“What are you talking about?” Jane asked.
“Haven’t you heard about that? There was a story in one of the tabloids about Liam Wright’s legendary Breakup Breakfast. Apparently, after he’s gotten tired of his flavor du jour, he fixes this one specific breakfast for her right before he dumps her.”
“That sounds charming. It also sounds completely fabricated. How would the tabloid know what he fixes his lovers for breakfast? Much less, his soon-to-be ex-lovers?”
“Apparently, he’s been through enough of those model types that they’ve compared notes and word got out.”
Jane laughed. “Are you kidding? What does he fix them for breakfast?”
“Lemon-blueberry crepes. They sounded delicious. I’ll have yours if you don’t have any plans of having Liam Wright for breakfast.”
“Go for it. I usually skip breakfast,” Jane said.
“You know what they say, it’s the most important meal of the day.”
“I’ll keep that in mind in case I’m overcome with a sudden craving for lemon-blueberry crepes, but even if they are delicious, I wouldn’t be dumb enough to ruin everything by sleeping with my boss.”
Obviously, up to that point, the universe didn’t hate her enough, because who rounded the corner just as the words sleeping with my boss tripped off her tongue? None other than Liam. He stopped and regarded her with a knowing look that wasn’t quite a frown. But it certainly wasn’t a smile, either.
Robin’s mouth fell open then she snapped it shut. She looked so mortified, Jane worried she might melt into a puddle right there on the cobblestone sidewalk. If Jane didn’t get hold of herself, she might end up that way, too. She didn’t know how much he’d heard.
She shouldn’t care what he thought. Even if she did find him attractive, everyone else did, too. And he knew it.
She had no reason whatsoever to be embarrassed. Maybe if she told herself that a couple of hundred times, some of the mortification would subside. Right now, all she could do was fake it until she believed it.
“Hi, chef. This is my friend, Robin Howell. She owns the Pig and Whistle over on Abercorn. Robin, this is Liam Wright, Charles’s new business partner.”
“Nice to meet you, Robin.” His words were brisk. A modified version of the cut direct, but not quite as rude. But it did the job of cauterizing any conversation before it started.
That dark, dark gaze of his held hers for a few beats. “Don’t forget we have a meeting in—” He glanced at his watch. His sleeve rode up and she could see the tattoo on his forearm. “Five minutes. Don’t be late.”
He paused and as the moment steeped in the awkward silence, the corner of his mouth quirked up ever so slightly before he turned and went back the way he’d come.
Chapter Four
Sleeping with my boss.
Even though Liam wasn’t sure of the context in which Jane had said the words, he’d clearly heard her say sleeping with my boss.
Now, as he sat at his desk, trying to gather his thoughts for the meeting he’d thought he had all ironed out, he couldn’t get her voice out of his head.
He’d just stepped out to go across the street to buy a new phone charger. He’d left his back at the apartment he was renting while in Savannah and needed one he could leave in the office. But he ended up getting a whole lot more than he’d bargained for on that errand.
And he hadn’t even gotten his charger. He’d turned around and gone back inside the restaurant without completing the errand.
He thumbed through his legal pad in search of the page where he’d written his notes gleaned during today’s interviews.
Sleeping with my boss.
Sleeping with her boss?
Since Charles was old enough to be her grandfather, Liam doubted she was talking about him. That left one boss.
He let the yellow, lined pages fall back into place.
He didn’t need notes.
And he’d be an idiot for even thinking about sleeping with Jane Clark.
So why did he keep thinking about it?
Sure, Jane was an attractive woman—with her curves, which had been on full display in that tank top she was wearing. Who knew that’s what she’d been hiding underneath that coat? She also had long, silky, brown hair and piercing light eyes.
And a sharp wit and a smart mouth.
He liked it. He liked it all. The entire Jane Clark package.
Hell, who knew?
She was different from the women he usually found attractive, but there was no denying that this curvy pastry chef had gotten his attention.
And that was a problem. He’d been able to ignore it until now, chalking the attraction up to this different side of Jane that he was only now getting to know.
He tapped his pen on the desk.
They had chemistry.
Yeah, but even though they had chemistry, it didn’t mean he had to act on it. In fact, it was up to him to set the tone. And he could do that in the meeting.
Since desserts weren’t his strong suit, he was going to have to work closely with Jane. They would be so busy that the last thing she’d think about was sleeping with the boss.
In fact, he was going to set such a strong tone, she probably wouldn’t like him very much.
He left his office and went to the dining room. The entire crew, minus those who had chosen to leave, was waiting for him. Jane was front and center in that tank top since she hadn’t put her jacket back on. He forced himself to not look at her.
“I’ll make this quick since we have a lot of work to do before we open tonight,” he said. “The individual meetings went well. You’ve probably heard by now that we lost a few people. It was their choice.
“Anyone who doesn’t want to be here is free to go. Those of you who want to stay, know that we have a lot of hard work ahead of us. We’ll have a day off tomorrow—Sunday. I’d like everyone to be here on Monday morning at 9:00 a.m. sharp. Bring your A game. We’re going to finalize the new menu, which we will start serving when we reopen next week. This week, I will demonstrate each dish that will be on the menu. You will taste everything on the menu and become intimately familiar with every dish.
