Isabelle took up a small container of rice and extended her spoon to the sundubu, catching up a small amount of broth and sipping experimentally. “It’s good.”
“There are restaurants that serve just the sundubu or with a bowl of rice and a plate of fried whole fish. But not with a full accompaniment of banchan like this.” He tried one of the banchan nearest him. “These kkwarigochujjim are very tasty. They’re steamed, seasoned shishito peppers.”
Isabelle extended her chopsticks and snagged one. “I’ve had them grilled before in other dishes, not Korean.”
He nodded. “They’re used in other cooking. Not too spicy. Good flavor.”
“What are these? Are they supposed to be cold?” She used her chopsticks to tap the side of a container.
“Eomuk-bokkeum. Spicy stir-fried fish cakes.” He raised an eyebrow. “Some people prefer not to know what they are eating before they try it.”
Isabelle seemed unfazed. “I’ll give them a try either way but I’m generally interested in what I’m eating so I can try to remember what to call it if I like it and want to find it again.”
Fair. His anger was slowly leeching away and he had to admit it’d been a long time since he’d enjoyed a meal with someone. Here, in this moment, with the dim lighting and sophisticated decor, he could imagine they were dining in privacy by choice rather than necessity. The sofa was small and as either of them reached for food, shoulders bumped and knees touched.
Every chance contact zinged through the fabric of his clothing to his skin, heightened his awareness of her.
He’d been out to dinner on dates frequently enough, to be sure. But there hadn’t been this element of exploration and discovery in the dinner.
It was pleasant. Something he found himself enjoying despite his continued concern.
“You’re going to confirm that your supervisor did not share my private information with this chef and I appreciate that.” He decided to return to his initial concern and put it to rest so they could enjoy the rest of the meal. “Do you really believe your supervisor simply told her we might enjoy Korean food?”
Isabelle nibbled at a piece of napa cabbage kimchi before answering. “Maylin would’ve felt bad about the earlier food being left behind. She’d have wanted a challenge to make up for us not being able to enjoy it. He probably told her to go for Korean to stretch her skills and give her something she could roll up her sleeves and dive into. He cares about the people around him that way.”
“A good leader does those things.” Kyle could acknowledge the consideration. And it was obvious Isabelle was very loyal to the other man. Considering her fiery personality and independence, Gabriel Diaz must be a man worth following. The kind of person Kyle hoped to be if he survived all of this.
“Yeah.” She paused in her eating, setting her chopsticks down.
Studying her, Kyle deliberately placed a piece of food in her rice bowl. An offering of sorts.
She huffed out a quiet laugh and picked her chopsticks back up. “He is a good leader. Let’s just say leadership is not one of my strong points.”
“I find that hard to believe.” Kyle helped himself to more food. If he was eating, she might be inclined to share more. And he wanted to hear it.
Isabelle shrugged. “When you work with a new team, there’s a key time frame in which you establish yourself, earn their respect, so they will follow your orders. Otherwise, they question, hesitate. And in combat, none of us can afford that split second. Not everyone who meets me gets the best impression.”
And people may have died because of it. It went unsaid, weighing down the silence.
“Anyway, depending on the nature of my assignments in the foreseeable future, proving myself to the people around me continues to be a work in progress.” She deliberately popped a piece of food into her mouth and chewed.
Kyle considered her words. It explained a lot about the way she confronted the men in the elevator lobby. He’d been intrigued but others might have found her attitude grating, intimidating. He wasn’t sure if she altered her approach based on the people she met but perhaps it was as she said, a progression.
“What you’re eating is called tongbaechu-kimchi, by the way.” He paused to taste it himself. “Please pass on a message to the chef that her cooking is quite good.”
“Yeah? On par with the restaurant quality you prefer?” Isabelle reached for a dish of soybean sprouts.
“Better.” He used his chopsticks to separate the fillet from the fish and place a portion on his rice. She hadn’t tried for the larger main dish yet. Perhaps she wasn’t familiar with how it was served. “Her food has a home-cooked quality to the dishes that is sometimes lost in restaurants when they substitute for more easily obtainable ingredients here in the United States.”
Isabelle had been watching him. Carefully, she placed her rice container back on the table and copied his motions to acquire her own helping of fish. She didn’t lift her rice back off the table again.
Different cultures ate with different table manners. He appreciated the way she respected his and followed his example. Not many people in his life ever had.
“I’ll let Maylin know.” Isabelle continued to eat.
“The soybean sprouts you tried earlier are kongnamul-muchim and these are seasoned dried anchovies or myeolchi-muchim.” He indicated a container next to the soybean sprouts. Really, this was an enjoyable meal.
“Crazy range of texture between dishes. Won’t get bored.” She was trying a little bit of everything and she’d gone back to the grilled fish a few times. “Aren’t these the same kind of little fish?”
“Dried anchovies, yes. Those are stir-fried. Myeolchi-bokkeum.” He was also amused to note she had no trouble with fish served whole. The larger grilled fish entrée had the fish head and tail intact. The tiny dried anchovies were to be eaten whole. Isabelle had met both without hesitation.
