‘Because I can. I have a business degree and a wedding planning diploma. I know my way around a spreadsheet and a word processing programme with my eyes closed. Just direct me to your office, scribble down the details and I’ll work my magic in there. It’ll take me two minutes.’
‘You really want to help me?’ His eyebrows shot up, and his eyes widened, and he shook his head more vehemently. ‘Thank you, but no. I can manage it all perfectly well. Before I got the stars, I ran a small place in Bordeaux. You have to do everything yourself or it doesn’t get done.’
She gave him a half-hearted shrug, because, after all, she’d extended that hand. If he didn’t want to take it, it was his problem. ‘Okay. Your funeral. Or rather, you’re missing a five-star review for the sake of a bit of humility and two minutes of my company. You are allowed to get help sometimes, you know.’
Again, he held her gaze as if weighing her up. As if contemplating what kind of fresh hell he’d have to endure if he let her into his restaurant. The dark eyes narrowed a little, and she wondered what else was going on in that brain of his.
He’d been described as revolutionary with his food, an ingénue, an upstart even. He was clever, inventive. And sharp, so it seemed. Was that all, or was there more there? He certainly didn’t tolerate fools, if his conversation with Laura was anything to go by, and would not allow himself to be swayed or bullied into doing something he didn’t want to.
‘Okay. But, you have been warned, it’s not pretty. There’s a reason I took Laura on—I’m not great with organisation.’ So maybe letting Chloe in seemed preferable to doing it on his own. Or rather, he was fast running out of time.
He held the door open for her and she walked into the wonderland of his whitewashed world, the scent of rosemary and garlic filling her nostrils. She put her bag down on the bar and wondered why she was here instead of walking home and collecting wine as she passed Go. But he didn’t give her time to think too hard.
‘Through here.’ He picked up Chloe’s bag and walked her towards another door, one that she hadn’t noticed last time she was here. ‘I’d prefer it if you kept your eyes focused just on the typing and don’t look around too closely. It got a little messy before I hired Laura and she was working her way through it.’
They walked into an office—at least, that’s what she assumed it had originally been, only now it looked as if someone had tipped every file they’d owned for the last ten years onto the desk from a great height. Some of the papers had landed in a heap—or a group of heaps, whatever the plural for that was—and some had landed on the floor.
There were photographs in dark wood frames covering almost one whole wall, a large lumpy sofa in a deep claret colour and a huge quirky lamp in the shape of a teardrop that cast a soothing orange glow. Where the rest of the restaurant was post-modernist stark, this was clutter central.
Chloe walked towards the desk, straddling various piles of receipts and open ring binder files. ‘Whoa. You have serious filing problems.’
‘I know. I’ve been busy getting planning permission and the alcohol licence and the council consent for this, that and the other, and all about the food. And this is a lot of the paperwork from my other places too. I wanted to keep everything in one place and try to use the same suppliers as best I could, so I can keep a similar feel across the three places. But of course that’s not always possible, and some of the paperwork needs to be kept in situ; things like licences and local council stuff, policy documents, health and safety. You wouldn’t believe what you need to do to even set a restaurant up never mind run the damned thing. Laura was supposed to be dealing with all this. She kept telling me she was on top of it, but I didn’t have time to delve any deeper. The laptop is…’ Reaching across the desk, he rummaged through some important-looking papers, pulled out a state of the art laptop and opened it. ‘…here.’
Chloe started to stack the paper into a couple of piles so she had a clear space to work. As she did so, she automatically put invoices into one pile and flyers for everything from an organic garden festival to a small electrical repairer into another. ‘Won’t take long.’
‘Er… What are you doing?’
She put a piece of paper down and focused on him. Not difficult. The man possessed the room; his energy bounced from him and off the walls, she was fascinated by him, by the curve of his mouth, the steady gaze, and the pushed-up sleeves that revealed forearms that moved with grace and strength. God, she’d never, ever even looked at a man’s arms before, never mind been entranced by the contraction of sinew and muscle. It was… well, it made her feel a little breathless. And a little bit hot.
