Fire In the Kitchen

by Donna Allen

  “Cassidy’s remarkable risotto.”

  Cassidy felt her left leg begin to shake uncontrollably. She could never have imagined the intensity of emotions the judging had brought her. Her dish had been stacked up against many of the most successful chefs in Perth, and it had come out ahead. The humiliation of being chosen last for Dante’s team was now a distant memory. She barely noticed the polite applause from both teams, but she did notice the look in Dante’s eyes when her name was called out. She couldn’t decipher what he was thinking, but she now hoped against hope her team would be able to enjoy the winning ride with her, if she was chosen. If not, victory would be bittersweet.

  Valerie walked to Dante and shook his hand and then turned to Cassidy and shook hers. Valerie’s hand felt cold, even though the evening was warm.

  She must be related to snakes.

  “Congratulations, Cassidy and Dante. Please come forward and join me.”

  The ten steps they took may as well have been ten thousand.

  “As everyone knows, a large part of the challenge involved keeping your work areas clean to prove how important organizational skills are in the kitchen. How did that go for your team, Dante?”

  He turned and faced Cassidy. She felt her heartbeat quicken for all the wrong reasons. “For the majority, we did okay.”

  Cassidy was sure she saw the snake’s stiletto grind into the grass with glee as Valerie responded to him.

  “How would you feel if your team lost today on that basis?”

  Dante put his shoulders back and took a deep breath before answering. “I’d say we were all winners, no matter what. I’m proud of the food everyone put up today.”

  He must still believe they’d lost because of her, and yet he remained gracious. What if getting rid of the evidence in the freezer hadn’t been enough? What if she’d cooked the best dish and everyone else went home because of her? She would rather die.

  As if on cue, Valerie announced the winner of the best dish of the day.

  “Cassidy Summers.”

  Dante put his hand on her shoulder. “Congratulations, Cassidy, and good luck for the rest of the competition.”

  “It’s not over yet. We’re in this together, remember?” Cassidy held on to the last glimmer of hope that she’d done enough to save them in the final moments.

  “I think we both know this is it for the rest of us.”

  Dante’s smile was weak, but Cassidy thought it was the most forgiving one she’d ever seen.

  Valerie continued speaking to the camera, enjoying drawing out the suspense.

  “Someone left one of their benches unclean, so that team is going home.”

  Had she missed wiping down one of them? It was highly possible.

  There was an excruciating pause before the announcement. Cassidy was sure the cameramen got her from every angle, and possibly a couple she didn’t know about. She felt like running away, as far as her legs could take her.

  Valerie stood directly in front of Cassidy and then suddenly swung around to face the other team.

  “Sorry, Jack, that was you. Therefore, your team’s been disqualified from the competition. What do you have to say on their behalf?”

  Jack put his hands up in the air and Cassidy knew this was the last time he could say the wrong thing.

  “Shit,” he said.

  Chapter 13

  Cassidy was slowly winning over the other competitors. Several had confessed to Dante they found her off-the-wall cooking style and laid-back approach intriguing. He agreed with them on her originality, but still objected to her untidiness in the kitchen. When he’d confessed to her he understood her motives for cooking the risotto, she’d divulged how she’d passed the challenge by taking advantage of a technicality. She may have skipped a tidiness gene, but she hadn’t skipped the one for thinking quickly on her feet.

  Several weeks’ worth of cook-offs had passed since their Roman Holiday event, and competitor numbers had dwindled down to ten, mostly men. Carlos was still among them.

  It was the night before another big cook-off. Those remaining only had a few hours to finalize their dishes and test them out. It came as no surprise to Dante that the producers had teamed him with Cassidy because they were so different. Unsure whether to be annoyed or amused, he compared the row of clean stainless steel benches of the other chefs to those of his cooking partner. Instead of cleaning up as she cooked, she’d left broken eggshells on the bench top, a trail of flour that ended in a mess, and a pile of used dishes, stacked so precariously if you blew on them they would topple. Her refusal to wear the expected white in the kitchen for practice sessions made sense. The fact she hadn’t learned from the Roman Holiday challenge did not.