There were a lot of people who’d have balked at any of those.
Isabelle let out a happy sigh. “I’m never going to remember all of these but they are good. Really good. What are these?”
He studied each in turn. “Kkaennip-jangajji. Perilla leaf pickles. And those are ojingeo-bokkeum. Stir-fried squid. The last one there is sukjunamul. Mung bean sprouts.”
“And this is the way every meal is served? Seriously?” She surveyed the table covered in dishes. Even though they’d sampled everything and finished their rice, there was plenty for another meal or two.
“Traditionally, yes.” Kyle eyed the table. “The banchan can vary greatly depending on the cook and the region, the local vegetables and the season. Many restaurants I’ve visited here specialize in serving just the entrées or dishes ordered à la carte instead of providing all of this.”
“Hmm.” Isabelle spent time savoring a spoonful of the sundubu. It was fairly spicy but she showed all signs of enjoying it. “Maylin’s going to ask so is there anything you wished would’ve been included? And this is probably one style of meal, right? What other meals do you like? Because I’m seriously game to try more Korean food based on this.”
He grinned. “Well, Korean fried chicken and beer are a fantastic meal. The fried chicken is very good quality, with very crispy breading and not nearly as greasy as the fast food I’ve seen in the United States. There’s at least one restaurant chain that I know of in this country that does it well. The flavors can come in soy garlic or spicy here. Very flavorful. And in Korea, you can get several other flavors.”
She blinked. “Fried chicken. That’s a Korean thing?”
“Very Korean.” He smiled. “It’s well-seasoned and tender, never dry. And the chicken is served with pickled radishes. Makes for a great palette cleanser so you can eat more and more.”
“That sounds deliciously dangerous.” Isabelle sat up straight, placing a hand over her belly.
“You don’t look like the type to diet.” He wasn’t against eating healthy but he’d had countless dates where his companion decided to forego the specialty of whatever fine restaurant they’d been eager to try for a generic salad in the name of being on a diet.
Isabelle shrugged. “I’m more a believer in portion control. I want to eat all the things, but my metabolism isn’t magical. I stay active and I try not to overindulge. When you talk about that fried chicken, for example, I’m thinking I’d go for more fried chicken and just a little bit of beer. It’s important caloric intake decision making.”
He chuckled. “Wise.”
“Anything else come to mind?”
He glanced over the dishes again and sighed. “It would have been difficult to manage these two dishes. Both are served in heavy stone or earthenware pots but they are very comforting.”
Isabelle stared. “Stone.”
He nodded. “Bibimbap is served in a hot stone bowl. It’s white rice topped with namul—sautéed and seasoned vegetables—and various sauces. Like chili pepper paste, or gochujang, and doenjang, a salty soybean paste. There’s also thin-sliced beef or other meat, marinated, and a raw egg. The stone bowl is so hot, it is literally cooking the rice. The trick to it is that the stone bowl is brushed with sesame oil or similar. When it’s served, you stir the rice to mix up the various things piled on top without scraping the final layer of rice directly against the sides of the bowl. Given a few minutes, you get a crispy crust of fried rice for added texture to your bibimbap. Very filling.”
“Huh.” Isabelle’s eyebrows had risen during his description. “I have no idea how Maylin would’ve managed to put that together for us to enjoy easily under these circumstances. Might have to go to an actual restaurant to find it.”
“Agreed.” He had a sudden urge to offer to take her to one or two restaurants he knew of, but didn’t. It seemed...awkward.
Under other circumstances, he’d want to pursue her and enjoy further conversation over good meals. Here, like this, it was both more intimate and limiting at the same time. He had no idea whether they’d be in contact after this was resolved.
“What was the other dish?” Isabelle started putting covers back on the dishes and stacking them.
“A true comfort food.” He shook his head. “It’s a very simple sort of egg dish. Steamed in the stone or earthenware dish.”
“Yeah, I can see how that’d be hard to serve this way.” She reached for the grilled fish and started to flip it over, presumably because they’d finished taking all the meat from one side.
He reached out and touched the back of her hand. “Don’t turn over the fish.”
Isabelle looked up at him but didn’t withdraw her hand from his touch. “Why?”
“It’s a Chinese superstition. Your chef friend is Chinese, right? To turn over the fish is to symbolize the capsizing of a boat.” As he shared the etiquette consideration, a chill ran down his spine. Disturbed, he withdrew his hand.
Still watching him, Isabelle finished covering the dishes but she didn’t flip the fish.
“In any case, thank you for pausing in your research to join me for this meal break.” He stacked the dishes and took them to the mini refrigerator.
Silence stretched out over several moments before Isabelle broke it. “What do we feed Frederick?”
Chapter Ten
Lizzy woke out of her light doze to a familiar sound, which shouldn’t have been in the room. She opened her eyes, drawing in air as she did to wake herself up completely.
