by Zara Chase
They left the hotel and walked the short distance to Hadleigh’s, comparing backgrounds as they slowly started the bonding process, sympathizing with one another over the fiercely competitive qualification process that had gotten them to this point. Jodie didn’t say much, suddenly feeling guilty for having used the competition for her own purposes. It was already apparent to her that her colleagues for the next month were as serious as the national debt when it came to making a career in the catering field, and this fayre would make or break their chances. Jodie loved cooking, but that wasn’t why she was here. Still, she would give it her all. If she didn’t pull her weight, then Marcel, Hans, and Consuela would be going home disappointed, and she didn’t want that on her conscience.
No pressure then.
Hell, she should have thought of another way to get to Vaughan. She had thought about alternative methods, but her research had told her he was intently private. Ha, no surprise there! When the bar was open he was usually in the kitchen, so she couldn’t get to the king in his castle. What he did with his leisure time, she couldn’t have said, so it would be hard to manipulate an accidental meeting. But the gods had smiled upon her, providing her with a perfectly legitimate excuse to get close to him and make sure he was who she thought he was. She would be lying to herself if she pretended not to be nervous at the prospect of getting close to him. She knew what he’d done—what he was capable of. Why he’d left the States and a thriving business in such a tearing hurry.
She knew he was deadly dangerous.
The man had one hell of a temper. No wonder he was a chef, she thought belligerently. It gave him carte blanche to shout and swear and throw his weight about like a frustrated dictator.
“Here we are,” Hans said, looking up at the façade of Hadleigh’s. “So this is the famous place.”
“Hey, are you guys looking for me?”
Jodie turned to look at the source of the voice and barely contained a gasp. A guy who topped six feet slowly rose from a chair at an outside table set in the shade, overlooking the river. He had a shock of thick hair, cut in sleek layers that fell across glinting copper eyes. The sun highlighted equally coppery streaks in his hair. His features were disgustingly rugged, all planes and angles, and his strong, angular jaw sported a day’s worth of designer stubble. As to the body beneath the tight T-shirt that strained across his broad shoulders…well, Jodie was furious when she reacted to the sight of all those muscles, flexing and contracting as he lifted a hand in greeting.
Tyrell Vaughan.
Jodie had never seen him in the flesh, and the pictures she’d managed to find hadn’t done him justice. She had no idea he was quite so…well, quite so disgustingly, robustly male. Someone should have warned her. Stop it, she inwardly chided. But her inner goddess was having none of it and she simply stood, rooted to the spot, jaw all but dropping to her knees as she stared at him.
“Dios mio!” Consuela breathed, her words echoing Jodie’s own thoughts.
“Hey,” Vaughan said stepping forward, flashing a lazy smile as his gaze roved speculatively over them and, predictably, settled upon Consuela. “I’m Tyrell Vaughan. Welcome to Hadleigh’s.”
Chapter Two
Ty had his group sit with him a table in the shade and served them with coffee, bottled water, and a selection of hors d’oeuvres he’d knocked together.
“Don’t get used to it,” he warned as they bit into his pastry and collectively sighed with pleasure. “It’s the first and only time I’ll cater for you guys. From now on in, it’s gonna be the other way around.”
Their laughter helped to break the ice.
“These are divine,” the Frenchman said. “Will you show us how to make them?”
“That’s not the point of this exercise. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First off, did you all get checked into the hotel okay?”
Four nodding heads told him that they had.
“Make the most of those beds tonight. You won’t be seeing too much more of them for the next month.”
He examined all four of them as they absorbed his warning, unsure if they thought he was joking or not. They’d soon learn. The Spanish girl stood out like a beacon in a thick fog. Beautiful, lively and, presumably, a half-decent cook. His type of woman.
On paper.
