Cooking Up A Seduction

by Jenna Bayley-Burke

  “Have you heard of Clive Braden?”

  “The name sounds familiar. Why?”

  “He’s interested in the renewable-energy fund.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Nice? Babe, he’s one of the richest men in the country. It’s not nice, it’s career making.”

  “Congratulations.” She leaned forward in her chair, her elbows on her knees.

  “Don’t congratulate me yet. We have to convince him over dinner tomorrow.”

  “I can’t do a dinner tomorrow. I have the vegan wedding to cater.”

  “Diego can handle that. How many people should we have? I’m thinking small so he doesn’t feel pressured.”

  Lauren cleared her throat. “Diego isn’t ready to do a wedding on his own. Especially not this wedding. Let’s schedule it for another time.”

  Cameron shook his head. “He’ll only be in town for six hours, assuming his flight is on time. I have maybe two hours here, Lauren. What time is the wedding?”

  “Six thirty. But I can’t cater a plated dinner for three hundred and put on a party for you.”

  “I need you there.”

  “I can’t be there tomorrow night.” She stood, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “We’ll hire another company to handle the wedding. I need you there. This is very important to me. To us.”

  Her mouth hung open, her eyes narrowing into slits. “Keeping my commitments is important to me. This is someone’s wedding, Cameron. It’s stressful enough without having your caterer flake because her boyfriend wants her to play hooky. I won’t do it.”

  “I need this, Lauren. We need this.”

  “No, we don’t. Take him to a restaurant – some kind of men’s place like a cigar bar or whiskey library.”

  “You’re not understanding how crucial this is. If I can bring in an investor like this, Anders will feel comfortable stepping down. I’ll have control of the entire firm.”

  “From New York?”

  “Yes.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. Obviously not the right answer. “New York would mean less travel. You could move your business there.”

  “No, I couldn’t cater parties in Seattle from Manhattan.”

  “Don’t be so stubborn. Diego handles events every time we have a party that overlaps. He can handle this too.”

  “What part of no aren’t you comprehending?” She spoke slowly, anger evident on each word. “I can not have dinner with your client tomorrow. I have a wedding to cater. I need to make sure everything goes right for my clients. Clients who will still be with me after you go back to New York.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m not planning on going back to New York without you.”

  “Maybe you should, Cameron. Because I could never be with a man who doesn’t respect my ambitions and expects me to morph into the prefect professional’s wife when it suits him, but be too busy to notice how little I matter in his life the rest of the time.”

  She turned on her heel and marched from his office. He thought about chasing her, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking some sense into her. She had a wedding to cater, which would be over and her menu forgotten in a few hours. His meeting could make their lives considerably more comfortable.

  Damn her. Couldn’t she see what they could accomplish together?

  With a groan he took matters into his own hands. He typed “Seattle catering” into his web browser and called the first company that came on screen. He’d handle the party himself, and deal with her after he landed the biggest transaction of his career.

  Fifteen

  “What is wrong with you?” Diego asked, stepping around Lauren in the corner of the hotel kitchen where they were allowed to prep the food.

  “Nothing is wrong with me.” She continued to angrily jam guacamole into the cherry tomatoes. Damn weddings; always put her in a bad temper.

  “Did you and Cameron have a fight?” Diego pulled the egg-substitute mini frittatas from the broiler and arranged them on a platter.

  “Cameron is a jerk.” Finished with her tomato platter, she started abusing mushroom caps, whacking them with artichoke and spinach filling. The wait staff came and went from the kitchen as quickly as possible, probably sensing her foul mood.

  “What happened?” Diego stood next to her, his voice lowered below the buzz of the kitchen.

  “He tells me yesterday afternoon that he needs me to cater a dinner for him tonight. And when I told him we were committed to a wedding, he expected me to change my plans. Actually suggested hiring another company to cater the wedding. This wedding, with the low-carb vegan everything. Can you imagine the nerve?”

  “I told you I could handle this wedding on my own.”

  “That is not the point.” She turned, whacking him square in the lapels of his chef’s jacket with a hunk of spinach dip from her spoon.

  “And the point is?”

  “If he expects me to drop everything with no notice, just bail on my clients because he needs me, then he doesn’t respect my career. And I work too damn hard to have someone treat what I do like a hobby.”

  “Did he say he needed you?”

  “Like a broken record. But I can’t live like that. I don’t want to settle for someone who doesn’t love me as much as I love him.” If at all.

  “How much does it weigh?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re putting it on a scale. So tell me, is it lighter than a feather, or heavier than a brick?”

  “Very funny.”

  “I’m being serious. Men don’t like to admit they need anyone, Lauren. He doesn’t understand about poetic words and the right phrases you expect to hear. If a man wants to make you his, if he tells you he needs you, that’s his definition of love. The word may elude him, but the feeling hasn’t. That’s all we’re hardwired for. If a man says more, it’s because a woman taught him to.”

