by Marina Adair
“That was a nice way to start the day.” She kissed him again.
“That was me making sure you got the good in your morning.” He placed a finger above the word Morning on her apron and traced the word Good right across her good parts.
“And this—” He reached out and tugged the neckline of her apron lower, past her collarbone, past the swell of her breast, past the tops of her nipples, which hardened under his gaze and jutted just over the fabric. “This is a great morning.”
“You hungry?” She ran her hands through his hair, still damp from his shower.
“Starved.”
“I have breakfast in the oven.”
“Not for that.”
The top of the apron strained and went taut, preventing him from pulling it down as far as he wished. At least, she figured that was what his pout was about. Adorable frown in place, he went for the tie around her neck to loosen it.
She swatted his hand away and giggled. He didn’t giggle—and he didn’t move his hand, except to cup her breast, which he’d finally freed, and run his thumb over her nipple.
“Did I wake you?” she asked, not sure what to do with her hands. She’d never had kitchen sex before. But considering that they had christened every other room in the house, she shouldn’t have been surprised.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
He took her hand and placed it on his erection and smiled. “Don’t be.”
Then his mouth was on her breast. The sensation of his tongue on her skin had her heart thundering against her ribs. When his hands slid up and under the hem of the apron, along the inside of her thigh and higher, her brain went into a meltdown. He pushed her legs apart. She didn’t giggle this time, nor did she bother stopping him.
“I do prep on this counter,” Lexi whispered, no longer embarrassed to be bared and spread for his viewing pleasure.
Marc rucked the apron around her hips and dropped to his knees.
“Sugar, that’s exactly what I’m doing,” he said and then disappeared under her apron and began the long process of prepping for his breakfast in bed.
“What do you mean he isn’t letting Simon come to the Showdown?” Marc barked, setting down his beer. “The Showdown is the day after tomorrow!”
It was only a little past two in the afternoon, but when Frankie called him out of the blue, asking him to meet her at the Spigot and bring his brothers, he knew that this was going to be a drink-mandatory kind of chat.
“Well, that wiped the stupid-ass smile off your face,” Frankie said, popping her neck from side to side. “It was starting to piss me off.”
Both Gabe and Trey started laughing. Which pissed Marc off, so he flipped Trey the bird and said to Gabe, “Hey, let me get you a beer, bro. On me.”
His brother had been harassing him all week about Lexi. Although Marc had admitted to being in a relationship, he hadn’t said a thing about them sleeping together. As far as he was concerned, it wasn’t anybody’s goddamned business what was going on between them.
A point that he’d made clear to his family. Only Gabe just offered up a shit-eating grin and slapped him on the back with a welcome-to-it chuckle. Marc was still trying to figure out what the hell his brother meant.
“He figured if he pulled Simon without telling you, then the tribunal would be lacking a Baudouin,” Frankie said.
“And we wouldn’t have time to find a replacement the night of,” Trey guessed. “Wait, your brothers—”
Frankie shook her head. “Dax is still deployed, Adam is out of town, and Jonah won’t judge the Showdown no matter who asks. And if you go after any of my great-uncle’s side of the family, Grandpa will claim they aren’t Baudouins. Which means there would be no one to fill in and you’d have to cancel the wine-tasting part of the Showdown.”
“There’s you,” Gabe said, and all three brothers shared a look. If they could get Frankie on their side, just for one night, the whole event would be saved and Charles couldn’t do anything else to screw it up.
Frankie inhaled, only to pick up her beer and take a long swallow.
“This isn’t about the DeLucas versus the Baudouins. This is about the town.”
“You think I don’t know that? I get it, believe me. It’s why I’m here.” Her voice was tough as nails, but Marc noticed the way her hands shook and how she couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. She didn’t look like the ballbusting, tough-as-shit tomboy that he knew and avoided. She actually looked a little unsure and a whole lot scared.
She must have seen him staring, because she grabbed a fork off the table behind them and said, “Keep staring and I’ll stab you in the scrotum. Got it, pretty boy?”
