Burning Down the Spouse

by Dakota Cassidy

  She set her fork down, wiping her mouth with the napkin Cosmos provided. “Okay?” She wasn’t sure if it was okay, but looking up at Voula, everything felt almost okay. Or if it wasn’t, Voula would beat it with a rolling pin until it was.

  Voula chucked her under the chin and smiled. “Yes. It’s okay now. Would have been better if you married a Greek boy to begin with, but for now, it’s okay. So finish and we begin.” With that, she strode off to a door at the other end of the kitchen, letting it close with a thunk behind her ample backside.

  Nikos eyeballed her, leaving her without much air in her lungs. His sharply planed face and luscious lips made her fingers wrap more tightly around the fork. “So Mama made you spanakopita? She doesn’t do that for just anyone, you know.”

  Frankie’s resentment at being so easily fooled seeped over the edges of her manners. “Just for loony-bin worthy women like me who make fools of themselves on television?”

  He popped his lips. “And sometimes for loony-bin worthy women who make fools of themselves on a much smaller scale. But only the really loony ones,” he teased with a grin.

  More with the funny. “You said you had no idea who I was. Imagine my surprise.”

  Nikos crossed his arms over his wide, hard chest, the dark hairs on his arms making her stomach weak. “Yeah, and I was so convincing, Spielberg called. He wants me to star in his next movie about chefs’ wives gone wild.”

  What little air she had in her lungs fled. “So you lied.”

  He sighed, making his gorgeous chest expand and deflate, drawing her eyes to it. “Yep, but I just wanted to make you more comfortable. You weren’t exactly helping yourself in that interview. I got the impression you would have peeled your own skin off to get out of my office. But I promised Max I wouldn’t let you get away with it. No need to get excited or defensive. Oh, and I’ve held off on the flyers featuring your name as the newest addition to the Antonakas diner family. In case you were worried we’d abuse your celebrity.” Nikos winked, his thick, long lashes sweeping across his cheekbone in rakish fashion.

  Frankie made a mock roll of her eyes in gratitude. “Well, thank God for that. I wasn’t sure how we’d manage to find a cage big enough for me to fit comfortably in. Plus, there’s always the hassle of the mess all those peanut shells make when it’s feeding time at the zoo.”

  Hector snickered in the background, but Cosmos laughed directly over Nikos’s shoulder. “She’s funny.”

  Nikos nodded his dark head, the sleek shine of it deserving of every woman’s envy. “That’s good. She’ll need her sense of ha-ha for Papa. He’s cranky and difficult, and he refuses to retire.”

  “And I still have no spatula,” Cosmos complained.

  “Maybe you should have more than one. You know, as a backup,” Frankie suggested, pushing the surprisingly half-empty plate away from her and rising to search for Cosmos’s spatula. It didn’t hurt to move away from the close proximity of Nikos to do it either. He smelled too good. Looked too good. Too. Good.

  “She’s not your keeper, Cos,” Nikos chided, his black eyes gleaming. “Frankie, you don’t have to look after Cosmos’s cooking utensils. If he’d put stuff back, he’d be able to find it. But he’s a slob—a complete pig, and he thinks because he does most of the cooking that he has the right to behave like the Galloping Gourmet and pitch a fit every time he can’t find a utensil only he uses.”

  “I do not,” Cosmos denied, his handsome face distorted with mock hurt.

  “You do so,” Hector agreed before turning his back on them.

  Nikos barked a laugh. “Yeah, little brother, you do. He can be difficult at best, Frankie. I’m warning you now. He yells when things get hectic back here because he can never find what he needs, and it’s always someone else’s fault. He rants about how everything’s disorganized, but it’s usually him who’s responsible for the disorganization.”

  Her eye caught several glimmers of stainless steel shelves stored under the grill. She knelt to pull out a silver tray and rummaged through it until she located a spatula. “Is this it?” Frankie held it up for Cosmos to see.

  A smile lightened his face when he scooped her up and kissed her full on the mouth, making her eyes go wide. “Yes! You’re a lifesaver, and I do not yell.” His staunch denial made Nikos laugh.

  “You do, too. You’re a diva, little man. Own it.”

  Frankie shrugged and looked down at her feet. “It’s okay. I’m used to yelling. Mitch . . . Mitch was a demanding . . . well, he was demanding.”

