One More Taste

by Melissa Cutler

  She curled her fingers around the key, clearly taking his words as a further challenge. “And yet, that’s where I’m going to feed you tonight. At your house. I’ll see you at seven.”

  “Make it eight. And plan on dining with me. What good is a fine meal when eaten alone?”

  He wasn’t sure what made him tack on that last requirement of the challenge, but his blood heated at the thought. What better incentive for pulling himself away from the office earlier than sharing nightly meals with the beguiling Emily Ford?

  The pink returned to her cheeks. “That’s not necessary.”

  “Oh, I think it’s very necessary. Consider it an extended interview.”

  “Fine. Then I’ll see you tonight at eight.”

  Anticipation coursed through him with intoxicating purpose as he watched her stride from the room. No matter how this little experiment turned out, the daily battle of wills with Emily Ford was bound to keep him on his toes. He couldn’t wait.

  Chapter Three

  Emily stood on the wooden dock attached to Knox’s boathouse and watched the final rays of sun dance on ripples in the lake. Her mind drifted over the menu she’d built for her and Knox’s first dinner together.

  Damn it. She sucked a breath in through her teeth, royally peeved at herself. She had to stop doing that, turning even the most benign thoughts into something pseudo-sexual—especially when it came to the man who held her future in his hands—no matter how achingly handsome he happened to be. She’d long considered herself immune to desire, ever since her epiphany after a bad date two years earlier when she’d realized how much more satisfying food was than sex or men or any sort of lust-fueled bullshit. Like a nun, she had a higher calling than succumbing to a mere mortal’s baser needs.

  She forced her attention back to the lake, where tendrils of fog were settling in for the night. More than any other season, she loved the way autumn felt. The chill in the air and the low, early retiring sun made people hungry for the types of foods she most loved to cook: hearty, soul-nourishing foods that connected people to the earth and the soil. The kind of food Knox Briscoe should be eating, if only he would abandon his ridiculous ‘food as fuel’ naivety.

  Nearby, a fish jumped from the water with a tremendous splash that sent droplets raining down on the wood and her feet. She wasn’t the greatest when it came to identifying species of fish unless they were on ice at her favorite fishmonger’s storefront, but she was pretty sure it was a carp. Or maybe a bass. Either way, it looked like a protein she’d love to design a meal around, if only she knew how to fish.

  It was a tough sell to tear herself away from the peace of the water, but she wanted to make one more pass through Knox’s house and search for future menu inspiration before he arrived to dine on a meal that included seared foie gras with vadouvan-spiced bread and huckleberry compote. It was a great menu with a flavor profile sure to wow anyone, but she was still having trouble figuring out exactly what made Knox tick, and therefore, the ideal emotions to elicit in him with her food.

  She walked up the well-worn dirt path from the lake to the stairs that led onto the deck, then let herself in through the kitchen door. Her produce was drying on a towel near the sink and the huckleberries cooled in a pan on the stove, but she barely gave the room a look before pushing through the swinging door to the house’s great room.

  What Emily considered her greatest skill and the secret to her culinary success was that she was part fortune teller. She read people, their past and their future and their emotional temperature. She could spend a little time with a couple and understand what was missing in their lives, what they needed, what food could provide for them beyond their own limited understanding of taste and nourishment. She’d been perfecting the art for years, but as she’d told Knox that morning in his office, she couldn’t get a clear read on him, try as she might.

  She’d spent the afternoon trying to read him through his home and the land he’d chosen, but something was missing from her analysis. She had no inspiration at all. Clearly, he craved beauty and solitude, as evidenced by the view. The house itself was modern and cavernous. Though she suspected it had come fully furnished, she bet the cold, minimalist aesthetic appealed to Knox’s need for control. Beauty, solitude, and control did not a satisfying meal make, especially for Knox, especially after stepping into the warm, inviting aura of his study.

