Hungry for More (2012)

by Chelsea Scott

  Well, she didn’t, Paul reminded himself with a mental slap. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to drag his thoughts away.

  She was so beautiful…Paul didn’t know how long he was going to be able to survive without another taste now that he knew how delectable she was. It was a painful cliché, but she felt like heaven in his arms: soft, and sweet and inviting. She was the perfect height- just right to tuck her head underneath his chin- and when his arms clasped around her body, she was snug and warm against his chest. She probably looked amazing naked- like a woman ought to look- at least, if the way she filled out a nightgown was any way to judge.

  “…medium-rare, Chef. They’ve sent it back.”

  “What? Huh?” Paul blinked. He had forgotten where he was. The maitre’d was standing in front of him, holding out a plate of meat. His face was crinkled with a look of disdain- as if the imperfect meal offended his sensibilities.

  “The filet,” George repeated haughtily. “Madame requested rare…but look.”

  Paul inspected the cut and discovered that the head waiter was right. It was a disgrace and ought never have made it out onto the floor. Someone wasn’t paying attention- and Paul suspected that someone was him. He might have been famous for hurling abuse, but he knew when the fault was his own.

  “We need another filet,” he told the grill chef, and noticed that everyone had flinched when he first turned around. Now they were staring in disbelief. Paul ignored them, “Please send them my apologies,” he told the maitre’d, “And also a bottle of champagne. The Veuve…”

  “Sir.” George answered, his tone somewhere between an acknowledgment and a question. Paul knew the reason. The Veuve Cliquot was expensive- far too much compensation for a relatively minor gaffe. Giveaways like that were going to cut into the profits- when he realized that, Paul laughed. It wasn’t like he cared. Let the investors worry about that.

  Of course, no one else in the kitchen had the first clue what he found so funny, and they stared at him as if he’d just gone mad. Perhaps he had. For the first time since he’d gone to culinary school, Paul wanted to be somewhere else. He was tired of the kitchen- or this kitchen, at least.

  “I’m going home,” he announced, earning a collective gasp.

  “Chef?” The sous-chef, sniveling little maggot that he was, looked green. It was no wonder. Paul had barely been in the restaurant at all that day- at least by his personal standards. He had not arrived until noon. “The service isn’t over yet!” Paul smiled darkly. He knew that the other chef had been running around frantically busy all day, overseeing the prep. Now he was going to have to stay for cleanup and pre-prep too.

  Paul couldn’t muster any pity. If the sous-chef was after his job, he could have a taste of the responsibilities as well as the perks!

  “I have to go and see my kid,” Paul lied. It was after nine o’clock. Tad had been in bed for over an hour- but Bridget probably wasn’t. She was awake. Maybe she was curled up reading. Maybe she was in her nightgown. Maybe she was waiting for him…

  Paul didn’t invest too much hope in the final possibility, but neither did he dismiss it completely. The way that she had kissed him last night convinced him that she wanted him too. Alcohol lowered inhibitions. It didn’t create impulses that weren’t there. Paul was firmly of the opinion that being drunk could never cause a person to do something they weren’t already predisposed to do.

  Paul didn’t say another word before leaving the kitchen and making his way back home. He usually took a taxi. He had to cut through Central Park to his apartment, and that was rarely safe at night, but it was still early by Manhattan standards. Tourists were everywhere and the paths of the park were bright. He hurried home on foot, marveling at how different and magical everything seemed at night when people were still awake!

  The doorman at the apartment building was nearly as astonished as the sous-chef to see Paul out of work so soon.

  “Chef!” he said as the tenant entered. He was so surprised that he forgot to tip his hat.

  On an ordinary night, Paul might have been annoyed by everyone’s amazement. Sure, he had only worked a half day. He had only gone in at noon, but was that really so unusual? He thought not! Tonight, however, he didn’t care about anyone else’s opinion. He only cared about getting home. He was growing more anxious and excited with every step.

