Secret Ingredient: Love

by Teresa Southwick

  Furtively, she glanced at Alex again to see how he was receiving the evaluation. He looked serious. Angry? Hard to tell. But it was a good bet that she would be cleaning out her desk before the night was over.

  “That’s number eight,” she answered.

  Nick frowned. “Overall, it’s one of the restaurant’s best sellers. But it can’t go in the inaugural campaign.”

  “Not like this,” Tom Marchetti agreed. “But after that many attempts without better results, I’m not sure…” He shook his head.

  Fran was sure. Women weren’t given second chances in this male-dominated industry. In her experience they were expected to do the job twice as well in half the time just to keep working. She’d known from the beginning that the dish wouldn’t cut it. She’d also known before the beginning how much Alex wanted his family’s approval on this project. And it had gone very well—at least four out of five. But he’d wanted it perfect. She could stand the heat. But she would probably get out of the kitchen. Or rather, be asked to leave. She was the perfect scapegoat for Alex. An inexperienced woman. She would take the rap. After all, the others were family. He had to play nice because he couldn’t fire them.

  Alex finished up his own taste testing by sampling her new dish. He hadn’t tried it before. In spite of waiting for the other shoe to fall, she couldn’t help hoping that he liked it. After all, the way to a man’s heart…Nope. She wasn’t going down that primrose path. Not ever again.

  “This is good.” Alex took another bite. “Really delicious.”

  “Thank you.” Fran untied her apron and slipped it off. “I guess you don’t need me any longer. You’ll want to talk frankly among yourselves.”

  It would be less awkward if she left the room while they discussed letting her go. Alex could blame her for everything that was wrong. Although she’d thought he was different. Was it a case of history repeating itself? Had she been temporarily blinded by a good-looking guy who wore wire-rimmed glasses? Another mistake?

  Alex blocked her exit. “Not so fast. You need to be here for this.”

  So, he was going to let her take the blame and rub her nose in it. She had no defense. These people were his flesh and blood. Whose side were they going to take? His, of course. Self-righteous indignation would just be humiliating.

  Alex cleared his throat and looked around at the members of his family. “First of all, thank you for coming. Second, I think we’re in agreement on the entrées to be included in the launch of Marchetti’s Frozen Meals. Pizza, spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna.”

  He took a breath. “About the shells…”

  Here it comes, Fran thought, bracing herself. She felt like a lamb led to slaughter.

  “They’re out and angel hair with walnut sauce is the replacement.”

  Fran nearly sustained whiplash as she turned her head to meet his gaze. “What?”

  One corner of his mouth turned up. “Your recipe is as good as you said. Better.” He glanced back at his family, all of whom were staring at the two of them with indulgent smiles. “Fran said the dish has very few ingredients and is labor light for maximizing profit margin.”

  “Music to my ears,” Luke commented. He was the company’s chief financial officer.

  “I hear that,” Nick agreed.

  Joe grinned. “It doesn’t hurt that it tastes really good, either.”

  “True,” Alex agreed. “Fran told me the shells wouldn’t work.”

  “So why did you bother with it?” Flo asked him.

  “It does seem like a waste of time,” his father added.

  Program note, Fran thought. Scene two was where the chef goes out on a limb. Solo.

  “I’ll admit it wasn’t my finest hour,” he confessed. “As soon as she looked at the recipe she knew. I’m paying the expert for her expertise, and refused to listen. I didn’t plan to have the fifth entrée in the tasting.”

  Fran was stunned. He’d told the truth.

  “What made you change your mind?” Nick asked.

  “Arm wrestling,” Alex said. “She beat me.”

  Fran moved over on her limb, mentally speaking. And made room for Alex. “I cheated,” she explained.

  “Bested by a girl,” Joe teased. “How dumb is that?”

  “Play nice, Joseph Paul,” Flo said.

  “Uh-oh, when she uses both names, you know you’re in trouble,” Joe said, winking at Fran.

  “If you’re not nice,” Alex taunted, “I won’t solve your problem, as in the food for your wedding. The Marchetti rumor mill has it that you and Liz haven’t settled the food portion of your wedding program yet.”

  “Don’t rush into anything,” Luke said, jumping on the bandwagon. “The wedding is three whole weeks away.”

  Joe looked sheepish. “We’ve been busy. I know,” he said, nodding as if he was waiting for the insults to fly. “You’d think someone in the food service industry could get his act together. Yada yada. The fact remains that we have procrastinated.”

  “Fran is the perfect woman,” Alex said. “To do the food, I mean.”

  Fran glowed, and it wasn’t just the lingering effects of his kiss, although his mouth packed a wallop. But his praise filled up a hole in her soul.

  “Surely one of the chefs from the restaurants can handle it,” she said.

  Joe shrugged. “Yeah. But anyone who can make frozen food taste this good is a culinary genius, and we want you. Besides, if you handle the food, Alex will have a date. Assuming you’re not married, engaged or otherwise spoken for.”

  “I’m not, but—”

  “It’s a Wednesday,” he continued. “So we’re keeping it small. What do you say? Will you do the food for us? Will you take pity on Alex so he won’t be alone for an important event like my wedding and Valentine’s Day?”

