Claiming Amelia

by Jessica Blake

  Other than a host of barista jobs and a couple stripper opportunities, I was beginning to lose hope that anything would fit my specific criteria.

  Then… bingo. I saw the listing for a part-time chef to run the lunch shift at the restaurant located inside The Capstone on the Point Hotel. It was new to me, and I’d never heard of it, but a quick internet search and a little cyberstalking later I was convinced that it was a gorgeous facility that could be a great place to kill time until I left.

  I applied online, as requested, and got a call from one Danger Milano. Seriously. I asked him to repeat his name for me, and it’d taken all I had not to laugh. “Danger.”

  Danger was the sous chef, and since their executive chef, Bruno, didn’t waste time with hiring and firing of kitchen “help,” he was the one who’d interview me on Tuesday afternoon at two p.m.

  It was a standard time for kitchens to take care of administrative work, as it was the end of the lunch rush and a few hours before dinner.

  Despite the fact that this wasn’t going to be a career-defining job, I was still mildly nervous and had to stop myself from arriving too early — a definite faux pas for any kitchen interview. In the end, I took an extra walk in front of the pier on Columbia Point, careful to avoid the sketchier corners inhabited by a few homeless camps and waited until it was three minutes before two p.m.

  Danger was a douchebag. I knew his type from a mile away.

  “Oh, so you’re a CIA grad, huh?”

  It was his first question to me upon reading my resume, making it obvious that he’d never gone to any culinary school, especially not the Culinary Institute of America I attended. Not that I was a snob about it. Some of the best chefs around didn’t go to culinary school and learned the “clogs in the kitchen” way by apprenticing and working every job in the kitchen first. But many times, they had a chip on their shoulder about the cooks who did further their education and rarely tried to hide their disdain.

  To be fair, classically trained chefs sometimes had a hard time taking someone seriously who cut their teeth in a fast-food burger joint for four years, as Danger had clearly done.

  I tried not to let pedigrees or the lack of them sway my opinions of people — I judged cooks on how well they led in the kitchen and how good their food tasted. In that order.

  You learned the hard way that someone could cook up a single dish and make it a work of art, but if they couldn’t manage the line preps, the dishwashers, the workflow, and the oven team, the entire place would go up in flames before dinner service was over. So, I always preferred to work and learn under good leaders and figured I could develop my own cooking style along the way.

  “That’s right,” I said, not letting him bait me. “And I’ve spent the past few years on the Gulf Coast.”

  It was all on my resume. In black and white, he knew where I’d been and what I’d done. If he was interested in anything but trying to paint me as some spoiled rich kid wannabe chef, he wouldn’t have made the obvious crack about the Culinary Institute.

  “Hot down there,” the guy said, looking down at my resume again. I bit back a sarcastic reply and simply smiled and nodded. I was about to find a way to cut my losses and beat it out of the interview when he perked up at the arrival of the food deliveries.

  “Look, I’ll cut to the chase,” he said, adjusting himself as he sat two feet in front of me. How had a guy like him gotten a job in a nice hotel like this? He had to be the head chef’s nephew or something. That was usually the case. “The job’s not the greatest. It’s a couple morning prep shifts with the lunch rush on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.”

  To him, it must have sounded terrible, but it was exactly what I wanted.

  “It sounds great to me,” I said, suddenly not wanting to be rushed from the place so quickly anymore. I could deal with a moron sous chef, especially if he was lazy, which Danger seemed to me. The grocer was unloading handcart after handcart of boxes while talking about a rec league soccer game last weekend, and suddenly, Danger wasn’t interested in our interview anymore.

  “I’m supposed to give you a test dish to prepare,” he said after I cleared my throat to get his attention. “You still interested?”

  I nodded.

  “You sure?”

  I gritted my teeth, annoyed now. “Yes.” He was getting impatient and wanted the interview over. I wanted the job. One of us wasn’t going to get their way, and I knew for a fact it wouldn’t be me.