  Dante couldn’t help watching her cook, though. He studied her intently, as though viewing her through a camera lens. It was unusual for an untrained cook to be so liberated and confident in their abilities. Her hands were deceptive. Delicate-looking but strong, seemingly haphazard but deliberate. He discovered a part of himself yearning for more than perfection and precision, a part of himself that wanted to break free. He looked at his knives, which were lined up neatly, and shuffled them out of order.

  The other chefs were murmuring their satisfaction at their completed dessert inventions and seemed to be enjoying comparing them to Cassidy’s disaster zone. The crazy spark of a woman who was oblivious to her surroundings, as her smudged finger followed a recipe book whilst her other hand mechanically stirred a bowl. She squinted, not fighting the frown lines between her curved eyebrows. Why would such a gorgeous woman—albeit not in the traditional sense—want to pull such expressions? Her short blonde hair had been unruly since she’d scrunched her fingers through it. She’d stopped to wash her hands, perhaps she’d considered that touching her hair while cooking was unhygienic, but had left the hair standing on end. Appearances didn’t seem to matter to her. All she cared about was the food.

  A colleague walked over to Dante and patted him on the back. “Problems?”

  Dante grunted.

  “Stuck with the amateur again, eh?”

  “Lower your voice, George,” Dante said, narrowing his eyes. “Don’t forget, if it wasn’t for her great risotto, we might not still be here.”

  Cassidy lost her concentration and knocked over the pile of dishes. They banged on the hard floor and a couple broke. As she went to pick them up, she slipped on their contents and landed on her backside.

  Her gaze remained downcast as Dante helped her to her feet. Her hand was firm yet she must have felt vulnerable. Their gazes met.

  The background noise echoed with laughter as the other chefs left for the night. The other final female contestant Cassidy had befriended gave her a hug on her way out.

  Dante broke the silence. “Perhaps splitting up to cook components of our dessert was a bad idea. It’s late, let me help you. My part is done.”

  “I’m almost there, I think,” Cassidy said. “And you don’t have to defend me to the few chefs that still don’t think I belong here. I’m quite capable of looking after myself, you know.” She rubbed her eyes. “I’m really tired. Let’s just finish up and go to bed.”

  Dante raised his eyebrows.

  “I figured out a while ago that you don’t fit the mold of damsel in distress, but he was out of line and I told him so. To restore my equilibrium, not yours.”

  Cassidy threw the broken dishes in the bin and the remaining metal ones in the sink. She washed them with vigor. He grabbed a tea towel.

  “Chefs don’t do dishes,” she said.

  “Cooks don’t get into the finals of a celebrity chef cooking series and have winning dishes with incredible food combinations. Who else would pour olive oil and sprinkle salt over ice cream? It was genius.” He scraped at a piece of food that hadn’t been washed off and handed the plate back. She dunked it into the water and thrust it into his hands.

  “You’re supposed to rinse,” he said.

  “No one’s died yet.” Cassidy�
��s jaw tightened.

  Dante’s lips twitched and he fought the urge to laugh. “How are the fondants going?” he asked, drying the suds off. “Nearly cooked? To quote our friend Valerie, tick tock.”

  Her eyes started to do their glazing-over dance as she went back into her inner creative space.

  “I want the star of these fondants to be dark, silky Belgian chocolate.”

  “So go to Belgium and cook it there,” Dante quipped.

  “Not that holier-than-thou ‘eat local’ stance again, Dante? Back off, sunshine, and let me finish what I started.”

  “I refuse to cook with anything that’s not from around here, or at least this country. How many times do we have to have this conversation?” He crossed his arms. “I have a hard enough time talking them into letting me bring a lot of local food in, and they’re not going to let us do it forever. The promoters are eventually going to want a bigger slice.”

  “So you want ordinary. Well, this is my dish, my rules. Too late.”

  Dante felt the familiar nerve in his neck start to twitch. It was usually reserved for his apprentices, and he didn’t like being challenged.

