by Mary Leo
Daisy said, “Maybe that’s how this thing works. Maybe we’ve been so rigid about who we should love, and who should love us back that we’ve lost sight of what love is all about. The gypsy was trying to show us that we can’t choose love. It chooses us.”
“Go on, girlfriend. You sound so heady,” Jasmine chided.
Daisy looked a bit embarrassed. “But what do I know? The heart hasn’t even twinkled around me, let alone lit up on Mr. Right.”
“Well, if you’re right about how love chooses us, we have a real problem ‘cause I don’t see how this thing between Max and me will ever come together. Remember her warning that all three of us have be in love and must have that love returned? Max hardly knows I’m in the same room.”
“We’ll just have to change that,” Daisy teased while staring at Jasmine.
Jasmine threw her a sly look, one that Rose knew all too well. Some kind of scheme was brewing and Rose would be the target.
“Oh no you don’t. I will not participate in any conniving, sneaky, devious game you two come up with. I absolutely refuse.”
* * *
“I really want to thank you for putting me up, Rosie … I mean, Rose,” Max said as he followed her down the hallway to her condo off Market Street. He’d stayed with Jasmine for a couple days, but then was shuffled off to Rosie’s place while his cousin’s condo was being painted, not that it looked like it needed painting.
He lagged behind, noticing her long, lovely neck and the gentle sway of her hips. Max liked a girl with short hair, liked the way it made her neck look so kissable. And he so appreciated a girl with a sexy walk. As if she was asking for it with each step. Not that Rosie was the type to ask for anything, much less sex, but she sure had nailed down the walk.
“You’re welcome. We wouldn’t want you having to stay in a hotel. Besides, it’s only for a few days.”
She said it so quickly Max thought she might want him out before he even stepped inside.
“Are you sure this is okay? It’s not a problem for me to get a room.”
Rose stopped at the end of the long carpeted hallway and unlocked a door to her right.
“Don’t be silly. You’re like family.”
As the door swung open, he caught a glimpse of the view through the two-story, floor to ceiling windows directly in front of him. Late afternoon sunlight flooded the room, causing everything in it to glow. Between the spectacular view of the water, and the inviting furnishings, he felt as if he was walking into a high-end hotel rather than a private home. “Holy shit, Rosie. How’d you score this place?”
The view was about as good as he’d ever seen. Coronado and its light blue bridge sat across the bay, to his right an amazing marina, and to his left were docked military ships. The water reflected the perfectly blue sky as several sail boats floated along the harbor.
He had landed in heaven.
“Luck, I suppose. I picked it up from a friend when the economy took a dump. Pretty nice, huh?”
“More than nice.”
The place was decorated in warm earthy colors, and of course, it was spotlessly neat. Rose kept her condo like her kitchen at the bistro, pristine.
“You can sleep in my office. The sofa converts, and there’s a private bathroom next to the closet.”
She showed him the way to what would be his room on the same floor with the same spectacular view and told him that her bedroom took up the entire second floor. As he dropped his backpack on the cream colored sofa he suddenly felt awkward, as if he shouldn’t be there, shouldn’t be in Rosie’s private world. She was essentially a stranger to him.
Rosie had transformed herself into someone he didn’t know at all. Gone was that scrawny teenager he’d occasionally hung out with because of his cousin, and probably why he was able to stand her up for Prom. He’d never even given her a second thought
Until now!
He didn’t quite understand his emotions, but ever since he’d first seen her in the bar that morning, he wanted to get to know her better, much better. She had a smile that sent his heart into race mode, and a laugh, when he could get her to laugh, that gave him a thrill he couldn’t explain.
“This is great. Thanks so much. Hey, can I make you something to eat? You look beat. I’m a pretty good cook.”
“Thanks, but I have to get back to the restaurant. We’re shorthanded in the kitchen tonight, so I have to do some extra prepping to compensate.”
“I can help. I ran a restaurant for awhile in Paris.”
She stuck a hand to her hip. “In Paris. You were a chef in Paris.”
He didn’t want to come off like he was bragging, so moments like this always made him a little uncomfortable. “I learned to cook at Cordon Bleu and when I graduated I started working at a tiny bistro just off the western end of Champs-Elysées. The head chef opened another bistro so I took over his spot. Not a big deal. But let me help. It’s the least I can do for your hospitality.”
“Sure. Let’s see what you’ve got, Mr. Cordon Bleu.”
Then she chuckled and he had an insane urge to take her in his arms and kiss her.
But he knew better. Getting Rosie or Rose as she preferred, into his arms would take some patience and the one thing he’d learned with all his travels was how to be patient.
* * *
The restaurant part of With a Twist served Italian Fusion, a dream come true for Rose. She’d been combining exotic, ethnic flavors with Italian cuisine for years, but she never honestly thought she would someday be able to serve her inspired creations in her own restaurant until Jasmine shored up the finances and made the dream a reality. Of course, it helped that the gypsy had prophesied it. Still it took a lot of elbow grease to make their dreams a reality.