But he wasn’t in the market for any type of woman, nor was he looking for a fling. He’d find himself a new sub when he was ready to dip his toe back into the activities that all six of the Yanks residing at Hadleigh’s had in common. Ty was selective. Very selective. He’d learned the hard way not to let his cock do the thinking for him. Besides, Consuela Lopez wasn’t a player, nor would she ever be one. He’d become an expert over the years in recognizing the signs, latent or overt, in any woman who had sub potential.
“Okay,” he said, when the plate had been cleared of hors d’oeuvres. “Let’s get down to business. Before I tell you what I expect of you this month, let’s get to know one another. I only have very brief notes about you all here, so why don’t you tell me your stories and let me know why it’s so important to you to be part of Nevella’s food fayre?” He nodded toward Consuela. “You start us off.”
He listened as she spoke in breathy, accented English about her uncle’s restaurant in Alicante. It had been run along the same lines for years and Consuela desperately wanted to modernize the menu and the premises. Her uncle was set in his ways and resisting change, but if she did well at this fayre he would have to listen to her ideas.
Both guys worked in restaurants but were ambitious, wanting to attract the attention of a master chef under whom they could complete their training. Ty nodded, having expected as much. They sounded like he’d been at their age—full of idealistic determination to change the world and absolutely convinced in their ability to do so. They made Ty feel old and far too worldly wise.
All eyes then turned to the other woman—Jodie Norton. Ty hadn’t taken much notice of her when she first walked in. Consuela was the sort of chick who would draw every male eye in any room. But Jodie had his full attention now. With a waterfall of reddish-brown hair falling from a ponytail that she kept nervously pulling over one shoulder and wide, golden-russet eyes that zeroed in on him like lasers as she spoke, she wasn’t in Consuela’s league when it came to looks. But she was growing on Ty. Rapidly. Now she definitely had the makings of a player. She exuded sensuality, had a lovely, sculpted mouth with pouty lips, a flawless complexion, and those highly unusual, seductive eyes.
She also had a great pair of endlessly long legs, shown off by tight-fitting jeans that led to a neat little ass. And she had attitude by the bucket load. There was something off about her. Nerves, perhaps? Ty couldn’t be sure. It was like she was holding herself apart from the rest of the group, perhaps because she was a tight-assed Brit. There he went again, focusing on that ass. Get a grip, man!
“I feel like a fraud,” she said, when it came to her turn. “You guys are so experienced that I wonder if I’ve been sent here by mistake.”
“No!” Consuela said, touching Jodie’s hand. “You’re one of us already.”
“Well, I guess every litter has to have a runt, and I’m it. Treat me gently, guys.”
Not a chance!
“I take it you don’t work in the catering business,” Ty said.
“No, I love cooking—it’s my passion—but my day job is working as a translator for the European Union.”
“A Brit who speaks more than one language,” Marcel said with a grin that saved his remark from being insulting, “I’m impressed.”
“Yeah well, my parents are both diplomats, so I went to school all over Europe, picking up the languages along the way, like kids do.” She lifted her shoulders. “So I can’t claim that I studied diligently to get where I am.”
“So,” Ty said, pushing his chair back and crossing one foot over his opposite thigh. “What masochistic tendency made you decide to enter the contest?”
“I want to see if I have
what it takes to make it in a professional kitchen, I guess.”
“You guess?” Ty fixed her with a probing look. “You don’t know? I’m surprised you survived the elimination process with that attitude.”
Her cheeks reddened, making Ty wonder what had made him talk to her that way. Successful chefs were reputed to be rude and obnoxious and were allowed to get away with it. Ty didn’t usually behave that way and blamed his defense mechanisms for kicking in and making him act out of character. He was attracted to her, couldn’t understand why, and didn’t need that complication. He definitely didn’t need his cock getting in on the act and placed his feet on the floor to hide the evidence.
“I’m sure,” she told him, tossing her head and sending him a killer scowl. “I might have to work harder than the others to keep my end up, but I’ll get there.”
Oh, baby, don’t get me thinking about keeping your end up. “Good to know.” Ty leaned his forearms on the table and looked at them each in turn. “Okay, people, I guess you know how this thing works, but I need to talk it through with you and get a few ground rules established.”