‘I’m just sorting them like for like and then you can go through and work out which invoices have been paid and which ones are outstanding when you reconcile your bank statement. I’ll label them clearly. It’s not a problem. Is it?’ Only she couldn’t tell, because he was looking at her in a strange way, his hypnotic eyes belying a deeper thought process that she wished she could have x-ray vision into.
‘Jason never told me you could be helpful.’ The suspicion was laced with a small smile.
‘I imagine that, by the time you actually came back to England and saw Jason face to face, he was passed thinking of me in any kind of positive light at all. You know how it is; once you’ve decided you don’t like something, you convince yourself everything about it is wrong.’
‘I was away too long.’ He’d picked up a file, but stood with it crushed in his hand as he scowled at nothing in particular. If she wasn’t mistaken, there was an air of sadness and pain in his face, which was strange for him. Raw energy and anger, yes. Pain, now that was new. She hadn’t thought that his relationship with Jason had been so important to him. Or maybe it was something else?
‘He thought so too. He missed you. He’d have liked you around more, but he knew you were too busy off doing your own thing rather than coming back to see your family.’ Then she thought she might have stepped on some toes, or spoken out of turn, and she felt a strange loyalty to her ex-fiancé and the way he’d idolised his older cousin who had chosen to stay distant, which was weird. Or maybe she’d just wanted Vaughn to know some truths. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. Really, none of my business.’
‘I had my reasons. He knew what they were.’
‘Oh, you know Jason; he’s all about himself. He never said why you didn’t come home, just that it would have been nice to see you more often. Hey, you’ll never guess what I found on…’
Oops.
If she told Vaughn she’d been on a dating website and found Jason on there too, she’d be admitting she’d been on a dating website, period. That wasn’t going to happen.
Vaughn looked up from a piece of paper that he was writing on—the menu, she presumed. ‘What did you find, Chloe?’
‘Oh.’ Panicking slightly, she glanced over the contents of the table. ‘This. It’s a… bill for the chandeliers. It’s a red one. Do you want me to put it somewhere particular?’
‘Damn.’ In what had probably amounted to a whole thirty minutes overall that she’d spent with Vaughn in her entire life, she’d noticed a little muscle in the side of his jaw that twitched when he was annoyed. It had happened a lot at the church and was happening again now. ‘Laura was supposed to pay this weeks ago. Why didn’t she? Do you mind if I…?’
He leant across and took the computer from her. Then he stood, close. So close. Too close. She got a waft of his vanilla-spice smell and caught a close-up of impossibly long lashes framing his dark eyes, and she felt that tingle again. It was becoming a little annoying and inappropriate.
When he began to speak, she edged away from him. ‘Apart from the fact she just quit, I’m beginning to regret taking her on at all. She’s the sister of a friend and wanted a leg up in the industry. I owed him, so I offered her the job. Looks like she was in a little too deep. Great maître d’, but wanted extra hours so I gave her the admin to do, too. Clearly that was a mistake. Damn. These are good
suppliers, and they gave me a hefty discount. I need to keep them sweet.’ Tapping on the keyboard with intent to maim, he opened his bank account page, set up a direct credit and paid for the chandeliers. ‘I doubt they’ll have me back as a client again. I had no idea. And now I’m really running late.’
‘Do you have an accounting software programme?’
‘Yes. It’s here…’ He clicked again. ‘But I have to go and prep. Here’s the menu. The computer’s wi-fied to the printer. I’ll grab you something to drink?’
‘Yes, please, a coffee. Espresso?’
‘Okay. I’ll be right back.’
And they both knew he could easily have typed the menu up and printed it off by now, but he hadn’t. And neither had she.
She didn’t want to think what that meant.