  Paul hesitated for a moment just outside his apartment door, wondering what he should say. “Honey, I’m home” would fit the moment, but that was too comical for his mood. Maybe he should act surprised to see her still awake? Maybe he should pretend that he was coming home to pick something up? He considered, and then discarded all of these ideas as too complex. It was so long since he’d been this excited about a woman. He worried that he was overcomplicating things. The best strategy was none at all. Wordlessly, he stepped inside the apartment. He was upset to find the living room empty. His disappointment lasted only a moment, though. He heard movement in the kitchen.

  It pleased him to learn that Bridget was in his favorite part of the house. He wondered if she was trying to cook. He couldn’t wait another moment to find out. He put his hand on the door and pushed it open.

  “Bridget?”

  Chapter 9

  She screamed.

  It was an automatic reaction, but one that Bridget felt like repeating when she realized what was going on.

  Paul was standing in the doorway…

  …and she was just finishing off another disgusting binge.

  Bridget had intended to be good, she really had. She was uckish after she put Tad to bed. She made a little bowl of popcorn to eat while she watched TV, and when she finished, she had some chocolate candy that had been shipped from home. Then she finished off Tad’s share of the Chinese that they had ordered for dinner, along with a frozen pizza that she kept hidden in the back of the fridge. Now she was wolfing down ice cream, directly out of the carton- a carton which had been full the day before, but was almost empty. There was no way to deny what was going on. She had been in too much of a frenzy to stop and throw anything away. She was surrounded by wrappers and plates and cartons and crumbs.

  Bridget wanted to die.

  “Someone’s feeling hungry?” Paul joked uncertainly. Bridget was not in the mood for humor. Her bottom lip started to tremble and her eyes filled with tears. “Bridget?”

  Paul’s voice sounded truly terrified when a few stray tears trickled down her cheeks. She smeared them away and wondered if she could make a run for her room.

  “Why aren’t you at work?” Bridget demanded. It was the second night in a row that Paul had come home to find her humiliating herself.

  Paul opened his mouth to answer, but then he shut it again.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m here now, so you can tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Nothing’s wrong!” Bridget snapped. She wanted to sweep all of the horrifying evidence of her binge into the trash, but worried that doing so would draw even more attention to the revolting amount that she had eaten.

  “Bridge, people don’t normally cry when I walk into a room,” Paul said gently. “What has upset you?”

  Wasn’t it obvious? Bridget felt like shouting at him. How could he be so dense? How could he expect her to say it out loud?

  “I feel horrible,” she sniffed.

  “I’m not surprised! Do you have any idea what kind of crap they put into this stuff?” Paul asked, reading the back of a discarded wrapper. “You might as well just poison yourself and be done with it. Seriously, Bridget. I know I’m a jerk about the fridge rules, but I’d rather you use up my Alba truffle than eat this garbage.”

  “You don’t understand,” Bridget said in a small voice. “I can’t help it!”

  “You can’t help what?” Paul asked, sounding like he honestly didn’t understand.

  “I can’t stop myself!” Bridget croaked. “I can’t stop myself from eating.” She hated that, of all the people that she could have told her dirty little secret, it
was Paul that she was confessing to.

  “You stop yourself just fine when it’s my food,” he pointed out. There was an unmistakable hint of bitterness in his tone.

  Bridget looked up. He probably already thought that she was a drunk, and now he saw that she was a junk food addict too. He couldn’t possibly think any worse of her if she confessed her real issue, could he?

  “That’s only because I can’t eat in front of people,” she sniffed. She pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.

  “You can’t- what?” Paul pulled up a stool and sat down beside Bridget. “What are you talking about, sweetheart?”

  “Please don’t make me say it again,” she begged. Then she began crying in earnest.

  Paul panicked. He didn’t have any experience with crying women. The other women who had passed through his life were too tough or too emotionally sterile to ever break down into tears. What was he supposed to do?

