“Well, ‘Just Venus,’ I’m ‘Just Emilio.’” He took her hand and rather than shaking it, he brought it up to his lips and pressed a kiss against her skin.
“And, if you don’t want to be ‘just laid off,’ I suggest you ‘lay off,’” Trevor informed his assistant with just a touch of seriousness beneath the cheerful warning. He draped his arm across the shorter man’s slim shoulders and drew him away from the preparation table. “Make five of each, Venus. I’ll get back to you later,” he promised. “You,” he said, addressing Emilio, “come with me.”
Emilio offered no resistance. “Well, well, well,” he declared with a wide, blinding grin as he appraised his employer. The three identical words hung in the air like bursts of gunfire in suspended animation.
Over in the corner now, Trevor glanced at his assistant, struggling to curb his impatience. This was something new for him. Ordinarily, patience was all but his middle name.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he inquired.
Emilio considered Trevor a friend as well as his employer. Sometimes, the lines became a little blurred.
“Acting a little territorial about the help, aren’t you?” He cocked his dark head, amusement shining in his eyes as he studied Trevor’s face. “Something interesting going on between you and ‘Just Venus’?”
Trevor did his best to seem as if he wasn’t emotionally invested in Venus any more than with his other employees.
Shrugging, he replied, “It’s a very unique situation.”
That only seemed to spark more interest in his assistant. Leaning against the wall, Emilio crossed his hands before his chest, like a man who had all day to shoot the breeze.
“Do tell.”
Knowing Emilio’s reputation as a lover, Trevor felt that a warning was in order. “And if you put the moves on her, I might just have to quarantine you in the walk-in freezer.”
Emilio looked as if he was vindicated. And delighted.
“So, she does light your fire. I didn’t think there was a woman alive who did that. Good for you,” Emilio declared, clapping him on the back. “I’ve gotta say, I had my doubts about you for a while, but when you pick ’em, you sure pick ’em.”
He didn’t bother asking what the other man meant by “doubts.” There was no time to get into a discussion and he knew that Emilio could go on talking for hours. Trevor cut to the heart of the matter.
“Nobody’s ‘picking’ anyone.” He lowered his voice, his manner indicating that he didn’t want this to become general knowledge, that he was sharing something with his assistant and not the immediate world. “Venus has amnesia.”
Emilio looked in Venus’s direction. She was busy making the salads as Trevor had requested and seemed not to realize that she was under scrutiny. “For real?”
“Yes, ‘for real.’”
Emilio frowned slightly, as if he had trouble wrapping his mind around the concept.
“She tell you this during the job interview?”
“She ‘told’ me this after I pulled her out of the ocean the other night.” He hadn’t wanted to talk about it because it made him seem like a hero and he had no desire for that kind of attention. But neither did he want to lie, especially not to someone he worked so closely with. “She was drowning.”
Emilio’s eyes lit up with genuine admiration. “Hey man, you’re a hero—”
Trevor cut him short. “That’s not why I’m telling you this. I want you to keep an eye on her, help her out if she needs it.”
Emilio nodded his head, as if that went without saying. And then an impish grin curved his lips. “Times this rough that you’ve gotta pluck people out of the ocean to come work for us?”
The rhythmic sound of a knife chopping its way through celery provided background music as they talked. “Working was her idea. She doesn’t want to be a parasite—her words.”
Emilio nodded. “Says something about her character,” he commented, then his eyes lit up again, as if a pleasing thought had entered his mind. “Say, where’s she staying? ’Cause you know, my place’s pretty large and—”
Trevor knew that Emilio was honorable enough if the occasion demanded it, but what his assistant was about to suggest still echoed of leaving the fox in charge of guarding the henhouse. Again, he cut Emilio short. “Already taken care of.”
A knowing grin split his face. “Stashed her at your place, huh?”
“No,” Trevor informed him. “She’s staying with my parents.”
Emilio shook his head. “Makes things kind of hard,” he empathized.
