by Jackie Braun
“It’s nice to meet you.” Lara offered her hand.
“Same here.”
“I like your place. It’s very comfortable.”
“Thank you. That’s exactly what I was going for.” Joanna’s gaze swung to Finn. “I like her.”
“That makes two of us,” he said.
“What can I get for you?” she asked Lara.
Lara tucked the wine list back into its spot amid the condiments on the tabletop. “I’d like a glass of the house red, please.”
“Coming right up.” To Finn she said, “Your usual beer?”
He nodded. “And a plate of the asparagus.”
“Asparagus?” Lara asked.
“It’s wrapped in prosciutto and flaky pastry dough,” he told her.
“It’s excellent. Customers rave about it all the time,” Joanna offered as a testimonial.
“Lara will be the judge. She’s a chef.”
“No kidding?” His cousin’s eyes rounded. “I never thought you’d hook up with another one of those.”
That statement had Lara’s eyebrows rising.
While Finn hoped his cousin would retreat to the bar, she rattled on, peppering Lara with questions.
“Are you a private chef like Finn? Did you meet through work? Oh, my God, you’re not in that competition he’s doing at the Cuisine Cable Network, are you?” She took a breath, sighed. “Star-crossed chefs.”
“Lara’s not on the show,” Finn said. If only he’d stopped there, but the word anymore slipped out.
“Oh? Oh, no! You’ve already been eliminated. Gosh, I am so sorry.”
The light in Spanky’s was low, but Finn was able to see color flood into Lara’s cheeks.
“Jo—”
But his cousin was on a roll. “That’s a real bummer, but hey, better luck next time, right? You’ve got to keep at it. I mean, look at Finn here. He’s had some hard knocks, too. That’s life. It’s taken some time, but he’s picked himself up, dusted himself off and now he’s finally back in the game.” Joanna cleared her throat. “Um, not that dating is a game, but, well, you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, we know,” Finn said drily. “Can we get our drinks now?”
“Sure.” Joanna pulled a face. “Listen to me, going on and on.... Just for that, your first round will be on the house.”
“What happened to one-syllable answers,” Lara murmured as his cousin walked away.
Finn laughed. “Sorry about that.”
“That’s all right,” Lara replied. “Actually, she answered a question for me.”
“What might that be?”
“How often you get out. From her barely contained excitement over your bringing in a friend, you’re obviously not much of a player.”
He chuckled drily. “I’ve never been much of a player. But, um, I haven’t been involved with anyone for a while.”
After that, they made small talk until their drinks arrived. A group of tourists came in, keeping Joanna busy behind the bar, so a waitress delivered their beverages.
“Your appetizer will be up in a minute,” the young woman assured them before leaving.
Lara sipped her wine, savoring it in a way that made Finn want to groan.
“This is very good. It would pair well with this veal dish I make.”
“What’s in it?”
She described a dish that had his mouth starting to water not only because of the ingredients, but because of the woman he envisioned working with them.
“You’ll have to make it for me next time. Or you can show me how to make it.”
She nodded, seeming not the least bit surprised that he was already planning another dinner date with her.
“I’d like that.”
* * *
Lara eyed her nearly empty glass. The merlot had left her feeling warm and relaxed. The man sitting across from her had helped even more. Finn was a welcome respite from her current reality.
No, not a respite. That diminished his importance in her life. He was a bright spot, a highlight. He was the unexpected, but breathtaking rainbow after a particularly vicious storm.
“You’re smiling,” he said.
“Yeah.” Her lips bowed further. “I am. Thank you.”
“For?”
“Just...thank you,” she replied, feeling embarrassed.
“I think I know what you mean.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Right back at you.”
When the waitress arrived with their appetizer, Lara ordered another glass of wine and told him, “If you’d like a second beer, this round is on me.”
“All right.” He nodded to the waitress.
“These look good,” Lara told him as she picked up one of the prosciutto-wrapped asparagus spears. The flaky pastry that spiraled around it was baked a light golden-brown.
“So says the food stylist. I’m more interested in how you think they taste.”
His ribbing was good-natured, so she wasn’t offended. Still, she made a tsking sound before reminding him in a haughty tone, “First and foremost, food is a visual experience. We see a dish and we smell it, before we finally taste it. For a truly satisfying experience, you have to use more than one sense.”
He leaned over and took a bite of the appetizer she held. A sexy smile appeared afterward when he added, “Eating is not the only activity I can think of that uses a few of our senses for a truly satisfying experience.”
Sparks shot up Lara’s spine along with the first licks of excitement. She sampled what remained of the appetizer in her hand.
“Well?” he asked afterward. “What do you think?”
“It was every bit as good as you promised it would be.”
Maybe even better since the man responsible for the recipe was so damned tantalizing.
Her mouth watered when he smiled and said, “It makes an excellent first course.”
She pretended to mull that over before asking, “Care to tell me what you would make for the main dish?”