  He had a vague recollection of his mother rubbing his back when his older brother had knocked him off his bike. Paul seized on the idea. He reached out gingerly and began to rub his knuckles up and down Bridget’s spine. He didn’t have a clue what to say, but Bridget didn’t appear to object to his silence.

  She settled slowly. Eventually, she was just sniffling softly into her handkerchief. Paul found a box of Kleenex on the counter and handed it to her.

  “I’m s-sorry,” she stuttered. “I’ve never told anyone about my problem before.”

  Paul wanted to tell her that she didn’t have a problem, but he could see that she thought she did.

  “Do you want to tell me a little more about it?” he asked. He wasn’t the sort of person that anyone normally went to with their problems, but maybe he could help Bridget? After all, food was his specialty.

  Bridget looked at him and Paul felt his heart hurt. She looked so sad and so beautiful.

  “I don’t even remember how it started, not exactly. I’d always been big…bigger than my friends. When my mother started telling me that I was fat and-”

  “Your mother told you that you were fat?” Paul asked in disbelief.

  “She put me on a diet,” Bridget answered. “I hated how she monitored everything that I ate. I stopped eating when she was watching me. I would just pick at a salad or move things around my plate until everyone else was finished. I was never full, but being hungry sort of felt good,” she continued, to Paul’s mounting disbelief. “Eventually I would lose control and binge,” she said, her voice full of self-loathing.

  “Sweetheart, if you were trying to live on lettuce leaves it’s not surprising that your body found a way to rebel.”

  “No one else has ever thought that,” Bridget said, her voice wobbling. “Richard used to lock the fridge!”

  “Richard?” Jealousy and anger flared to life in the center of Paul’s chest. “Who’s Richard?”

  “My ex-fiancé,” Bridget whispered. She looked like she might cry again. “He thought I was fat and disgusting. In the end he was ashamed to even be seen with me.”

  Paul wanted to kill Richard.

  “You should have been ashamed to be seen with such a jerk!” Paul’s retort was so vehement that it actually drew a tiny giggle from Bridget. Paul lifted his hand to her face, and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “You shouldn’t have listened to them. I think you’re beautiful and perfect just the way you are…And do you know what else I think?”

  Bridget shook her head.

  “I think you need to start treating yourself better, because you deserve better, and you’re going to have to start believing that soon because I’m not going to let you kill yourself on-” he picked up a packet “-Fritos and… chocolate Hobnobs!”

  “Chocolate Hobnobs are actually-”

  “A thing of the past,” Paul said firmly. He looked again at the ingredients listed on the wrapper. “I could definitely whip up something superior!”

  Bridget smiled tremulously. “You can improve on chocolate Hobnobs? Now that I would love to see!”

  “Is that a challenge?” Paul asked, arching his brow comically. Bridget started giggling at the look.

  The sound was a little bit manic, but Paul forgave her the lapse of decorum. He felt so good that he’d been able to help. Bridget had been absolutely flattened when he first found her. Now she was smiling through her drying tears.

  “Thank you…” she said shyly, and started to turn away. Paul caught her cheek. He cupped it tenderly, and stroked away a lingering teardrop with the pad of his thumb. Then, because he felt he’d earned it, he gave her another kiss.

  Maybe she was right about the Hobnobs. Paul could still taste the cookies on her tongue when she timidly slid it between his lips. It was an intriguing blend of salty and sweet that tempted him to kiss her deeper.

  Not yet…a voice whispered deep inside, and he decided to heed it. Life and experience had taught him that the most delectable experiences were seldom rushed.

  He released Bridget slowly. He settled back onto his stool, taking the time to admire her flushed cheeks and tousled hair.

  He didn’t know what to say. Bridget seemed to be in the same predicament. She kept peeking up at him, catching his eyes and then quickly looking away. The tense silence stretched on, until she reached to take a sip of the tea that she’d been drinking and accidentally tipped her bag of Fritos onto the floor.

