Harlequin Desire June 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Katherine Garbera

  Never.

  But failure had taught her well. Spending profits and not saving them for possible bad times ahead had been so very foolish. Never again, she promised herself.

  And, if she were honest, even the strict nature of Cress, INC. had taught her something. About efficiency, marketing, low turnover, and the need for a team outside of making great meals, for a restaurant to thrive.

  Her dread resurfaced as she eyed the towering restaurant at the end of the pier. The spacious parking lot was empty, save the section set aside in the rear for employees. She rolled her eyes at the sight of Clark’s yellow vintage Mercedes-Benz parked in his spot next to her empty one.

  Her hand stroked the envelope again.

  She had been diligent in paying down her debt and even had some money saved. All would not be lost if she used the six months of experience and took it to another restaurant or tried again at opening her own.

  The last thought slowed her steps just as she reached the rear door leading directly into the kitchen.

  Am I better prepared this time?

  She sighed.

  That, she didn’t know. But what she was sure of was the feeling that she was missing out on so much by sticking it out in San Francisco. Her man. Her family. Her creative freedom.

  It was not just the structure and conformity she disdained. Not being in New York with Cole and her family felt like a waste when she was so unhappy without them.

  But what about my dreams?

  Her grandmother had longed to teach. She had done so until she’d reached retirement age.

  Her mother had yearned to marry her “Bear” and have a child. She had. Devoted herself to it. She hadn’t gone to work until Jillian had graduated high school. Now she worked as a clerk at the county courthouse, but marriage and motherhood had been her everything.

  Her father’s love of cars was bred from childhood and now he was an auto mechanic for a dealership. Another dream realized.

  Cole threw his all into everything. Be it his love of motorcycles, his food truck, or now a desire to succeed at his position at Cress, INC.

  If I run home to them while they have lived their dreams, am I giving up too easily on my own?

  Jillian turned and leaned against the rear of the building, looking up at the afternoon sun.

  Maybe it is time for a new dream...

  “Good afternoon, Chef.”

  She looked over and smiled at one of the waiters walking up to the restaurant to begin his shift.

  “Afternoon,” she said just as her phone vibrated inside her pocket. She removed it and looked at the screen.

  Cole.

  She swiped to answer his call. “Bonjour Monsieur Cress. Ça fait plaisir d’avoir de tes nouvelles?” she said, trying to use the French he was teaching her to let him know it was good to hear from him.

  He chuckled. “Not bad.”

  “Considering you only taught me that and how to demand you get naked for me,” she added.

  “Say it.”

  “Rends-toi nu pour moi,” she said, enjoying seeing his handsome face smile with pride.

  “I wish I was somewhere private and then I would,” he assured her, his voice deep and delicious to her ears.

  Jillian paused in making a naughty comment at all of the bustling activity behind him. “Where are you?” she asked.

  “Checking in on the preparation for the launch party tomorrow night.” He looked back over his shoulder.

  “Oh,” she said.

  He faced his phone again. “What’s wrong?” he asked, knowing her so well.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  Not getting an invite to the event was the side effect of their secret affair. She wanted nothing more than to buy a beautifully sexy gown and attend.

  “You’re more than welcome, Jillian,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “I didn’t want to put you in a position to have to choose between having me or having your job...again.”

  She forced a smile and nodded. “But what if I chose you?” she asked.

  He looked surprised.

  “Would you have me at your side as your guest? Your date?” she asked, hating that she wasn’t sure he would.

  His face became serious. “Without question.”

  Warmth spread over her chest.

  “Then I do have a choice to make,” she said, refraining from sharing with him another sentence she was teaching herself via her phone’s translator.

  Je t’aime de tout mon cœur.

  I love you with all my heart.

  * * *

  Cole rubbed his hands together before checking his watch as he stood near the grand ballroom entrance of the luxury Manhattan hotel. He felt pride as he surveyed the crowd enjoying the lush party décor, open bar, and abundance of heavy appetizers as they listened to upbeat music and conversated. Tuxedos and sparkling gowns were in abundance. Press and peers were awaiting the new interactive website’s relaunch at midnight—a costly feat he was confident was worth every cent.

  He wiped his hand over his shadow of a beard and then smoothed his hands down the front of his dark navy tuxedo and matching shirt. He was surprised by his nervousness. Although they practiced the countdown to the launch numerous times, a flop at this point would be disappointing and embarrassing,

  “Don’t worry, you look amazing, and you know it.”

  He turned to find Barbara, a member of the Cress, INC. office staff, walking up to him with two glasses of champagne in her hands. She used to make subliminal advances to his brother Gabe before his relationship with Monica had ruled the papers once the former maid had inherited millions after the death of the famous father she had never known.

  Barbara now gave Cole the extra touch and long looks.

  In the past, he would have taken the invite and found a private space to give her the release she sought. Things were different. He was different.

  Because of Jillian.

  “No, thank you, Barbara,” he said with emphasis as he eyed the glass—and whatever else—she offered him.

  She arched a brow and shrugged a bare shoulder in her strapless dress before drinking one flute of champagne and then the other before turning and walking away.