All of them except Jodie took out notepads and sat forward, hanging on his every word.
“We have three weeks…no, you guys have three weeks to come up with a three-course meal to serve to the judges who will dine in the restaurant one night during the fourth week. It has to be something that combines the essence of your different cultures and I don’t want any blood spilled when you fight that one out,” he added with a significant glance at Marcel, aware of the French superior attitude when it came to matters culinary.
“Will we know when the judges are coming?” Consuela asked.
“Hell no, where would be the fun in that? On top of that, you’ll be taking the place of my regular chefs and providing a full restaurant service six nights a week. We have forty covers and usually manage two full sittings.” Ty flashed an evil grin. “But don’t worry about being underworked. On top of that, each of you has to come up with your own original dish to serve at the festival.”
Good-natured groans echoed around the table.
“There will be spot checks carried out over the next month by an inspector acting for the organizing committee. If anyone other than the four of you, and yours truly, is found in the kitchens, then the whole team will be disqualified. That will not make the Padron family happy. But you have more to worry about than that. If you guys focus only on the fayre work, letting restaurant standards slip and I get customer complaints, then I won’t be happy. And, trust me, you don’t want to be on the receiving end of my bad moods.”
Jodie made a choking sound that had everyone looking her way.
“Something you want to share with the group?” Ty asked, raising a brow in her direction.
“Not a thing,” she replied, fixing him with an intense look of dislike that floored Ty. What the fuck…
“So, like I said earlier,” he continued, shrugging off Jodie’s weird reaction. “There won’t be time to get too closely acquainted with your beds.” He shared a prolonged look between three eager faces and one truculent one. “The point is to prove that you can work as a team, support one another, and work under pressure. And make no mistake, the pressure is intense and unrelenting during the height of the dinner service. But remember, you all volunteered for this. It’s what you want to do.” He rolled his eyes. “God knows why.”
“But you do it,” Consuela pointed out.
Ty winked at her. “Yeah, and I still haven’t figured that one out.”
“I see it as a vocation,” Hans said, taking, in his Germanic way, Ty’s protestations seriously. Marcel and Consuela nodded their agreement.
“Whatever works for you. Right, are there any questions?”
“No, Chef,” three voices answered.
Ty directed a pointed look at Jodie and waited.
“No,” she said, looking away from him.
Shit, Ty thought. She appeared to be deliberately confronting him. Normally that would be enough to get her kicked out of his kitchen and have a substitute competitor put in her place. But Jodie was going nowhere. A small smile broke past his guard, even though he didn’t find the situation remotely amusing. Hell if he wouldn’t have her addressing him with respectful deference before the month was out, and he wasn’t referring to his title of “chef.” Some challenges were just too tempting to resist, even for a man like Ty, who’d had his ass burned by a woman who was as wild and disobedient as Jodie appeared to be—a woman whom he would never get over and who would be impossible to replace in his heart, and in his bed. Ty ought to know. He’d been trying for five years and hadn’t come close.
“Okay, team, I’ll show you around your home from home, also known as the kitchens at Hadleigh’s.” They dutifully stood and followed him. “You will always come and go through this side door,” he said, leaning against a stainless steel work surface inside the gleaming kitchen. “In here is the bar.” He opened the door to show them. “And this is the restaurant.”
“What’s through that door?” Marcel asked.
“That leads to our private living quarters and is strictly off-limits.”
* * * *
Jodie trailed behind the others, taking everything in but saying little. That door to the private quarters intrigued her. Why did it need a keypad? What were they hiding behind there? Jodie knew she was allowing her imagination to run riot. Of course they wanted to protect their privacy. It was just that Ty Vaughan wasn’t at all what she’d expected, and that had thrown her. He didn’t seem to like her much, clearly thought she wasn’t up to the job, and she was surprised he hadn’t asked her to leave. He had the right to veto one competitor in his team, and it was obvious she didn’t have the requisite skills when compared to the impressive résumés of the rest of the team.