“I will need to work with pastry—uh, Jane.” His gaze locked with hers and he felt that same gut-twisting thrill he’d tried so hard to compartmentalize. He still had some work to do. “Jane, you and I will work together to establish desserts. Desserts aren’t my wheelhouse. So, you and I will work closely to develop the dessert menu. Jane, you bring me your best ideas. I’ll bring what works at La Bula. Everyone else, come prepared to watch and learn.
“We are going to remake Wila in my image. Does everyone understand that?”
He paused, scanning the faces that were staring back at him, some looking incredulous, as if they’d like to call him an SOB for being such a hard-ass. Silently, he dared anyone to snort, chortle or snicker. It wouldn’t have been a good thing. All of them had the sense to realize that. No one so much as cracked a smile. Or so he guessed. He didn’t look at Jane.
“Once we reopen, I will be in the kitchen acting as both executive chef and chef du cuisine for the remainder of the month or until I hire replacements.
“Everyone has a month to prove themselves. I’m putting each of you on notice that you should consider the next thirty days a probationary period. I’m giving everyone fair warning that those of you who don’t measure up will be let go.”
That should be sufficiently unpleasant enough to put Jane Clark off sleeping with the boss.
* * *
Jane had learned the hard way to expect nothing.
Expectations were a one-way ticket to disappointment.
That’s why she’d never expected Liam to give her a second chance.
Expecting something, however, was different from being surprised. The element of surprise, unlike e
xpectation, could be exciting.
Having this second chance compliments of the man who rarely gave second chances—and to have an entire month to prove herself—was a happy surprise compared to yesterday’s gloomy outlook.
Of course, Jane knew the reprieve was thanks to some savvy negotiating on Charles’s behalf. And it wasn’t just for her. It was for the entire team, but she intended to use this time to show Liam exactly what she could do.
Getting fired had honed her. It had made her stronger—sharper in some ways and calloused in others. While this chance was a surprise, she wouldn’t attach too many expectations to it. But she could work damn hard. She would show up every day and do her best work, and she would start tonight.
The kitchen had closed at ten fifteen. It took the staff an hour and a half to clean up and close out. Most of them had been eager to get out and enjoy what was left of Saturday night.
Not Jane. Partying wasn’t her gig. Now that the restaurant was quiet, she wanted to use the time to practice a new bread dough recipe she was developing. The kitchen at the Forsyth was small and yummy smells—especially late at night—usually drew guests, even though the kitchen was not a public area.
The lack of a commercial kitchen was one of the challenges they faced when it came to the tearoom.
Jane couldn’t make Gigi understand why the health department wouldn’t allow them to use the inn’s kitchen to prepare food for the tearoom. She kept saying, it worked fine for prepping the guests’ continental breakfasts. However, most of the breakfast food was prepackaged or purchased from other commercial kitchens. All they had to do was arrange it on platters and set it out.
They didn’t have a place or the funds for adding a new commercial kitchen without doing a major renovation. Ellie’s husband, Daniel, who was a professional contractor and had been overseeing the other parts of the remodel at the Forsyth, said it would be even more expensive to bring the current kitchen up to commercial code.
The conundrum made Jane’s head hurt and when that happened, she usually sank deeper into her work at Wila.
That’s where her mind needed to be anyway.
Liam had told her to be prepared to bake for him. Tasting her desserts was a second interview of sorts.
When she sat down with Liam to discuss the dessert options for the new menu, she intended to be fully prepared.
She couldn’t wait to see the look on his face. He would be the one who was pleasantly surprised.
With today’s interview and the staff meeting eating into her time, she’d been so busy she’d only had time to bake the bread and prepare the Saturday dessert offerings.
She needed to take full advantage of this time alone. There was something soothing about being the only one in the kitchen after hours. Even after a thorough cleaning, the place still smelled of the day’s deliciousness. It was sort of an olfactory patina built up by years of cooking the same dishes repeatedly.
Jane wondered how the changes Liam wanted to implement would alter the work environment. He’d already shaken things up in the two days he’d been there, she thought as she shrugged out of her chef’s coat and pulled up her playlist on her phone. Her favorite songs changed with her mood and tonight she felt like something instrumental, a little romantic and inspiring. Chris Spheeris’s Eros fit the mood.
As the haunting, sensual acoustic guitar music filled the kitchen, washing away the stress of the day, Jane set out the ingredients she needed for the herb beer bread recipe she would try for the first time: flour, yeast, oil, Parmesan cheese, garlic, an array of spices and, of course, beer.
She went to the pantry, propped open the broken door and took a six-pack of bock, a strong, dark lager, from the shelf. In other recipes, she’d always used a lighter beer and sweeter ingredients. She was eager to see how this darker, savory recipe worked.
Trying a new recipe was always fun. The best part about it was mixing flavors and combinations she’d never tried—again, she never expected results. She always gave herself room to make mistakes. She would take notes and try again until she got it right. But she needed that room to experiment and fail and try again until she found her way to the happy surprises.