  Lauren’s heart sunk to the floor at how true Diego’s words seemed. She dug in her heels because she thought if she gave in once, he’d always expect her to. Cameron refused to bend in his insistence he needed her, but she saw it as him trying to break her desire to be successful.

  She was being as petulant as him, refusing to give an inch. When really, she could compromise. Diego was capable of handling everything without her. And Nyla was here, micromanaging every detail of the wedding to precision.

  “If he needs you, you should go.”

  “You’re right.” Lauren untied her apron.

  Diego shuffled backwards, his hand over his heart. “Did the world just end? Did you actually admit I’m right?”

  “Don’t let it go to your head.” On a new mission, Lauren gave one last set of instructions and hit the road. She knew they both needed to learn to give a little or things would never get better.

  After a quick stop at her apartment to change, she rehearsed her speech to him the whole drive to his house. But arriving, she was surprised to not see a single car outside. Maybe he’d taken her advice and had the dinner at a restaurant.

  She let herself in the kitchen door. The stench of old seafood wrinkled her nose. Someone had been cooking in her kitchen, and they left an awful mess. Ignoring the puzzling dirtiness for now, she walked further into the house, noting the baskets of rolls still on the table and empty bottles of wine. There had been a party here, but according to her watch it wasn’t even eight.

  “Cameron?” She called out, climbing the stairs and looking for answers. She found them huddled in his bathroom. “Are you okay?”

  Cameron stopped throwing up long enough to fall asleep around three in the morning. To work out her frustrations, Lauren changed into a pair of his shorts and a tee shirt and scrubbed the kitchen free of the vile stench.

  She didn’t know what made her angrier, that he’d replaced her as his caterer with so little thought, or that the company he used gave him food poisoning. A caterer was only as good as their last job, and this company would feel the repercussions if t
he other guests were as sick as Cameron. And if his investor got sick too, little chance of him signing on to the project remained.

  Lauren had felt guilty at first, but after having to bleach the kitchen and mop the floors, her guilt had abated. Atonement by cleaning.

  Exhausted, she climbed the stairs and crawled in bed next to him and slept until her cell phone started chiming downstairs. Trying not to wake Cameron, she sprinted to her phone, out of breath when she answered.

  “Something weird is going on,” Ricky said. “I just got here to start the breads, and there were four messages on the phone. Four cancellations for this week. And then before I could even get flour in the mixer, today’s client called to cancel. Today’s client!”

  “Five cancellations already?” Her watch said it wasn’t even seven in the morning. Something must have happened at the wedding after she left. She kicked her foot against the wall, then regretted it as she hopped around, trying to stop the pain.

  “Actually six cancellations. One more after I tried to call Diego.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can to try and figure this out.” Try and throttle Diego is more like it. He should have called her last night if something went wrong. It would have saved her from the puke patrol, and started the trouble shooting process earlier.

  After hanging up the phone Lauren looked down at her outfit. Cameron’s clothes screamed walk of shame, but her dress would have yelled booty call even louder. And since she didn’t get any booty, she didn’t care to be branded. She’d simply tell everyone she was at the gym when Ricky called. Maybe they’d believe she had really baggy workout clothes.

  She went back upstairs to leave Cameron a note, but he was awake sitting on the side of the bed and hanging his head. She sat next to him and ran a hand through his hair.

  “Feeling better?”

  “Marginally.”

  “I’m sorry you got sick.”

  “Me too. Braden showed up for thirty minutes, had some wine, asked two questions, and signed on to the project.”

  “Congratulations.” He didn’t need her after all. She really shouldn’t have left the wedding.

  “The caterer was awful. Rubbery shrimp, and they didn’t bring anything with them. No flowers, no music, no decorations. Nothing.”

  “I told you, that’s a special service. It’s not routine.”

  “I know. I just never realized all you put into a party. You make it look so easy.”

  “That’s my job. And speaking of my job, I need to get to work. There’s something strange happening. Six cancellations already, including today’s client. That never happens. Something must have gone wrong after I left the wedding last night.”

  “Something like what?”

  “People getting sick, or the food not being prepared right, or the staff being rude.”

  “Sick, like I was sick?”

  “Yeah, you can bet whomever catered last night won’t be getting any business from the guests here, and anyone they know either.”

  Cameron fell back against the bed with a curse.

  Lauren reached for him. “Do you need to be sick again?”

  “You’re going to kill me.”

  “Why?” She drew the word out, dread beginning to swirl around her.

  “Last night everyone wanted to know where you were, so I said you had a big wedding to cater. And then one of the wives said something snarky about how you needed to concentrate on me or someone else would, and it pissed me off. So I said you made sure dinner was handled before you left because you wanted to make sure everything went perfectly.”

  Lauren hopped to her feet. “You told people Come For Dinner catered the poison party?”

  “I thought I was helping.”

  “Helping who, Cam? Yourself?”

  “No, helping you. You’re always trying to impress the other wives.”

  “Never at the expense of my business! I’ve told you how careful I am about my parties, how much having my own business means to me. And now, because you acted like a spoiled brat and insisted on having a party when I couldn’t be there and telling everyone I gave them food poisoning, my reputation is on the line. I can’t believe you would sabotage my career!”