  In the study, on a table against the wall, she’d found a record player attached to a high-end sound system. Next to it, a collection of classic rock. Near to that were photographs of Knox’s family sitting on the lowered tailgate of a truck, his parents crouched behind the three kids. Knox sat in the middle, looking to be seven or eight years old, and had his arms around his brother’s and sister’s shoulders. Emily had never seen a photograph of Knox’s father, Clint, before. The family resemblance to Knox and Ty and Tyson Briscoe was strong. The same nose, the same angular jaw and high cheekbones, the same looks of intensity in their dark eyes. Clint, on the other hand, drew his looks from Granny June’s side of the family, as Carina did. Emily recognized Carina’s smile on Clint, as well as the shape of her head and the shading around her eyes.

  There was only one room Emily had yet to explore. After a quick check of the driveway and the garage to make sure Knox wasn’t home yet, she stole upstairs through the waning light. She counted five bedrooms on the second floor and as many bathrooms, but the master suite at the end of the hall was the only one with any semblance of personal touches to it.

  The moment she stepped through the threshold, she expected to be overcome with warnings from her conscience that she was trespassing, but her drive to slay the challenge Knox had set up for her superseded any ethical or moral concerns about invading his private space. How could she mind overstepping some boundaries when her future was at stake?

  The room smelled clean, fresh. Several sets of cufflinks sat in a dish on a darkly stained wood vanity near the entrance to the ensuite bathroom. One window in the long row of them had been cracked open. Beyond the glass, the bedroom boasted an expansive view of the lake. Behind the hill on the opposite shore, she spied the rooftops of Briscoe Ranch and the chapel.

  She flicked on a light switch near the door, and a row of tasteful, recessed lights came to life above a large, masculine-looking bed. After another glance down the hall and a quick listen to make sure she was still alone, she walked into the room, heading straight for the bed. She smoothed her palm over the gold, black, and red duvet, in a style that reminded her of the Far East, covering his king-sized bed. An embroidered image of a black rose adorned one corner, the petals tumbling away from the stem like shaved slices of black truffle over a golden sauce.

  Her spine snapped straight and she gasped aloud, rocked by a sudden explosion of inspiration. She’d been right about the peach soup. About foie gras and vadouvan, butter and cayenne. Knox’s whole world revolved around the yin and yang of old and new. His pricey, stylish suits worn with old-fashioned gold cufflinks; a minimalist, modern home contrasting starkly with the well-used record player in the study. And especially the line of work he’d chosen, taking old businesses and giving them a new shine. Even beyond that, the act of buying a huge stake in Briscoe Ranch was the biggest yin and yang of them all—a new opportunity, colliding with an old family name and an old family rift.

  “Of course. That’s perfect,” she muttered, collapsing back on the duvet. She closed her eyes and spread her arms over the fabric, feeling the textiles with not only her hands but the skin of her whole arms.

  She knew how to feed Knox so that the food would seep into his skin, through his layers of comportment. She had a plan—an irresistible plan that would turn him to putty in her hands—but his room was barely the tip of the iceberg. She needed so much more information. What had he been like as a child? What dishes had his mother made him? She needed his stories and history and—

  “I feel like one of the three bears right now. Goldilocks, is that you sleeping in my bed?�
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  Emily practically levitated to her feet.

  A distinctly male figure appeared in the twilight shadows beyond the bedroom door. “Knox,” she breathed, mortified.

  He stepped just inside the room, into the light far enough for her to make note of his amused grin and playful, if onyx eyes. He leaned against the door jam, his thumbs hooked in his pants pockets. He looked intimidating. Confident. And undeniably, gorgeously male.

  Awareness pricked through her body like needles of fire. “I would never sleep in your bed,” she announced.

  His lips quirked, then he pushed off the door frame and strode toward the vanity. “Whatever, Goldilocks.”

  Raising his wrist, he unfastened his watch, then set it into the jewelry dish.

  He might have caught her off guard, but she had herself under control again. “Did you mistake me for someone who likes to joke around?”

  He had the grace to wipe the grin from his lips, but only just. His eyes still glinted with amusement. “Absolutely not.”

  Damn right. “My hair’s not even blonde like Goldilocks’. All I was doing was looking for inspiration on what to feed you.”