  He was glad to see her leave him be.

  “Mr. Cress.”

  He turned to find a waiter holding a tray. A small envelope sat upon it. He knew as he reached for it that it was from Jillian.

  She’s not coming.

  “Thank you,” he said to the young server.

  He held the envelope, letting his disappointment set with him. He had wanted her there but hadn’t wanted to pressure her. His position at the door was not just to greet his guests but to ensure he saw her as soon as she stepped into the party.

  Cole recognized her handwriting on the envelope and stroked his name as he strolled away from the door. He had taken a few steps and paused. “Wait,” he said.

  How would a handwritten note from Jillian even get there if she was thousands of miles away?

  He opened the envelope and removed the note. “‘You are the sexiest man in the room. No question,’” he read aloud.

  He turned. Then he smiled.

  Jillian stood in the hall outside the ballroom, looking stunning in a chocolate cami maxi dress cut on the bias with a deep vee and thin straps. A delicate brown lace jacket, worn open, trailed behind her, perfecting framing her sultry body in the clinging silk. Her normally curly hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail; her eye makeup was dramatic and her lips were covered in a nude gloss.

  Beautiful, he mouthed, clutching her note as he walked over to her.

  As he stood before her with his heart thundering at a frenzied pace and his entire body electrified by her very presence, he would be even more a fool to deny his feelings for her. They consumed him. They p
ushed him to reach for her and pull her body to his kiss as he lowered his head and feasted of her lips. The moan he released was pure hunger.

  He broke their kiss with reluctance and looked down at her. “All your gloss is gone,” he said.

  She shrugged as she reached up to wipe the remnants of it from his mouth. “To hell with that gloss,” she said.

  “I’m feeling like to hell with this party,” he said, his inches swelling to life.

  “And miss your big moment? Never.” Jillian lifted on her heels to taste his mouth.

  “I’m having another big moment right now.” Cole looked down at his rising erection.

  “Oh, big indeed,” she said with a sassy wink.

  They laughed.

  “So, I made my choice, Cole. I chose you,” she said, pressing her hand to the side of his face.

  “Me wanting you here was never about proving anything. I just wanted you by my side. Enjoying your company. Feeling your support. Dancing with you in my arms as I celebrate. Seeing you cheer me on,” he admitted with total honesty.

  Her eyes softened.

  It struck a chord in Cole that rang loudly.

  “But my mother will not be pleased,” he said.

  “The choice is hers,” Jillian said, stepping back to open the small gold clutch hanging from her wrist.

  He looked on as she replaced her lip gloss and checked her hair in the mirror of a compact. “Ready?” he asked when she snapped it closed and dropped it back in her purse.

  She nodded.

  He extended his hand and she slid hers into his. “Did you ever think we would be walking into a gala hand in hand together?” he asked as they entered the ballroom.

  She chuckled. “Definitely not, but definitely happy to have been wrong,” she assured him.

  He raised the entwined hands and kissed the back of hers. He felt her shiver.

  She closed her lace overlay to cover her breasts. “Hard nipples,” she explained. “Don’t want to poke anyone’s eyes out.”

  He laughed.

  Her humor was entertaining.

  As he saw his parents moving toward them, he knew they would need it. “Here we go,” he warned, bending to press a kiss to her temple.

  Jillian’s height seemed to rise a bit beside him and he knew she had straightened her back. He hated someone feeling a need to prepare themselves to match his mother, but he also knew the two women in his life were about to bump heads because of the deal they’d brokered about him.

  Nicolette patted her gray-streaked blond updo as she gave them a perfect smile that was as fake as a fifty-dollar Hermès Birkin bag. “Hello, Cole. Your father and I weren’t aware you were bringing a guest,” she said.

  “I wasn’t aware that I needed to have a guest approved,” he countered in a pleasant tone.

  “Cole,” Phillip Senior warned in a gruffly stern voice.

  He eyed his father coolly. The desire to reveal his long-lost son to him dripped from his tongue. However, he refrained from the move for the love of his entire family and wanting to shield his mother still—as they awaited a new report from the private investigator.

  When Phillip returned his look with a glare, Cole stepped into the familiarity of his anger and disappointment at his father, failing at growing beyond it.

  “Needless to say. You’re fired,” Nicolette said to Jillian, her smile still in place as she looked around and waved at those whose eyes she found on them.

  Jillian stopped a waiter, picked up two glasses of champagne and handed one to his mother. She reached into her clutch and removed her cell phone.

  Cole looked on in curiosity as she dialed a number.

  “Hello, Clark? Yes, this is Jillian. I’m here with Mrs. Cress—”

  Clark? The manager of Cress III?

  “Yes, that Mrs. Cress,” Jillian said with a nod and lick of her lips. “Please confirm for her that I handed in my resignation, giving two weeks’ notice, before I left last night.”

  Cole bit back a smile, loving her even more.

  She put the phone on speaker. “Go ahead, Clark.”

  “I don’t have time for your jokes, Jillian,” he said, not believing her. “Some of us have to work.”