Marc leaned back in his chair and put one hand up in surrender; the other was shielding his goods.
“Why is he even doing this?” Gabe asked. “Sabotaging the Showdown would hurt the town and smaller wineries more than it would the DeLucas.”
“Because this isn’t about the Showdown,” Nate said, approaching the table.
“Great.” Frankie rolled her eyes, and Marc noticed her grip tighten on the fork. “You’re here.”
“Good to see you too, Francesca.” Nate took the only empty chair, which happened to be right next to Frankie, who immediately scooted closer to the wall. Didn’t matter. Nate leaned in, pressing all of his anger and size in her face. He wasn’t as big as Marc, but he was a big man and when riled could be intimidating as hell.
So he didn’t blame Frankie when she leaned back, her eyes wide and her shoulders hunched. He’d never seen his brother act like this, especially toward a woman. Hell, Frankie goaded him all the time; normally he let it roll off his back. But today—today Nate was pissed.
Gabe must have sensed it too, because he put a hand on Nate’s shoulder. “Reel it back a little.”
Nate shrugged off Gabe’s hand, zeroing in on Frankie. “When were you going to tell me that your grandpa has been talking to Montgomery Distributions? And that all of this BS surrounding the Showdown and the judges, and a fucking dog on the panel, was to discredit my family so that Charles could swoop in and steal the Monte contract right out from under us?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Frankie argued.
“Really?” Nate yelled. “Then explain why Adam is in Santa Barbara, right now, looking at a piece of land that will produce enough grapes to fulfill the contract?”
“I don’t know, but none of my brothers give a crap about wine, which is why they walked. I’m the only one who cares what happens to the winery.”
“Then someone might want to fill Monte in on that, because he just told me he didn’t want to get caught up in a family feud.” Nate’s voice lowered, dangerously. “Do you know how much money we’ve already put into this deal? There is no way you and your family will get it. Not like this. Understood?”
Frankie nodded, all of her earlier edges and attitude replaced by shock. She looked at the rest of the table, her eyes wide and almost pleading. “I know that the winery is having some money issues, but I can’t imagine Charles…my grandpa”—she stumbled over the word and pressed her lips together—“I didn’t know, I swear.”
Nate scoffed and leaned back in his chair. Marc was still reeling at the fact that Baudouin was having cash-flow problems. Maybe this was about money and not revenge. That seemed much more credible that a love affair from six decades ago gone bad. Then again, Marc remembered the shattered look on the old man’s face when ChiChi had walked out of that courtroom last weekend.
Either way, Baudouin should have thrown his cards in with every other company, gone about it the honorable way.
Frankie took the reprieve to gather her strength, and when she came back, she was spitting mad. So mad Marc had to question if she’d ever even been scared in the first place.
“You think I would pussyfoot my way into some deal rather than going head-to-head with you, Nathaniel?”
She had a point. If Frankie wanted to take someone on
, she did it openly, wanted a public setting so everyone could witness her ripping off the poor guy’s nuts.
“I’m not scared of you, golden boy. And I had no idea that Grandpa was doing this, otherwise I would have told you. I don’t do sneaky.” She poked his chest. Hard enough to send Nate sideways. “Ever.”
She said it with so much conviction, Marc believed her. So did the rest of the table, because the tension went from nuclear to normal—well, normal for a table of DeLucas and a Baudouin.
“All right,” Marc said, resting his elbows on the table in a nonthreatening way. Calm or not, dealing with Frankie was like trying to declaw a feral cat. “Help us then. Sit on the tribunal.”
Her breath caught, and she looked at Nate for—support? When Nate just sat mute, she whispered, “I can’t.”
“Why not?” Gabe asked.
She looked at Nate again, and again Nate stared back, silent, looking as confused about what she was expecting out of him as the rest of the table.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” Marc ventured. “You sit on the tribunal and he decides to show up and state that he doesn’t approve of you being the Baudouin representative? We’re already screwed. This way we at least have a chance of pulling off the event.”
