Hired: The Cinderella Chef

by Myrna Mackenzie

  There the three of them went, exchanging those secretive looks again. Darcy wondered what it must be like having sisters so close to you that they could read your expressions.

  “You could still do that,” Amy said. “Show him that you’re strong, I mean.”

  “Yes, Amy’s right,” Lane said. “I can guarantee that telling Patrick you’re fine is never enough. It never was with any of us. He always needed to see proof.”

  Darcy blinked. She and Lane studied each other. “So, you think that if I show him that I’m moving on with my life and that I’m capable of going it alone without his assistance, then he’ll be able to move on, too?” She frowned. “Do you really think that’s why he looks so ill? Maybe it’s something worse, something else.”

  “I don’t know. Patrick drives himself. He demands more of himself than any man I know. It’s as if he thinks he should be able to work miracles. Remember when Lane was in the hospital with a concussion and we didn’t know if she was going to come out of it?” Cara asked.

  Amy nodded. “Patrick looked just like that, then. As if he had aged ten years in a day. I came across him when he thought he was alone and the devastated expression on his face scared me to death. Darcy, I—Cara and Lane and I—Patrick’s more like our father than our brother, but we can’t do anything for him. You’re the key. You have to be the one to help him.”

  Darcy wanted to do that. She needed to be with Patrick and see for herself that he was safe and strong and happy. “But, he’s in France,” she whispered. “And I’m here.”

  Cara didn’t hesitate. “That’s the one thing the three of us can do. We can get you there and we can get you in, but you have to do the rest.”

  “You have to have a plan,” Amy added. “If you go over there and whatever happens increases Patrick’s anxiety about you…”

  “Maybe we should just ask him to come home and see how she’s doing for himself,” Lane suggested.

  “No,” Darcy said. “This is his trip of a lifetime. He’s put heart and soul into this. And it’s important. Think of all those children his charities are going to help. I’m not asking him to cut his trip short or take time away just to come check me out.”

  “So…you’re going over there then?” Amy asked.

  For ten seconds Darcy allowed panic to overtake her. To get on a plane and travel around the world chasing a man she was in love with in order to convince him that she wasn’t in love with him and that she had conquered all her fears when she hadn’t done anything of the sort was taking a major chance. Not only with her own heart but with Patrick’s health and well-being. Because if she messed this up and came across as needy in any way, he was going to blame himself for her vulnerability. Everything she knew about him and everything his sisters had told her pointed to that.

  She took a deep breath. “Anything I do or say has to be realistic and utterly convincing. Patrick has a way of seeing through me.”

  “Can you act?”

  “No.”

  Lane opened her eyes in alarm.

  “I can’t act well enough,” Darcy clarified. “I’m not good at playing a part, so if I’m going to show Patrick that I’ve moved on and made a new life for myself, it has to be real. I have to believe it, too. So…if you’ll give me two weeks and set up the travel arrangements, I’ll just head home and…quietly try to reinvent myself.”

  “Who will you be when this is done?” Olivia asked, entering the kitchen.

  “I haven’t a clue,” Darcy said, trying to keep the despair and concern from her voice. She just hoped that the woman who would emerge from the cocoon in France would not be in love with Patrick.

  She wanted to set him free. It would be so much easier to do that if she didn’t care about him so much.

  Patrick paced the floor of his hotel room. He was supposed to be getting ready for a meeting and then attend a dinner, but he had just received an e-mail from Lane telling him that Darcy would be arriving within the hour for some sort of event she had been asked to cater. What was that about? And why hadn’t Darcy contacted him herself?

  A part of him didn’t care. He just wanted to see her and hear her and touch her.

  “You’re not touching her, buddy,” he told himself.

  But he damn well was going to ask her a lot of questions. He whipped out his phone and called the number Lane had included in the message.

  Two rings. Three rings. Four. Darn it, the voicemail was going to kick in. He didn’t want to leave a message. He wanted to hear her voice and he wanted…intended to meet her at the airport. What airline was she flying? Lane hadn’t said. He was on the verge of calling Lane when the telephone in the room rang. He picked it up.

  “Patrick?” Darcy’s voice slipped right through his body, soft and sexy and—

  “Where are you?”

  “In the lobby. May I come up?”

  Yes, yes, yes. Hurry. But she would need to find someone to help her with her bags and direct her to his room and—

  “Stay there.”

  He barely waited for her assent before he sprinted out the door and down the hall, ignoring the elevator for the much faster stairs. Emerging from the stairwell, he bolted into the lobby and saw her.

  His heart turned three somersaults. She had done her hair differently and the soft tendrils brushed her cheeks, accenting those phenomenally expressive eyes. She was holding out her hands to him and a gorgeous smile lifted her lips and lit up her eyes.

  “Patrick, I’m so happy to see you,” she said. He had never seen her more lovely. A glow seemed to emanate from her. She looked healthy and happy.

  He walked straight toward her, took her hands and bent to kiss her cheek. That wonderful woman and lemon scent he remembered filled his senses and nearly brought him to his knees. He wanted to inhale her. “Are you staying here?”

