by S. A. Wolfe
Copyright (C) 2019 S.A. Wolfe
All rights reserved.
978-0-9908512-6-4
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written consent of the author except where permitted by law.
The characters and events depicted in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published: S.A. Wolfe 2019
[email protected]
Cover Design: Damonza
Editing: Emma Corcoran
Editing: Clio Editing
Editing: C&D Editing
Proofreading & Formatting by Elaine York, Allusion Graphics, LLC, www.allusiongraphics.com
Proofreader: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com
Synopsis
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Epilogue
Author's Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books by S.A. Wolfe
For Emma Corcoran
Take one pretty chef with confidence issues…
Add one sexy restaurateur with blind ambition…
Untested recipes are always a risk … is this one worth taking?
She’s going to ask the arrogant hottie for a special favor…
Talia Madej, a personal chef, has kept a recent harrowing crisis secret from her friends and the local gossips in her small town. She has enough baggage to sink a ship which has crushed her confidence and makes her wary of men and relationships. The only way out of this is to start living again, and the first hurdle is to ask the new guy in town to help her get back in the game. Even if he is not her type, a cocky workaholic who always seems to be surrounded by beautiful women, he’s the perfect candidate because he’s temporary. He’ll be a short-term player in her long-term scheme.
He’s not about to refuse her and the intriguing offer she presents…
Peyton MacKenzie’s star is rising. A hotshot restaurateur in New York City who is used to putting himself first, he just has to get his newest restaurant up and running, and then he’s blowing this tiny bohemian tourist town and pursuing a huge career opportunity. But when the charming blond chef needs use of his commercial kitchen for her catering business, he surprises himself and doesn’t hesitate to say yes. And when she asks for something bigger with no strings attached, he’s definitely more than willing to oblige. Soon he realizes that simply being a pawn in her plan is not enough for him. He has to figure out how to hold on to her…forever.
Talia
HE SAYS HE WILL stop my heart. That there is always a risk of death. And I imagine my unconscious body surrounded by strangers who must bring me close to death in order to give me life.
“Don’t you have a heart whisperer around here, or anyone who won’t kill me first?” I ask, wishing I could walk right out of his office and forget about my condition.
He smiles as if I’m joking. I can tell smiling doesn’t come naturally to him. He’s a serious man with strong physical features that match his profession. The slender build of a long-distance runner, the intense eyes bracketed with creases as if he’s perpetually scrutinizing a challenge, and the perfectly shaved bald head all live up to my expectations of this famous, innovative expert.
Meeting with him should ease my fears. Baldy is the smartest, most skilled, and the best in the world, according to all the research. However, I’m still scared.
Baldy gestures to the video on the wall monitor where the blackish, gelatinous beating heart is stopped. His words become background noise as my brain tries to process all the medical jargon paired with the explicit images. It has real shock value, much like what TV shows do to get their ratings up.
He will stop your heart!
He continues with more unabashed satisfaction that resembles amusement, about sawing through chest bones and placing ice on the heart. My heart.
Who agrees to such things?
I mimic his calmness to mask my terror.
Sitting next to me, my fiancé, Marko, is unemotional, staring at the older man in the white lab coat with the fancy office overlooking Central Park. Marko’s stoicism falters, though, when he lets go of my hand.
I’m not sure which man is upsetting me more. The cool, monotonous demeanor of Baldy who makes me want to throw the stapler at his smooth, shiny head. Or Marko, who should know better. He’s supposed to be my partner in this, my reassuring support system, the man who loves me. Since the minute Baldy started speaking, though, Marko has kept his eyes averted from mine, and there is a shift in the room when his body, his whole being, seems to separate from me. That’s when I know.
I’m in this alone. I am alone and scared.
• • •
Peyton
She wakes, stretching languorously, exuding a sensuality that would leave most men in a stupor, but my mind is elsewhere as I look out the window, watching Park Avenue come to life before the sun has risen.
I finish buttoning my shirt, then rake my freshly showered hair back with my fingers while I watch the people below. I like to see the traffic build and the throngs of fast-walking men and women race to work.
“Come back to bed. It’s uncivil to get up this early.” She props herself up on an elbow to study me.
Men never turn Flora down. She steals their attention with her exotic beauty and curvaceous body, and she keeps their attention with her brilliant legal mind, clever conversation, and uninhibited sexual appetite. I’m no different than other men, except I have already spent several active hours in her bed, and I feel like the early risers down below, the same sense of determination and eagerness to get to work.
I’m leaving today, spending the next few months in a small town in the Catskills, where I’m opening a new restaurant.
“Peyton,” she says.
