Too Hot to Touch

by Louisa Edwards

  He angled his head to gaze up at her from under the sweep of his dark lashes. “I can’t speak for you,” he said slowly, “but I can already say for sure … that one taste of you isn’t going to be enough. Not for me.”

  She caught her breath at the banked fire in his eyes.

  “So if you find that your … system”—he quirked a grin—“isn’t quite as squeaky clean as you hoped, feel free to jump my bones. I’m up for it. Anytime.”

  Heart scrabbling at her rib cage like a lobster trying to escape from a boiling pot, Jules hardly knew what to say.

  This wasn’t going to end well. There were so many reasons why this should never have happened—or, at least, why it should be a one-time thing.

  “One taste wasn’t enough for me, either,” she heard her own voice say. Thready and shocked, but recognizable. She blinked.

  His grin widened into a look of pure happiness. “Yeah? Cool. Because I think there’s something here.”

  Jules reared back, suddenly nervous. “Right,” she said, “scorching hot chemistry. Your body likes my body, and vice versa.”

  A stubborn look darkened his tanned face. “Okay, sure, but there’s more to it than that.”

  She backed up a step, holding her hands in front of her, palms out.

  “Hey hey hey, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here. We’ve got something good going on here.” Jules gestured between their obviously compatible bodies. “There’s no reason to muck it up with a lot of emotion and relationship talk and whatnot, if that’s where you were headed with that. We’ve got enough on our plates already, with the competition and everything. Please. Can’t we just play it simple?”

  She tried to keep things light and calm, but she was very much afraid that there was a clear plea in her voice.

  Jules could do this. She could get involved, she could get close, she could live in the moment with Max—but only if she kept her heart separate. Fair was fair. When he took off again, she wouldn’t survive if he took her heart with him.

  A muscle tightened in Max’s jaw, but he smiled as he said, “You want simple? I can do that. Hell, I’m the king of that.”

  Jules let her shoulders relax, feeling a pang in the muscles as she did so. She must’ve been really clenched. “Okay, good. We agree, then. Simple. Like a stress-relief thing.”

  He arched a brow, finally seeming to unclench a little, himself. “Better than ashiatsu,” he said. When she shrugged, he explained, “That barefoot massage they do in Japan, where the masseuse walks on your back. It’s awesome. Almost as good as Thai massage, where they stretch you all over, pull on your arms and legs like you’re made out of taffy.”

  Jules laughed, relief bubbling up inside her like a pan of hot broth coming up to the boil. “Come on,” she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him over to stand by his parents’ ancient gas range. “Show me a new trick. I heard you telling Danny about that technique you learned for crisping the skin of a whole fish without cooking the meat.”

  “Sure,” Max said, heading for the sink to wash his hands.

  Jules went to the fridge to see what Gus had left for them to practice with. Pulling open the door and letting the cool interior of the refrigerator chill her still-warm cheeks, she said, “While we’re kind of on the topic of keeping it simple … this thing we’ve got going on—our stress-relief program? It’s just between us, right?”

  She held her breath, one hand frozen on a flat paper-wrapped parcel with “snapper” scribbled in pencil on the side. There was a long pause.

  “Right,” Max said, his voice quiet and a little muffled from behind her. “No need to tell the whole world about it. Since it doesn’t mean anything.”

  Jules’s hand twitched, nearly ripping the paper. But that was ridiculous, there was no reason to flinch at the flat way he said it. The important thing was, they were on the same page.

  “Great,” she said brightly, straightening up and holding out the parcel. “Look what I found! Gus must’ve been down to the fish market this morning.”

  Max took it from her, brushing the back of her hand with his fingers. “Great,” he echoed, and he smiled at her, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  Simple. Right, Jules thought, and shivered.

  Chapter 13

  The morning of the qualifying round dawned hot and muggy, with the kind of sharp, glaring sunlight at nine o’clock that forecast an inevitable citywide meltdown. The Javits Center air-conditioning was no match for it, especially since it was already overtaxed by the hundreds of tense, excited human beings milling around the showroom floor. The qualifiers wouldn’t begin for another hour and a half, but teams of hopeful chef contestants were already staking out their territory on the floor, huddling together and drilling each other with last-minute trivia practice.