CHAPTER 8
THE LATE AFTERNOON morphed into the evening and, fuelled by the best coffee she’d had in London, Chloe printed off his menus, sorted his papers, filed bills and even made a start on entering data into the accounting software. Surprisingly, he’d only looked a little shocked when she’d asked for his password and only mentioned industrial sabotage once under his breath as he’d given her pretty much full computer access. He had stopped short at allowing her into his bank account, though, and she supposed she couldn’t really blame him.
Out in the restaurant, there was a murmur of hushed voices, the clang of pans and even more delicious aromas floating across the air. An unobtrusive soundtrack played, and she felt almost serene as she put everything into neat order. There was a lot soothing about changing chaos into calm. And, to be honest, it was nice to be focused on something other than her own problems.
A few hours later, he came into the office and stopped short. His hair had fluffed up in the steamy kitchen atmosphere; his face was pink with heat, and he had chaos in his eyes. She wondered what it would take to soothe that into calm too. Then she wondered why her gaze flicked to his mouth when kissing a man like Vaughn would instil anything but calm.
And hot on the heels of that thought was shock that kissing him had been the first thing to enter her head when she’d looked at him.
He gave her a startled smile as if he’d just woken up and found a tasty treat in his bed. ‘Oh, Chloe, still here?’
‘Believe me, I could go through this all night and only make a tiny dent.’
‘Wait right there.’ He was gone for a few minutes but returned with a grin and a tray filled with olives, fresh warm bread, some kind of bright pink whipped-cream dip, hummus and an array of Mediterranean-style vegetables dripping with a fragrant olive oil. There was also a bottle of dark red juice, a tall glass and a napkin. He placed the tray in front of her. ‘Eat this. Order anything you want from the menu. In fact, order anything not on the menu too, and I’ll cook it for you. Then I’ll call you a cab to get you home. You’ve been here too long.’
‘All going okay out there?’
‘Great. Look, Chloe, you don’t need to do this.’
‘I know.’
‘So why are you doing it?’
‘If I’m planning to hold a wedding here, I need to make sure you keep open long enough for it to actually happen. I don’t want you letting my clients down. I have enough problems without you adding to them. And, also, because you have paper that I can shuffle. I don’t have much paper to shuffle. No piles of invoices to put in glorious, perfect A to Z order. A lot of bills, though…’ She nodded at the thought of them all looming over her and of having to use the electricity money this month to pay the council tax. ‘Yes, a lot of bills.’
He looked at her for a moment, and she felt strangely exposed. She’d said too much. Again. ‘Things not going so well after all?’
‘On the contrary, how did you put it? Everything’s going swimmingly. Now, let me try this food. And thank you again. It looks very… pink.’ She scooped some cerise dip onto her bread and took a bite, trying to take the attention away from her business. She didn’t want news to get back to her old group of friends that she was failing.
No.
She refused to believe she was failing. Things would work out. They would. She was back on her feet now. And spending time here doing mindless filing had freed up her subconscious to think about fun ways to attract new clients. She actually felt a little more positive about the way forward and had even jotted down a couple of notes she would turn into actions. So, in a round about way, she had something to thank him for. ‘Oh, wow. This is delicious. I mean, really delicious. Smokey and tangy. What is it?’
‘Beetroot, feta cheese and a little magic. A secret recipe I picked up in Turkey, and if I tell you the ingredients, I’ll have to kill you. But it’s nice, yes?’ He grinned, and it was genuine and refreshing, and she realised he was starting to relax in her company. No more hesitant glances towards things that could be used as weapons. Which, for them, was pretty huge.
‘Yes, it’s lovely. Now, go back to the kitchen and work your magic there, too, chef. You can’t waste all your time in here. When’s Collini coming?’
His mouth turned up at the corners. ‘Someone who’s more of a slave driver than me. Interesting. He’s here already. That’s why I haven’t been in to see you for a while. Entree and main down. Just dessert to go. Jacques, my sous chef, is just putting the finishing touches on.’