I grab my car keys from the dresser, hoping I can dodge out of her apartment without one of her lectures.
“I need more. This timeline isn’t working for me. I like things to run efficiently, with more structure and agreements in place. We’ve been together for nine months already.”
“We’ve been sleeping together for nine months. It’s sex, Flora, nothing more. No timeline. We have an expiration date.”
“Sometimes you can be the biggest dick,” she says, throwing back the covers as she gets out of bed.
“The biggest? That’s why you like sleeping wit
h me.” That was low, even for me.
I see the flash of red in time to bolt out of the apartment and close the door just as her shoe hits the other side. Flora has good aim.
Three months later…
Talia
TODAY IS MY BIG comeback, at least to me. To everyone else, I’m just returning from a long vacation. And it will be an exceptional day, I have decided. You cannot die on exceptional days, not when they signify your return to the living.
I have to keep giving myself these silly little greeting card pep talks. If I could summon a marching band with fanfare for my big return, I would.
On the way to town, I pedal my recently bought, used bike harder and faster, leaving the memories of dying behind. And as I enter the outskirts of Hera, the quaint little main street greets me like an old friend and lifts my spirits.
I have been absent for two months and had no idea how much I missed the sight of this tiny town with its quiet beauty and familiar businesses that bring a sense of safety to the fragile disposition I have adopted. Note to self: stop being fragile.
It’s a pretty March day for this part of New York, where it’s not uncommon to get a late snow or heavy rainstorm. I tell myself it’s a sign that this is my lucky day.
The warmth of the sun on my face triggers an involuntary smile, something I haven’t felt in months.
The new brewery and restaurant loom ahead in the distance. For the past few decades, it was a vacant warehouse, a historic building sitting behind our main street that fell into disrepair after it closed down as an ironworks factory in the 1980s. Now the building is spectacular, giving off its own energy.
The concrete building has been given a face-lift; the peeling paint removed, leaving the original brickwork exposed, and a steel-forged sign above the front door with an engraving of the goddess Hera opening her arms to the name below: SWILL, HERA TAPS. I laugh, remembering months ago when Swill was being bandied about with hilarity. I’m pleased to see my friends went through with it.
A hint of nervousness blooms as I get closer. The excitement of a new business venture to help rehabilitate Hera’s commerce. When some of my friends started work on the project six months ago, I was distracted with my own problems and didn’t give their restaurant much thought, but now that I desperately need the use of a commercial kitchen, I’m going to ask them for help, something I’m not good at.
Cooper MacKenzie’s pickup truck is parked in front, where a tall, brawny man is unloading a large stack of barware racks from the back end. It’s a heavy load. I’ve never even seen a bartender lift that many glass racks at once.
From the back, I know it’s not Cooper, because the shoulder-length hair is almost black instead of blond.
I go in for a closer look, but since riding a bike is new for me, I cruise by him a little too close and let out a short squeal as my front wheel barely misses the back of Brawny’s legs. Simultaneously, I look back at him, and he grunts with the weight of the glasses before he looks over at me. Our eyes lock for a moment.
Peyton. Cooper’s younger brother.
He is glaring at me with his beautiful gray eyes, and suddenly I feel myself losing control of the bike. I whip my head back to face front and get the wobbly old bicycle under control. At the same time, I hear a loud crash of glass and an angry, hoarse curse.
Braking is something I haven’t mastered. My sister makes fun of me with the fact that five-year-olds ride their bikes with more control than I do. Well, some people are afraid of spiders or stepping on sidewalk cracks; I have always been afraid to ride a bike. I was the neighborhood kid who ran on foot when everyone else was biking to the corner store for their candy stash. Buying this bike was my first step in putting several major fears behind me. The downside was I had to teach myself how to ride the thing, which I have seen very little improvement since I started secretly practicing a few days ago.
I instinctively let the bike slow down on its own before I hop off and let go of the handlebars altogether so I don’t crash with it. The slow-moving hunk of metal hits one of the large tires on a parked SUV before it topples over to the ground with a creaky thud.
I leave it there and jog back to Peyton, who is looking down at the mountain of broken glassware in front of him. I haven’t moved this fast in months, and my panting, mixed with the elation of today and the commotion I have already caused, produces a dull ache against my sternum.
Peyton takes this moment to give me a good hard look, as though I’m the culprit of this mess. I decide he probably can’t be bothered for a glass of water, even though I’m sure I look exhausted, dehydrated, and a little breathless, but that could be from his disarming good looks and his striking long, dark hair that sets off his eyes and strong jaw. He’s a fine specimen of masculinity, and after all the handsome men who never made me look twice, I’m self-conscious about my visceral reaction to him.