Ever since the tiny bistro and martini bar had opened, they served to a full house every night. It seemed almost like a miracle to Rose who had imagined these days ever since she’d combined mint chutney, spinach and ginger with her mother’s pasta sauce for Sunday dinner when Rose was all of nine years old. The sauce needed a bit more finessing, but the vision had begun.
There were only fifteen tables in the entire bistro. If those fifteen tables turned over three times in one night, they more than paid to keep the lights on. Most of the time, they turned over four and five times, leaving all three girls in awe of their success.
Daisy and Jasmine gave most of the credit to Rose’s cooking, but Rose wasn’t the type to take that kind praise. She knew it was a collaborative effort and the success was the sum total of all three of them. Without each other, the dream would have never happened.
The place was hopping throughout the night. They were busier than ever and incredibly, Max did a much better job than Rose had expected. She stationed him right across from her so she could monitor everything he prepared, and to her surprise he more than kept up, he improvised on several dishes and they turned out extraordinarily well. Truth be told, his Béchamel tasted better than her own.
“What did you put in that Béchamel sauce to give it that heavenly sweet flavor?” Rose asked as they were finishing the last of the cleanup for the night. Max was busy wiping down his station.
“If I tell you, I’d have to kill you.”
She stopped sweeping the floor and gazed over at him. They were the last two in the kitchen. The staff had already cleaned up, but nothing was ever clean enough for Rose. She liked her kitchen to sparkle and usually went over everything one more time before she left, polishing the stainless steel with a soft cloth, scrubbing the occasional pot or pan she thought needed extra care and re-sweeping the floors.
“You can’t be serious. I just gave you all my recipes and you won’t tell me one of yours?”
“I like to keep some things close to the chest. It makes me more valuable.”
“To whom?” She leaned on the broom.
“To anybody who wants to hire me to teach them something.”
“Is that how you pay for your adventures?”
“Part
ly.”
“Do I want to know what the other parts are?”
He threw her a naughty pirate smile, a slight dimple creasing his left cheek. She’d forgotten about that dimple. Damn if that just didn’t make him even more intoxicating.
“Let’s just say I know how to please a woman.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Don’t tell me you’re a—”
“—a gigolo? Not exactly.”
She walked over to him. “If you have sex for money, you’re a prostitute, a hooker, a hoe”
“Wait a minute! I never said I take money for sex. What I take money for is teaching a woman how to ask for what she wants, and sometimes that means I have to demonstrate the process.”
Rose was both intrigued and slightly appalled. “Are we talking about sex therapy or what?” She felt flushed, her body involuntarily aching to be touched at the mere thought.
She stepped in closer.
He chuckled again. The deep trill of his voice went right down her spine and gave her a sexy little shiver.
“Seems I finally hit upon a subject you like.”
She tugged on one of her earrings, a nervous habit. “I simply want the facts, that’s all.”
He took a step in closer to her. She could feel his hot sweet breath on her face as she stared up into those smoldering dark eyes of his. His lips only a hush away from hers. She thought about the crystal’s red glow and decided to go with the moment … just to see if he’d finally notice her.
“So, can you give me an example of your method?”
A wide grin lit up his face. “Sure, but I would guess you already know how to ask for what you want.”
“You might have to demonstrate.”
She closed her eyes and waited to be swept away by the one man she’d always loved, but never even kissed. His lips brushed against hers. A hot rush of adrenalin made her knees buckle, and she gently leaned into him, ready to learn anything he wanted to teach her right there on the hand-polished prep table.
He grabbed her upper arms. She opened her eyes as he guided her backwards, then lifted her up and plopped her down on a tiny desk in the corner of the room.
“First, you’ll have to learn to speak clearly and get right to the point. A potential employer expects clarity and decisiveness. Say for instance, if you want to impress a master chef at the Ritz-Carlton in New York City or a … “
Rose began to giggle, then she broke out into a full on laugh.
“What? Is something funny?” he asked, trying to look serious.
The sexual tension had burned through her body and now that he was trying to teach her interpersonal skills instead of bedroom skills, she needed a release of some sort, and laughter seemed like the only way to let it go.
“Rosie Cupido, what kind of nasty were you thinking I taught?”
She brought her laughter under control. “You know exactly what I thought.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. We barely know each other.”
“Maybe we should find a way to remedy that,” she said. “Let’s go home.”
* * *
A half-hour later Max sat next to Rose in a comfy chair out on her patio. They sipped Kaleney Martinis he’d made using Kalamansi extract—which he happened to have with him from a recent trip to the Philippines—ginger juice, pepper vodka, honey, crushed white pepper and garnished with the cutest little Star Anise Rose had ever seen.
“This thing packs a wallop,” Rose told him after her first sip. It tasted both sweet and spicy with a kick of an after bite. “Where’d you learn this?”
“The ultra high-end Library Bar in The Leela Palace in Bangalore, India.”
A small heat lamp warmed the patio, while the lights of Coronado Island and the marina sparkled off in the distance. It was the first time since Rose had moved in that she’d had a man over for drinks, let alone a man who was spending the night. And what made it even more incredible, the man was Max Rosso.
“Is this before or after the Dalai Lama?”