  Nikos nudged her shoulder. “Don’t you worry, Frankie. I won’t let Cosmos push you around. You’re not his slave. You’re mine.”

  Frankie’s chin lifted, her eyes unable to hide her alarm. She was skittish and sensitive, and she knew it. She just wasn’t catching her reactions in enough time to keep people from crunching the egg-shell-lined path to her doorway.

  Nikos placed a warm hand on her shoulder, bringing ease and unwanted excitement to her tense muscles. “It was a joke. We do a lot of that here. We also eat a lot, and there’s always chaos. We’re loud, sometimes obnoxious, opinionated, but we love each other. Which means we hug a lot, but I promise in your servitude, I’ll keep your chains slack so you can participate.”

  Frankie giggled, closing her eyes and running a hand over her tired, grainy eyes. “So what is my job description anyway?”

  Nikos took her hand in his to pull her to a long stainless steel island, backing her up against it until her hips were pressed to it and he stood almost between her thighs. Almost. Or was she wishful distance thinking?

  His cologne, fresh and clean, whatever its label, wafted to her nose, making her nostrils appreciate the strong scent of man. The tight black T-shirt he wore clung to what looked like a million flexing, sculpted muscles in his chest and stomach. He was almost painful to look at he was so beautiful.

  It made her cast her glance away to the far corner of the kitchen where Cosmos cracked eggs on the flat grill.

  But Nikos moved into her line of vision. He gave her a sly gaze, his eyes, like a river of chocolate she wanted to jump into and do the backstroke in, smoldered.

  She shook her head, repeating the question. “So what’s my job again?”

  He raised an eyebrow with a lascivious arch to it. “I told you, Frankie. You’re mine. All mine.”

  Super-duper.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  From the still reluctant journal of ex-trophy wife Frankie Bennett: I don’t care what Mitch says. Meatloaf and brown gravy with fries might well be fit only for cavemen, but the way Nikos Antonakas prepares it makes a girl want to grab her pelt and start a fire with two sticks and the sunshiny rays of high noon. Cavemen rule. Greek cavemen really rule. And oh, damn, look. I wrote this entry in pen. Note to self: Next time use a pencil with a big eraser in case of open-mouth, insert-foot emergency, genius.

  Nikos’s statement sent a shiver of awareness along her arms and up the back of her neck.

  Cosmos laughed maniacally like some old horror movie villain.

  Clearly catching her anxious dismay, Nikos chuckled. “Another joke, Frankie. I crack wise. You humor me and laugh,” he teased, the fresh scent of his breath fanning her heated cheeks.

  She gulped. Where had her sense of humor gone? Down the shitter when you found out the joke was on you. “Right. Joking. So being yours, all yours, what am I doing?”

  Nikos pulled two aprons off a hook on the wall, tying one around his lean waist, leaving Frankie mesmerized by his long fingers. “You’re my assistant.”

  “What am I assisting?”

  He handed her an apron, then smiled. “Making my day a whole lot easier on my eyes.”

  She tilted her head to the right in question just as an older man pushed his way through the exit door directly in the back of the kitchen. His gray and black eyebrows knit together in a frown. The thick fall of his hair trailed over his forehead in deep ebony and silver waves as he dumped a bag on the island with a grunt. He brus
hed his button-down beige sweater with strong, thick hands. “You.” He pointed a finger that might have been Nikos’s if not for the liver spots at Frankie. “You chop.”

  “Papa,” Nikos chided with obvious affection in his tone. “Say hello to Frankie. She’s our new prep chef.”

  Nikos’s father scanned her from head to toe with a cynical gaze, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deep with hesitation. He lifted his round chin and clucked his tongue. “Hello.”

  Brrrrr. It wasn’t just cold outside.

  Her hand flew out, hoping to turn this awkwardly strange moment around. “Frankie. Frankie Bennett. Nice to meet you, Mr. Antonakas.” She tacked on a smile she hoped came across as genuine without being forced.

  His lips pursed in clear skepticism. “Uh-huh. Yes. I know all about the skeeny Frankie Bennett who blew her gasket on the television. I like your dog, Kooky.”

  There was something to be said for honesty—it so sucked. “Um, Kiki,” she offered in bright tones.