  Claire stood ten paces back from the raised dais serving as their stage, and watched with a critical eye as two unlucky Javits Center employees attempted to hang a banner across the back wall.

  “That’s nowhere near straight, I hope you realize,” she said. “The left corner is at least five centimeters lower than the right.”

  “Oh, Claire,” said a low, feminine voice over her shoulder. Eva, smiling like the cat who got the cream, and looking stunning as usual in a red sheath dress. “Don’t you have an assistant to take care of this kind of thing?”

  “Not all of us travel with an entourage, Eva.” Although Claire was well aware that she was likely the only one of the three Rising Star Chef judges who didn’t. Hmm. Clearly, she was in the wrong line of work.

  “Why don’t you let my assistant take over, then? Drew, you can sort this out, right, love?”

  A studious-looking young man with dark hair and black glasses stepped up. “Of course, Eva.” Striding forward while pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, Drew called out, “No, guys, look. That’s too far down, it needs to come back up an inch or so.”

  “There, he has that in hand,” Eva said, triumph gleaming in her eyes as she took in the names of the sponsors on the banner. Claire braced herself for a moment of gloating, but Eva didn’t mention the addition of the Cooking Channel to the list of RSC sponsors, instead saying, “Drew’s a treasure, I hope he sticks it out longer than most of my assistants do.”

  Claire allowed herself to be led away by the elbow, casting no more than one or two looks over her shoulder to track the progress of the banner. “You know your assistants all call you Eva the Diva, don’t you? There’s a reason you have such a high rate of turnover.”

  “I’m preparing them for real life,” Eva protested. “Which can be demanding, unreasonable, and mercurial. Just like me. I’m like a crash course in how to deal with the world.”

  “Speaking of mercurial, where are the other two judges? They know they’re required to be here today, yes?”

  “Don’t fret, darling. They’ll be here.” Eva twinkled at her. “I even had Drew give them a call time about an hour before we actually need them, so they could be here any minute!”

  “Or, when they’re both late, as they undoubtedly will be, perhaps they’ll arrive at something approaching the correct time.” Claire was unwillingly impressed.

  “It’s a gift.” Eva shrugged modestly. “Deep calling to deep—I know how to deal with sensitive, high-strung artistic types.”

  “I know you’re not talking about me.” The light, amused voice wasn’t like anything Claire had ever heard before. The only word she could think of to describe it was “musical,” but it was completely masculine, and rough enough to be interesting. “I might be an artistic type, if you squint, but I’m one of the loosest mofo’s you’ll ever meet, and you know it.”

  Eva swung Claire carelessly around by the elbow, one of her rare genuine smiles breaking over her beautiful face like the flash of a photographer’s camera. “Kane! You made it.”

  Claire stared at the young man grinning lazily back at them with his hands tucked into the front pocket of one of those awful zippered sweatshi
rt things. The hood was up over his head, pulled taut by the weight of his hands, but even the shadow of black cotton couldn’t dim the brilliance of his wavy blond hair.

  Younger than Claire by at least fifteen years, if not more, Kane Slater, with his baby-blue eyes, full, laughing mouth, and casual, thrown-together attire, made Claire suddenly wish she’d dressed a little less formally than her perfectly tailored navy suit. Pencil skirt and lacy lavender camisole shell or not, she felt every one of her forty-two years standing so close to the youthful exuberance of Eva bouncing over to give the handsome musician a quick, smacking kiss to the cheek.

  Stop being ridiculous, Claire lectured herself. No one cares what you’re wearing, and if they did, you look perfectly professional—severe enough to be taken seriously, while remaining elegant and feminine.

  It was a fine line, one she’d danced on successfully for the last twenty years or so.

  In her decades covering the largely male-dominated world of fine dining, Claire had also learned to keep any slight flicker of interest in someone of the opposite sex to herself.