Lara swore the temperature in the bar spiked by several degrees when Finn replied, “I’d rather show you.”
TEN
Bring to a boil
Impulsiveness had cost Lara big in the past, so she tended to skate on the edge of the pond, rather than venturing out where the ice might not be thick enough to hold her. Since her hasty marriage and equally hasty divorce, she’d taken things slowly when it came to men. She’d been on a lot of first dates that never led to a second. Mostly that was her choice, and it explained why it had been so long since she’d had sex.
Better to be safe than satisfied and sorry. That was her motto.
But tonight? With Finn?
Everything seemed different and full of promise, even if the rest of her life was in the proverbial crapper.
It was closing in on eleven o’clock when they finished their second round of drinks. The appetizer was long gone by then, polished off handily between the pair of them. Finn paid the tab. He refused her offer to cover the second round of drinks, although he reluctantly agreed to let her leave the tip. Lara was used to paying her own way. Maybe it was foolish, but it made her feel in control. A decision-maker rather than a blind participant.
Outside, the evening was hot and humid. The air was heavy with the mingling scents of exhaust fumes and ripe produce from a fruit market a couple of doors down. She expected Finn to hail a cab. Instead, he took her hand and started walking. A moment later, they passed the building where she’d styled the food for the magazine photo shoot. Had that been only a week ago?
Just beyond it, he stopped and fished a key ring out of his pocket. The nondescript door he unlocked was wedged between two shop windows.
“You liv
e...here?”
“Yeah.” His laughter sounded self-conscious. “I know it doesn’t look like it from the street, but upstairs the former commercial space has been divided up into a handful of decent apartments.”
Once inside, they followed a long hall that led to what appeared to be a freight elevator. Its doors were metal, adorned with graffiti and opened horizontally. After they closed, he used his key again, pushed a button, and when the lift stopped half a dozen floors up, the doors opened to a spacious studio apartment with exposed ductwork, a worn wooden plank floor and redbrick walls. But what caught her attention was the kitchen.
“Oh, my God! I am so jealous,” she said, kicking off her heels and crossing to it. The floor was poured concrete and cold under her bare feet. “Your island is bigger than my entire kitchen, even after I demoed a wall to make room for my six-burner.”
He was grinning. Gone was any self-consciousness. “The amount of space was what sold me on the place.”
“How did you stumble on this?”
“I have a cousin who’s a developer.”
Lara turned and took in the rest of the room. Despite the high ceilings and overall industrial vibe from the architecture, the room was surprisingly inviting. The tall windows helped. During the day, they would allow in a generous amount of light. They were bracketed in gauzy white floor-to-ceiling curtains. Even though the view wasn’t the greatest—no skyline was visible, just the facades of other buildings—it still helped keep the place airy.
“Nice curtains.”
“My sisters’ doing. They claimed the place echoed.”
Family again. The man’s life was full of kin willing to rush in and lend a hand. It was impossible not to envy him for that.
Finn cleared his throat and the sound bounced off the ceiling to boomerang back, causing Lara to laugh.
“Okay, they may have had a point,” he added drily.
“Have you lived here long?”
Other than the kitchen, it was sparsely furnished, so it came as a surprise when he replied, “A couple years. I haven’t gotten around to furnishing it.”
That was an understatement. The room sported a sofa, large-screen television, of course, a packing crate that served as an end table and not much else. She didn’t even see a proper bed, leaving her to assume he either slept on the couch or it pulled out to reveal a mattress.
That might not be odd for a recent college graduate, but Finn was in his mid-thirties.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” he said.
This time it was the sound of Lara clearing her throat that echoed in the cavernous room. “How long have you been divorced?”
“That obvious?” He rubbed the back of his neck.
She shrugged. “My apartment was pretty sparse for a while after I left Jeffrey. I didn’t mind that he kept the sectional sofa or the bedroom set. But I was pretty pissed when he laid claim to the food processor.”
“Bastard.”
She chuckled at Finn’s dry delivery before admitting, “I smuggled his golf clubs out of our storage locker and held them hostage until he agreed to hand it over.”
“Clever. Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
“Well?”
He glanced around. “It’s been a couple of years since we split. My ex and my lawyer made out like bandits.”
She made an appropriately sympathetic sound before telling Finn, “It’s been nearly six for me.”
Lara had done a lot of growing up since then, and even more soul-searching. While she still couldn’t say she was ready to dive back into a serious commitment, neither did she want to get involved, even on the most casual basis, with someone who was still pining for someone else.
From his overall demeanor, Finn didn’t appear to be in love with his ex, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask a few more questions, she reasoned. Get the lay of the land, so to speak, before deciding whether or not she wanted to pitch a tent.
“How long were you married?”
“Five years. Sheryl opted for an early-out clause two days after our anniversary. It wasn’t a huge surprise. I knew something was wrong. I’d been after her to go with me to counseling.”