Frankie closed her eyes, and for a really long and awful minute, Marc though she was going to cry. He was reaching out to pat her shoulder when her eyes snapped open, mean as ever.
“Fuck it. I’m in. But nobody knows until the actual event starts. He isn’t planning on coming, so that way even if one of my aunts calls him, he’ll be too late.”
“I agree.”
“Thank you,” Nate said, his voice low.
“I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for the town.” She stood and shoved the chair under the table. Marc’s beer sloshed over the side. “And if you ever get in my face again, I will tear it off. With my teeth. Understand, golden boy?”
Trey waited until Frankie had torn out of the bar and then said, “Sex with her would most likely cost me my nuts, but it might be worth it.”
“Shut up,” Nate said, stealing Trey’s beer and emptying the glass in one swallow. He ran a hand through his hair. “Tell me you came clean with Lexi. That she at least knows about Jeff’s role in everything and Monte liking her food.”
“Not entirely.” Not at all. “Why?”
“Christ, bro,” Trey said. “You’re sleeping with her and you haven’t told her?”
“It’s called family business,” Marc defended, knowing it was a lie and feeling guilty as shit.
“It’s called being a man,” Gabe said, disappointment lacing his words.
“Yeah,” Marc mumbled. He’d punked out, and his time was up. He had to tell her. Tonight. He’d tell Lexi tonight and hope that she understood.
Nate let out a low whistle. “Monte and Jeff showed up at the winery just as I was getting ready to head here and meet you guys.”
“Wait? Jeff is here?” If Marc had had a sinking feeling in his gut a second ago, it had completely hollowed out at the mention of Jeff. He’d left over a dozen messages for the guy in the last week, with no response.
“Yup. And he and Monte were all smiles. After Monte told me about Baudouin trying to get in on the deal, he assured me that he’d pretty much already made up his mind and that it was ours to lose.”
“What are you not telling us?” Marc asked, because he knew there was more. And he wanted to finish up here so that he could go warn Lexi, at least give her a heads-up so that she wouldn’t be caught off guard. And finally man up and tell her about the deal.
“Monte is so sure he’s going with us that he already selected the first phase of pairings, expected to hit stores this fall. He wants to pair our wine with specialty, high-end desserts.”
Marc blinked. “We didn’t provide a dessert menu.”
“Apparently Jeff did.” Nate’s eyes went right to Marc. “And they’re all available at Pricilla’s Patisserie.”
And suddenly Marc knew what menu Monte wanted, and exactly how those items had gotten there.
CHAPTER 16
Lexi pulled a tray of freshly filled cream puffs out of the fridge and smiled. No matter how sore her cheeks got, she couldn’t seem to stop.
The smile had started Sunday morning, when Marc had her for breakfast in bed, and lasted straight through the week. It stuck with her through Monday’s morning rush, Tuesday and Wednesday’s three hours of predawn baking, this morning’s argument over which direction the slate tiles in the new kitchen should go—Tanner thought they should go on the diagonal and Abby thought that he was an idiot.
“Tell me again why we’re putting mango in my tart recipe?” Pricilla asked, elbow-deep in custard.
“Because the acid will play off the sweetness in the berries nicely.” ChiChi repeated Lexi’s earlier answer while brushing butter over the top of the mini shortbread crusts.
“Open your ears,” Lucinda harped, picking up a napkin and folding it in thirds.
“My ears are open,” Pricilla defended.
“Then maybe it’s your head that’s leaky.” Lucinda smashed a napkin through a ring made of dried grapevines, poking Mr. Puffins in the ear and jerking him awake with a start.
Even though Lexi knew she’d have to redo every place setting that Lucinda touched, and watch over Pricilla’s shoulder to make sure she wasn’t purposely bruising the mangoes, her smile stuck with her—right up until the bell in the front of the bakery dinged.
“I’ll get it,” Lexi said as she walked through the swinging doors. Then her smile died a fiery death and her day spiraled into the seventh circle of hell.
“Hey, Lexi,” Jeffery said. Dressed in dark slacks and a blue shirt—the one that she’d given him for his birthday last year—he displayed enough frat-boy charm to curdle the whipped cream.
