“You’re panicking. Understandable. But you will do this, Frankie. Even if you don’t get the job, it’s a beginning. A starting point. So just pretend this is a practice run.”
With those words, Maxine hopped out of the car and went to the passenger door as if she were skipping through a vibrantly scented field of wildflowers.
Frankie locked it with fumbling hands.
Maxine’s eyebrows rose, but her smile was wicked when she held up the key fob with two fingers. The beep signaling the door unlocking made Frankie jump.
Maxine popped it open, holding out her gloved hand. “I win. So c’mon. If nothing else, I’ll buy you a bowl of soup and a sandwich. Now gird your loins and let’s get crackin’.”
Frankie’s breath shuddered in and out, the cold air blowing steam from her panicked gasps. Maxine took hold of her arm, pulling her toward the diner’s doors, doors that were see-through with etchings in gold, giving Frankie a glimpse of the diner’s interior.
Red and silver booths with jukeboxes at every table were the first thing she was able to focus on before being swept into the warm rush of air. The next was the smell—redolent with so many different varieties of rich spices and garlic, she couldn’t place one from the other.
Christmas lights were strung in winking bright white where the wall met the ceiling. Frankie winced. Christmas already?
Christ. The last holiday she could clearly remember, and that was only due to the disrupting noise, was the Fourth of July. Was it already December? No, it was just two days after Thanksgiving. The distant recollection of her Aunt Gail and her friend Mona planning a Black Friday shop-a-palooza tickled her memory.
A small tree decorated with tinsel and multi-colored blinking lights stood by the cash register. A young woman, her hair the color of black satin, in black mid-waist-hugging pants and a white shirt with black vest smiled in Maxine’s direction. “Hey, Max! How are you?”
“Adara, it’s so good to see you! Home for Christmas break?”
Her sleek head bobbed up and down. “Yep. I’m working Papa over for some extra cash,” she said with a teasing grin.
Maxine pulled off her gloves, dropping them into the pockets of her jacket. “Connor’s coming home in three days. I’m so excited to see him, I could scream. Campbell even went out and bought an Xbox 360 so they could play video games together.”
Adara’s head cocked, her eyes, as black as her hair, lit up. “So he likes school then?”
Maxine’s light brown head nodded. “Loves it.” She glanced at her watch and pursed her lips. “I hate to rush because it’s so good to see you, but I have dinner with Campbell in an hour. Adara, this is Frankie Bennett. She’s interviewing with Nikos today.”
Adara stuck out her hand and grinned again, her smile a thing of utter beauty. “Awesome to meet you. Welcome to the home of the World’s Best Meatloaf.”
Meatloaf.
At Greek Meets Eat Diner in Riverbend, New Jersey.
Ugh.
Frankie hesitated until Maxine nudged her with an arm. Right, she mentally reminded herself. Be polite, cave dweller.
She took Adara’s hand and gave her a faint smile. “Nice to meet you, too.”
Coming around to the front of the cash register, Adara hitched her jaw in the direction of the doors Frankie assumed led to the kitchen. “You want me to go tell him you’re here? I think he’s in the back with Mama and Cosmos.”
“Please, Adara,” Maxine said with a smile. As Adara went off to find Frankie’s would-be employer, Maxine leaned into her and whispered, “Adara is Nikos’s sister, Cosmos is his brother. And in case you’re wondering, every last one of them is as good-looking as the next. I don’t know what they feed those kids, but they’re all like Rodin sculptures.”
No pressure, but seriously, no kidding. If Adara was any indication of what the rest of the family looked like—wow.
Frankie gave a self-conscious glance at her baggy jeans and faded T-shirt, tightening her sweater around her and pushing at the loose strands of her ponytail, windblown and askew. Then she gave up. What difference did it make what she looked like? There wasn’t a hooker’s chance at the debutantes’ ball she’d maneuver a job looking the way she did—especially with her dormant social skills at an all time low. Retreating back to the recesses of her mind, Frankie decided to pretend this wasn’t happening. A sigh escaped her lips, drawn out and disinterested.