  “Um, on the fourth floor. Amy made the arrangements.” Then, she frowned slightly. “That is, I would have made them myself, but I had so many things to do before I left that I just…let her.”

  “My sister made hotel arrangements for you?”

  “Yes, and the flight arrangements, too. Your sisters are pretty efficient, Patrick. Someone must have trained them well. I wonder who.” She wrinkled her nose and laughed. Patrick wanted to groan. She was the most incredibly, sexy, exciting woman he’d ever met. How could he have forgotten that?

  “I see you’re just as sassy as ever.”

  “That’s a good thing, right?” she asked. For just a second, he thought he saw her hesitate. Then she rushed on. “You’re probably wondering why I’m here.”

  “Lane said something about an event you were catering. International stuff, Darcy?”

  She shrugged. “I know. Isn’t it crazy and great? I was talking to Eleanor one day and she told me about some friends she had who liked to throw parties, and the next thing I knew they were offering me a job! A brunch for a big gathering of friends and family they were having. How could I turn that down? It’s not like I get invited to France every day.”

  A bellman arrived at that moment. “Mademoiselle Parrish?”

  Patrick looked at Darcy. “What’s your room number?” he asked, preparing to give the man directions and a tip.

  But Darcy was already talking to the man. “Guillaume, is it?” she asked in somewhat halting French, tilting her head up to see the man’s name tag in a way that emphasized her lovely neck. “How do you do, Guillaume? It’s my first time to France, I’m afraid, so I apologize in advance for speaking French so poorly.” At least that was the gist of what she said. There were also a few extra words in there that made no sense whatsoever.

  Patrick cleared his throat, planning to help out. He spoke perfect French, and Guillaume knew it. They’d had numerous conversations in the hallway this past week.

  But Guillaume was clearly charmed. He gave Darcy an intimate smile. “I speak un peu, I mean, a little Anglais,” he said, his accent almost as bad as Darcy’s command of French. “You—tell me whatev
er you need. I’ll help you. Anything.”

  Darcy looked at the man with a teasing twinkle in her eye. “Guillaume, you’re not giving me special treatment because of my chair, are you?” she asked, motioning toward her wheels.

  “Maybe just a very little,” the man said, “but mostly because you are polite about the language, you have a nice smile and because you’re a very beautiful woman. I like you.”

  Her soft laughter rang out, and Patrick wanted to lean closer. He wanted to push Guillaume aside. “I think I like you, too, Guillaume,” she said as she gave him her room number and he headed off with her bags.

  She clearly liked Guillaume. She had practically been flirting with the handsome Frenchman. Okay, Patrick thought, for a man who wasn’t prone to violence, he definitely wanted to hit the man now. No, that was wrong, and it wasn’t fair, except…he’d seen Guillaume flirting with the maids. He was pretty sure he was dating several of them. He had an urge to tell Darcy to be careful with men like that, but that wasn’t right, either. Darcy was an intelligent woman with a good head on her shoulders and she had spoken to Guillaume, a total stranger, in a completely uninhibited way that was unusual for her. She had even called the man’s attention to her wheelchair. What was going on here?

  Patrick looked down. Apparently what was going on was that Darcy was looking at him as if wondering what the holdup was.

  “You probably want to go to your room and rest,” he said, wishing he had more time with her but not wanting to exhaust her.

  “Are you kidding me, Patrick? I’m in France, it’s late and tomorrow I have to get up at the break of dawn and get ready to prepare a brunch. Right now I want to…I want to do lots of things.”

  He grinned. “Lots of things?”

  She blushed. “Yes.”

  “Like what?”

  “I—I well I guess I don’t have a clue. What do people do in France?”

  Patrick laughed. The excitement on her face delighted him. She was playing with the wheels on her chair and he could see that she was ready to be off. “They live. They shop, work, go to museums, they eat. You are going to love that about Paris. The food is…”

  “An orgasmic experience?” she asked with a wicked smile, and he remembered the first day that they had met.

  “Well, nothing surpasses your chocolate mousse, but you’ll love it.”

  “That’s it. Take me on a tour of restaurants!”

  “A tour?”

  “I don’t have much time.”

  Ah. The emptiness that had disappeared completely when he had heard she was coming returned. “How much?” His voice was a bit too clipped. Had she noticed? Would she guess how much it mean to see her?

  “Two days. Not quite that. More like forty hours before I have to head back to the airport. I have to get back to—to help with some—an event.” Darcy got that old nervous look in her eyes, she licked her lips, but then she shook her head as if to get rid of something that was bothering her. She smiled again.

  “Another event? You’re a busy woman.”

  “You have no idea. I don’t have a moment to myself. Busy all the time, night and day.”

  “Your nights, too, Darcy?” What did she mean by that?

  She blushed, which only intrigued him more. “Oh, you know, dancing, partying, stuff.”

  “Partying?” he said. But it was the word “stuff” that caught his attention. Did she mean men? Unbidden the memory of Darcy in his arms, her delicate skin beneath his questing lips invaded his thoughts.

  Patrick took a deep breath. He didn’t have the right to ask her about men. She was free to date whom she pleased, and…darn it, she was only here for two days. For tonight anyway, she was his.