The search for those surprises kept her busy on a Saturday night. Even though she was never sure how her culinary experiments would turn out, they were a better investment in her time than going out with girlfriends and her sister, Kate, who loved to party and was always looking for romance. Gigi’s futile matchmaking attempts had proved that there was no one in Savannah who even remotely interested Jane.
Liam’s face popped into her mind unbidden.
She shook her head, as if she could physically fling away the vision. When that didn’t work, she blinked for a moment, trying to process her thoughts, trying to put everything into perspective.
She wondered for what had to be the hundredth time how much of her conversation with Robin that Liam had overheard. It shouldn’t matter, but Liam was her boss. And he had made it perfectly clear that each and every one of the team was on probation until the end of the month. The deck was already stacked against her because of their history. She didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.
She walked over to the sink and washed her hands, scrubbing extra hard, as if she could scrub away the inappropriate thought.
Because she was deluding herself if she thought she was even remotely Liam’s type. He liked the tall, leggy, model type. She was short and curvy. While she didn’t consider herself unattractive—she never really thought about her looks—her ample curves were a hazard of her job. She loved food way too much to even consider adding fitting into a size zero—or even a size six—to her goals.
What was wrong with her? Maybe she needed a beer to help her relax. It had been a stressful day and a beer did sound good.
She dried her hands, went to the small refrigerator in the pantry and signed out a beer for herself. Reasonable amounts of food and drink were one of the benefits Charles offered the staff. The only thing he asked was that each person record everything he or she consumed in a log that he kept in the pantry. It was an unspoken rule that everyone should “enjoy within reason.” The perk wasn’t meant to feed entire families, and no one was allowed to remove alcohol from the premises. However, Charles encouraged the staff to share a drink after hours. He said it was good for team building.
Until Liam changed the food benefit, she intended to enjoy.
She sipped the beer and reminded herself that she needed to stop thinking about Liam and focus. She reread the recipe notes she’d jotted down last night. She hyperfocused on weighing out the ingredients for her bread. Where cooking was more of an art that could be forgiving and allowed for margins of variations, baking was chemistry. It was a science that relied on precise measuring, combining and stirring to produce the desired results.
While she set the yeast to proof, she carefully double-checked the remaining ingredients she’d set out at the ready. They were perfect.
She would mix this batch by hand. She liked to do that with a new recipe. To her, getting her hands in the dough was a more organic approach than letting the mixer have its way with it. Cooking and baking required all the senses—touch, sight, smell, taste and sometimes even the sense of hearing. But tonight, touch was first and foremost on the list.
She used her hands to mix the ingredients in order, taking care not to overmix at this point. Then she turned the sticky dough out onto her floured table, where she began kneading it into a smooth elasticity.
She loved bread. Who didn’t love bread? Most models probably didn’t, which proved how ridiculous it was for a model and a chef to date. They were polar opposites. The chef’s life revolved around food; models didn’t eat.
Come on, besides physical attraction, what on earth would a model and a chef have in common?
Most models—except for the rare freak of nature or eating disorder—certa
inly didn’t eat the kind of high-calorie, high-end food on which Liam had built his reputation. Not if they wanted to maintain a sleek, runway-ready body.
Maybe the Breakup Breakfast was actually a test and they’d all failed. All they would’ve had to do was eat the crepes—and what kind of a person could pass up crepes? Maybe if just one of the models had eaten the crepes, she would’ve endeared herself and put an end to the Breakup Breakfast curse. Jane was willing to wager that none of them had even tasted a bite.
She could virtually taste the combination of creamy, tangy lemon curd and sweet blueberries. What a bleak existence it would be to live a life without sweets.
“Why do you think they call it the Better Than Sex cake?” she murmured to herself.
Although, something in the fiery glint in Liam’s eyes had hinted that sleeping with him would be pretty sweet. Actually, it would probably be more spicy than sweet.
“Spicy sweet,” she laughed.
She couldn’t help herself. She curled her toes in her black Converse high tops.
Yeah, the model-chef relationship thing...it just didn’t make any sense. It had to be the career benefit from the mutual celebrity status that drew Liam to the revolving door of models and actresses.
Well, that and the sex.
That vision of Liam naked in rumpled sheets flashed in her mind’s eye again. Her mouth went dry and she licked her lips. It made her fist her hands into the bread dough, ruining the press-and-stretch rhythm she usually found so therapeutic.
Obviously, it wasn’t working tonight anyway.
So, she let her imagination go, led astray by the memory of Ellie’s suggestion that a good one-night stand might be the cure for what ailed her. She couldn’t seem to stop herself from thinking about Liam in the heat of the act—those sexy, dark eyes, those muscled arms, those tantalizing tattoos. She hadn’t even looked close enough to see what they pictured.
But she had noticed that while he wasn’t thin, by any means, his body was surprisingly good for a guy whose world revolved around food. He was tall and naturally sturdy...her favorite type of body on a man.
Southern Charm & Second Chances Page 6