He’d wanted to save his marriage, which was commendable. In Lara’s case, there had been nothing to save. “Do you have any kids?”
“None.” Finn scrubbed a hand over his chin. “Even before things started to head south, we’d agreed to wait to start a family. That wound up being a good thing. The split was ugly enough without a custody dispute.”
No kids meant no permanent ties to his ex. That was another plus in Lara’s book. She never had to see Jeffrey again, and that suited her just fine. Still, she wrinkled her nose and offered a heartfelt “Sorry.”
“I was, too, at the time.” His laughter was rueful, and carried a dash of bitterness when he added, “I got over it pretty quickly when I learned that she was sleeping with my best friend and silent business partner. Former best friend and former business partner now.”
“Ouch.”
“That didn’t bother me as much as the fact that she took my restaurant and laid claim to all of my recipes.”
Lara blinked before her eyes rounded. How was it possible, she wondered, that she hadn’t put two and two together until just then?
“You’re Griffin Westbrook!”
At one time, he’d been the next big thing on New York’s culinary scene with a restaurant in the theater district that was almost as well-known as the Chesterfield. Then he’d lost everything in a very nasty, very public divorce.
She was vague on the particulars, but she recalled some sort of dispute regarding who had come up with the restaurant’s signature dishes.
“Guilty as charged,” he said. “For the record, only my mother, my ex’s lawyer and the media refer to me as Griffin.”
Lara found herself apologizing again. “Sorry. That was rude.”
But Finn shrugged. “My life’s an open book.”
His words shook loose another recollection. “Didn’t the two of you write a cookbook together?”
He nodded. “Actually, I was the creative force behind it.” He coughed for effect and plucked at the front of his shirt when he added, “Which, by the way, went on to be nominated for a James Beard award.”
“I remember. Impressive.”
“What else do you remember?” he asked.
Before she could think better of it, she said, “There was some sort of scan...”
“Scandal,” he finished for her.
“We don’t have to talk about it.”
“I don’t mind. It’s ancient history.” But the muscle that ticked in his jaw told her otherwise. He might not be mooning over his ex, but he was still smarting from betrayal. “Romantic that I was, I dedicated the book to Sheryl. Her high-priced lawyer twisted my words about owing her ‘everything’ around to imply that she’d been the creative force behind it. And since she’d been the one to make the rounds to publicize the book—media interviews, personal appearances, book signings—while I held down the fort at the restaurant—they used that, too, as ‘proof’ that Sheryl was the actual author.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. It was brutal. My reputation took a huge hit.”
Which explained why he was so desperate to win the competition and restore his name in the court of public opinion. But she decided to lighten the mood.
“It’s pretty rare I meet anyone as infamous in New York culinary circles as I am.”
He laughed, as she’d hoped he would. She liked the sound, not to mention the way Finn looked with his head tipped back and his lips curved up.
“If it makes you feel any better, my ex gave your former restaurant a terrible review in last week’s column,” she told him. “I didn
’t read the actual article, but the headline included the word inedible to describe the braised veal.”
“Yeah, I saw that. I’d like to be happy that she’s running Rascal’s into the ground, but...”
His smile ebbed as his words trailed away.
Lara decided to change the subject. She wasn’t really hungry, but, taking a seat on one of the stools at the island, she said, “At Spanky’s you mentioned something about a main course.”
“Right. I did.” Instead of reaching for Lara, however, he turned toward the fridge. “It’s been a while since I went shopping, so what I make depends on what I have in here.”
He opened both stainless-steel doors and stood with his back to her. While he perused the shelves, she perused his physique. Just as she’d told Dana, he was certified prime from the broad shoulders beneath his dress shirt right down to the firm butt that filled out his pants.
“How hungry are you?”
Gaze still on his butt, she murmured without thinking, “Famished.”
He turned and she felt her cheeks heat. A look passed between them. His expression was pure male. She’d seen several versions of it so far. When they’d first met and brushed hands by the cab. When they’d gone for coffee after she was outted as Clifton’s daughter and ousted from the show. While flying a kite in Central Park. And earlier that very evening at Spanky’s, when they’d discussed appetizers as a prelude to main dishes. All of those looks had been potent, but this one...this one could have started an out-of-control brushfire in a downpour.
“I have some fresh pasta and the fixings for a simple Bolognese, but, as you know, to do the sauce right, it takes time. The flavors need to mature.”
“And meld together,” she agreed on a nod.
“How patient are you feeling, Lara?”
Now, there was a question.
“Not very. Patience hasn’t gotten me very far lately.”
“So, I was thinking...” He took a covered bowl out of the fridge and closed the doors. “I have these leftovers from yesterday’s dinner. Thai chicken.”
Was he just teasing her now? She couldn’t be sure.
“It sounds spicy.”
“It is. Very.” His gaze flicked briefly to her mouth. “Interested?”