“I’m head of a security agency that has taken on as a client one of the billionaires coming to your restaurant tomorrow, and we were tasked with making sure that all of his meals would really be gluten-free.”
She choked. She made a mighty effort to keep her haughty, disdainful look, but she couldn’t hold the laugh back, and she had to set one of her knives down as she covered her mouth to try to suppress it. Damn it. Never let the cocky male make you laugh. You lost all kinds of authority that way.
“What?” he asked innocently. “He has an intolerance! It makes him bloated!”
She bit down on her lip as hard as she could, but the whole laugh escaped out into the open air. She dropped both knives and pressed her hands against the counter, trying for breath.
Her burglar grinned like a cat that had rolled in way too much catnip. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but you are really hot.”
“Is there a good way to take that?” she challenged dryly.
“Well…as a compliment? I mean, if you told me that, that’s the way I would take it.”
She sighed, wishing his cockiness and physical strength and visible attraction to her didn’t get to her the way they did. The last thing a female chef needed was to be vulnerable to that particular male combination. She’d never hold her own. “Did Quentin send you to sabotage tomorrow’s dinner?”
A little of the grin faded off his face. He straightened away from the wall. In the light, his hair was a kind of blue-brown, his skin faintly ghostly. “Who’s Quentin?”
“He was my second.”
Her burglar’s eyes narrowed just a little. It changed the whole look of his face, from cocky and dangerous to her equilibrium to just…dangerous. To everybody else. “Was?”
She shrugged, as if this kind of thing didn’t hurt every time. Why the hell did men have to make it so hard to do her job? As if everything in life was all about them and their wants, all the time? “Well, since I’m a woman, obviously he thought he was the real star in the kitchen and that I was just some figurehead who was sleeping with the hotel owner.”
Her burglar held up one finger. “Just a little point of interest, and not to distract your story, but are you sleeping with the hotel owner?”
She gave him a withering look.
He smiled. “Good.”
Oh, for God’s sake. As if that was his business. She tried to wither his cockiness again, but like most of the men she encountered in her career, his cockiness just thrived regardless.
“I mean, because I wouldn’t want to have to kill your boss,” her burglar said innocently.
Damn it, he’d almost made her laugh again. She rolled her eyes to cover it.
“So you had to get rid of Quentin,” her burglar said.
“After he cornered me in the walk-in after everyone else had gone home and tried to prove his masculine supremacy over me, I did.” She shrugged. “It was either that or cut off his balls, and can you imagine the media if I did that? My career would be finished. No one would ever eat at the restaurant of the female chef who cut off men’s balls.”
He gazed at her a moment, with a dazed look in his eyes. He gave his head a hard shake. “Hell, you’re hot.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “The idea of getting your balls cut off attracts you?”
“I’ll wear protection. So this Quentin…what’s his last name? Where does he live?”
“I took care of him,” she said dryly. That was the point, right? She took care of all problems cocky males presented her with. That was how she could stay chef.
Yeah, it would be nice if it was all about the food, the way she’d imagined as a kid, but she’d learned long before she finished her first apprenticeship that it was mostly about surviving in a world of sexist assholes.
“Stabbed him?” her burglar asked hopefully.
“I brought one of the pallets of milk down on his head when he pushed me back against the shelves. Mild concussion.”
He weighed that a moment. “Much of a struggle before you managed to bring the milk down on his head?”
Maybe. She lifted her chin at him and braced her feet. Even if there was a struggle, I still won.
“Yeah, you know what? I think I’ll still pay him a little visit. Don’t worry, I can find his address on my own.”
“I don’t need a hero,” she said dryly.
He raised his eyebrows. “How do you know? It sounds like you’ve never had one.”
Chapter 3
“Okay,” Chase said, getting down to business. “Let’s get this done so I can take you out for drinks and get you out of those leather pants.”
“I’m still holding a knife,” Violette Lenoir pointed out dryly.
“Because they look uncomfortable! Come on. Admit you would rather be in pajamas right now.”
“Not for a motorcycle ride through rainy streets at midnight.”
“Good God.” Chase had to put a hand to his heart to calm it down. “You have a motorcycle, too? Is it by any chance a Harley?”
“A Ducati.”
He considered. There was no help for it. He was going to have to make a sacrifice. “I’ll do all the ironing.”
She raised her eyebrows.
Fine. Fine. “And the dishes five days a week.”
“Am I supposed to be coming home from my eighteen-hour days as a top chef to make my man a steak in this scenario?” she asked ironically.
He snorted. “I’ll make the steaks, thank you. I’ve seen what you people do to meat.”
Her jaw dropped. Pure outrage blazed so high in her eyes it pretty much grabbed his dick and tried to yank him right over to her by it. Damn, that was a hot look on her. “You think I don’t know how to make a steak?”
“You probably cut it into tiny spirals and make some commentary on Plato with it. Serve it on this much potatoes”—he held up thumb and forefinger in a stingy circle—“that you mix with, God knows, celery root or something. Beets. Who the hell knows?”
She was so mad he was going to have to kiss her in half a second or totally lose his mind. She ran that knife up and down that sharpener, the sound singing dangerously through the air.