But he hadn’t ejected her, and Jodie was determined to prove to him that she had what it took. Whoa, where did that come from? She would do her best not to let the team down, but that was not her primary reason for being here. The bugger of it was that she felt a fierce, instantaneous animal attraction of the damp panty variety toward Ty. That was so not supposed to happen. He was cool, elegant, drop-dead gorgeous on the surface. But, she had good reason to know, he also had an incredibly dark and dangerous aspect to his character. His hard body and smooth technique, his velvety voice with its slightly cynical edge, didn’t fool her. She knew he’d used his charm on her vulnerable best friend, then lost his temper, brutally murdered her, and got away with it. It had cost him his restaurant business in Boston, which had been growing in popularity, but it hadn’t cost him his liberty. That injustice ate away at Jodie like undercooked sourdough.
He’d run from Boston and hidden away here under an assumed name. Oh yes, Jodie had his measure. All she had to do was find the proof so she could have him extradited back to the States to face the music. He’d referred to his legendary temper while giving them his pep talk. Damn his nerve! Damn those glinting coppery eyes, that disturbing poise, the sharp cut of his muscles—damn everything about him. How could she possibly feel anything for him other than unmitigated dislike when she knew what he was capable of? It was disloyal, and Jodie was ashamed of the tremors of sexual awareness that rippled through her every time she thought about him.
She reminded herself as she tuned out Marcel’s voice that he seemed fixated on Consuela. Well, of course he was! Jodie had squirmed with unfounded jealousy when Ty had winked at the pretty Spaniard. She wanted to warn her to be on her guard, not to fall for his toxic charm, but didn’t see how she could do that without putting herself in danger.
“Are we boring you?”
Ty’s sarcastic voice snapped Jodie out of her reverie.
“Not in the least.”
She took her place at a round table in the empty restaurant, where the four of them were supposed to start thrashing out their ideas for the fayre, without Ty’s input. Good. Without him in the room, she might be able to make a worthwhile con
tribution. The uninvited feelings for Ty she was struggling to overcome made it hard for her to concentrate when he was in the same room as her.
They brainstormed for two hours. Jodie wasn’t surprised when Marcel appointed himself as team leader. Consuela and he bickered endlessly, but in a civilized way, and she could sense the sparks flying between them. Lurve was in the air. Jodie listened to the suggestions being made for the grand finale, when each of them would have to introduce a signature dish. She hadn’t said much up until that point but hadn’t heard anything that inspired her, and so decided to make a suggestion of her own.
“I’m a pastry chef,” Jodie told them. “I guess it’s obvious from the extra pounds I carry round my middle that I have a sweet tooth.”
“You do not carry extra pounds!” Consuela protested. “You’re prefect.”
God, I love this woman! “Thanks, but facts must be faced. Anyway, I like all your suggestions, but if you don’t mind my saying so, they aren’t that original. The others will most likely have similar ideas.”
“But ours will taste better,” Marcel replied.
“With respect, we can’t know that. Anyway, before anything is tasted, the best way to impress the judges is visually. To coin a phrase, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
“What do you have in mind?” Hans asked.
Jodie told them, sketching her ideas with a flowing hand to emphasize how she envisaged the final dish looking. The others pored over her drawing, and slowly she saw respect for her idea reflected in each of their expressions.
“We would get joint recognition for the overall effect and yet each of us would be able to work on our own part of it, depicting our national characteristics.” Marcel nodded emphatically. “I say we go for it.”
“The centerpiece is very ambitious,” Hans said in a pensive tone.
“But I think we can do it,” Jodie replied. “If we want to win, we need to be ambitious. I would rather fail knowing we’ve given it our best shot than play it safe.” Several heads nodded. “Besides,” she added, “even if our offering doesn’t win, it’s unusual enough to guarantee a lot of press coverage, which, in turn, will reflect upon us.”