraught with anxiety.
If my mother knew what I’d just agreed to, she’d slap me silly.
She knew I’d gotten the twenty thousand from Jackson for the catering event, but admitting I’d be getting a million for marrying myself off to him so I could try to save her life was another situation altogether.
Knowing there would be a nondisclosure in our contract was actually a relief. It meant I had a legal obligation to keep my mouth shut about my real reason for marrying the Beast.
Now I just had to figure out what fake reason I was going to try to sell.
“He’s so charming I couldn’t help but fall in love with him, Mama!” I muttered sarcastically to myself. The cabbie shot me a strange look in the rearview mirror, but I had more important things to worry about than his opinion. Before I left, Jackson told me that we had to be married and living together by his birthday, which was in just over two weeks.
Two weeks. I had to think fast.
“Unplanned pregnancy?” I mused, garnering another stare from the cabbie. I thought about it a moment, then shook my head. “Not unless you want to pretend you’ve been sleeping with a man everyone thinks you hate and then fake a miscarriage in a few months.” I sighed, watching sunlight glitter off the lake as we sped by. “Temporary insanity? Hmm. Probably the most reasonable explanation, other than suffering a recent head injury. Lord, this is bad. How am I gonna get anyone to believe I married him for love when all we do is fight?”
The cabbie, a young black man wearing a New Orleans Saints cap backward, said, “Slap, slap, kiss.”
Startled, I looked at him. “Excuse me?”
He grinned, exposing an impressive set of gleaming white teeth. “It’s a popular film and TV trope where the writers put two characters who can’t stand each other in close quarters and let them verbally spar, until one of them suddenly kisses the other, and they both realize they’ve had mad sexual chemistry all along and the fighting was just a cover for it.”
I stared at him with my mouth open.
He shrugged. “Just brainstorming with you. I’m a writer. Or trying to be. I spend lots of time studying this trope stuff. It’s actually how stories are told. Even Shakespeare is filled with tropes.”
I said drily, “You don’t say.”
“Oh yeah,” he replied vigorously, warming to the subject. “For instance, Much Ado About Nothing? That play is stuffed so full of tropes you could choke on them! But the bottom line is that two of the main characters, Beatrice and Benedick, have this history of seriously hating on each other, but everyone else can see they’re perfectly matched. I mean, the opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference. They wouldn’t fight so much if they didn’t care so much, right?”
I said, “It sounds like a really dysfunctional relationship, if you ask me.”
The cabbie’s grin grew wider. “Yeah, but all the best ones are. It’s not true love if you don’t want to kick his teeth in every once in a while.”
According to that definition, Jackson and I were a match made in heaven.
I was silent for the rest of the ride home, grateful for the time to think. When I got home, I changed into my work clothes and headed over to Mama’s to check in on her before I went to the restaurant.
And nearly had a stroke when I saw the motorcycle parked at the curb outside her house.
“Why that low-down, dirty dog!” I said, staring in outrage at Trace’s bike. Then I marched up the stairs and barged into the house.
Mama and Trace were sitting in the front parlor drinking tea, smiling and chatting, thick as thieves. They broke off when I came in.
“Well here she is now!” said Mama, setting her teacup on the table beside her chair, which had a huge bouquet of fresh flowers on it that Trace had obviously brought. “Your ears must’ve been burning, chère, we were just talking about you!”
I glared at Trace. “I don’t know about my ears, but my ass is certainly on fire!”
“Bianca!” Mama exclaimed, scandalized. She lifted a hand to her throat. “I did not raise you to speak like that! You apologize right this minute!”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Hardwick. It’s probably just the new influence in her life,” drawled Trace, rising from his chair. He smirked at me. “I hear that Jackson Boudreaux fella Bianca’s been spending time with has really earned his nickname.”
“One more word, Trace,” I said, “and I’m gonna get my daddy’s gun out of the garage and turn you from a rooster to a hen with one shot.”
“Now stop it, Bianca, I won’t have this kind of behavior in my home!”
Mama’s voice was loud, but wavered. When I looked at her, she appeared to be struggling for breath. She tried to rise from her chair but swayed unsteadily. I rushed over and helped her ease back down.
“What are you doing out of bed, Mama?” I said crossly, kneeling in front of her.
She was indignant at being treated like a baby. “I’m sick of being in bed, Bianca, and I’m feeling a little better today, so I got up and had breakfast. Then Trace called and asked if he could come by, and I was in the mood for a little visiting, so I said yes.”
“It’s real nice you’re taking such good care of your mama, Bianca,” said Trace.
I froze. “What?”
“Since she’s been so sick,” he explained. “You know, with the flu?”
My mother and I shared a look, and my shoulders sagged in relief. The last person on the planet I wanted to know about Mama’s illness was Trace. Obviously she’d fed him the same line she’d been feeding everyone else.