When the kitchen doors popped open, Frankie gave only a cursory glance upward before returning her eyes to her sneakers. Thankfully, she’d purchased them with her Bon Appetit salary just before she and Mitch had broken up or they’d have gone the way of the prenup, too.
“Max!” a throaty timbre greeted.
“Nikos, it’s great to see you!” Maxine responded, disgustingly cheerful. Hugs were apparently exchanged due to the sound of the rustle of material, but she didn’t look up. Suddenly, Maxine’s arm was around her shoulder and her hip was nudging Frankie’s.
Another one of those signals to behave accordingly in a social setting.
“Nikos, this is Frankie Bennett. Frankie, Nikos Antonakas.”
Antonakas. She found she had trouble even considering rolling a name like that over her thick, underused tongue. It felt like more syllables than she was capable of at the moment.
Frankie took her time looking up, letting her eyes scan the leather-worn work boots Nikos wore, following his length by way of his thighs. His hard, muscled thighs encased in black jeans.
Whether it was genuine curiosity to see if his bulky thighs matched the rest of him, or some of her social graces were thawing, Frankie glanced upward, letting the fringe of her lashes keep her eyes undercover.
Oh.
Shazam.
Rodin had nothing, nothing on this man.
Holy spanakopita.
Stunned by Nikos’s breathtakingly chiseled good looks, Frankie’s head swirled, and her legs trembled. He really was that beautiful. Even in her stupor of post-divorce lunacy, she could not deny the appeal of his hard, classic features.
His hair was thick, the color of midnight in the height of a winter chill, falling just past his chin. A widow’s peak in the center of his forehead drew her attention to his eyebrows, raven and arched. His ruddily toned skin held two patches of color along the angular slant of his cheekbones. Eyes the color of black olives assessed her with a smile full of straight white teeth.
Oh, that smile. Disarming with a hint of playful.
He had a dimple in his chin, too, and catching sight of it made Frankie’s breath hitch.
Maxine gave her arm a discreet pinch to arouse her. Shit. Had they been introduced?
Frankie coughed to hide her confusion and embarrassment. “I’m Francis—Fran...kie. Uh, Bennett.”
The dark Adonis put out a hand for her to shake. “Nice to meet you, Frankie. Welcome to Greek Meets Eat. Home of the World’s Best—”
“Meatloaf,” she muttered to avoid his hand. Oh, no. If she shook that hand, long fingered and wide, she’d pass out.
Maxine coughed in Frankie’s ear, “Shake his hand, princess.”
Immediately, Frankie did as she was told, their fingers connecting for a moment before she tugged her hand away, shoving it into the pocket of her jeans. His skin was warm with just the right amount of callous, burning an imprint against her icy flesh.
Nikos’s expression said he wondered if she was deranged, but he hid it well when he called over his broad shoulder, “Let’s go back to the office and sit and talk. You want coffee, Max, Frankie?”
“No!” Frankie faltered behind the shelter of Maxine. “I mean, no, thank you.”
Maxine smiled over her shoulder with encouragement, following Nikos to the end of the wide diner. His fingers turned the brass doorknob on a broad, red enamel door, holding it open for them to enter with a sweep of his long, muscled forearm.
Maxine found a chair, patting the one beside her as Nikos took his place behind the desk cluttered with papers and a
computer. “I appreciate you using Trophy Jobs, Nikos.”
He grinned, alarmingly warm and charming, making Frankie’s already slow breathing hitch again. “Don’t thank me. You’re pretty impressive, lady. I know you didn’t expect a lot from Lacey, but she was one of the best damned short-order’s we’ve ever had.”
Maxine’s chuckle and the glance she exchanged with Nikos bordered on mysterious. Frankie fidgeted in her seat, uncomfortable with the fluorescent lights of Nikos’s office. “Who knew Lacey, of all people, would want to go off and study at Le Cordon Bleu?”
His laughter was hearty, his eyes warm with fondness. “We miss her, but she sends us postcards all the time. Anyway, with the kind of luck we had the first time around, you were the person who came to mind.”
Who was Lacey, and oh, my God. She was in a diner. A diner. A diner boasting the world’s best meatloaf. Meatloaf. Food for heathens who had no taste buds, if you listened to Mitch.