  “Fine,” he said with a sigh. He pushed himself from his chair and disappeared into the kitchen for a moment before returning, motioning for me to follow him.

  He had set up a station for me, complete with two serving plates, two large fillets of a white fish I didn’t immediately recognize, and a few rudimentary utensils.

  From the lackluster supplies, I could tell he was setting me up to fail. My guess was that the fish was a day or two past its prime, which would have been normal in a fast food or family dining type of restaurant. But in a place like this, serving day-old fish was a cardinal sin.

  “I’ll be back here in twenty minutes,” Danger said. “I have a couple things that I need to take care of while you do this. Take what you need out of cold storage in the pantry. Make sure it’s done by the time I get back.”

  My ego was having a hard time being spoken to by the man. I knew from how messy his chef jacket was and from how he moved around the kitchen, almost as if he was a guest, that I could likely cook circles around him. I was also in a precarious position. Needing a job from a man like this required that I didn’t destroy his ego. Yet.

  Once he was out of earshot, I inspected the fish, realizing it was halibut. But the fact that it was not as fresh as it should have been, but still usable, put me in a predicament. I needed to come up with a showstopper, but if I featured the fish on its own, it wouldn’t be strong enough to hold up any sort of taste profile.

  Pulling out my phone, I began thumbing through the bookmarks saved on my browser. I remembered a few recipes from Chef Laura Santiago that I had wanted to try. She was my culinary hero and was the main reason I wanted to go to California as soon as I could. She had an in-house study program for professional chefs who wanted to specialize in ocean to table food prep.

  She was a social media star and gave her recipes away freely, unlike many of the up-and-coming chefs who had moved to a membership type of website.

  Sure enough, I found what I was looking for in my saved recipes. It was soup, which was a risk, but I was dealing with a lunch course and not a dinner entrée. It just might work, and if it did it would make good use of the fish, showcasing it just enough while hiding the fact that its texture might be a few hours past its prime.

  Dashing to the pantry, I pulled fish stock, saffron, olive oil, and eggs. For produce, I grabbed two lemons, an orange, fennel, and a bay leaf.

  My choice was definitely a risk not only because it was soup, but also because of time. Danger hadn’t given me a lot of it.

  “You’re fine, Amelia,” I said to myself, a bad habit when I was nervous. “Just keep moving.”

  My hands flew across the prep station, and I talked myself through the recipe, as though I were conversing with Chef Santiago herself and not my phone. I studied ahead a few lines and slipped my phone into my back pocket in case there’d been some rule I hadn’t been informed about concerning cell phone use.

  “Build the base,” I said to myself as I turned the heat on the oil and the spices. The smooth, peppery smell of the fennel was apparent quickly, and I added leeks and carrot to soften.

  “Not too soft,” I warned myself. “No mush.”

  After a few minutes, I added the fish sauce and lemon juice. The saffron threads were next.

  “My favorite part,” I breathed, a smile spreading across my face as the colors transformed. I loved the change in the dish’s hue when the red, thin strips of spice came alive. The subdued orange it created was gorgeous.

  “Now the fish,” I said, plopping
the large chunks into happy, gentle bubbles. While I waited, I made a lemon aioli from lemon juice, garlic, and mayonnaise, trying not to balk that I was using premade stuff. My CI instructors would die of embarrassment if they saw this, but I was a woman on a mission and time was working against me.

  The aioli thickened and deepened the stew and the dash of white wine I added instantly kept the whole thing from getting too heavy or fishy. I hadn’t even tasted it yet, but from smell alone, I could tell I was on the right track.

  “Imagine if I’d gotten fresh fish?” I mused with a frown. I could have made a potato-crusted filet with a lemon butter sauce. I could have made a fresh fish taco. I could have done any number of things.