  “So you are a naïve cook after all. A gentle reminder we’re supposed to be working on this together because it’s our dish. You’re being a bit precious, and dare I say a tad disrespectful. I’ve been doing this for a long time.”

  “You do your thing while I do mine, Chef.” Cassidy stormed over to the walk-in refrigerator and it swallowed her up.

  Stubborn.

  She raced out again with a covered tray.

  Ah, so she wants to play games.

  On impulse, he grabbed a punnet of fresh strawberries and inhaled their sweet, fruity fragrance. They would go perfectly with his special candy recipe. He was going to show her sensational results using his ingredients. Even if he had to force-feed them to her.

  The second hand on the large clock melted away as they became absorbed in their creations. The smell of chocolate wafted from Cassidy’s oven and enveloped Dante’s senses. He salivated and fought the urge to ask for a taste when it was ready. She had gone ahead with the European chocolate, against his wishes. Their private cook-off could have disastrous results if they didn’t eventually come up with a combined presentation.

  He was going to have to ignore the attraction of the aroma.

  *

  No more games.

  Cassidy took the chocolate fondants out of the oven and swooshed the items on her workbench out of the way so her masterpieces held center stage. They were perfectly risen with a rich crust. Her body seemed infused with their sultry scent. She grabbed a teaspoon and sunk it into the center of one of them. The silken chocolate escaped and oozed out. She blew on what she’d captured and tentatively placed it on her tongue, closing her eyes as her taste buds explored the rich decadence of what she’d just made. She murmured a lustful moan.

  “Oh yeah, baby.” She gripped the stainless steel bench and squeezed, shrugging as she readied herself for the next taste explosion. She uncovered her bottle of butterscotch schnapps, poured and skulled a shot, and then had another mouthful of her creation.

  “Yes, yes, yes.”

  Her first chocolate orgasm.

  Then she remembered she wasn’t alone. She looked at the gorgeous chef, who ruined his appearance by being so uptight more often than not. His arms were crossed, his body rigid. He’d been watching her intently, but his face was expressionless. He wasn’t the type of man she could win over. He wasn’t the type of man she could tame. He wasn’t the type of man who would do whatever it took to capture her heart, because he’d just made her life very difficult.

  But in the time she’d taken to make her dessert, and maybe even before that, he had captured it anyway. She was falling for an Italian chef who seemed to have a wooden spoon permanently lodged in an uncomfortable place.

  And it seemed there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it.

  She forced herself out of her reverie. “I’ve done it,” she called out to him and held up the bottle of schnapps. “Come celebrate with me. The butterscotch gives the chocolate another dimension.”

  “I can’t put my name to a dessert that doesn’t have local ingredients.” He sank his white knuckles into his eyes and shook his head.

  Cassidy walked toward him with her food and stood inches away. Although they weren’t touching, she felt his strength and could see muscles straining through his chefs’ whites, an unusual trait for someone who spent so much time sampling food.

  He must have other hobbies that are more energetic.

  “Here.” She scooped up a teaspoonful of her fondant and hovered it near his lips. “Have a taste of my nothing which is everything.”

  He pushed her away but kept his hand gripped to her wrist. It was firm but not threatening.

  “What do I have to do to make you understand why I entered this competition? I’m sure it tastes great, but I want Australian people to celebrate their own ingredients. To have a passion for what is growing in their own backyards: fresh, aromatic, exciting.”

  Reluctantly, Cassidy untangled his hand from her wrist. “Dante, you’ve got to lighten up.”

  “It’s obvious we’ll never agree. I’ve wasted my time on this venture.”

  Dante walked away from her and started to throw his things into a bag.

  Cassidy followed him with her plate and touched his shoulder, forcing him to turn around. She dipped her finger into the liquid chocolate and smudged it above his top lip.

  “No,” she said as she gave him a chocolate moustache. “I’m just saying you can still get a point across and have a bit of fun.”

  Dante’s eyes widened as if he were unsure what to do next. Then he smudged away a bit of the chocolate and licked the tip of his finger. His eyes became even wider.

  “This isn’t Belgian chocolate.”

  Cassidy chuckled. “I’m impressed you knew that. Whistler’s Chocolate Company. Proudly Western Australian. Good, isn’t it?”