But she wasn’t listening to Mitch anymore. Bamby With A “Y” was.
Strangely, that made Frankie want to bust a grin of relief. But it hurt to consider moving her facial muscles after being frozen in sleep for so long. So she didn’t.
“So you have all the information on Frankie’s work history, right? I had Bettina fax it over this morning.”
Nikos slapped the papers on his desk with a loud hand. “I don’t need paperwork, Max, but yep, I got everything.”
No paperwork was good. There wasn’t much to be put on paper about her work experience. Though, Frankie mused, she wondered if he had the DVD of famous chefs’ wives gone wild. Sliding down into her appointed chair, she pulled her sweater closer around her chin.
“Okay, good then,” Maxine said, rising.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where was the divorce guru going? Surely Maxine wouldn’t leave her here all by herself with this reinvention of gorgeously glorious. Not when she was as fragile as eggshells and liable to crack at any given moment.
Oh, but she would. Maxine gave Frankie’s shoulder a reassuring pat. “I’ll just wait outside and let you two talk. I think I’ll have some of that coffee while I do.” And then she was gone.
And they were left staring at each other.
Nikos’s glance was openly curious, but cheerful.
Hers was petrified, and well…petrified.
Nikos cleared his throat, rustling the papers Bettina had sent. “So, Frankie. Do you have any experience working in a diner—maybe a restaurant?”
I was a crappy waitress. But I can work a Slap Chop like a breast implant salesman works an A-cup convention.
She shifted in her chair, pulling the sleeves of her sweater over the palms of her hands. “No.”
“Any food experience in general?”
“I’ve been known to eat it.”
His chuckle was thick and sexy. Just like him. “Right.” He patted his hard abdomen. “Me, too. What I mean is, Max says you have experience as a chef.”
Right. Max would say that. “Define ‘chef.’”
Nikos rolled his tongue around the inside of his cheek. “Well, aren’t they usually people who cook? You know, like that food thing we talked about.”
“Yes, they are, and no, I’m not a chef. I hate to cook.” That said, she waited while he processed her response and shipped her back off to Maxine. Screw her car. The repo man could come and take it. She didn’t need to drive if she never planned to leave the house again.
He nodded his sleek black head, all agreeable. “Well, that’s a good thing. We don’t need a chef.”
Damn. Foiled again.
This was ridiculous, and she was doing nothing but wasting his time. So if she frigged up the interview, she could go back home to her aunt’s dark guest bedroom and get back into her nice warm bed. Let the frigging begin.
“Can we be frank with one another?”
He sat back in his chair, running a hand over the dark stubble on his chin. “I want you to be whoever you want to be.”
Frankie ignored the joke in favor of her purpose. A warm bed and nothingness. “You can’t possibly expect me to believe you don’t know who I am.”
“Should I know who you are, Frankie?” When he said her name, slow and easy, a chill of unadulterated pleasure swept along her arms.
Her laughter was filled with bitter irony. “Maxine told you to pretend you didn’t know, right? So I wouldn’t be humiliated on my first official public outing.”
His face remained placid, his smoldering black eyes perfectly blank. “Have you been in jail?”
“Jail?” If she had any gumption, she’d be affronted. But she didn’t. It was too much of an effort to make.
His dark eyes locked on and held hers. “You said this was your first ‘official public outing.’”
“It is. And, no. No jail.” Though, she’d come precariously close after the judge viewed the tapes of her outburst. Destruction of property, blah, blah, blah.
“Hospitalized?”
Frankie’s return gaze was filled with cynicism. “What you really mean is institutionalized, don’t you?”
Nikos waggled a finger in admonishment and gave her a playful grin as a chaser. “Uh-uh-uh. You went there. I didn’t.”
“No. I haven’t been institutionalized. Though, after my display, I’m pretty sure some would say I should be.” In fact, Mitch had. On Hollywood Scoop. With his best sad-sympathetic face. Oscar statues had wept from near and far at his performance.
One raven eyebrow winged upward. “Display? I have no idea what you mean.”