  He shifted his attention to his sleeves, methodically removing each cufflink. “In my bed?” he asked, glancing up from beneath thick lashes.

  Her skin turned impossibly hot. Did he have to keep saying bed as though it were the most erotic word in the English language?

  “Among other places,” she snapped.

  She should leave the room. She should dash back to her kitchen at the resort and load up the black truffles she was going to need for dinner tomorrow. Except Knox was blocking the door and she wasn’t sure he’d let her pass before he had a definitive explanation about why she’d been in his bedroom. At least he hadn’t caught her rifling through his medicine cabinet.

  Her skin flushed even hotter.

  “Did you find it?” he asked.

  “Find what?” Was something missing?

  He tossed the cufflinks into the bowl on the vanity. “Inspiration.”

  Ah. “Maybe.”

  He looked around, as if the inspiration was something visible. Then his eyes settled back on her.

  She swallowed. “How was your day?”

  She’d meant for him to find that question humorous in an ironic way, but it seemed to plunge him into deep thought. He walked towards her, then past her, to the bed, shrugging out of his suit jacket as he moved.

  “Long. Good.” He tossed the jacket on the duvet, then hooked a finger behind his tie and tugged it loose. So intimate a move, undressing at home after a long day. What the hell was she still doing in his bedroom? She sidestepped towards the door, cutting him a wide berth.

  “Haylie had a bit of a rough start today as my secretary,” he added, tossing the tie on top of the discarded jacket. “She was really nervous, which surprised me.”

  Shifting his weight to one leg, he slipped out of his shoe, then repeated the move on the other. Until that very moment, Emily had never thought of socks as intimately personal before, but oh my God. Knox’s stockinged feet, the outline of his toes against the thin weave of the beige fabric, made her feel like he’d shown her a sliver of his most intimate self. She swallowed hard. “I’m sure she’ll do better tomorrow.”

  As would Emily. No more covert missions to Knox’s bedroom.

  Knox sat back on the bed and pressed his knuckles into the mattress, looking at her with honest, if troubled eyes, and his face completely devoid of pretense. “Are you sure I’m not making a mistake with Haylie? Ty thinks I am.”

  What was Emily, his advisor? Her focus slipped to his stockinged feet again. “No. Not a mistake. She’s going to rise to the occasion. I’m sure of it.”

  For reasons that turned Emily’s stomach if she thought on them too hard, Haylie needed the job perhaps even more than Emily needed the new restaurant.

  Knox studied her, perhaps weighing her sincerity. “Why? Tell me about her. Why was hiring her the right move? And why didn’t her dad think so?”

  What could Emily say without betraying Carina’s confidence? Her friend had needed someone to share the burden of the secret Haylie had entrusted her sister with. “The thing about Haylie is that, for her whole life, her parents coddled her and gave her everything she wanted without demanding anything from her. The problem with that kind of princess treatment is that it doesn’t build up a person’s confidence. It only breaks it down.”

  “They didn’t coddle Carina?”

  The idea brought a smile to her face, it was so preposterous. “No. She was the victim of oldest child syndrome. Until recently, she was kind of the family doormat.”

  “What changed?

  Emily wished there was a different answer to that question. She wished Carina could’ve found her own voice and her own power without Decker’s help. She wished Carina could have internalized what Emily had been telling her for years, that she needed to follow her heart and stand up to her family, but it took a man sweeping onto the scene and telling her the exact same thing for the words to sink in. But such was life. “She married James Decker. And he helped her find herself.”

  Knox popped the top two buttons of his shirt open. If his belt came off next, Emily was out of there, post-haste. But he only laid back on the bed and threaded his hands together behind his head. Her gaze slipped of its own volition to the flatness of his abs, the way his shirt strained and stretched across his chest, then lower, to the curve of fabric outlining his groin. Oblivious to her perusal and lost in thought, he moved a hand down to rest on his stomach. What a hand. Big, strong, a thick wrist and long fingers.