  That training came in handy now, as Eva and Kane finished their playful salutations, which seemed to involve a lot of poking one another in the ribs, and turned back to her.

  By the time their attention was back on Claire, she’d pulled out her iPhone and started checking her e-mails, grateful as never before for the advanced technology that had finally given nonsmokers something to do with their hands in awkward social situations. Besides, if she had her eyes on the tiny, backlit screen of her phone, she wouldn’t be telegraphing any stunned, humiliating flickers of interest at the famous musician, half her age, standing in front of her.

  Not half my age, her vanity protested. Two thirds, at worst.

  Merde. Claire barely restrained an eyeroll at her own expense. Was this what it felt like to be starstruck? She’d broken bread with and interviewed enough famous chefs to have supposed herself immune.

  Perhaps it was different with rock stars—a new strain of the virus, and if her reaction to this Kane Slater was any indication, a virulent one.

  Kane smiled and moved forward to shake her hand, his muscles carrying him with smooth, almost liquid grace despite his slouchy American posture.

  He was certainly young enough, Claire decided, to make her layer an extra sheet of frost over her normal chilly politesse as she clasped his slender, blunt fingers briefly and said, “Good morning. Our mutual acquaintance is too much of a social heathen to do her duty, so I suppose we must fend for ourselves. I’m Claire Durand, editor in chief of Délicieux magazine, and head judge of the Rising Star Chef competition.” She made sure to enunciate that last part, wanting no confusion later over whose opinion counted most in these proceedings.

  “Believe me, I know who you are,” Kane said, that voice catching at Claire again—so expressive, rich with laughter and a warmth her vanity desperately wanted to read as sexual awareness.

  “Oh dear,” Claire said, forcing herself to drop his hand and take a step back. He really was a bit mesmerizing; his meteoric rise to fame didn’t surprise her, now that she’d met him. “I hope little Eva hasn’t been telling tales. She ought to remember how long I’ve known her, and how very many more embarrassing stories, starring teenaged Eva Jansen, I have in my arsenal than she could possibly dream.”

  “I haven’t!” Eva pouted prettily, eyes dancing. “I’ve been a perfect angel, tell her, Kane.”

  “Eva is a perfect angel,” Kane parroted. “Actually, she did tell me you’d be on the judging panel—that’s pretty much why I agreed to do it.”

  Firmly quashing the idiotic flutter of her womanly feelings, Claire lifted one eyebrow into a perfect arch. “Oh? A fan of Délicieux, are you?”

  His handsome—young!—face went serious and intent, which only made him appear even more boyish. “Only for about the last year and a half. Since you took over.”

  Taken aback, Claire noticed she was fidgeting with her phone, flipping it over and over in her hands, and returned it to her purse as smoothly as she could. “Really. You see a difference in the magazine already?”

  “More and more every month,” he said, lighting up enthusiastically. “It’s rad. I mean, I know when you first took charge you were still working with just putting out whatever articles were already lined up, right? But even then, I could sense a difference, like the whole magazine was pulling just slightly off center into coolness.”

  Claire blinked. He wasn’t wrong; the magazine tended to work about a year out from the month each issue would hit newsstands. “That’s quite an in-depth analysis of our little publication, Mr. Slater. I didn’t realize your hectic touring and recording schedule left you much time for reading.”

  He laughed as if he hadn’t even heard the implied insult. “Hey, crammed on a bus with four other guys and a tour manager, driving seven hours between venues, there’s pretty much nothing to do but read. I bribe one of the sound techs to stockpile Délicieux for when we hit those long stretches of road, then I gobble ’em up like candy.”

  Trying not to allow the hot rush of satisfaction washing through her chest to flush up her neck and into her face, Claire inclined her head with all the dignity she could muster. “Thank you. I’ll convey your regards to my editorial board. Some of them are fans of yours, I’m sure.”

  “Not you, though, huh?” Kane looked crestfallen for a long enough moment to make Claire actually consider feeling guilty for hurting his feelings. But in the next instant, he brightened again. “That’s okay. I’ll get you yet! I’m persistent like that. One day you’ve never heard of me, the next you’ve got Come to the Table playing on endless repeat.”