Though I doubted anyone had ever heard of any flu that made all your hair fall out.
I said, “Right. The flu. It’s been going around.” I stood, holding onto Mama’s hand, and stared at Trace. “So you were just leaving, right?”
Trace crossed his arms over his chest and smiled at me. With his tight jeans and his perfect face and his biceps popping out from under the sleeves of his painted-on T-shirt, he looked like he should be on the cover of a romance novel. I wanted to take off my shoe and smack a dent in the middle of his forehead.
He said, “Actually I was just telling your mama about the new business I started.”
I looked at the ceiling, praying to God for restraint.
In the three years Trace and I had spent together, he’d started—and abandoned—a dozen businesses or more. A mobile car wash. A vitamin line. A motorcycle courier service. A new energy drink, because God knew the market didn’t have enough of those. Inevitably his new pursuits required an influx of cash, and guess who the lucky “investor” was?
Yes. Me. Gullible, stupid-in-love, working-three-jobs-to-save-for-a-restaurant me.
I said flatly, “Another new business. How thrilling for you.”
Trace’s smile grew wider. He said, “It is, actually. It’s the one we always talked about starting t
ogether. You remember, bumble bee?”
My whole body went cold. “No,” I said, but my voice sounded dead.
He nodded, pleased as punch with himself. “Sure you do! A restaurant. Got a few investors with some serious cheese, just signed the lease on the space. We’ll be opening up next month. Right down the street from your place, as a matter of fact. We’ll be neighbors!”
Shocked into silence, I stared at him.
Mama said, “Why that’s wonderful, Trace!” She squeezed my hand, trying to get me to look at her, but all I could do was stare in disbelief at the Benedict Arnold who used to be my man.
Who, in a few short weeks, was going to be my competition.
Because I’d already put Mama through her paces by saying my ass was on fire, I didn’t want to make a stink in front of her about this awful piece of news. So I put a smile on and said pleasantly to Trace, “Isn’t that nice. Would you mind if I talked to you outside for a minute?”
My invitation brought a smug look to his eyes, like he knew it was only a matter of time before I came to my senses.
He wouldn’t be so smug if he knew I was picturing severing his genitals from his body with a pair of pruning shears, but Trace never was very good at reading people. He always assumed everyone had the same high opinion of him that he had of himself. Right now he was probably thinking I wanted to get him outside so I could throw myself at his feet and beg to be part of his new endeavor.
“Of course,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. He turned to Mama and said, “Always a pleasure to see you, Mrs. Hardwick.”
“And you, Trace,” she said, shooting me a glance that said be nice.
He might not know what was in store for him, but Mama obviously did.
Trace held the door open for me on the way out. He walked behind me down the porch steps. When I stopped at the sidewalk, he stopped, too. Then he looked down at me and smiled his heartbreaker smile and proved exactly how dumb he was.
“I was just about to ask your mama for some of her recipes when you came in.”
If the top of my head were a volcano, it would’ve exploded with a fountain of flaming orange magma so huge the entire southern United States would be wiped from the map.
My voice shaking with fury, I said, “If you ever come near her again, I’ll break into your house when you’re not home and replace all your shampoo with hair remover.”
Trace blinked. His sculpted eyebrows pulled together.
I pointed my finger in his face. “You’re a liar. And a cheater. And I don’t care how much you screech about finding God, a leopard doesn’t change his spots. I know all your tricks, Trace Adams. I know all your tells. And I know that you getting into the restaurant business has nothing to do with new investors and everything to do with trying to outdo me and prove that I made a mistake when I kicked your sorry behind to the curb.”
Trace shrugged. “Well, you did.”
I made a sound of astonishment. “You’re unbelievable.”
He reached up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear, but I swatted his hand away. He said, “I know I made my mistakes, too, but I want to put all that behind us.” His voice grew stroking. “C’mon, bumble bee. I know you still have feelings for me, or you never would’ve kissed that asshole in the car the other night. That’s not your style.”
Blood pounded in my face, in my ears, through every vein in my body.
I shouted, “That asshole is my fiancé!”
I wished I had a camera. His look of shock was worth preserving for posterity.
“The fuck you say?” He stepped closer, eyes narrowed, but I stood my ground.
“You heard me. We’re engaged. We’re getting married.”
His nostrils flared in outrage. He stared down at me in jaw-clenched fury until finally he said, “Huh. Never thought I’d see the day that Miss High and Mighty turned into a gold-digging whore.”
That hurt. It hurt like getting all my skin peeled off and taking a saltwater bath, but I didn’t want him to see it. So I smiled, even though the effort felt like it would split my face in two. “There he is. There’s the Trace I know. Welcome back, player. Now get lost!”
I turned on my heel to leave, but Trace caught me by the arm and jerked me against his chest. He put his nose up to mine and hissed, “How much he payin’ you, Bianca? How much does it cost to get you to suck a dick?”