“I’ll make the steaks,” he said firmly.
She slammed the knife down on the nearest cutting board. Ouch. She could take a man’s arm off with that kind of cleaving action. “You like to live dangerously,” she said.
“I know,” he said woefully. He patted his heart with his hand. “I’m sorry,” he told it bravely. “I’ll try not to let her break you.” He gave the Blonde in Leather his puppy look, this time channeling wistful courage. “Be gentle with it,” he whispered. “It’s not as tough as I look.”
She rolled her eyes.
He grinned. “Grandma is going to love you.”
“I’m going to call the cops now,” she said firmly.
There was so much to be said for a woman who thought about stabbing him, hitting him on the head, and dismembering him before she remembered she could depend on someone else to handle her problems. “Now, Ms. Lenoir, why break your record by calling for help now?”
She winced. “It’s Lenoir.” Something different and a hell of a lot sexier happened to the R and the vowels when she said it.
Those damn French classes. “How about I call you Vi? Your last name is going to change anyway.”
“I put a lot of effort into my name. So no, I’m not giving it up to some cocky idiot who thinks his own identity is inherently more important than mine, just because he’s a man.”
A beautiful idea hit him. “I could be Lenoir. That’s much more exciting than Smith. I think my grandma would be okay with it. She didn’t really have much choice about the name change back in her day, but she always thought Smith was boring.” Well, she definitely would have, if Smith was her real last name.
Violette Lenoir sighed heavily. “Are you some kind of manifestation of my worst nightmare?”
“Hey.” That hurt. “You’re straight out of m
y dreams.”
“You know I crush a hundred men just like you on a daily basis?”
Okay, not that he wanted to destroy her self-confidence or anything, but…seriously? “I’m pretty sure you don’t, honey. Just because they pretend to be me in video games doesn’t mean they’re actually like me.”
Just for a second, a flicker of genuine caution showed in her eyes, and her left hand scooped up another throwing knife. Aww, and they’d been getting along so well. He backpedaled. “But don’t worry, sweetheart. I may not be crushable, but you’re safe with me.”
“You’re not. Safe with me.”
He sighed with delight. “I know.”
“Are you sure your heart is as fragile as you pretend?” she asked dryly. “It looks as if bullets bounce off it from here.”
“Kevlar.” He thumped his chest with his knuckles, where he was, in fact, wearing a vest. “But underneath it’s pure mush.”
“So aim for your throat?” She hefted the left-hand knife.
He beamed at her and opened his hand over his heart in civilian pledge position. “I’d unzip my body armor for you, honey.”
She sighed heavily. But her lips twitched.
Yes. He pulled a victory fist. “Now about those drinks. I don’t want to keep you all night, sweetheart—” He paused. Grinned. “At least, not all night here. So—”
“No?” she interrupted, disappointed. “Because I’ve always had a fantasy about this counter.”
Oh, hell, yeah. He sprang to attention. Coming away from the wall, a part of him rising up eagerly, and—
She held up that butcher knife, point straight toward him so he’d ram himself on it if he kept coming.
He sagged and scowled. “Was that necessary? That was cruel and unusual.”
She gave a very smug, mean smile, like Catwoman licking her lips.
He regrouped. “Now I have a fantasy about that counter.” He gave her a smile back. “I’m even down on my knees in it.”
She checked. Her eyes widened just a tad, and then flickered to the counter. And back to him. She pressed her lips firmly together, but her throat moved as she swallowed.
Yeah. Now they were getting somewhere. He took a step toward her.
“You are like some Jack-in-the-box on steroids,” she said, exasperated. “You just bounce up again, and again, and again.”
“Yep,” he agreed. “All night long.”
She thunked her own forehead with the haft of her knife. “Look, just tell me what you want.”
“Oh, honey, you don’t want me to get started on everything I want from you right here. You want to be lying down for some of that.”
She gave him an utterly exasperated evil look, and he laughed. “It’s your own fault, you know,” he said.
“That you’re an idiot?” She raised an ironic eyebrow.
“The—sproing.” He shielded his crotch with his hand and then made that hand spring up at attention. “You seem to have that effect on me.”
“Oh, yeah, sure, it’s always the woman’s fault. Tell me what you want before I kill you.”
“To inspect you from top to bottom.”
She gave him a fulminating glance.
“I mean your kitchen. Did I say you? Slip of the tongue.” He grinned. “Don’t worry, it’s not always this clumsy.”
A knife buried itself in the wall behind his head, but at least she left a generous foot of distance this time. He must be growing on her.
“I don’t really need to inspect you for my job, to be honest,” he said. “Our files on you are so thorough, I could probably tell you what kind of underwear you’re wearing.” He closed his eyes a second. “Black lace,” he said firmly, cupping his hands at his chest. “Push up. And then…definitely a black thong.”
She gazed at him a long moment, with that narrowed look to her eyes that just excited the hell out of his entire body. “So the peekaboo pink lace would be a real disappointment to you.”
He took a hard breath, as that one got in past his body armor and hit him right in the belly.
