He was too young to settle down, he silently insisted.
He had his whole life in front of him and all the time in the world to be a good, dedicated husband if that was in the cards for him down the road. Way down the road, he emphasized. But not now. Definitely not now.
Making up his mind that having other women run interference for him was the way to go, Marcos nodded to himself, pleased.
He took a cleansing breath. No time like the present to put his plan into action.
Marcos pulled open the middle drawer in his desk. Rummaging around, he shifted several handfuls of loose papers until he located what he was looking for: his personal BlackBerry. It was an electronic version of what men had once referred to as their “little black book.” Powering up the device, he began to review the names.
He was searching for just the right girl—not to turn him on, but to turn Wendy off. If he couldn’t accomplish that, he had an uneasy feeling that he was going to be in trouble. Serious trouble.
A man could remain strong only for so long.
Wendy came through the kitchen’s swinging double doors, making her way into the restaurant’s main dining area.
The sound of high-pitched, feminine laughter seemed to rise above the usual din of blending voices. She didn’t even have to look to see where it was coming from. The sound grated on her nerves.
Marcos was at it again. He’d brought another bimbo to Red.
It had been more than a week since she’d been out here, waiting tables. To her surprise, she discovered that as much as she liked creating desserts and feeling the sense of accomplishment that came from having done something new and different, she’d missed interacting with the customers.
She liked people, genuinely liked them. Liked talking to them. She enjoyed the diversity she encountered on a daily basis. The people who lived in and around Red Rock mingled in with tourists as easily as cards being shuffled at a poker table.
This, Wendy had already decided, was the year of her self-discovery.
Her parents had been right after all.
Who knew? she thought with a grin.
Her parents, now that she thought about it, seemed to be growing smarter with every year that she grew older. Also a revelation, Wendy thought, amused.
Stopping at a table with a party of four who had recently been seated, she took out her electronic pad. Greeting them brightly and asking if they’d had enough time to decide what to order, she abruptly stopped when another burst of annoying laughter rose above the din.
Doing her best not to frown, she broke down and looked in the general direction it was coming from. She wanted to see who Marcos had brought with him this time. So far, it had never been the same girl twice.
Scanning the room quickly, she thought she saw the woman responsible. And then she saw why the woman was laughing the way she was. Marcos was leaning in to nuzzle the woman’s neck ever so lightly.
Wendy almost dropped the electronic pad she was holding.
One of the customers was talking to her but she only heard a faint, indistinguishable buzzing sound in her ears. It was completely drowned out by the laughter coming from Marcos’s companion.
If she hadn’t known better, Wendy would have said that her heart was constricting in her chest. She’d thought that kiss had meant something to him—the way it had to her.
Damn him, anyway.
Chapter Ten
Technically, she shouldn’t have been so surprised. After all, this wasn’t the first time that Marcos had turned up at Red with a date. In the last week or so, there’d been several times now when he’d left earlier than had been his custom, only to return with some fetching, over-made-up, under-clothed eye candy draped all over his arm.
While Wendy had grown used to his mingling with the customers, seeing him squiring around a variety of women still caught her off guard.
But this time around was even worse than usual.
This was the first time that she’d seen Marcos being really affectionate with his date. While she knew that the restaurant manager wasn’t exactly a practicing monk or celibate by any stretch of the imagination, she did think of him as someone who behaved with decorum.
More to the point, she thought of him as someone who had too much class to behave like some wet-behind-the-ears, hormones-in-a-fever-pitch adolescent.
Maybe, she thought darkly, she’d been giving Marcos too much credit.
But in the kitchen that morning when she’d kissed him, she’d seen him struggling to keep her at arm’s length, or at least fighting the urges she clearly saw in his eyes.
She refused to believe that the reason he hadn’t kissed her first was because he hadn’t found her that attractive. He certainly hadn’t kissed her back like someone who was phoning in his response.
Damn it, she knew he was drawn to her, attracted to her. So what was all this different-girl-every-night thing all about?
Was he trying to impress her?
No, there was no need for that. He knew he didn’t have to impress her. He had to know that she liked him. So why—?
All she could think was that he wanted to make her back off.
She could think of only two reasons why a man would do something like that. He wasn’t that into her, which she’d already discounted, or he was too into her and that scared him.
Her eyes widened as the idea registered. Marcos was into her. Really into her.
Wow.
“Um, miss?” The man closest to her left at the table she was presently waiting on was hesitantly trying to get her attention. “I think we’re ready for those appetizers now.”
Coming to, Wendy flashed him an extra-wide smile. “Yes, of course you are.” She looked around at the rest of the six people seated at the table. “And just because you’ve all been so patient, the appetizers’ll be on the house,” she promised.
She had no problem making a pledge like that. The money to pay for the appetizers would be coming out of her own pocket. It was the least she could do for allowing herself to get so distracted.
Wendy glanced down at the electronic tablet she’d almost dropped, checking the notations she’d made on it. There were six different drinks listed.
“Jason will be right by with your drinks,” she told them. The next moment, she turned on her heel and was heading toward Marcos’s table.