  Nikos got behind him and pushed his father’s arm outward, making his hand take Frankie’s to move up and down in a handshake. He mimicked his father’s tone of voice and accent perfectly when he said, “Nice to meet you, Frankie Bennett. I am Barnabas Antonakas, the cranky old man who’s upset with his oldest son for making him rest instead of standing on his feet for fourteen hours a day. He’s a bad, inconsiderate son, my Nikos.”

  Frankie fought a smile. Now she understood. She was taking over Barnabas’s duties as a prep chef of sorts, and he was resentful for the intrusion. Nobody got downsizing and trading up better than Frankie. “So I’m aiding and abetting, eh?” she teased.

  Barnabas yanked his hand from Nikos’s and tweaked his cheek. “You are a fresh boy. Nobody chops like Barnabas. You need me here, Nikos. You will regret the day you kicked me to the grass,” he warned, but his eyes were loving when they gazed upon his eldest son.

  “It’s curb, Papa, and I won’t regret not seeing you in the hospital with a bunch of tubes sticking out of that big schnoz of yours. Now go do something productive like watch Family Feud, and let me handle everything else.”

  Barnabas snorted in disgust over his shoulder when he muttered, “You will see. The skeeny Frankie won’t chop like me. She’ll be here all day long just trying to catch up to old Barnabas . . .” His voice trailed off as he pushed his way through the kitchen doors.

  Nikos grinned. “Sorry. He’s cantankerous, but he isn’t intentionally rude. Just depressed as one era ends in his life and another begins.”

  Frankie eyed the bag Barnabas brought and realized it was filled with onions. Many onions. “I can definitely see how depression would set in if he couldn’t chop onions. I’d be sad, too. Thankfully, it looks like my depression is in for a much needed breather.” What had she gotten herself into?

  Nikos grabbed a shiny knife and winked with another chuckle. “You do have a sense of humor. For now just peel, and I’ll chop. But if you show me your Jedi skills, I promise you, too, can chop.”

  “You’re afraid to give me a knife, aren’t you?”

  His eyes met hers. “Say again?”

  “I said, you’re afraid to give me a knife because they’re sharp and pointy, and I’m unstable and unpredictable,” she joked. Well, it was only sort of a joke. She had been unpredictable.

  Nikos cocked his head back with a wink. “I love unpredictable, but I love unstable even more. So you’ll be like the cement that holds my crazy together.”

  Now Frankie laughed, popping open the bag of onions, relaxing just a little. “I’ve got plenty of crazy.”

  “Good to know. You’ll need it here. Now start peeling. By the looks of the orders piling up, we have hash browns and omelets to make.”

  Frankie looked down at the bag, pulling out the first onion, avoiding his dark gaze. “So how many do you need? Three? Four?” She handed him the first peeled onion, her eyes just barely beginning that familiar sting.

  “The whole bag.”

  All ten pounds? No way.

  He nodded his sleek head without looking up from the chopping board as though he’d read her mind. “Yes way.”

  “Why wouldn’t you buy them prechopped?”

  His hand rocked the knife back and forth over the onions with the skill of any trained chef she’d ever seen. “First, they’re not fresh, and everything we do here at the diner is fresh and made to order except some of the pastries and pies, and they don’t hang around more than a day. Second, they’re expensive. Third, if I did that, you’d have no job security.” The corners of his lips lifted when he wiped his eyes on the shoulder of his black T-shirt.

  Frankie wiped the tears in her own eyes with her sleeve while she peeled. “Point.”

  “I have them. Not often, but when it happens, it’s usually categorized as historic.”

  Frankie muffled a snicker, keeping her eyes on her work. Yet they kept straying to Nikos’s hands, so fluid and graceful as he chopped. It was probably better he had the knife. She’d be here all day without the Slap Chop.

  The back door in the kitchen creaked, capturing Frankie’s attention.

  “Morning, Nikos,” cooed a lean young woman with a long, dark brown braid down her back and the best legs Frankie had ever seen. She pulled off a cute, knee-length jacket and hung it on a hook by the aprons.

  Nikos barely looked up but muttered a polite, “Morning, Chloe.”