  “I’ll walk you to your room and you can get changed. Then we’ll go have a movable feast.”

  She nodded, but neither of them moved. Her gaze locked with his. And somehow his feet took him closer to her. He took her hands and kissed the palms. “I’ve missed you, Darcy Parrish. No one else plays it as straight with me as you do.”

  For half a second he thought he saw something dark and sad in her eyes. Had he pushed her too far? Had he let his feelings show too much?

  “I’ll find my room,” she said. “And I’ll meet you back here in twenty minutes.”

  Darcy broke into a cold sweat on the way to her room. What was she doing? How had she ever thought she could handle this?

  The girls had given her a crash course in French. She’d done all kinds of crazy things to throw this together fast. The whole situation was surreal. The energy involved in making this happen had kept her from panicking.

  But, when she had seen Patrick, her heart had flipped over completely and when he’d touched her—she stopped right in the middle of the hallway and sat there, her hands crossed over her chest as she counted to ten and fought for composure.

  Thank goodness she had insisted that this trip be kept short. She couldn’t keep up this charade with Patrick for long. Smiling and pretending that all she felt for him was friendship when…well, what else could she do? While they had been talking several gorgeous women had entered the lobby and looked as if they intended to approach him. They had looked as if they knew him, as if they wanted to know him very intimately, or maybe already did. But they obviously wanted the chance to get him alone because none of them had actually come close enough to speak to Patrick. And now…

  “Get hold of yourself, Darcy,” she muttered. “You can do this. You can see that he’s feeling more at ease already. And when this is over, there’s only one more thing you have to do and then he’s free and clear. You’ll have done one good thing for him and ended it right. Don’t blow it.”

  No, she refused to mess this up. If she appeared in any way lost or in love or needy—it would hurt Patrick so much to have to let her down easy.

  “Never going to happen.” She took a deep breath, plastered on that air of confidence she’d been practicing, changed into something attractive but not provocative and went down to meet Patrick. This was going to be so hard…and so wonderful.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE evening passed more quickly than Darcy would have liked. She was incredibly tired now that jet lag was setting in, and she had to get up early to prepare for the brunch, the job that she had all but begged Eleanor to help her secure. The people who were hosting the brunch hadn’t even been planning anything at all until Eleanor called them up and raved about how she knew this simply marvelous chef who would be passing through Paris for a couple of days and would like to try her hand with some of the local produce, wines and cheeses. Now, Darcy had to live up to the billing.

  But tonight there was Patrick, if she could just keep her eyes open and her mind on the task at hand and off the fact that she wanted to kiss him in the worst way.

  “There?” she asked. “I’m not so sure.” They were headed for their last restaurant of the evening. He had chosen ones that were known for fine dining, and she had done her best to come out of her shell, to be witty and open with the staff and even with total strangers who were simply dining there as well. In short, she had acted totally un Darcylike. Because that was what Patrick needed to see, that she was making progress and healing. That he had no reason whatsoever to worry about her.

  “You don’t want to go there?” he asked. “I haven’t been there yet, but it’s gotten great reviews.”

  Maybe, but at the moment the crowds had thinned. There was a sterility to the chrome and glass. And the tables were big. She would be many feet away from Patrick. And tonight…oh, just tonight she wanted one more chance to be close to him.

  “That one,” she said, pointing to a small, intimate looking place on the corner across the street.

  “You’re sure?”

  She laughed. “It’s kind of plain, isn’t it? I’ll bet you never eat in ordinary little places like that.”

  Looking up, she saw that Patrick was looking a little sheepish, but he was smiling, too. “You don’t do you?” she asked
again.

  “I do tonight. I have it on excellent advice that it’s a place I should try. My favorite chef tells me so.”

  “What if it’s awful? You’ll never trust me again.”

  “I trust you implicitly. You’re always honest with me, and you’ll admit if you’ve made a mistake.”

  Honest? She wasn’t being honest with him now. At best she was leaving lots of things out. But she was never going to tell him that she had come over here to do a snow job on him.

  She sighed. Oops. Major error, that sigh. “Sorry, I’m a little jet lagged,” she said.

  “You should be in bed.”

  “No!” She didn’t want to give up this time.

  “Alone,” he clarified. “I wasn’t implying that you should be in my bed.”

  “I would like to be in your bed.” Okay, all this playacting and being totally open and outgoing was having a bad effect on her. “Forget I said that.”

  “Not in this lifetime.”

  “It was the lack of sleep talking. I probably couldn’t do much, anyway.”

  “I could do all the heavy lifting.”

  Excitement rose within her. But oh, why had she even started this conversation? She couldn’t survive making love with Patrick and leaving again. Look at what one night in his arms had done to her. She was pathetic and needy, all the things she had fought not to be for years.

  “Let’s go in,” she said, but then she realized something.

  So did he. “Those are very narrow aisles.” No room for her chair.

  Embarrassment flooded her face. These were the kinds of things that made her feel as if she didn’t belong. If she sat here long enough someone would notice and realize the reason they were milling about outside. That was when the pitying looks or the averted faces would begin.