  “I love it!” Eva clapped her hands like a delighted child. “For once, Kane’s not the one getting fawned over—he’s the one doing the fawning. Buck up, sweetie, it’s good practice for when you get a girlfriend.”

  “Aw, Eves. You’re the best big pseudosister ever. Always looking out for me.” Kane hooked an arm around Eva’s neck and kissed the top of her head while Claire hoped fervently that she wasn’t being groomed for the role of “pseudomother” in the drama of Kane’s life.

  As maternal as she felt toward Eva, at times, Claire didn’t think she could quite bear for Kane Slater to look at her that way.

  Cursing herself as twelve kinds of idiot, Claire deliberately glanced away as Kane and Eva started talking about some Los Angeles party they’d both been to the previous weekend. Ignoring the way things low down in her body tightened every time she felt Kane’s gaze drift back to her as if he wanted to pull her back into their conversation, Claire scanned the room around them.

  It looked as though the last few days of round-the-clock stress, during which Claire had had nothing more to sustain her than several liters of stale coffee and at least five tongue-lashings of slow-moving employees, had paid off. Everything was ready for the first event of this year’s Rising Star Chef competition.

  Well, everything except the fact that they were still down one judge.

  Just then, she heard a susurrus of excited voices near the doors, which swung open to reveal a preternaturally good-looking man with dark hair, blue eyes, and the widest, most blindingly white smile Claire had ever seen.

  The whispers continued as the man made his way through the crowd toward the other judges, stopping every so often to slap someone on the back here and shake a hand there.

  “Devon Sparks,” Claire said, feeling unreasonably fond of the man all of a sudden. “Finally, some adult conversation.”

  Here, at least, was someone she didn’t need to worry about being attracted to. A celebrity chef who’d catapulted to stardom with a hit show on the Cooking Channel, Sparks also had a new wife, a young son, and a well-deserved reputation for losing his temper in the kitchen. And with reviewers, as well—he’d detonated like a bomb when Délicieux’s restaurant critic lambasted his Vegas outpost a couple of years ago.

  And no matter how much said wife and son had turne
d Devon’s life around, Claire wasn’t worried. Married men were out of bounds, even for her sometimes quirky and unreliable libido. Which probably indicated she’d been living away from France for far too long, but c’est la vie.

  “Claire, how nice to see you again,” Devon said, giving an infinitesimal bow over her hand. It was the kind of gesture that should’ve seemed silly and overdone, but on Devon, it worked. Despite herself, Claire was charmed.

  He was good, she’d give him that.

  Turning the glare of his personality on Eva and Kane, Devon introduced himself while Claire looked on. She wondered if it bruised Kane’s ego that Devon’s entrance—and the man certainly knew how to make one—had caused a bigger splash with the crowd here than the presence of a multiplatinum recording artist.

  From the sheer joy on the younger man’s face, it didn’t appear so. He looked like a kindergartener meeting Mickey Mouse for the first time.

  Devon accepted Kane’s and Eva’s adulation as his due, with regal head nodding and a bit of preening. Still, watching him, Claire could see that he wasn’t as camera ready and fake as he used to be. His flashes of brilliant white teeth appeared genuine, and his voice was warm with sincerity when he thanked Kane for the compliments, and returned them by claiming to love his music.

  Before Kane could keel over with glee, Claire cleared her throat and stepped purposefully into the middle. “Now that we are all fast friends, I think we’d better go down to the judges’ box and let Eva get the event started. Gentlemen, if you’ll follow me?”

  Without looking to see if they did as she ordered, Claire marched back in the direction of the stage, already ticking things off in her head.

  Three judges, present and accounted for? Check. Banner announcing Délicieux, the Jansen Hospitality Group, and the Cooking Channel as sponsors of the Rising Star Chef competition, hung straight and proud across the back of the stage? Check. Judges’ box well supplied with bottled water, paper, and pens? Check.