  She stopped short at the island where Nikos and Frankie worked and gave Frankie a thorough once-over with her round silver gray eyes, making no bones about the fact that she was sizing her up. “And who’s this?”

  Manners, manners, manners. She must display them in social settings. If that wasn’t in Maxine’s handy-dandy notebook, then it should be. Frankie wiped her watering eyes across the sleeve of her shirt, then swiped her hand on her apron. She jammed it in Chloe’s direction, forgetting the constant source of embarrassment her name brought her as of late. “Frankie Bennett.”

  Chloe wrinkled her nose without extending her hand in return. “I know you. Your husband was on that show Mitch in the Kitchen.”

  Okay. So embarrassment was back.

  Nikos’s head snapped up, his eyes following Chloe’s gaze with something hidden in them Frankie couldn’t place. “Chloe Gianopoulos, meet Frankie Bennett, my new assistant. Frankie—Chloe, one of our waitresses.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Frankie said, though, from the eyeball glare Chloe was giving her, Frankie suspected the feeling was not mutual.

  Chole gave her a quick smile and muttered, “You, too,” before turning to Nikos. “So I’ll see you later on my break? Save me some meatloaf and gravy.” She brushed a hand over Nikos’s arm in very obvious possession, shooting a pointed glance in Frankie’s direction before skirting out of the kitchen.

  Though Frankie noted Nikos didn’t outwardly shun Chloe’s affection, he didn’t acknowledge it either.

  Yet clearly, Chloe meant for Frankie to know Nikos was hers.

  And okay. Message received. She didn’t need or want a man. Especially this man. This beautifully hard, fantastical man. He had to be major maintenance in the mirror department. Not to mention the women who must line up in scads to take a shot at grabbing his attention. His body obviously didn’t lack a good, hard workout either. Nikos Antonakas was work.

  No more high-maintenance men.

  Or maybe just no more men, high or low or anything in between maintenance.

  She cast a furtive glance at Nikos through oniony eyes.

  If he belonged to Chloe, and she was so totally okay with it, why did the idea make her more depressed than she already was? That was ridiculous. They’d just met.

  Huh. Things to ponder.

  Nikos stared at Frankie’s slender back while she did half spins on the stool at the front counter, flipping through a magazine, headphones in her ears. She looked exhausted and grateful for her break. He busied himself counting her ribs, cursing Mitch in the Fucking Kitchen in a moment of protecti
ve anger. The surge took him by surprise when it crawled along the back of his neck and settled in his clenched fist.

  There was no love lost between him and a cheat. What it had so visibly done to Frankie made him want to wrap his fingers around Mitch Bennett’s throat and shake the hell out of him until he shit gallstones.

  “You’re staring,” his brother commented from over his shoulder.

  “Was not.”

  “Were, too.”

  “Yep, you were,” Hector parroted, joining Cosmos.

  Nikos gave them both pointed looks. “So?”

  “So, you probably don’t want to tap that, bro. She comes with baggage, lots and lots of baggage. You’ve been down that road—remember—”

  Nikos swung around and flicked his brother’s hair with two fingers. “No one said anything about tapping anyone. Shut the hell up.”

  Cosmos grinned, displaying a set of perfect white teeth. “Could’ve fooled me by the way your eyes go all moony when she’s in the room.”

  Nikos clenched his jaw. Usually, Cosmos couldn’t get to him, but with no warning, Frankie’d become a sensitive subject. “She’s not my type.” And she wasn’t. He liked them hippier, fuller, rounder, darker haired with an occasional blonde. Yet . . .

  Yet what, Antonakas?

  Yet shit. No more damsels in distress.

  Cosmos crossed his arms over his chest covered in his dirty lunchhour apron. “That’s because she looks like she hasn’t eaten in a year. Wait until she puts on twenty pounds. I saw all those pictures of her during that feeding frenzy the tabloids had with her after her divorce. She’s pretty hot. Seriously hot, Nik. She has crazy long legs and an ass—”

  “Shut it,” Nikos warned with a growl of words he found he could barely contain. The hell?

  Cosmos held up his hands like two white flags, but his playful grin remained. “Chill, Mr. She’s Not My Type.”

  “She’s not, but would it kill you to give her a little respect?”

  “Anyway, Mama’s right. She looks like she’ll keel over at any minute if she doesn’t eat.”