  Danger came back with a minute to spare and frowned when he saw that I’d left the two poorly washed dishes alone and managed to find wide soup bowls and matching plates. It wasn’t hard, really, as most kitchens were designed the same way at the end of the day. Things tended to be kept in some rational order and chefs tended to think more alike than they wanted to believe.

  “What’d you come up with?” His arms were crossed over his chest again, and he was showing decidedly little interest in what I’d come up with.

  Whatever. I pressed on. “Halibut bourride with lemon aioli.”

  He made a face. “Soup?”

  “You said lunch entrée.” I lifted my chin. “And you gave me fish that was a little less than stellar. Hopefully, this isn’t anything you’re serving en filete today, or you’re ripping people off.”

  The scowl on his face was instant and serious, and it seemed like he was going to rip into me when the door to the kitchen burst open and three men walked in. Two were older Asians wearing expensive business suits, who appeared to be on a tour as they followed a well-dressed younger man. He was handsome and vaguely familiar, but I only got a quick glimpse of his face as he continued to lead the men around. He was speaking to them in what sounded to be fluent Japanese. Impressive.

  Danger’s foul expression changed in a heartbeat when he saw the man coming in our direction. I wondered if it was the general manager or maybe one of the executives from the administration department. I studied Danger, who’d obviously forgotten about me and my fish soup.

  Instead of coming up to us, they detoured around the food prep island, and almost as quickly as they appeared, they were gone. Beside me, Danger exhaled a long breath and turned to me, his face red. Just when I thought it was back to business as usual, the man returned a moment later, alone this time.

  Danger’s face blanched when the man made a straight line right for us, and I couldn’t help but absorb some of his nervousness.

  “Mr. Milano,” the expensively clad man said to Danger, and I got a good look at his face for the first time.

  “Damn,” I breathed out, not meaning to.

  Finn Casey cracked a grin at my outburst but didn’t give away that he knew me. Not like I had.

  I couldn’t believe it. This was Declan’s younger brother. Brother number two, if I remembered correctly. The older of the twins. Was he an executive here?

  “So, tell me, what are we doing in the kitchen this afternoon?” Finn’s eyes were back on Danger, who was noiselessly pointing to the dishes, clearly flustered at Finn’s arrival.

  “I’m in the middle of an interview and test,” I offered, throwing the sous chef a lifeline, despite not thinking he deserved one. “He gave me a few chunks of halibut and had me prepare a lunch dish.”

  Finn was grinning now, clearly amused, though I failed to see what was funny. I tried to smile politely, but I was getting more frazzled by the moment, so I was pretty sure it probably looked like I was just baring my teeth.

  “Is that so?” He looked back to Danger. “And who was going to grade the applicant’s effort?”

  Somehow, Danger found his voice. “I was, sir,” he rushed out. “One of the vendors and I planned to try it out.”

  Finn shook his head. “I have a much better idea,” he said, grabbing the plates. “I have a VIP in the private dining room right now who I’m late to a lunch meeting with. Danger, bring me a bottle of chilled white from the cooler and a basket of rolls. I’ll grade the applicant’s work if you don’t mind.”

  If he minded, Danger didn’t say anything. He nodded mutely and moved quick, ignoring me completely as he grabbed the bottle of Pinot Grigio and two glasses and disappeared behind the double doors.

  When he came back, he seemed to have gotten himself more under control.

  “So,” I asked, forcing my hands not to wring together. “Who was that? One of the managers?”

  The jackass literally scoffed at me like I was some ignorant peasant who hadn’t recognized the king. Turns out, he was kind of right.

  “Mr. Casey is the hotel owner,” he hissed, emphasizing every word. “And he never comes into the kitchen. Why was he here today?”

  Why, indeed?

  “I bet you’re wishing you hadn’t given me crap fish now, aren’t you?”

  He glowered at me but didn’t reply.

  I didn’t know why I was goading him, but I felt like things had just skyrocketed into the realm of disbelief, so I might as well have a little fun. Seriously. The owner of this luxury hotel was a guy from my block, the younger brother of Declan Casey, and he happened to take a dish I threw together with crumbs in less than twenty minutes?