  “I know you’re upset, but I didn’t do any of it to hurt you. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “But you did hurt me, Cameron. After all I did to make sure your career was rosy – playing along with your fake girlfriend scheme and creating parties where you felt comfortable – this is how you repay me?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry. Tell that to my wait staff who won’t get a check this week because I don’t have any work for them. Tell that to my bank when I don’t have enough money in my accounts to make payroll or for the contractors.”

  “I’ll pay for it.”

  “You can’t throw money at this and make it go away.” She turned and marched down the stairs, grabbing her purse from the sparkling clean counter on her way out the door.

  Cameron yelled after her to stop, but thanks to his food poisoning he wasn’t fast enough to catch her.

  Lauren hadn’t returned a single one of his calls in the last five days. It gave him the perfect opportunity to announce the end to their fake relationship, and walk away unscathed. After everyone got sick, Anders wouldn’t blame him a bit, might even leave him alone for a few months about replacing her with a new bauble.

  But Cameron couldn’t stand that he’d done something to hurt her, or her career. No matter what she thought, he liked that she knew who she was and how to take care of herself.

  He had to convince her they had a future. He didn’t want anything about their relationship to be fake; he wanted something as strong as she was. Strong enough to stand up to him and look out for them both.

  Walking away now was impossible. And he couldn’t let people believe Lauren had anything to do with the food poisoning. An idea sparked in his mind to combine what she wanted and what he needed.

  He dialed Come For Dinner, but instead of asking for Lauren only to be told she was unavailable, he asked for Diego. And said a prayer that he could talk his way into a favor.

  “I’m not going.” Lauren stared at the spreadsheet covered in too much red on her computer screen.

  “It’s fifty people, Lauren. And most of our serving staff found other gigs this week. I need you there.”

  “It’s a pity party, and everyone there knows it.” And she hated to be pitied. Sure, Cameron had booked the party before the blow up, but she knew he kept up appearances for the sake of her business. A few weeks ago hosting a holiday bash with the richest in Seattle’s social swirl had thrilled her, but now she knew everyone there would see through the ruse as quickly as she had. If she could afford to turn the party down, she would. But since half of their business for this week and next evaporated, she had no choice.

  Come For Dinner had to cater the party. But that didn’t mean she had to be there. Serving appetizers to guests who would no doubt be whispering behind her back about the poison party and subsequent relationship implosion.

  “If you’re there, you can explain to customers face to face, I agree it will sound like a cover up over the phone, but in person you might be able to save us some business.”

  “I said no.”

  Lauren returned to her spreadsheet, wishing she could magically make the numbers change back to black. If things kept up this way she’d have to use the money for the new store just to keep the catering side afloat.

  The phone rang next to her, and because she’d sent everyone but Diego home to save labor costs, she had to answer it herself.

  “Lauren, it’s me. Don’t hang up.” Cameron’s voice heated her in the wrong way. She needed to be angry, not relieved to hear his voice. She’d spent the week dodging his calls and deleting his voicemails without listening.

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “I know. But I need to see you in person. Come for dinner, tonight.”

 
; “I’m not interested in giving gossip trolls more carnage.” Been there, done that, never letting them gnaw on her again.

  “I need to see you.”

  “I’m busy. Do you know what your disregard has done to my business?”

  “I know. I want to make it right. I’ve—”

  “You’ve done more than enough, Cameron. You got what you wanted. I’m sure the Anders’ are off your back about a relationship, your funding is set so you can head back to New York, and you even get your perfectly understandable break up. You have everything you want.”

  “I want you love me.” The line clicked off, leaving Lauren to stare at the phone in disbelief.

  “Set up the Singapore slings on the entry table.” Diego pushed the box into Lauren’s hands and nearly shoved her out of the kitchen. She never would have selected the gaudy red cocktail, or the Asian theme of tonight’s menu. But she wasn’t in charge tonight, just kitchen help in a little black dress in case someone spotted her.

  She didn’t want to leave the kitchen tonight and risk having to explain what happened to someone. But since the guests hadn’t started to arrive yet, she did as Diego asked, surveying the set up for the party as she went.

  In the living room was a large Christmas tree, professionally decorated with white ribbons and bows. Her heart panged, wondering if her twinkle-light tree still sat in the den.

  Red and white was the theme of the night, from the candy canes on the napkins to the red and white poinsettias scattered about to the table linens.

  She set about making the pitchers of drinks, arranging everything so guests could easily make their own. The doorbell rang behind her and she jumped. On autopilot Lauren sprinted to the stereo and pushed play, acoustic Christmas carols filling the house as she answered the door. Bob and Sonja Anders. Just freaking perfect.

  They greeted her warmly, as if nothing had happened. Fast on their heels more guests arrived. Lauren didn’t even have time to look for Cameron as she greeted everyone, each guest seemed blissfully ignorant of the personal and professional pall hanging over her head.