“I know you.” His expression is rather cold. “You’re that little Russian spy.”
He’s made of MacKenzie stock—tall and strong like his older brother, Cooper—but Peyton’s dark features give him a more dangerous, maybe even sinister look, and much to my dismay, I find it appealing.
“We saw each other at Cooper and Imogene’s wedding last year. You were showing off. Walking on your hands across the bar. And I’m not Russian. I’m Polish and a personal chef, not a spy.”
His intimidating scowl softens. “I remember. You’re Tal-ia,” he enunciates slowly in his deep timbre.
I feel myself blush at the way he says my name and the very fact that he even remembers me. But then, I remember him, too.
“And you’re Peyton, Cooper’s brother. Big on handstands, big at parties, and big with the ladies, as I recall.”
His eyes roam over me from head to toe.
Greedy men and their one-track minds.
I slowly look him up and down, intentionally being just as obvious as him, but I doubt I pull it off with the same unapologetic arrogance.
He pauses and a smile quirks ever so slightly. “So, what’s the verdict?”
Have I been out of the dating game so long I can’t tell if he’s being obnoxiously forward?
“I think we both look good. I know I do,” I say.
He opens his mouth, and I expect him to laugh at me. He doesn’t.
“What the hell happened?” my friend Dylan shouts as he comes running out of the building. “I heard a crash—shit!” Dylan looks at the pile of plastic racks and glass shards.
“Yeah, I had a little distraction,” Peyton admits. “This one nearly sideswiped me on her bike.”
“I did not. I didn’t even graze you,” I say. “It’s his fault for carrying more than he can handle,” I tell Dylan.
Dylan shakes his head and smiles. “Talia, it’s good to see you back.” He steps forward and gives me a quick embrace and a kiss on the cheek. “Just so you know, this guy has a radar for every cute chick in the vicinity.” Dylan gives Peyton a disapproving glance.
“Cute chick,” I say in disgust.
“My keen observations aside, shouldn’t we be more concerned that the little woman here can’t handle herself on that sorry excuse for a bike?” Peyton puts his hands on his hips and stares at me. I stare back. After all, he’s got my attention with the way his muscled arms fill out his snug, short-sleeved, gray T-shirt and how his long, athletic legs carry off his weathered jeans. I shouldn’t engage in this childish behavior, but I actually like this little game with him.
“What’s with the Huffy?” Dylan asks me. “It looks pretty crappy. Where’s your catering van?”
“My sister has it. Aleska and the cleaning crew are using it during the day. She’ll drop it off when I do deliveries in the afternoon,” I explain. “I’m trying something new. Biking as much as I can to get some exercise.”
“Hey! What’s the holdup?” Carson barks as he and Cooper walk out to join us.
“Talia!” Cooper exclaims and gives me a strong hug.
“How was Flor
ida with your dad?” Carson asks, putting an arm around my shoulders and pulling me in for a kiss on the cheek.
Although he’s one of my clients, Carson is more like a protective older brother, and his wife, Jess, has become one of my closest friends.
I shrug to cover my squirming at the uncomfortable topic of my father and the information I’ve kept from my friends for the past three months. “It was fine. I’m ready to get back to work, though, and I have a huge favor to ask you.”
“Shoot,” Carson says as he kicks a rack aside, assessing the damage to the barware.
“The kitchen I rent in Woodstock—”
“Hey, I heard about the building fire last night,” Dylan says. “I worried your kitchen would get trashed. The fire trucks were still there this morning when I went by on my run.”
“The landlord called me this morning. He said the firemen saved most of the building, but my kitchen had a lot of smoke damage and the roof was destroyed. All the other chefs are running around the county, looking for temporary space to lease, so I wanted to get to Swill before someone else does. Everyone knows this place is huge and about to open. I’m hoping I have some leverage with you.”
“Of course you do,” Carson says. “Without you, Jess and I would be living off canned food and cereal.”
“We’ll take our little Russian spy over those generic wholesome chefs any day,” Cooper says with a straight face.
“Oh, stop. I’m serious. I will pay you the going rate. My landlord doesn’t have any idea how long it’ll take to repair our part of the building and renovate the kitchens. And then they have to pass inspections, which could take months. I need a kitchen starting tomorrow. I can’t have my mother filling in for me and cooking out of our home anymore. Two months of that while I was on vacation was long enough.”
“Her food was awesome, by the way,” Carson adds.
“I know. I learned from the best. But I need to get back to work, and I’m hoping your kitchen is up and running. I promise I’ll only need it during the day. I’ll be gone before you serve dinner, and I’ll leave everything spotless.” I give Carson and Cooper my best pleading, pouty face.