  “Oh, God!” Bridget exclaimed. She scrambled off the stool to clean the mess, but Paul beat her to it. He picked up the empty bag and tossed it into the trash.

  He carried the food that was left to the cabinets and refrigerator, and then took out some food for himself.

  Bridget watched him curiously. “You didn’t have dinner yet?”

  Paul shook his head, “I never eat dinner, really.”

  “You never eat dinner?”

  “Well, most nights I just taste…a lot.”

  “And you didn’t tonight?” Bridget asked, curiously. She glanced at the clock. “You’re early…Is something wrong?”

  Paul looked away. He didn’t want her to see the turmoil on his face or to spoil the pleasant, playful mood. “Tough night at work,” he shrugged.

  “I know how that goes,” Bridget answered, soothingly.

  “Do you?” Paul blinked.

  Bridget was embarrassed when she realized what she’d said. “Er…no…not really, I mean, Tad’s an angel! Always! I just…”

  “…have to watch out for your lecherous boss always sneaking home early and trying to steal a kiss.”

  Paul made sure that his tone was teasing, but he was actually holding his breath, waiting on the edge of his seat for her response.

  Bridget looked down at her hands and dared another tiny timid smile.

  “Actually, that’s one of the perks.”

  Chapter 10

  Paul’s home life was as good as it had ever been but work was utter hell. He knew that he shouldn’t have walked out of service, but he also knew that other chefs had nights off. Plenty of the top chefs managed to have a life outside work.

  His passion for good food was still strong and steady. It burned away at the very heart of who he was, but the politics of his kitchen were getting out of hand. Paul no longer wanted to go into work. He wanted to stay at home with Tad and Bridget and rediscover what it meant to be part of a normal family.

  He smiled to himself when he thought of the pair of them. He couldn’t believe that he had been content to live his life without Tad in it. He felt guilty for neglecting his son in the past. He was determined to change, but work continually got in the way of his good intentions. At least Tad had Bridget for when his father still fell short. Paul’s affectionate smile gained a wolfish edge when he considered the nanny.

  Bridget was a part of their oddball little family just as surely as he and Tad; she was the glue that held them together, especially in the beginning. Paul was still learning how to be a proper father, but it became a little easier every day under Bridget’s tutela
ge. After the night of the binge, he understood a little better why she didn’t already have a family of her own. Paul was keen to build up her shattered confidence. He was desperate not to lose Bridget in the process though. He wanted to show her that he and Tad were all that she needed.

  Paul played his seduction out slowly. He allowed Bridget no room to doubt that she was a prize that he intended to claim but kept her guessing about when he would make his final move.

  Paul amazed himself with his restraint. He wanted Bridget badly, but he wanted it to be perfect when he finally made her his own, and he sensed that she needed time. He loved watching her blossom under his tender attentions. Her eyes lit up with anticipation every time that she saw him. Her skin flushed and her lips parted breathlessly.

  More often than not Paul rewarded her response to him with slow, probing kisses, leaving them both reeling when he pulled away from her lush, inviting curves.

  It was difficult for him to concentrate on anything but Bridget, even when they were apart. He found more and more that she was even intruding on his thoughts while he was in the kitchen. That was something that couldn’t possibly go unnoticed for long.

  “Oh, no!”

  “What?” Bridget let the spoon that she was using to eat her Cookie Crisp cereal clatter against the bowl at the sound of Paul’s voice. His tone was disappointed. She didn’t understand it. She thought that she was doing well not to hide her food the moment that she heard him getting out of bed. “I’m sorry,” she said automatically, “I was hungry.”

  Paul sighed and ran his fingers through his sleep-mussed hair. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he reassured her. “I know you’re hungry. You must be starved. I just thought that we had discussed how you are going to treat yourself from now on.”

  “Treat myself?”

  “Yes. You are not going to live with a world-class chef and continue eating…that.” He looked at the mushy cereal and shuddered.

  Bridget managed a timid smile, relieved by his explanation. “You were asleep,” she explained quietly.