“Makes things aboveboard,” Trevor countered. He didn’t want the man getting the wrong idea—or promoting it around the kitchen. “I’m just helping out a fellow human being.”
Emilio laughed at the protest. “If you think that’s a fellow, I’m sending you to my sister’s eye doctor right now.”
Trevor gave him a look. There were dishes to prepare. “Get to work, Emilio.”
Emilio saluted with a flourish. “You got it, boss.” If his grin was any wider as he walked away, it would have made him too top-heavy to move.
Chapter Nine
Anxious and hopeful. This was what a parent probably felt like on his child’s first day in nursery school. Trevor had observed Venus off and on throughout the day.
His feelings for Venus weren’t exactly parental in nature. But he had to admit that his concern about her ability to handle the job was greater than the impact that messing up might have on his restaurant’s reputation.
For once, that was only a minor concern.
He found himself desperately worried that if she couldn’t handle what she was doing, if she performed the job poorly, Venus would feel bad about it.
He didn’t want her feeling bad.
He needn’t have worried.
Venus might not know her way around her own mind, but when it came to the kitchen, the woman he’d pulled from the ocean was apparently a born natural. And what she didn’t know, others on his staff were eager to help her with. Everyone, from the soup chef to the pastry chef and all the people in between, was more than willing to lend the “new girl” a hand, impart advice or just shoot the breeze with her.
He’d picked a good crew, Trevor thought with satisfaction. They had far more in common with one big happy family than a collection of diverse people who had to work hard not to get in each other’s way. All this while doing what they did best in the hottest area of the restaurant.
And Venus appeared to be an excellent addition to this mix.
“You did good,” he told her after the last order had been filled. They began to shut down the kitchen, putting everything back in its proper place where it would remain until the following morning.
Venus smiled, exhausted more by the attack of nerves she’d waltzed around with all day than the actual work. She felt both tired and wired at the same time.
“It did go pretty well, didn’t it?” Her feet were killing her. But it was a small price to pay for the way she felt. “At least there were no accidents,” she said proudly.
Trevor smirked, amused. “Were you expecting any?”
Emilio had told her how long her predecessor had lasted and why she’d been let go. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about knocking things over, dropping an entire tray of salads on the floor,” she answered.
Emilio was to blame for that, Trevor thought. He was likable, a quick study and he worked hard, but he never knew when to stop talking. “Luckily, we don’t require our salad girl to balance an entire tray of salads with one hand until just before her first paycheck is cut,” Trevor quipped.
Just then, Emilio entered the kitchen carrying a tray of half-empty condiment containers. He set it down on the first flat surface he came to. “Hey, boss, if you want to take Venus here home, I can lock up again,” Emilio volunteered. “Like last night.”
“That’s okay, I wouldn’t want to put you out two days in a row,” Trevor deadpanned. The truth of it was,
he didn’t want to seem lax in his responsibilities. That would be all that Emilio needed to start ribbing him.
Emilio downplayed it as if the matter didn’t faze him. “Whatever you say, boss. But if you ask me, it seems a shame to waste a perfectly good moon just because you always have to be the last one going out the door.” Turning on his heel, Emilio shook his head and began to walk slowly toward the door. So slowly, Trevor observed, that if it was any slower, the man would have been walking backward.
Venus moved in front of him. “Can I do anything to help?”
Amused by just how slowly Emilio could actually walk, he didn’t immediately follow the gist of Venus’s offer. “With?”
“Locking up.” She gestured around the kitchen. “Making it go faster.”
Was that her way of saying that she wanted to get home? “Tired?”
“No.” She shook her head so hard that the ends of her hair bounced. “I just want to help. I think I’m on an adrenaline high right now.”
Trevor’s eyes crinkled as he laughed. “I’ve never heard a salad girl say that to me before. Hey, Emilio,” he called out, raising his voice.
Still not at the door, his assistant spun around on a dime and crossed back to him in a flash. “At your service, boss.”