I yanked my arm from his grip and backed away, so angry I could scream. “If you come near me or my mama again, I’ll call the police. And then I’ll call my future husband. And believe me, Trace, you’ll want the police to get to you first.”
I strode away and didn’t look back, not even when I heard him call me the c-word and spit on the sidewalk.
TWENTY
BIANCA
The next afternoon, Jackson kept to his usual MO and arrived unannounced at the restaurant.
It was five o’clock, an hour before the first reservations, five hours after the meat delivery was supposed to have arrived. The staff was eating their preservice meal together at the long table in the glassed-in private dining room. Meanwhile I was pacing, my new favorite form of exercise. When the door opened and I saw the long shadow fall across the dining room floor, I knew who it was without even turning around.
Pepper’s excited squeal only confirmed it.
I turned and found Jackson standing inside the door, staring at me. He was wearing faded jeans and his battered motorcycle jacket, with a white cotton shirt molded to his body so his abdomen muscles were on display like an ad for stacked bricks.
He was not altogether unfortunate looking.
I said, “Oh. Hello.”
His brows quirked. He glanced at the gathering in the private dining room, fifteen people staring at us in open curiosity from behind a sparkling sheet of glass. “Is this a bad time?”
Is there a good time to sign away five years of your life?
I said, “It’s fine. They’re contained for now.” I made my employees sound like a nasty viral outbreak, which wasn’t too far from the truth. “Let’s go into my office.”
I led him through the restaurant, past the private dining room with its gaping menagerie, and through the kitchen. My office was down a hallway in the back. It was a cramped, messy space where I regularly collapsed into exhausted comas at the end of the night or cried over the mountain of unpaid bills strewn on my desk while I examined my life choices.
I opened the door, he closed it behind him. He looked around with a critical eye. “Looks like a bomb went off.” Then his gaze fell on the bouquet of red roses on the edge of my desk, and he went stone-still. His tone was acidic. “From an admirer?”
I snorted. “If you can call Satan’s spawn an admirer.”
In two long, jerking strides, he was in front of the bouquet. He snatched the little white enclosure card off the plastic stick. He read it aloud while his free hand curled to a fist. “I’m sorry, bumble bee. I didn’t mean what I said yesterday. Please call me, we need to talk. Trace.”
Jackson pronounced Trace’s name as a hiss. When he cut his gaze to me, all the air left the room.
He growled, “What happened?”
I dropped into my ratty captain’s chair and sighed. “We had a little run-in at my mother’s house.”
“A run-in?” he repeated slowly. His eyes had turned an unnerving serial killer shade of black.
“Long story short, I stopped by Mama’s on my way to the restaurant, and he was there. I told him we were getting married, and he called me the c-word.”
Jackson turned the little white enclosure card to dust with a single crushing flex of his fist.
I said, “That’s not the worst part.”
His eyes were seriously weirding me out. I expected laser beams to shoot out of them at any second and blow the place apart.
“He’s opening a restaurant,” I said, unable to hide the quaver of fury in my voice. “Down the street. As a big f-you to me and all the plans we made to do it together
.”
Suddenly my office wasn’t big enough to contain Jackson. Hulklike, his entire body expanded with his angry inhalation. I wasn’t sure the seams of his clothing would be able to hold him.
I said, “It’s just another one of his childish games. There’s nothing he can’t stand as much as being ignored, and he knew this would get my attention. He wants me to obsess over it. Which is why the only thing I can do is act like it doesn’t get to me.”
Jackson said darkly, “We’ll see.”
The implied threat made the little hairs on my arms stand on end. “I’m not condoning violence, Jackson.”
“Who said anything about violence? There are ways to deal with this kind of situation that don’t involve shedding blood.” His serial killer eyes burned. “Even though I’d very much like to rip his head off and shove it up his own ass for what he said to you.”
I allowed myself to enjoy the mental image of that for a moment. What a beautiful thing. Then I waved a hand at the chair across from my desk. “Sit. Please. You’re making the room seem smaller than it already is.”
He sat in the chair. His bulk appeared to reduce it to the size of a piece of child’s furniture. He seemed to be getting bigger every time I saw him, all legs and arms and towering strength, potent masculinity. I felt dainty in comparison, which was impressive considering what the bathroom scale had read this morning.
“I brought the contract,” he said, still bristling.
I blew out a tremulous breath.
“Bianca. Your face just went white.”
The laugh I produced sounded a little crazy. “That would certainly be a feat.”
We stared at each other. He said, “Do you want to see it?”
I held out my hand. From his coat pocket he brought out several folded pages and handed them to me. I flattened them over my desk and reached for a pen.
“You need to have your attorney review it before you sign,” he said sternly.
“I don’t have an attorney.”
Burn for You (Slow Burn Book 1) Page 17