  “Better than good. Sensational.” He heaped a large spoonful of the dessert in his mouth as he raced toward his food. “Butterscotch schnapps and another fondant…hurry.”

  Dante smashed the multicolored candy he’d invented and piled it in an interesting pattern on top of the fondant. He surrounded the dish with fresh strawberries.

  “Watch and taste, Cassidy Summers.”

  He circled the dessert with a dose of liquor that wasn’t small, and struck a match. Their creation lit up in a ring of fire. His eyes shimmered with the flames. “Is this fun?” he asked.

  “Yes!” Cassidy rubbed her hands.

  Dante waited for the flames to subside before taking a big spoonful of all the ingredients and feeding them to her. The candy exploded in her mouth and she jumped.

  “It’s alive,” she squealed. “It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever tasted. It’s nothing like store-bought popping candy, it’s far more complex and doesn’t have that cheap after-taste.”

  “My turn,” he said.

  She picked up the plate and started to serve him, but he shook his head and took the plate away. With his other hand, he stroked her cheek and tilted her chin up so she could look at him. He held her gaze with his and dipped his finger into their dessert, tracing the chocolate over her lips as she’d done to him. His finger created a coat of chocolate lipstick. Her body responded and she leaned closer, circling her hands around his waist. As he sucked the chocolate off his finger, her breathing quickened and she stood still, waiting for him to make his next move.

  He leaned closer.

  His lips met hers and she closed her eyes. It was a teasing kiss that barely made contact.

  Short.

  Sweet.

  Sexy as hell.

  A promise of things to come. Her legs went weak.

  Cassidy put a hand on the bench behind her to steady herself.

  “Mmmm, tastes good,” he said, licking his lips as he walked away. He dampened a towel
and cleaned off his chocolate moustache. He returned to her and wiped the rest of the chocolate from her lips. “Fun’s over,” he said. “Lots to do before we call it a night.”

  As she wiped her knife clean and avoided eye contact with Dante, Cassidy hoped her shaking hands could be attributed to concentration and not because she was fighting her attraction to him. Damn him for dismissing their kiss when things just got interesting. Her face felt hot, but she could excuse that as the heat from the kitchen. She’d known kissing him would rock her world, she’d been prepared for that. What she hadn’t been ready for was the way he’d made her feel. She barely knew the man, yet she’d felt a stirring from deep within she couldn’t explain. It was as if a simple touching of lips had opened a window to her soul that had until then been painted shut. It was an unexpected dilemma. Her only means of success if she was going to get anywhere in this competition would be to pretend it never happened.

  It never happened.

  She watched him stretch, and the expanse of his chest strained deliciously against his white chef’s top.

  It never happened.

  She heard him yawn with exaggeration and scratch his full head of dark luxurious hair. She imagined how it would feel if she ran her fingers through it.

  It never happened.

  She allowed her taste buds to tingle as she watched him scrape the last of the chocolate out of a bowl and lick his tasting spoon.

  It happened.

  And it meant something.

  If she followed through on her temptation to experience every part of this man, she wouldn’t be able to let him leave her life quietly. His presence was too powerful and he made all her senses come alive. Cassidy pondered what the most important thing to her was at this stage of her life: a man or her newly found career injection. It had been very difficult letting Dante get away with walking away from her a few moments ago after a kiss that had thrown her off balance. But she was proud of what she’d achieved so far with her cooking skills, and she hungered for more.

  She was used to having men around, enjoyed their company as an agreeable accompaniment to her life’s main course. This time couldn’t be any different. Winning this competition meant she had to give it everything she had, sacrificing any distractions, no matter how tempting. She’d struggled to keep the café afloat with her mother when all they’d had was each other. Her dad’s memory was firmly embedded within the café’s walls and running it successfully kept him close to her heart. Just because her mother was leaving to start a new chapter with a new baby in tow didn’t mean her dreams had to be shattered in the process. She had Amy to look after, regular customers to cater for, and a cooking interest she was keen to keep alive and fresh and vibrant.