He wasn’t sitting in her station. She doubted if that was just an accident. Wendy nearly collided with Miranda, the waitress whose table it actually was. Cutting the raven-haired woman off, Wendy half turned her body toward Miranda’s and said in a low voice, “I’ll pay you if you let me take this one.”
Miranda looked from the occupants of the table to Wendy. A knowing look came into her dark eyes. “How much?”
Wendy slipped her hand into her skirt pocket and produced a bill. “Twenty.”
The other waitress plucked the bill from her fingers, happily surrendering the table.
“They’re all yours, honey.”
As Miranda backed away, Wendy squared her shoulders, then crossed the last few steps to the table where Marcos sat with his latest date, a petite, brassy blonde who looked as if she subsisted on less than a tablespoon of birdseed a day.
The woman, in Wendy’s estimation, was seriously thin and appeared to be almost all angles. She would have pegged Marcos as the type who liked a few curves on his women. Wendy couldn’t help wondering if his date was even capable of casting a shadow.
“Good evening,” Wendy greeted them with a cheerfulness that was almost overwhelming. Addressing Marcos’s date, she made her introduction. “My name’s Wendy, and I’ll be your server tonight.” Looking from the woman to Marcos, she asked, “You two decided what you want? I mean, from the menu?” she deliberately clarified with a barely hidden smirk. “It’s pretty clear what you want off the menu.” She punctuated that with a wink aimed at Marcos’s companion.
The woman looked a little offended, then smiled and deliberately slipped her hand over
his on the table. It was a blatant display of territorial rights that wasn’t lost on Wendy.
Marcos did his best to defuse the moment. He didn’t want a scene playing out in his restaurant.
“You’ll have to forgive Wendy,” he said to his date. “She’s got this condition that makes her say the first thing that pops into her head.” Turning to Wendy, he curtly introduced his date. “This is Leila.”
Closing the menu, he took the liberty of ordering for both of them. The look in his eyes as he handed the menu back to Wendy warned her to back off.
Wendy dutifully made the notations, then looked up at him. “Sure that’s not too much for your lovely date?” she asked sweetly. “She doesn’t look like someone accustomed to eating very much.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Leila assured her with a smile Wendy could only describe as self-satisfied. The woman slanted a look at Marcos. “I’ve got a really big appetite.”
“Lucky for Marcos,” Wendy replied serenely, not rising to the bait. She retired her stylus as she continued looking at the woman. “I’ll be back with your drinks before you can count to ten. If you can count to ten,” she added under her breath.
“Are you going to let her talk to me like that?” Leila demanded, incensed.
As anger blazed in Marcos’s eyes, Wendy retreated with the order.
“Are you looking to get fired?” Eva hissed at her as the other waitress followed her back to the restaurant’s bar.
Wendy placed Marcos’s order on the counter in front of the bartender, a physical-education student in his last year of graduate studies. For a student, he had exceptionally fast hands. The drinks were ready in a heartbeat.
“No, why?” she said to Eva.
“Don’t give me that,” Eva said impatiently. “You know you just can’t go insulting the boss’s date like that.”
“Watch me,” Wendy countered serenely, then, because this was Eva and Wendy really liked her, she added, “Anyone who dates a woman like that deserves what he gets.”
Eva put her hand on her shoulder, silently stopping her. “Wendy, I like you. We all like you,” she emphasized. “Nobody here wants to see you get fired. Trust me, that bimbo isn’t worth it. Pretend it’s just another table,” she counseled, despairing that her advice was falling on deaf ears. “What are you doing waiting on them, anyway? That’s Miranda’s station.”
Wendy shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “I gave her a twenty for it.”
Eva pressed her lips together. Then, hunting through her pockets, she came up with three fives and five singles. She held the money out to Wendy. “Here’s twenty. You’re even now. Give the table back to Miranda,” Eva coaxed her.
Confusion lifted as Eva’s motivation dawned on her. “You really don’t want to see me get into trouble, do you?” Wendy realized out loud.
Eva refrained from uttering the all-encompassing “duh,” and instead told her, “That’s what I’ve been saying.”
No one had ever really cared about her that way before. No one had ever been willing to part with their hard-earned money in order to protect her. Twenty dollars in her world meant nothing. But she knew that in Eva’s world, it meant something important. It meant money for diapers and formula.
Touched, Wendy pressed the money back into Eva’s hand. “Keep your money, Eva. I’ll be good,” she promised.
“You’re already good,” Eva contradicted. “I want you to behave.”
Wendy laughed. “Okay, that, too.” And then, as the bartender placed the two drinks on a tray before her, she held up two fingers in a solemn pledge. “Girl Scout’s honor.”
Eva eyed her a little skeptically. “You were a Girl Scout?”
“In my heart,” Wendy assured her. “I was a Girl Scout in my heart.”
Eva sighed, taking what she could get. “That’ll have to do, I guess.”
Wendy had absolutely every intention of honoring her promise to Eva, she really did. And, as she returned to bring the drinks and then the appetizers to Marcos’s table, she struggled—and succeeded—in holding her tongue.