No lights. The curtains were still drawn and there was little to no daylight peeking in around the sides of the windows. Just a hint from the indirect lighting fixture installed underneath the counter in the bathroom to make sure guests didn’t break their necks getting up to go to the bathroom at night. Kyle must’ve left the bathroom door open to give him something to see by.
Meaning it was still early morning.
It was the breathing pattern that woke her, Kyle’s. It’d changed to a slow intake through the nose and sharp “oosh” through the mouth. Controlled. Conscious.
She found him in the darkness, on the floor between the bed and the sitting area, doing push-ups. Shirtless.
“What are you doing?” She whispered the words into the dark.
Kyle continued for a few more repetitions before halting in a plank position and quietly chuckling. “I’m guessing you know what a push-up is. This is part of my morning routine.”
Lizzy sat up straighter and stretched. “Hmm.”
Her vision in darkness was good. So was the view. The man had a solid physique with incredible muscle definition. He kept in very good, very attractive shape.
Have mercy.
He went through another set of fifteen push-ups, pausing again in the plank position. “Am I disturbing you?”
A plank was core work all on its own so using it as the resting position between sets of push-ups had to be a challenge. She considered giving it a try herself. “Nah. As morning habits go, there are worse things than physical activity. Go for it. You can even turn on more lights if you like.”
She wasn’t too worried about shadows. The drapes in front of the windows were heavy and completely opaque. No chance someone was going to see anything through them.
“Well, there are workouts and then there are other, more interesting, forms of physical activity in the morning.” He left his bait out there as he rose smoothly to a standing position and started doing squats.
“Uh-huh.” She stood then, unable to just sit there and keep watching. Instead, she checked her laptop to see if any of the searches she’d set up had resulted in any hits. Some data there but not a lot yet. Her queries might require more time before they turned up something useful. “Question is, do you still go through your exercises whether you indulge in other forms of physical activity or not?”
He laughed. “Would you?”
“Maybe after I’ve got some time to myself, yeah. A partner doesn’t generally react well when cuddle time is cut short so I can get my workout routine in for the morning.” Although she had used it as an excuse to leave when she hadn’t wanted to linger. She wasn’t going to bring it up if he wasn’t though. When it came to casual encounters, there was a certain understanding among participants that outstaying a welcome was awkward. She tried to avoid the feeling as much as possible.
“I...used to travel a fair amount for business.” He paused for a moment. She didn’t blame him since he was going to be testifying against his former employer. He currently didn’t have a job. And one never knew what the next position in a given career was going to bring. It probably took some getting used to. Maybe it was only just starting to really sink in. “In any case, the gyms in hotels are usually mediocre at best and I don’t enjoy adjusting my routine based on equipment available so I tend to design my workout for limited hotel room space.”
She nodded. “I can see that. I do the same for basic stretching and some strength training, but access to a gym and free weights can provide a lot of variety.”
“True.” He moved from squats to burpees, stretching his arms far up to the ceiling then bending to touch his toes. He placed his hands on the ground and jumped his feet out behind him to plank position. He executed a push-up and jumped his feet back to his hands before returning to a standing position. “And I make sure to do strength training at least three times a week at an actual gym.”
He did another burpee.
Burpees were an exercise she loved to hate.
Everyone added their own little zing to it. Some lifted their hands and jumped at the end of each burpee. Others did various kinds of push-ups as part of the exercise. Still others did things with their footing as they went through it.
Kyle kept to the simple form with just the added vertical j
ump at the end. What she had to appreciate was how smoothly he was going through the exercise. And silently. Sometimes people would do these at the gym and just two or three people could sound like a stampeding herd of grunting, groaning wildlife.
It took a lot of strength, balance and agility to make this exercise look that easy.
And he had the reserves to continue conversation. “I’ve memberships to one or two chains so there’s always a decent gym reasonably close to my hotel when I’m traveling in the US.”
Lizzy rolled her shoulders. Watching him make burpees look easy made her want to join him in working out. “Any particular reason a businessman like you maintains this level of fitness?”
He was as fit or better than most servicemen, even on active duty. His level of cardio looked to be very good based on the way he was able to maintain a conversation with her through each exercise. And any of those exercises might be simple but they weren’t as easy as he was making them look. She appreciated the dedication it took to keep up a routine alone, with no one around to keep him accountable. Hard to persist in pushing oneself without a workout partner or personal trainer. It took a driven sort of mind-set.
Damn it, he was doing more burpees than she usually did and she wasn’t sure if she was more irritated by the realization or that she was keeping count.
“There are a lot of reasons.” He snorted. “None of them are particularly witty or clever when I think about them. There’s a decent amount of conceit behind it, perhaps. Some past friends have called it narcissism. I prefer to look in the mirror and appreciate what I see. I want to be proud of myself, both in appearance and in performance.”
On the surface, his statement was flippant and she thought it was deliberately intended to allow a person to think of him as shallow. But there were a lot of kinds of performance, and she didn’t think he was only referring to the obvious innuendo.
“You’re very good at the things you set out to do, huh?” She tossed it out there experimentally.
“Of course.” The man was finally starting to sound short of breath.
Deadly Testimony Page 9
