It took a couple of beats, but he finally looked up.
“How do you manage your time when you receive multiple dessert orders at once?”
He was moving on to the next question?
“Wait a minute,” Jane said.
She should’ve let it go, but she wasn’t ready to move on from the phone call. If he was moving on to the next question, clearly it meant that Bruce said only good things about her. It wouldn’t hurt for Liam to repeat them.
“Excuse me?” he said.
“What did Bruce say?”
He furrowed his brow. “He said you are one of the best pastry chefs on the East Coast and if I didn’t hire you, he would.”
A jolt of satisfaction shot through her. She had to bite the insides of her cheeks to keep from smiling.
Score!
Jane: one. Liam: zero.
“Is that so?” she asked.
He nodded. “If things don’t work out here, at least you have a job in San Francisco.”
“I don’t want to move to San Francisco,” she said. “I’m perfectly happy right here in Savannah. I’d like to stay here.”
“Why?”
He set down his pen and looked at her. This time it felt different. It was as if he was really looking at her rather than looking through her.
“I came back after—” She stopped herself from saying it just in time. Since he hadn’t mentioned firing her, she wasn’t going to bring it up. No. Instead, she was going to hold fast to how much she loved being back. “I’m happy to be back, and I’d like to stay for a while. It’s my hometown. I’m enjoying the change.”
He arched his brow and, for a moment, she was afraid he might bring up the firing incident. But he didn’t.
“You’re from here?”
She nodded.
“When you were in New York, I didn’t realize Savannah was your home. You’ll have to give me some pointers on navigating the city.”
Something passed between them, but Jane couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.
Liam Wright had a reputation for having a big ego, but was he so arrogant that he would fire her a second time and then think he could pump her for the inside scoop on Savannah?
“Listen, chef, I know this city intimately. Savannah is not like other places. It’s a quirky big little town. I’m happy to help you get acquainted.”
“Good to know. Now, I know who to come to with questions.”
“Does that mean I passed the interview?” she asked. “If I’m going to be your go-to person for all things Savannah, I suppose you’ll have to keep me on board.”
He looked at her with piercing brown eyes that were as dark as the black coffee they were drinking, but the rest of his face was unreadable.
Is he this intense in bed?
Stop!
She felt heat prickle the sensitive skin at the base of her cleavage. She willed the flush to stop there.
“Bruce is the second person who says you’re the best pastry chef in the southeast. Charles claims you’re the best pastry chef Wila’s has ever seen.”
Jane bit back a smile. She was the only executive pastry chef Wila’s had ever had. Charles created the position for her.
“Apparently, he hasn’t tasted your rum baba.”
“Excuse me? You tasted my rum baba last night. You finished it. So, you must’ve enjoyed it.”
“I did. What I meant was he hasn’t tasted your special recipe.”
It took every ounce of self-control not to tell him the mix-up hadn’t been her fault. Defending herself now wouldn’t serve any purpose. But wait—had Liam just admitted that he’d enjoyed her cake?
“You’ll need to bake more for me. Three or four of your specialties that show off your skills. Maybe even a batch of bossche bols. The others will have to cook, too. So don’t think you’re special.”
He looked up from the legal pad and the left side of his mouth quirked, making her notice that sexy scar again.
There it was. That feeling. That strange chemistry that turned her mind into a messy stew of emotions. Her heart was hammering and her stomach had tied itself into one big knot.
She was a mess. This couldn’t be happening. She could not have a crush on Liam Wright.
Because that was a recipe for disaster.
* * *
By the end of the day, Liam lost Wila’s executive chef, forcing Liam to fill that role for the night.
Even though most executive chefs had culinary voices of their own, it was imperative that Wila’s chef restaurant that prepare Liam’s food to his standards. Because after they reopened, people would come to Liam’s restaurants to eat his food.
The guy that Charles had in place had been too territorial, too bristly. The first thing out of the guy’s mouth when he sat down for his interview was, “Why did you buy an established restaurant if you were going to come in and change things?” It was downhill from there, ending with the guy’s resignation.
Liam had tried to explain that people would continue to come to Wila for the quality experience, but now that his name would be attached to the restaurant, they would come for his food. Even with that, the guy couldn’t understand why he couldn’t keep cooking his own food his way. He’d made it clear he had no intention of trying to be a team player.
Second only to perfect food, Liam insisted on no drama in the kitchen. Drama took the focus away from the food and sometimes ate into the guest’s dining experience. There would be none of that here.
A couple of line cooks had followed the chef out of loyalty—just as well. He wasn’t there to babysit and he had no intentions of coddling a group of adults.
A server had used the interview as an opportunity to give notice because she was going back to school, but other than that, the interviews went well.
What surprised him the most was how strong Jane Clark was turning out to be. Since he’d arrived yesterday, he was seeing a completely different side of her. Shades of Jane he hadn’t known when she’d worked for him before.
The night he’d fired her, she’d looked devastated. She hadn’t tried to explain herself or to ask for a second chance. She’d pierced him with those distraught gray eyes and then gathered her things and left. Of course, he’d preferred it that way because he didn’t want excuses. That night there hadn’t been time for her to explain. He’d had to shift into damage control mode to try to save the review.