Her tongue remained immobile as Marcos’s date became more and more glib, tossing what Wendy was sure Leila thought were witty remarks and crushing salvos at her with reckless abandon.
But when she returned to Marcos’s table for a fourth time, bringing them two servings of dessert—the dessert she had carefully created just this morning, Wendy had had just about all she could take from Marcos’s companion of the night.
The beginning of the end was when Leila wrinkled her nose after taking just the tiniest taste of the dessert that had been placed before her.
“What is this?” Leila wanted to know. She shivered in an exaggerated fashion as if she’d just been doused with a bucket of cold water.
“That’s the special of the day,” Marcos told her when Wendy made no response to the question. He slanted a nervous glance toward Wendy.
Maybe coming to Red with Leila was a bad idea, he thought.
Plucking the colorful napkin off her lap, Leila applied it to her tongue, rubbing hard as if to wipe away any trace of the dessert.
“Nothing special about this,” she announced callously. “It tastes like soap.” To underline her displeasure, Leila drained the glass of water beside her plate, as if she was trying to wash the offending taste away from her mouth.
The dessert he had consumed had been nothing short of perfection garnished with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. For a second, Marcos stared at Leila, completely mystified.
Then, suspicion crept in. Marcos decided to sample her serving.
When he did, his reaction was immediate and intense. His eyes darted toward Wendy. The waitress couldn’t have looked more innocent than if she’d been born five minutes ago.
Like he believed that.
Why was she sabotaging her own dessert?
Unless—
He dismissed the thought. She couldn’t have been that brazen. Why not? You were.
He pushed Leila’s dessert away. “You’re right, it doesn’t taste quite right.”
He felt it best to be vague and evasive about the matter. His first allegiance and duty was to Red, to protect the restaurant’s reputation at all costs. He couldn’t come right out and give voice to his suspicions—that soap had actually been used instead of whipped cream.
“Bring her another,” he instructed Wendy sternly. There was not so much as a hint of humor in Marcos’s demeanor.
She could see by the look in his eyes that he was taking the bimbo’s side against her. Fine, if that was the way he wanted to play it, he deserved the taste-bud-dead airhead.
“That’s going to take a little while, Mr. Mendoza,” she informed him stiffly. “I’m afraid that was the last one.”
“That’s okay, I didn’t want dessert, anyway,” Leila told Marcos. And then she smiled up at him seductively. “What do I need dessert for when I’ve got you? But I would like some more water to get the rest of that awful taste out of my mouth.” She tilted the empty glass for his benefit.
For two cents…
Wendy banked down the hot response that rose to her lips. Instead, she forced a frozen smile to her lips as she acquiesced.
“Of course. Right away,” she promised with mocking cheerfulness.
Pausing to retrieve a clear pitcher filled to the brim with ice-cold water, Wendy headed back to their table in a flash. But just before she reached it, she suddenly tripped on a fork that had mysteriously appeared on the floor out of nowhere. Wendy managed to steady herself at the very last moment.
Even so, the incident was not without its casualties. The split-second stumble was enough to send a wave of water sailing out of the pitcher. And just like that, Leila was completely christened from head to toe with the icy water.
The woman’s reaction was immediate and dramatic. Leila shrieked in abject horror and instantly jumped to her feet, her hand spread over her ample chest. “I’m all wet,” she declared.
Mar
cos gave Wendy a dark look that told her she had just crossed the line. “I’ll talk to you when I get back,” he told her in a low, even voice that gave away nothing.
For appearances’ sake, Wendy did try her best to attempt to dry the young woman off. Leila refused to accept any help from a woman she was convinced had tried to first poison her and then drown her. She angrily pushed away Wendy’s hand and the cloth she was holding.
“Get away from me!” she said hotly.
By now Marcos was acutely aware that everyone in the dining area was looking at them, taking this all in. Leila was making a scene. He couldn’t have that.
Very politely, he put his hand under her arm and took charge. Picking up her purse, he tucked it into her other hand.
“I’ll take you home, Leila. You need to get out of those wet clothes.”
She stopped wailing so abruptly it was as if she was a radio being turned off. The smile that came in the tirade’s wake didn’t require a person with a genius IQ to decipher.
“I most certainly do,” Leila agreed, her eyes already devouring him. “Let’s go, Marcos,” she purred, shooting a victorious look at Wendy as he led her away.
Wendy frowned as she watched them leave the main dining area. The busboy, Antonio, arrived and swiftly began to clean up the mess. He’d brought a new tablecloth to take the place of the wet one. Wendy moved to help Antonio set up a fresh table. “What could Marcos possibly see in her?” she wanted to know.
Amused, the busboy looked from the departing couple to Wendy. “I really don’t think it’s her mind he’s interested in.”
Wendy’s frown deepened. “Yes, I know,” she answered darkly.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re a lot prettier, Wendy,” the teenager told her. “If I was Mr. Mendoza and you were around, I wouldn’t look at anyone else.”
Wendy smiled at him. “You’re very sweet.” Too bad Marcos didn’t think that way, she silently lamented. Bodily attraction notwithstanding, what could the man possibly see in that dreadful Leila woman? “Thank you.”
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