  Not only was she not fired, she’d picked up another gig. Would wonders never cease? She smiled. “I’d be happy to. At least the food part,” she said, glancing a little shyly at Alex. He was too busy glaring at his brother to notice her. “Why don’t I meet with you and Liz together so we can iron out the details? Like making sure she agrees with your choice of caterer?”

  Joe grinned. “She will. But I’ll call you to set up a time.”

  “Wonderful,” Flo said. “It’s a good thing Joe is charming. It mitigates his less attractive qualities. Like picking on his brother. Although Alex is too serious,” she added.

  “He’s pretty charming when he wants to be,” Fran blurted.

  She didn’t miss the gleam in Flo’s eyes. The next thing she knew Alex’s mother had hustled the family tasters toward the exit.

  “Our work here is done,” she said. “Alex and Fran have things to do. Let’s leave them alone.”

  Like a mother hen, Flo easily dispatched her six-foot-plus, husky chicks out the door. After hastily murmured goodbyes, the Marchetti men, plus parents, were gone.

  Except one man. Fran looked up at him, at his sensuous mouth, and her knees went weak. “Subtle, aren’t they?” she said a little breathlessly.

  “About as subtle as a flash flood. Matchmaking is contagious. My mother caught it from Rosie.”

  “You know your family means well. They just want you to be as happy as they are.”

  “And they believe there’s someone out there for me.”

  If Fran’s hunch was right, they believed she was that someone. But they were wrong. And he wasn’t looking. He had found the woman he wanted, one who’d looked forward to marriage, motherhood and being a wife. Fran wasn’t even close to that description. Although there were times, like that magical moment when the touch of his lips had made her femininity stand at attention and beg for more, that she wished she could be the kind of woman he would be attracted to.

  “Look on the bright side. It would appear that your family is as proud of you as you are of them. You’ve met your goal.”

  “Thanks to you.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose, then leaned back against the counter. He folded his arms over
his chest and rested one loafered foot over the other ankle. “I should have listened to you in the first place. However, arm wrestling is an interesting negotiating technique. We could do a whole management seminar on it.”

  He meant the kiss. Her stomach fluttered, followed by a sensory memory that gave new definition to the term spontaneous combustion. That touch of his mouth was like throwing kerosene on her simmering attraction. Now it threatened to burn out of control. This was a fine kettle of fish. What was she going to do? She had almost two months left on her contract. She was locked in for at least that long. She had to see him every day at work. Meaning she was in so deep it would take more than an ice cream scoop to dig her out.

  She had learned the hard way that if a guy was interested in her, he probably thought she could do something for him, or he wanted her to take the fall for something he had done. She had promised herself that no one would use her again. Now here was Alex. Vice president in the food preparation industry, with his professional reputation at stake, in front of his family, no less. What was she supposed to make of the fact that he hadn’t thrown her to the wolves? And he didn’t even pretend to be romantically interested in her. If her reaction to that kiss was anything to go by, she wanted him to be interested. She was on very thin ice here.

  “I thought you were going to fire me.”

  “For cheating at arm wrestling?”

  “That,” she agreed. “And for what went wrong with that entrée. I thought you would hang me out to dry.”

  He frowned. “What have I done to make you believe that?”

  “Nothing,” she admitted. “But I’ve got baggage.”

  “Interesting share. Yet somehow incomplete,” he said. “Do you feel like telling me the whole story?”

  “No. But I think I owe you an explanation.” She twisted her hands together. “In cooking school, I fell for this guy. He was charming and he turned it on full blast. I fell like a cake without baking soda. I didn’t know he was using me, copying my work, stealing my notes, et cetera. I thought he cared for me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s not the worst. We had an assignment to make bread. Instead of coming up with his own recipe, he bought a loaf of sourdough and pretended it was original. When one of the instructors caught on, he begged me to take the fall. He was in danger of being thrown out of school and I was at the head of the class. He said I could handle the heat. I did as he asked and was nearly kicked out. My career could have been over before it ever started.”

  “He must have been grateful.”

  “Yeah. Right,” she said bitterly. “So grateful he dumped me. I found out that he didn’t have time to do the work because he was involved with someone else.”

  “Bastard,” Alex said angrily.

  “I’ll buy that. But I blame myself, too. I was so unbelievably blind. Oh, he said all the right things, paid me compliments. Only later I realized that it was as if an alarm on his watch beeped, telling him it was time to patronize me with flowery words. It just makes me angry that I was so completely gullible.”

  “Not all guys are insincere creeps.” Alex stuck his hands in his pockets.

  Maybe. But it hurt too much to try, then be disillusioned. She preferred to take herself out of the game.

  “It doesn’t matter whether they are or not. I’m not interested in anything serious. Every cloud has a silver lining,” she said, trying to smile. “That experience reminded me not to ignore myself in favor of a man. It underscored what I learned growing up—a relationship makes a woman lose herself.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not the lesson. Two people who love each other are stronger together than they are separately.”

  “Like you and Beth?” she asked.

  When would she learn to think before she opened her mouth and let the wrong words out? She waited for the pained expression to cross his face, and was surprised when it didn’t.