‘And you trust him with Collini?’
‘I’d trust him with my life, which is worth a lot less than Collini’s praise.’
Chloe looked towards the door and wished she could take a sneaky peek outside and see what this mysterious reviewer looked like. ‘Can you read anything from his body language?’
‘No, he’s notoriously deadpan about his eating experiences. We’ll just have to wait until the review’s out tomorrow. He chose the duck entree, which is always a crowd pleaser, and the lamb rack main, which is my signature dish, so finger’s crossed.’
She watched as his face lit up at the thought of his food creations and remembered when she used to be so abuzz about her own job. To the point of not letting anyone else in, apparently. But it takes time and effort to build a successful business, at least Vaughn understood that. ‘Be honest, you forgot I was in here, didn’t you?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He looked so taken aback that she believed him. So that didn’t account for his startled reaction as he’d come into the room. What did?
‘It’s okay if you did forget me. I understand. It’s a big deal having a reviewer here; you need to focus on that. In fact, you’d better get back in there and work that kitchen.’ She glanced at her watch before she saved and closed the accounting programme. ‘Wow, I didn’t realise it was so late. I’ll get going. I have to get a decent sleep to finalise everything for the rehearsal on Friday.’
Vaughn’s face fell from its gastronomic high. ‘You don’t want dinner?’
‘The dips and bread were enough. So no, I won’t. Not this time.’ Then she inwardly cringed. This time? Was she sounding as if there’d be a next time? Because she wasn’t going to do his books for him, that gem of a job would have to go to someone else.
‘How about a glass of wine, by way of thanks?’
She turned around and looked for her handbag. ‘No. I really should go and get out of your hair.’
‘Chloe, you’re not in my hair.’ As he shook his head, his hands locked on her shoulders, anchoring her in place. His restless energy emanated from him, and his heat, which seemed to shiver through her, coiled through her gut, tingling in parts of her that hadn’t tingled in a very long time. He smiled as he spoke, and she wondered if he knew exactly what effect he was having on her. ‘As you saw earlier, I like to pay my debts, and I won’t take no for an answer. I don’t like to be beholden to anyone. Red or white?’
God knew why she was even contemplating this when she’d thought about kissing him, and now she was tingling in response to his touch, but it seemed where Vaughn was concerned, her brain wasn’t entirely decided. Evil or good? Hit list or kiss list?
‘It’ll take my mind off things. It’s not appropriate for me to go out and hover over him, and all the other punters are gone or served their last course. It’s going to be an early finish tonight. Midweek can be tough on a new place.’
‘But business is picking up?’
‘Sure. That last great review certainly increased bookings. I just have to get word out. Wait here.’
There was a clear space now on the lumpy sofa, so she sat on that and looked around the room. There were framed certificates on the wall and photos of what she assumed were Vaughn’s other restaurants, one that was clearly in Paris. Another was taken on a busy city street in what she assumed was Manchester. And then some photos were obviously of places he’d visited; the Taj Mahal, Machu Pichu and Morocco. A music festival somewhere. Sydney. Snow. The Great Wall of China.
No wonder he hadn’t had time to come home and see his cousin; Vaughn had packed his life with living.
‘Here we go.’ He placed a tray on the table and handed her a glass. ‘New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. This should speak for itself.’
She took a sip. He was right. The taste of gooseberries and lime filled her mouth. It was showy at first but had complex flavours and depth. A little like Vaughn, she smiled to herself. ‘I was just looking at all these photographs. Well, wow, you’ve been to a lot of places.’
He shrugged. ‘Just going through the list, you know. The usual tourist trails.’
‘And now you have what? Three restaurants, as well? You’re certainly ploughing through life experiences.’
He glanced up at the photos and then back at her. His voice was softer when he spoke again. ‘It is the general idea of having a life, isn’t it? There’s no point sitting around just waiting for death to happen.’
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