Who on the planet, and probably twelve other alternate dimensions, didn’t know who she was? She’d been on every rag mag and television gossip show for months, speculation about her mental well-being the primary focus as they’d replayed in every speed imaginable her infamous symphonic wooden spoon debut.
Quite frankly, on that night, she admittedly had looked like someone who’d escaped a full-body butterfly net and gone off her prescription pharmaceuticals. Hair wild, eyes wide and glazed, spittle forming at the corner of her mouth—all in perfect focus thanks to close-up genius, cameraman number two, Andy Jeffers. Add in the spoon she’d wielded like a sledgehammer, and she made one scary looking lunatic.
Mitch and his PR crew had put some spin on her outburst, too, making him look like the poor, suffering husband of a woman whose mental state was challenged by the voices in her head.
“You really don’t know who I am?” she asked in disbelief.
Nikos shook his dark head back and forth, the light catching the deep gleam of his thick hair. “Nope. Not a clue. You wanna tell me who you’re supposed to be so I can behave accordingly? If you’re royalty or something, I want to be sure I bow appropriately,” he said with a teasing tone.
“I’m Mitch in the Kitchen’s wi...um, ex-wife.” There. The elephant could leave the room.
“Mitch in the where?”
Wow. Not only super-fantastical looking, but gracious and kind. “Kitchen.”
Yet, his eyes read thoroughly perplexed. “And why would I pretend I didn’t know you were Mitch in the Kitchen’s ex-wife when I don’t even know Mitch? In fact, I don’t know anyone named Mitch. Unless we’re talking Miller, and he defines the word ‘dead.’ God rest his musical soul.”
Frankie sighed. His denials made her head swim. “Because Maxine told you to be nice to the pathetic, broke ex-trophy wife who, by the way, wants a job like she needs another useless ovary.”
His thick eyebrow arched again. “You were a trophy wife?”
Frankie flapped her hands in concession, not at all offended by his surprise. “I know. Hard to believe, looking the way I do, right? But as Valentino is my witness, I was a trophy wife with all the bells and whistles. Maxine said so. Clothes, hair, makeup, personal massage therapist. The only boat I missed was the plastic surgeon’s, and I just know Mitch would have talked me into double Ds before long. So yes, I was a trophy wife. For eighteen years. Now I’m not. I’ve been replaced. Hardcore replaced
. But you knew that because Maxine told you.”
She fought not to make it sound like an accusation, but he wasn’t making this easy.
Nikos frowned, delicious lines marring his smooth forehead. “Maxine didn’t tell me anything other than she had an applicant for an opening I have here at the diner for a prep chef. There was never any talk of a Mitch or a kitchen or for that matter, a public display.”
She rolled her eyes, brushing an impatient hand over her bangs. “Oh, she did, too. Please. You don’t really think you’re fooling me, do you? I mean, it’s very nice that you’re going out of your way to be so kind, but your performance isn’t exactly red carpet worthy.”
“What exactly is a Mitch in the Kitchen anyway? Is that like the ShamWow guy?”
Okay. She’d play along. “It’s a television show on the Bon Appetit Channel.”
“The one with all those fancy chefs? Nuh-uh…”
“Uh-huh. The one with all those fancy chefs.” And fancy women with names like Bamby.
“Your husband had a show? Like a real television show?” His disbelief was growing more convincing by the second.
Frankie’s head cocked to the right. “Yes. You really don’t know who Mitch Bennett is?”
Nikos leaned forward on his desk and propped his hands on either side of his jaw, his mouth slack for a moment before he recovered and answered, “Nuh-uh. But I’m still in awe that you were married to a guy who had a television show. In fact, color me a little starstruck.”
She was used to this kind of reaction when people realized she was married to a celebrity. You’re not married to a celebrity anymore, Frankie.
Oh, right. She fidgeted with the tie at the waist of her sweater to hide the sting of the reminder.
“Do you have any idea the kind of customers the diner’d get if they knew a celebrity’s wife from the whatever channel worked here?”
This wasn’t going according to plan. He wasn’t supposed to be excited. He was supposed to tell her she lacked experience, not to mention enthusiasm, and then politely respond by telling her he’d get back to her.
Burning Down The Spouse (Ex-Trophy Wives Book 2) Page 4