The man would have never made it as a secret agent, Trevor thought. He was utterly transparent. “Maybe I will let you lock up again tonight.”
“Knew you’d see it my way.” Emilio’s wide, satisfied grin turned softer and more appreciative as his eyes shifted toward Venus. “See you tomorrow, Venus. Good job today. Really,” he underscored.
“Thank you,” she murmured just before she fell into step beside Trevor. A sense of triumph echoed through her. She liked the way it felt. Liked being productive and part of a team. Venus turned her face up to Trevor. “Everyone’s so nice here. You must love coming in to work.”
“It has its moments,” he allowed. Trevor got the door and held it open for her. A gust of warm wind greeted them both the moment they stepped outside the shelter of the restaurant. Trevor sighed. “Looks like the Santa Ana winds are back.”
Venus wrapped her arms around herself. Rather than the customary hot winds that blew in from the desert, this breeze felt cool. She took a deep breath, unconsciously testing the air.
“I hope the fires don’t start up,” she said with feeling, then stopped abruptly when she saw Trevor looking at her. She couldn’t quite read his expression. “I remembered something else, didn’t I?”
“That you did.” He ushered her over to his car. There weren’t very many left in the restaurant’s parking lot at this time of night. “It won’t be long now before the rest of your life comes catching up to you and you remember everything.”
The thing was, Trevor thought as he opened the passenger side of his vehicle for her, even though he made himself sound encouraging for her sake, he wasn’t altogether sure he was really rooting for her memory to return.
Because with the return of her memory, quite possibly, a completely different woman might emerge than the one he became more and more captivated by.
A routine began to fall into place. Trevor would pick Venus up every morning at his parents’ house and bring her back there each evening. And in between, he mentored Venus. The routine seemed to evolve naturally.
Initially, he noted that she was covertly observing him during work hours, watching him not just prepare different dishes, but create things when he felt the spirit move him. When he would catch her, she’d look away, pretending that she hadn’t been staring at his every move. After the third time, he’d motioned her over.
“Would you like to learn how to make this?” he asked, “this” being stuffed manicotti.
She never hesitated. “Yes.”
He began teaching her then and there. Right from the beginning, Venus soaked up his words like a thirsty flower that had been neglected and left out in the sun far too long. After that, he took it upon himself to encourage her to experiment, to test out new recipes according to her tastes during the time when their doors were closed between lunch and dinner.
As a result of his supportive nature and praise, Venus showed her creativity and he and Venus got even closer.
If Venus was having any more flashes from the past, like the one she’d had in his parents’ kitchen just before her first day of work, she made no mention of it. Rather than desperately try to discover her identity, she seemed to be more interested in growing, in doing her job while continually learning about cooking as a form of art from their daily classes.
She’d never been happier.
And maybe that was the problem. Maybe that was why she couldn’t remember anything. Because the state of her old life had been too horrible to recall. She doubted she could have been this happy in her other life. If she had, she reasoned, wouldn’t there be this driving need to reconnect? Wouldn’t something inside her be fighting to surface? To bring about a return to what had once been?
Since there wasn’t, she drew her own conclusions that the life she’d led before had left her unhappy and unfulfilled.
And definitely not like the life she currently led. Here she felt warm and happy, cared for, not just by Trevor, but by everyone in his family. Even by the people at the restaurant.
It didn’t get much better than this, she mused, watching the dark scenery go by her window as Trevor drove her home.
Even that felt right, thinking of the Marlowes’ home as her own. It was as if she’d been missing pieces of herself all this time and they were just now finally showing up.
She’d be complete soon.
A month passed and then another. It was more like a lifetime. A happy lifetime. Venus knew in her heart she should be making more of an effort to try to remember who she was, and she felt guilty because she wasn’t. But in all honesty she grew less and less interested in finding out who she’d been. A part of her feared that knowing who she was would ruin what she had now. So, stubbornly, she lived in the moment and relished each one that she had. Not just the time she spent each day with Trevor, but with his family, as well. The ones she’d met so far.