The editor had left. Dinner, of course, had been on the house. And, temporarily, egg had been on Liam’s face, but thanks to some smooth public relations and a dozen perfectly executed rum baba cakes prepared and hand-delivered to the Food Connoisseur magazine offices the next morning, Eduardo Sanchez had conveniently forgotten to mention the unpalatable final impression of the meal.
Maybe Jane’s new strength stemmed from being on her home turf. Maybe he’d just been too damn busy to see this Jane Clark in New York, but he liked this stronger, spunkier side of her.
Maybe she was right. Maybe sometimes it’s worth giving a second chance. Time would tell, but first, he needed to have a wrap-up meeting with the staff before the dinner service started.
He walked to the middle of the kitchen and gave two loud claps of his hands. “Could I have everyone’s attention, please?” It took a moment, but eventually everyone stopped what they were doing. All eyes were on him.
“Thanks for helping me get the interviews behind us. Could everyone meet me in the dining room in twenty minutes—uh, let’s say one fifteen—for a short meeting? I know you have a lot to do before we open tonight, but since tonight is the last night we will be open before the week of training begins, we need to touch base.”
* * *
“Can you take a break?”
Jane turned around to find Robin Howell standing at her workstation.
“Hey,” Jane said as
she glanced at her watch. It was one o’clock. “Who let you out? Shouldn’t you be wrapping up the lunch rush?”
Robin, Jane’s best friend, was the chef/owner of the Pig and Whistle, a sandwich shop on Abercorn Street. Being able to see her on a regular basis was one of the perks of returning to Savannah. When Jane started feeling down on herself, she reminded herself of that.
“I sneaked out for a couple of minutes to come visit you.”
Robin’s strangely timed surprise appearance, during the lunch rush, coupled with the way she kept glancing around the busy kitchen, made Jane instantly suspicious. The Pig was a favorite lunch spot. Usually, Robin couldn’t be smoked out of the shop during prime hours.
Jane narrowed her eyes. “I’ve got a meeting in fifteen minutes. What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine. Or so I hear.” Her eyes flashed, suggesting mischief. “Can’t a friend pay a friend a visit without something going on?”
“Normally, a visit from you would be a wonderful thing.” Jane turned on the faucet and began washing the accumulation of flour and butter off her hands from the piecrusts she’d just finished making. If Robin was going to pop in for a visit, her timing couldn’t have been better since Jane was at a good stopping point. She could spare ten minutes. She really didn’t have time to start anything else before the meeting. “But when said visit happens during the lunch crunch, it does make me wonder.”
“I get to take a break every now and then.” Robin shrugged, trying way too hard to act nonchalant. When Jane arched her brows at her friend, Robin’s pretense crumbled like a piece of day-old corn bread.
“You never were a very good actor,” Jane said.
“Fair enough.” She glanced around the kitchen again and then whispered, “Is it true?”
“Is what true?” Jane whispered back.
Robin made a face and thrust her chin forward as she made a clucking noise. “Jane. You know who I’m talking about.” Robin looked around the kitchen again. “The rumors are running rampant out there.”
Jane figured that Robin wanted the scoop on Liam, but why was she acting as if royalty was in town?
“That’s Savannah for you,” Jane said. “One of the hazards of living in a big little town.”
“You’re messing with me, which means it has to be true that Liam Wright is here—”
Jane feigned surprise and covered her mouth before her hand fluttered to her throat and lingered there as if clutching an imaginary string of pearls.
“He is?” she asked in an exaggerated stage whisper. “Where?”
Robin swatted at the air. “Oh, come on. Gene Knowles said Liam Wright had breakfast with Charles at Clairy’s this morning and Charles introduced him as his new business partner.
“So, I have two questions for you. First, why didn’t you tell me? And second, why the hell are you pretending like he isn’t here? I mean you of all people who used to work for him in New York. You know what this means to Savannah to have a chef of his caliber and notoriety in town.”
This time, Jane was the one who glanced around the kitchen. A few minutes ago, Liam had announced the meeting and then had observed a couple of the line cooks, but now he was nowhere in sight. If she knew what was good for her, she needed to get Robin out of the kitchen so that Liam didn’t overhear her friend in full fan-girl mode.
Even though she and Robin were close, she hadn’t confided the details that had landed her back in Savannah. Robin thought Jane had benevolently left New York to come home and help her mom and Gigi plan and open the tearoom. Until now, Jane had seen no reason to tell anyone other than Ellie otherwise.
With her future at Wila being so uncertain, she didn’t want her coworkers dwelling on the fact that she’d previously worked for Liam.
Of course, after the round of introductions, everyone had known, if they hadn’t known already. But it hadn’t been a topic of conversation. Liam had been in the kitchen a lot since he and Charles had made the announcement yesterday. So the atmosphere hadn’t been conducive for her colleagues to try to pump her for information. A couple had tried, but Jane had quickly put a stop to it. The last thing she needed was for Liam to perceive that she was gossiping about him.