  Knox Briscoe was stunning. Way too goddamn stunning for his own good. Disgust arrived with the next wave of lust that rippled through her. How dare she be attracted to this … this … interloper? This invader who’d swept in and assumed power over her and the people she cared about. It had to stop immediately.

  “Just because Haylie was dealt a tough hand doesn’t mean she’s qualified for the job,” he said. “As I told you, I’m not here to run a charity program for the Briscoes and their friends.”

  Ouch. “Haylie’s life with Wendell, the guy she married, is not…” Emily was dancing perilously close to the truth, but if it helped Haylie hang on to her first good chance to change and grow, then Emily had to try. “She’s not happy. And I don’t believe she thinks highly enough of herself to change that. She doesn’t need your charity, but she could use a lucky break, a chance to rise.” Like me.

  Except not like her because Emily knew her worth, and she’d known it for a long, long time. “Did you agree to this challenge so you could pump me for information on the Briscoes? Because my loyalty is to them, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “I noticed.” He sat up and pinned her with an inscrutable gaze. “And no, I didn’t hire you with the hopes that you’d share Briscoe family secrets with me.”

  Another thought occurred to her. “But that’s why you offered Haylie her job, isn’t it?”

  His eyebrows flickered.

  She was shocked that he was being so honest with her. Then again, he’d been honest all along, hadn’t he? Brutally so. He behaved like a creature at the top of the food chain, with no fear of getting eaten. Which, she supposed, was the truth. “You don’t expect anyone to surprise you. What a boring way to go through life.”

  Only a slight downturn of his lips betrayed his displeasure at her assessment. “Look at you, knowing so much about me.”

  The tension in the room was rising again. Emily shifted, unnerved anew by the intimacy of it all, battling him in his bedroom while he undressed. Why did every encounter with this man turn uncomfortably intense? Would they ever have a normal conversation instead of a chess match? “If you’ll excuse me, I have ingredients to fetch.”

  She’d taken two steps into the hall when he called to her. “Emily?”

  She allowed herself a dramatic wince, then turned.

  Knox was standing again, bedsi
de, his legs hip-width apart, his hands in his pockets. “I don’t want to forget to tell you that my sister will be joining us for dinner tomorrow and staying overnight. But she doesn’t eat breakfast either, so don’t get any ideas.”

  His sister. Excellent. With any luck, she would provide yet another window into Knox’s soul.

  “One last thing.” He paused as though selecting the perfect words. “I’m looking forward to the meal tonight.”

  Emily was, too. A little too much for her own good.

  Chapter Four

  A second day as a Briscoe Ranch owner, a second day spent under Ty’s watchful, enthusiastic tutorship. The patience and acting required of Knox to allow Ty to believe he was still top dog at the resort was draining, though Knox had passed the hours in eager anticipation of the visit from his sister and another meal from Emily. The first night, she’d hit it out of the park with a foie gras dish unlike any he’d ever sampled. The fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about the meal, or the wild boar hash she’d tried to ply him with that morning, or tonight’s meal, for that matter, suggested that perhaps his sixth sense had been right about her. As far as diamonds in the rough went, Emily was a remarkably polished one.

  After dark, an hour before Shayla was set to arrive, he set out from his office in a golf cart across the resort grounds. Happy guests strolled about, taking in the resort’s gardens, splashing in the pool, and enjoying cocktails at the candlelit pavilion as an acoustic guitarist plucked out a jazzy tune. For all Ty’s faults, he’d built one hell of a resort. Knox could hardly wait to make it even better, bigger, and more luxurious. He’d transform the magic of the resort into profit in a way that Ty had never accomplished.

  Smiling at the thought, he parked it at the end of the paved road, then walked up and over the hill where his truck was parked just beyond the resort’s eastern border along a fire road. It was a hike, for sure, but that had been as close to the property as his dad’s truck would get that morning. One of these days, Knox would have to make a trip to San Antonio and purchase a second car. It wasn’t as though he couldn’t afford one, but his stubborn streak demanded that he give his dad’s ghost a little more time to get used to the idea of his truck parking at the resort.