“Way after. I returned to India to study Hindi, had a short affair with a way-too-wild Bollywood actress, and instead found myself working at the Library Bar. But what about you, Rosie-Rose? What have you been up to for the past ten years?”
She chuckled at his new pet name for her. “Attended San Diego Culinary Institute, as you may have guessed. After graduation I went to southern Italy, to a little town called Matera, and studied under a superb chef who thought preparing a meal was an art form. Absolutely loved every minute I was there. I did that for about a year, then came back here and worked in various Italian restaurants, but none of them had a menu with the kind of foods I wanted to prepare.”
She took another sip of her delicious martini and wondered just how much she should tell him about the gypsy, if giving too much away might jeopardize her chances at true love.
“About a year ago, Jasmine, Daisy and I decided to open our own place. We’d been talking about it for awhile, then something weird happened to make us actually do it. We met a gypsy who knew everything about it, including the name, With a Twist, which we had to use.”
“Some gypsy.”
“Do you believe in that kind of magic?”
He picked up his martini glass from the small table between them and took a long pull, then put it back down, crossed his hands over his chest, elbows resting on the arms of the chair, slid down and straightened out his long legs in front of him. Rose liked that he was beginning to feel comfortable in her home.
“It’s hard for me to talk to someone about what I do and don’t believe in. Just as it’s hard for me to talk about everything I’ve learned, and mastered. People usually react in one of two ways. Either they think I’m bragging, which I’m not, or they think I’m giving them a line of bullshit. But you’re different.”
He turned to her, his face catching the light and she could still see a little of the young teenager he once was. Maybe it was his excitement about being able to finally tell someone about his adventures and his beliefs or maybe he genuinely liked her this time. Whatever it was, she wanted to kiss him in the worst way.
“What makes you think that?”
“A feeling I had as soon as I saw you standing behind the bar. I didn’t recognize you at first, but I remember feeling as though I knew you. As though I could talk to you and you’d understand. Most people don’t get it. They think I’m some sort of drifter with no purpose. But I think you know what’s in my soul, Rosie-Rose. And I think I know what’s in yours.”
She turned to him. “What’s in my soul, Max? Tell me what you see.”
A warm smile lit on his face. “I see a woman who adores making people happy through her food. Who is loyal to her two best friends. Who enjoys a good martini, good conversation and a breathtaking view. I also see a woman who’s a bit of a mystic and who wants to believe in gypsy’s and the power of the universe, but she’s also logical and neat to a fault which prevents her from letting herself go.”
Rose bristled. “I let myself go just fine.”
He grimaced. “I’m not trying to offend you. You asked what I saw and I’m being honest.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“Aside from Daisy and Jasmine, I think not many people do. You never once mentioned a man or men in your life in the last ten years.”
Emotion welled up inside her. This wasn’t fun anymore. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” She stood to leave.
He stood, blocking her path. “Rosie, I’m sorry if I hurt you. I’ll leave if you want me to. I have this damn habit of shooting straight from the hip. I really didn’t mean to offend you.”
She stood straighter, refusing to let him see her cry. “You don’t have that much power. I’m fine. You don’t have to leave. I’m just tired.”
“Let it out, Rosie. Get mad Get crazy. Throw something at me, but don’t hold your emotions inside.”
Her stomach began to quiver. She felt sick. “My damn name is Rose. Please don’t call me anything else. Than
ks for the martini.”
She turned away from him, walked back inside and headed up the white carpeted stairs to her bedroom. As tears streamed down her face, she felt certain she was going to ruin everything for Jasmine and Daisy. He would never love her.
Not now.
Not ever.
Chapter Three
The next morning, Rose awoke with eyes still red and swollen from crying most of the night. She planned on leaving before Max could see her. She needed a break to regroup and was not about to invite him back into her kitchen no matter how good his Béchamel sauce tasted.
After she showered and squeegeed the glass doors, she applied a bit of makeup and dressed in black jeans, and a red sweater. Then she quickly dusted every surface that might need it, washed the glasses and shaker that were still out on the patio, put them all away, scoured the kitchen sink, her bathroom sink, swept the bathroom floor, made her bed, hung up a sweater in order of color, lined up her boots on the shelf after she pulled on a pair of black leather knee-high’s, slipped on the biggest silver earrings she could find and snuck out like smoke in the wind.
While Jasmine was busy in La Jolla with Jake, pretending that her condo was being painted, Rose was stuck with Max as a house guest, which was not working out at all. Clearly, her friends’ secret plan to nudge him into falling in love with her was most definitely a total failure.
Problem was she didn’t want to go home to him after she closed up the kitchen, especially on a Saturday night when the restaurant was almost empty by eight o’clock. What he’d said about her not letting go and not mentioning a man during the last ten years really hit home and, worst of all, had affected her cooking tonight, she was sure. She figured it was probably the reason why the restaurant was so empty. The disappointed patrons were already on Yelp or Facebook giving With a Twist bad reviews.
Granted, she hadn’t dated much in the last ten years. Of the guys she had dated, most didn’t want to get serious, and the rest were simply jerks. Okay, so she’d only dated a handful of men, if that, but none of them had been worth mentioning.