Lexi closed her eyes for a moment and wished he would disappear, because Jeffery also displayed a plump plus one, whose chicken-soup smile, white tank, and beige shorts did little to conceal the baby bump—big enough to predate their divorce.
To make matters worse, when she opened her eyes, the newlyweds were holding hands and looking happy. Really happy. Like “we just had sex where the headboard slammed into the wall and shattered the Sheetrock…oh, and we’re having a baby” happy.
The baby that Lexi had begged for, the same baby that Jeffery had said he wasn’t ready to have. He had failed to mention the “with her” part. Which was fine, since she still wanted a baby but not with him—not anymore. Now, though, seeing him happily married and happily expecting while happily running a successful restaurant made her want to cry. Not that she let him know that. So Lexi went for happy too, she really did, but it came out more constipated than congratulatory.
She tried again and failed.
She’d known that she would run into the new Mr. and Mrs. Balldinger at some point. It wasn’t as though St. Helena was a sprawling metropolis or that she thought Jeffery would never come back to visit his parents. She had just hoped that their first run-in would be later—like after she had won her first Michelin star, found Mr. Perfect, and had her own litter of perfect kids running around.
Even more perfect was that just on the other side of the window, her frosted bun peeking through the curved center of the C in Pricilla’s Patisserie, was Nora Kincaid, with her lips flapping and cell phone clutched in her fist. And since Jeffery had on shoes and a shirt, Lexi couldn’t refuse him service.
Proud that the phrase rat bastard didn’t come out, she settled on a cordial, “What can I get you?”
“How about a hug?” Jeffery asked, his arms out wide. More accurately, his right arm, since his left hand was shoved into Sara’s back pocket.
“Sorry, we’re all out of that,” she said, her anger rising with every second he stood there smiling blissfully. Yeah, it was a free country, and yeah, he grew up here too. But she’d given him Pairing and New York so that she wouldn’t have to watch the man she’d once loved lov
e someone else. “But we are having a special on eat shit and die.”
Sara went white.
Jeffery gasped.
And Lexi, remembering Mrs. Kincaid and her phone’s uploading capabilities, forced a smile as sugary as the cream puffs in her hand before she slid the tray onto the middle shelf of the display case. The counter created a solid barrier between them, which was a good thing, since her hands were itching to reach for her straw and tissue paper—or maybe a rolling pin. “Two for one, actually.”
“I’m sorry…about everything,” Sara stammered, her face flushed with humiliation, and Lexi believed her. Not that it mattered. She was over Jeffery, over the affair and the hurt and the embarrassment, but what she wasn’t over was the way her ex kept inserting himself into her life as though he still had that right. She had a dinner to cater; she didn’t have time for his games.
Lexi grabbed two cream puffs, dumped them in a bag, and set them on the counter. “On the house. Now leave.”
Sara tugged on Jeffery’s arm. “Let’s just go.”
“Fine,” Jeffery drawled, as though Lexi was being overly dramatic and problematic. “I just wanted to give you this.” He gave Sara’s tush a parting pat and walked to the counter. Pulling out a document, he extended it toward Lexi.
“What’s that?” she asked, eyeing the paper and shoving her hands in her apron pockets.
When she didn’t reach for it, Jeffery slid it across the counter. “This is a friendly reminder that all recipes served at Pairing are property of Pairing and that you can’t serve them here or anywhere else, for that matter.”
There was nothing friendly about his tone, or the way her knee begged to greet him properly.
“I haven’t served anything from Pairing. I have a new menu. A better menu.”
“Great, then make sure Pricilla understands the terms of the ruling. You have until Monday to remove these items from your bakery menu.”
At his final words, Lexi’s heart dropped in conjunction with her eyes and she took in the list. It was a printed-out e-mail, sent to Jeffery from a third party, displaying a list of required items. It included her grandmother’s burnt-almond cake, her peppermint bark, Rocky Road truffles, chocolate-or-bust bonbons, and her great-grandmother’s éclairs, among others.