“With the little slit down the middle…?”
“Okay.” He held up both hands in surrender. “I’ll be good. I promise. And I’ll do the dishes all seven days a week, okay? That’s on top of always taking out the trash and changing the oil. Just don’t tell me more about your underwear right now, okay?”
Because he had a really creative brain, and right now it had just paired that nice ass in peekaboo pink lace arched just so on the back of a motorcycle, and…yeah, he might explode before her eyes.
“I’d better focus on work for a minute,” he said.
“No, really? You can do that?”
It was too good to pass up. He gave her a slow smile. “Honey, I can focus like you wouldn’t believe.”
***
The good thing about leather, Vi thought, was that it really gave no clue as to how much a woman was letting a certain full-of-himself idiot get to her. Panty-dampening get to her. If anybody found out, it would totally ruin her cred.
He sure as hell didn’t need to know. He was too cocky already.
All the other men she had crushed were just fantasizing about being him in video games? Ha.
Unless…he really was an ex-SEAL or something, in which case…nah. He was just another braggart, right? The number of men in bars who had tried to pretend to some mysterious SEAL affiliation the year she worked in New York was probably greater than the number of SEALs in existence.
“Now, about this saving the world issue,” her intruder said. “I’ll admit it’s niggling at me. Honey, if you would just let me get that out of the way, after that I’m all yours.”
“Ri-ight.” She sighed. “Because you have to do that in my kitchen. Of course you’re not just a thief sneaking into the hotel from here.”
He shook his head at her with grave disappointment. “Sweetheart, you’re going to have to trust me more if we’re going to make this relationship work.”
She just looked at him.
“Have I mentioned that I save kittens out of trees? Well, one. There was this little girl crying because he was stuck and—”
“What kind of kitten?” Vi said dryly.
“An ungrateful one. That’s where I got this scar.” He drew a finger down an apparently imaginary line on his cheek.
“Well. As wonderful a character reference as I’m sure the kitten could give you, I’m afraid it’s not here to meow on your behalf.”
He gave a broken-hearted sigh. “The embassy gave you a number to call, in case, right?”
“Yes,” Vi said warily.
“Call it and verify if they have a Chase Smith pre-vetting security at one of the President’s potential restaurant visits in advance of his arrival.”
“Potential?” She knew how this game worked—her own president had had to cancel twice before he finally made it—but damn she would love to land the American president. To be the one restaurant he and his wife chose to dine at in Paris. Sure, fine, some of the bloggers and other critics would make jokes about American taste to put her down, but she was a woman chef in a profoundly sexist field. She was used to dealing with crap.
“My company has men checking out some of his other top choices tonight, too, so that we can give a preliminary security assessment.” For a moment, Chase Smith was inscrutable. Unyielding. Serious.
Suggesting that she’d better cooperate, if she wanted to have her moment of glory next week.
She called the number. A male voice with an awkward French accent on the other end confirmed.
Oh.
“Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?” she demanded, exasperated.
“I was having too much fun, to be honest.”
Fun at her expense.
“You’re really very hot,” he confessed.
She glared at him. “If I don’t get to kill you, you don’t get to sexually harass me.”
He considered. “But the reverse is fine? I can ke
ep sexually harassing you if you can keep trying to kill me? I can take that deal.”
She kind of liked it, too, to be honest. She had to put her fists on her hips to keep from thumping herself in the head.
“But it will take me a while to finish my inspections of the place,” he said. “You’re welcome to go home.”
Okay, maybe he wasn’t a burglar, but he was still crazy. Her eyebrows went up incredulously. “Nobody gets to wander around my kitchens unsupervised. Not even for a president. There are all kinds of things you could mess up.”
Chase hesitated, his eyes narrowing just the tiniest fraction.
“I’m sticking to you like glue,” she said firmly.
The narrowing of his eyes vanished. Chase gave a great, dramatic sigh of relief and clasped his hands to his heart in gratitude. “Honey,” he said ecstatically. “I knew I’d start to grow on you.”
Chapter 4
“You’re touching my ass.”
Vi jerked back a step, caught herself, and glared. No, she had not been.
And it had taken a lot of self-discipline, too.
Chase gave her a smile over his shoulder that invited true confessions. “It’s a great ass, isn’t it?” He was going through the kitchen at a brisk, thorough pace, opening everything—lowboys, drawers, cabinets—scanning everything, with the efficiency of an entire security team. “I tried to get it insured, but the premiums were too high.” He sighed woefully.
“All the women wanting to smack it?” Wait, that sounded a lot more erotic and a lot less like a cool putdown than she had meant it to.
It was just…it would be such a great ass to smack.
“Also.” He stopped in front of wire shelves filled with martini glasses, each with a small amount of liquid caramel in the bottom, all prepped for tomorrow when the last-minute components would be added. He was a really big guy. Vi herself was pretty tall, and her boots had six-centimeter heels on top of that, but this man just filled the space. Not only was he big, but his presence was big, as if he had an invisible extension of himself that just stretched out to every corner of the room and took charge of it.
Chase Me (Paris Nights Book 2) Page 2