The same applied to dishing dirt with Robin while Jane was on the clock.
However, she did get a break, even though she rarely took one.
“Take a walk with me,” Jane said to Robin. “Hey, Tilly, I’m going to take a break and step out for a few minutes. I have my cell phone. Give me a ring if you need me.”
Her assistant looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. What is this strange word break you speak of?
“I won’t be gone long,” she said as she took off her apron and hung it on a hook near her station. “Will you mix up the peaches for the pie, please?”
Tilly nodded.
“Thanks,” Jane said and motioned for Robin to follow her to the back door.
Outside, one of the dishwashers, Jimmy, was sharing a cigarette with one of the newer servers. She was early for her shift. The two, who had been standing a little too close for it to look completely platonic, moved apart. The server—Carol or Karen—was dating another server, who had helped her get the job by lobbying Charles to hire his girlfriend when one of the servers quit without notice. The top buttons of Carol/Karen’s white shirt were unbuttoned a little too far to be tasteful. She put one hand on her blouse and took the cigarette from Jimmy with her free hand.
That was some drama waiting to explode if and when the scorned boyfriend caught wind of what was going on. It was always something with the front-of-the-house staff. The kitchen usually ran a little more smoothly.
Liam, she knew, ran a pretty tight ship. In fact, he’d enforced a strict no fraternizing rule at La Bula. As Jane and Robin walked past the couple, Jane wondered how Liam would deal with existing relationships. Maybe he’d turn a blind eye since Charles hadn’t cared. Although, it would be difficult to ignore a love triangle if it got ugly.
It was warm outside. Jane slipped out of her chef’s coat and draped it over her arm. In her tank undershirt and cotton pants, she led Robin around the corner, down the alley and out onto the side street that ran perpendicular to Bull Street, the busy street where the restaurant faced.
The sidewalks were crowded with a mix of locals and tourists out enjoying the beautiful sunny Saturday morning. Even though she’d been away for nearly more than eight years, Jane still had an uncanny ability to discern a Savannah resident from a visitor. There was something in the way the locals carried themselves—an unhurried ease with which they moved as opposed to the hungry, eat-it-all-up look that gave away most tourists. She wasn’t knocking it. Tourism was good for the local economy. Tourists spent money and ate at restaurants like Wila, and that kept her employed. At least for the next month, she thought as Liam’s face popped into her mind.
“Okay, so tell me everything,” Robin said. “Is he still as gorgeous in person as he was when you worked for him before? How did he end up here?” She gasped and her eyes flew open wide. “Did he miss you and come here looking for you? That would be too cool.”
“No.” Jane spat the word like the idea was spoiled and rank. “Absolutely not.”
“Good. Then will you introduce me to him?”
Jane rolled her eyes. “Is that why you came all the way over here? To meet Liam Wright?”
Robin smiled and gave a coy one-shoulder shrug.
“Maybe.”
Now it made sense. By the time Robin closed the Pig and Whistle in the late afternoon, everyone at Wila would be enmeshed in the busiest part of the day getting ready to open for dinner. Since Robin owned the Pig and it was doing well, she certainly wasn’t coming around to ask for a job.
Jane grimaced. “I don’t know, Robin. Liam is a little bit...” She racked her brain to think of exactly
the right word.
“What? A little bit sexy? A little bit hot? A little bit—”
“No!” Jane snapped, not really wanting to play this game with her friend. She blew out a measured, impatient breath. “Liam Wright is intense. To put it mildly.”
“Oooh. I like my men intense. Especially in the bedroom.”
“He’s not intense that way.”
Robin’s mouth fell open. “Oh, really? And how do you know? Are you speaking from personal experience? Do tell, please.”
“No. I have not slept with Liam Wright and I don’t plan on it, either. He sleeps with models. He doesn’t sleep with his employees.”
“You’re prettier that most models.”
Jane waved the compliment away. Not out of modesty, but because...well—
“Not going to happen. In New York, he had a strict no fraternizing policy at La Bula.”
“He’s the boss, he can do whatever he wants. Rules are meant to be broken. If you had the chance, wouldn’t you? I mean, aren’t you curious?”
“Okay, there’s no denying he’s a good-looking guy,” Jane said. “If you like tortured, intense, tattooed, authoritarians.”
“You’d sleep with him, wouldn’t you?” Robin coaxed.
“That’s a moot point. Because I’m not his type.”
“You’re not saying no. I’ve heard about his penchant for models and actresses. He’s had a lot of flings, but that just proves he needs a real woman—someone like you—to capture his heart for real.”
“Robin, he’s my boss. Stop. It feels highly inappropriate to be having this conversation here.”
“Then you owe me a rain check.”
Jane grimaced. “That wasn’t an invitation for a continuance.”
“Not even if I ply you with a couple of martinis before we pick up where we’re leaving off?”
Jane scoffed.
“Seriously, don’t spoil my fun. This is the coolest thing to happen around here in ages. I wouldn’t mind being in the position to have one of Liam Wright’s infamous Breakup Breakfasts.”
Southern Charm & Second Chances Page 5