  Dignity was in short supply today, and I was pretty close to not giving a rat’s ass anymore.

  Time ticked by painfully slowly, and we apparently weren’t allowed to move from our spots until word came down from on high. Wherever Finn Casey and his VIP were dining, it had to be in the next zip code over, and people there didn’t have regular lunch hours because they were in zero rush whatsoever.

  “How annoying,” I whispered, digging my nail into a groove on the countertop.

  A sharp ringing cut through the air, making both of us jump. Danger grabbed the receiver from a phone stuck to a wall and answered, his voice a little shaky. I listened closely, but all I got were a few yeses followed by, “I understand.” When he hung up, he looked at me and swallowed.

  “They want to see you in the private dining room.”

  “What?” I practically squawked.

  He rolled his eyes. “They. Want. To. See. You.”

  Asshole.

  Danger Milano didn’t let me overthink things too much, either. Before I could run for the back door, grab my purse, and disappear like some culinary ninja, he’d pushed me from my stool and was shoving me through the double doors and into an empty dining room.

  “The private room is that doorway all the way at the back,” he hiss-whispered. “Knock first.”

  With a final shove, he sent me sailing into the room with my arms flapping to keep my balance. I tossed a nasty curse word over my shoulder, and with shoes that felt full of lead, made a few heavy steps toward the private dining room.

  “Am I really doing this?” I whispered to myself. Again, a nervous habit.

  Apparently, I was. With a swift knock on the solid, wooden door, I held my breath and waited.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  “Come in,” Finn’s voice called from the other side. After taking a long, cleansing breath, I pushed the door open.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Declan

  Soup.

  Finn was holding me hostage in his hotel restaurant over a bowl of soup?

  “What the hell is this? I told you I had to get back to the office.”

  He shoved a spoon closer to me. “Just try it.”

  Something was up, but Finn was a master at the poker face and keeping his cards close until he was ready. A few moments later, an overweight, ruddy guy in a chef jacket bumbled through the door and nearly dropped a bottle of wine on the floor in his attempt to get as far away from my brother as possible.

  “Why is your staff so afraid of you?” I picked up the spoon. “What kind of tyrant are you around here?”

  Finn sat and poured us both a
small glass, which he immediately took a sip from before trying his soup. I followed his lead and was surprised. Fish soup, though very French and classic fine dining, wasn’t really my thing. I liked a good lobster roll or crab cake, given my roots.

  But this lemon broth? The chunks of fish? They weren’t bad. No, they were pretty damn good.

  “So?” Finn wagged his eyebrows at me. “What do you think?”

  I put my spoon down on the table and folded my arms. “What the hell, Finn?”

  He took his time answering, taking another bite before setting his own spoon down.

  “Seriously, Declan, why do you always think someone is fucking with you?” He laughed. Finn laughed a lot. It was annoying, and it always had been. “They’re hiring a new part-time chef for the lunch service, and this was part of the test. They had to put together a dish in a short amount of time with no working knowledge of the kitchen layout. What do you think?”

  I took one more bite now that I knew he hadn’t slipped a dose of stool softener in it or something. I let my opinion of the flavors form slowly, and when I finally swallowed a third bite, I nodded.

  “It’s really good,” I admitted. “But was this really necessary.”

  Finn, the bastard, winked at me.

  “Oh, it was,” he said, sliding his cell out of his coat pocket and dialing.

  “Mr. Milano, we’re done. Send in a busser,” Finn barked, his tone different with the kitchen staff member than it’d been with me. “And the applicant? Send them to the private dining room. I wish to ask the person a few questions myself.”

  Satisfied with whatever he heard on the other end, Finn ended the call and returned the phone to its original place.

  “I need to get back,” I said and moved to stand, but Finn shook his head.

  “I want your opinion,” he said. The grin was back. What the hell was with this guy today?