The only tribute to the past was the rock-solid feeling that she’d never experienced anything like this before. Never known this kind of contentment, never experienced this sense of belonging.
It created enough of an argument for her not to remember. The prospect of remembering no longer held any allure, only fear.
She was more than content to remain Venus for the rest of her days.
“Venus, do you mind getting that?” Kate called out from the kitchen where she and Trevor were putting together a spectacular Sunday dinner. Only at the last minute had it been transformed into a prewedding meal honoring the soon-to-be married couple. “I think I hear someone pulling up the driveway.”
Presently alone in the living room because Kelsey was still upstairs and Bryan was in his study, Venus sailed to the front door and pulled it open.
The next moment, she stopped dead and stared.
She would have asked Trevor why he’d suddenly decided to change his clothes—except that there were two of him. And they were both coming up the front walk. Utterly amazed, she looked from one to the other. They were perfect copies of one another. And Trevor.
“My God,” she whispered, “you really do look identical.”
“And you must be Venus,” the closer one to her, Trent, said warmly. “Trevor’s mermaid,” he added with an amused grin. Both his hands enveloped hers. He was staring at her as much as she was at him. “Mom said you were a knockout.”
Venus cleared her throat self-consciously. She’d hardly heard a word of what the man in front of her said.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to stare,” she confessed. “It’s just that—my God, you’re complete clones of one another….” Her voice trailed off in wonder.
Travis grinned. “That’s okay, we’re used to it.”
“Used to it?” Trent echoed, amazed at the tame refer
ence to their past. “We would take advantage of it any chance we got.” He helped himself to one of the bottles of beer that Kate had put out. “Taking each other’s tests because Travis was better at math than I was and I was better at English lit.” Twisting the top off, he took a long swig.
They’d piqued her curiosity. “What was Trevor better at?”
“Not cheating,” Trevor answered, walking into the room with a tray of hors d’ ouevres. He placed the tray down on the side table and nodded toward his brothers. “I see you’ve met my clones.”
“Just because you were born half a minute earlier doesn’t make us your clones,” Travis said. He paused to pop a stuffed mushroom cap into his mouth. Anything else he was about to add was temporarily forgotten as the taste transformed him. “My God, but you do know your way around a kitchen.” He shook his head in wonder. “This is damn terrific, Trev.” He went to take more.
“Leave some for the rest of us,” Trent warned. He appeared ready to slap away Travis’s hand. Looking over toward Venus, he grinned. “That’s our Trevor. Someday, he’s going to make some lucky person one hell of a wonderful wife.”
“Just because you don’t know a mushroom from a toadstool—” Trevor began, only to be waved into silence by Kelsey as the latter entered the room. His sister went straight to their houseguest, playfully hooking her arm through Venus’s.
“Creepy, isn’t it?” she commented. “Their looking so alike. If they were dressed alike, you probably couldn’t tell them apart.”
“I could pick out Trevor.”
The statement came with no bravado or fanfare. It was a simple given.
“How?”
She’d had more than one opportunity to study Trevor, up close and personal. “Well, for one thing, Trevor’s smile is higher on the left than on the right. And when he’s lost in thought, one eyebrow rises higher than the other.”
“Is she right?” Trent cocked his head. “Smile for us, Trev.”
“Or think,” Travis chimed in, more than a little amused by Venus’s observation.
“Yes, she’s right,” Kate announced as she crossed to the table from the kitchen. She deposited the basket of warm rolls onto the table, placing them near Bryan’s plate because she knew how much he liked crisp French bread straight out of the oven. “That was one of my markers when I first came to work here,” she confided to Venus. “They were determined to fool me and I was just as determined to see them for the individuals they were. I won,” she added in case there was any doubt.
[Kate's Boys 02] - The Bride With No Name Page 9