  “Yes, like that,” he answered. “The guy was a creep, Fran. It’s as simple as that.”

  “The fact remains that I cared for him. I did things for him that I shouldn’t have. I lost myself because of love. And it won’t happen again.”

  “Didn’t you tell me that your father knows nothing about this?” he asked.

  “Do I have Stupid written on my forehead?” she retorted.

  “Maybe he would get off your back about the whole marriage thing if you told him.”

  She shook her head. “It would just make things worse. First he would track the guy down and defend my honor. Then he would turn over what was left of the jerk to my brothers. After that, he would assume the right to pick out a husband for me, since my judgment leaves something to be desired.” She shuddered. “Trust me, it’s better if he doesn’t find out.”

  “I guess you know best.”

  She glanced at her wristwatch. “Wow, look at the time. I’ve got to clean up and get out of here. I have to shop for my mother. Tomorrow is her birthday and there’s a family get-together.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  “The only way you could help me is by coming along to take the heat off,” she said without thinking.

  “Actually, I meant help you clean up here. But okay. I’d like to meet your family.”

  Fran had started gathering up the plates and utensils. She stopped and stared at him. “You’re not serious.”

  “Sure I am. I’m not too proud to help with the dishes.”

  She shook her head. “No. I meant about meeting my family.”

  “Yeah, I was serious about that.”

  “But they’re all going to be there. My four brothers, Mom and Dad. That’s a lot of Carlinos.”

  “Why is it so hard for you to believe that I would sincerely like to meet the entire clan?”

  She felt his forehead. “No fever. That means you need your head examined.”

  “Why?”

  “It would be like walking into matchmaking central. Voluntarily.” She shuddered at the thought as she put the dishes in the sink and went back to the counter for more.

  “Hey, turnabout is fair play,” he said, picking up the dirty forks and putting them in the sink. He looked down at her. “You’ve put up with it from the meddling Marchettis. I think it’s my turn. Besides, after our triumph with the tasting, I owe you.”

  She put her hand on her hip and shot him a skeptical look. “They’ll try to make us a couple. You will be pumped for information. How long have we known each other? What are your intentions? How far have you gone? Have you kissed me?”

  “We both know who kissed who,” he said, lifting an eyebrow.

  “Okay, I cheated. I’ll do penance for it.” She was already paying. She could hardly look at him, at his mouth, without wanting to challenge him to a rematch in which she fully intended to cheat by kissing him for all she was worth. She would have to get over it. “But my family doesn’t need to know I cheated and how. In fact, it’s best if they receive no encouragement. The slightest bit of information would produce a feeding frenzy.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “The Carlinos are not subtle.”

  “And my family is?”

  “Compared to mine? Yes,” she said, nodding.

  He laughed. “They can’t be that bad.”

  “You’d be surprised. They can be worse. You really don’t have to do this.”

  “What are you afraid of?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she said too quickly.

  Would she go to hell for the lie? Was lying worse than cheating? It was self-protection. She was trying to prevent emotional suicide. Bad enough that she had to see him every day at work. Somehow she would find a way to withstand his triple threat: laughs, looks and lots of sex appeal. To introduce him to her family was taking a step that scared her. It wasn’t business anymore.

  “Then what’s the problem?” he asked. “If you’re looking for a bodyguard, I’m your guy. I’m the perfect man. The meddling Marchettis have trained me for this all my
life. Who could understand better than me?”

  “I’m just trying to warn you. My father and brothers have frightened off even the most intrepid man who mistakenly thought he could handle escorting me to a Carlino celebration. They can scatter suitors faster than you can say ‘Welcome to the family.”’

  “I’m not a suitor. I had my shot at romance. I’ve built up antibodies. I’m immune to whatever the Carlinos can chuck at me.”

  She put a fork in the automatic dishwasher. “You’re sure about this?”

  “Absolutely.”

  It would be nice to have some backup tomorrow. And he was right. There was no danger of losing herself, because he’d made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t on the make. So what was the problem?

  “Okay,” she said. “You can come.” She wagged a finger at him. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Seven

  A fter picking Fran up at her apartment, Alex drove to her parents’ house in Woodland Hills, an exclusive area of the San Fernando Valley. He went slowly up the street, waiting for her to give him the high sign when they got to the right house.

  Finally she pointed. “This is it.”

  He couldn’t see the place. It was set back from the road. “Where?”

  “Just make a left into the drive and park behind the last car.”

  He followed her instructions. But the last car in the circular drive was a truck, in a line of five trucks that all sported Carlino Construction on the side. Correction: one was a sports utility vehicle, but still big enough to curl its bumper in disdain at his small, sporty two-door. His car looked like an insignificant, incomplete afterthought at the tail end of all the macho wheels.

  After shutting off the engine, he looked over at Fran. Wearing blue jeans and a pullover sweater in a deep shade of rose, she looked so cute he almost called her Frannie. He remembered Rosie telling him that she hated the nickname, but once again he had to admit his sister was right. It did fit his favorite chef. Although he wouldn’t say his sister was right about Fran being the perfect woman. He’d already lost Beth. Only once in a lifetime could the perfect woman find the way to his heart.