  “Cool. I no longer have time for you, Clark. You insufferable a-hole,” she said. “Mrs. Cress just fired me, so you need to find a replacement ASAP. That two-week window just closed.”

  She ended the call and touched her champagne glass to Nicolette’s.

  Ding.

  “Thanks so much for ending that even sooner than I thought,” Jillian said with a bright smile.

  Cole eyed his mother’s face and was afraid she was going to have a stroke as her left eye seemed to blink uncontrollably.

  “First Gabe and now you with this crap,” Phillip Senior snapped.

  “Exactly,” Nicolette agreed with coldness.

  And that pushed him to the limit. Seeing his parents judge and find Jillian unsuitable with such callousness was disturbing. So swiftly, he was reminded of the same disdain his father had expressed to Gabe when he’d first revealed that he was dating Monica.

  There are women you wed and those you bed. Know the difference. And that goes for all of you. The anger Cole had felt back then was twofold now because it was Jillian his father was insulting.

  “Jillian is the type of woman I can cherish and respect and be loyal to,” he said, his eyes daring his father to say more. “A woman worthy of nothing but good, just like any other woman...including my mother.”

  His father’s lips thinned to a line.

  Cole was thankful for Jillian’s tight grip on his hand as he was taken back to that moment the light he’d felt for his father dimmed all those years ago...

  * * *

  Cole hitched his book bag up higher on his thin shoulders as he climbed from the back of the family’s limousine in the uniform of his private school. “Thanks, Franco,” he said to their driver, who gave him a two-finger salute as he was surrounded by the loud and echoing sounds of Midtown Manhattan. Cole had boldly sneaked from home and left his brothers behind to finish their afterschool studies while he hoped to help out in the kitchen in any way during busy dinner service.

  His older brother, Phillip, was the sous chef. Sean had just finished his studies in culinary arts at Le Cordon Bleu that summer in Paris and worked there, as well. Gabe, at seventeen, had just begun culinary school and assisted in the bustling kitchen whenever he was home. Cole, at fifteen, wanted in on the action. Since they were young, their famous parents had taught them how to cook and praised them often for their skills.

  This was a bold move but anything worth savoring was worth the risk.

  Cole jogged up the concrete steps to the wide double-glass doors. He entered, barely paying attention to the towering adorned ceilings and elaborate Art Deco décor as he made his way to the kitchen.

  “Hey, Chef, it’s one of your boys,” the burly pastry chef, Victor, yelled out. “Which one are you?”

  “Coleman,” he offered as his mother walked out of her office to give him a curious blue-eyed stare.

  “I completed my homework during school so that I could help out today,” he offered, his words rushed as he walked over to her, already towering over her by a couple of inches.

  Nicolette gave him a chastising look even as she pressed a kiss to his already chiseled cheek. “Mon beau fils rebelle,” she said. My handsome and rebellious son.

  He gave her a smile that already had girls sending him longing looks.

  “Ask your father,” she said with one last soft pat to his cheek before using the back of her hand to brush her blond bangs from her face.

  He knew his mother would be easy. Up until she’d had Lucas, his little brother, he had been her undoubted favorite.

  Cole moved to the sink to wash his hands, kno
wing his father would check because his rule was to wash hands as soon as any kitchen was entered. He felt nervous as he made his way through the large, bustling kitchen to the rear hall leading upstairs to a small apartment above the restaurant that his parents used as their joint office and storage.

  He had already practiced his speech. “Dad, I finished my homework. Can I help out in the kitchen? Mom said it was up to you,” he said, coming to a stop before the closed door.

  Taking a breath and feeling confident, he reached for the knob and turned it before pushing the door open. His grip on the knob tightened as he eyed his father with his pants down around his ankles, rutting away between the open legs of some woman atop the desk.

  It was more of his father than he needed or wanted to see.

  Fueled by anger and bitter disappointment in a man who could do no wrong in his eyes, Cole rushed across the room and used both his hands to shove against his father’s side with a savage grunt that only hinted at his hurt. He backed away as they cried out and rushed apart. The expressions on the faces of his father and on whom he now saw to be one of the restaurant’s long-time waitresses were of shock.

  As they struggled to correct their clothing, Cole turned and raced down the hall, then the steps, wishing he had never dared to come to work. Or gone up the stairs. Or opened the door.

  Or had seen what he’d seen...

  * * *

  Things between them had changed at that moment.

  Cole knew a huge part of his childhood had been lost by his discovery...and in keeping his father’s betrayal a secret. “Judge not,” he warned Phillip Senior before walking away with Jillian close at his side.

  * * *

  Hours later, Jillian rolled over in Cole’s bed and found it empty. She raised her head from the pillow and looked around once her eyes adjusted to the darkness. He stood by the terrace doors, looking out at the cold, fall night, still naked. She allowed herself a lingering moment to enjoy the strong lines of his broad shoulders, defined back and buttocks before climbing from the bed. Sharing in his nudity, she crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him from behind as she pressed a kiss to his spine. He covered her arms with his own as if welcoming the comfort she gave him.