Sexy as Sin (Sinful, Montana Book 3)

by Rosalind James

  “Uh . . . Dave?”

  “My driver. If Dave hasn’t doubled as a bodyguard, if he isn’t my bodyguard, for that matter, I miss my guess. Dave will take her to work, and he’ll bring her home. Just tell me when. Today, and Monday, too, in case her mother sticks around. I don’t care how tough the woman is, she’s not getting through Dave. He has footy tickets now, and there could be more. There could be season tickets, for that matter. There’s a lot a man will do for season tickets.”

  “Footy tickets?” Brett was mad, or maybe his brain just worked three times faster than anybody else’s. She had a feeling it was that. “What does rugby have to do with it?”

  “Excuse me,” Brett said. “Dave’s an Aussie Rules man all the way, and the Geelong Cats are looking good this year. They made it to the prelims last season, and they could go all the way to the Grand Final this year. You may not be aware of this, but Richmond is looking rubbish. We have high hopes.”

  Willow was in the van when Azra rang, sounding breathless.

  “All right?” Willow asked.

  Azra said, “Brett must be in love with you, because Dave was at the flat fifteen minutes after you rang off with Rafe, like he’d been waiting around the corner. I had my things packed already, though, and I’m out of there. Rafe’s house, though . . . that’s the best house in the world. Why aren’t we living there?”

  “Same reason you’re not living at home. It isn’t actually the best, though.” Willow admitted it at last. “The one Brett’s hired is even better. Just as vintage and as posh, a kitchen I couldn’t have designed better if I’d done it myself—well, maybe one or two tiny changes—and views for kilometers over the hills, out to the lighthouse and beyond. Not to mention a flower garden that you could cut from for days and never scratch the surface, a pond down the hill that’s more like a lake, and a pool and spa tub I still haven’t managed to get into. We won’t show the garden to my aunt, or I’ll have her on my doorstep, telling me to find a way to stay there. We’ll both have a hard time going back to the flat, you’re right about that.” She’d packed a few of her own things herself before she’d left and thrown them into the van, preparing to hide at Brett’s and frustrate Jamila Amal beyond anything in her Chanel-covered life.

  For three days, she promised herself again. On Monday, Cinderella’s coach becomes a pumpkin, and you start solving your own problems again. It’s a pleasant break, not a change in your life’s direction. “Where are you now?” she asked.

  “At work,” Azra said. “I went in early, and the way Dave walked behind me, looking around the whole way like he was hoping for a kidnap attempt so he could use his skills . . .” That was a distinct giggle. “I’m fully protected. He’ll be back for me at five-thirty, he says. I’m in a meeting in five minutes, thank goodness, so I can’t worry about whether my mum will come here to find me. I’m calling on the work phone, because I left my mobile at home.” A deep breath. “She’ll cry, you know, if I talk to her. She’ll tell me she’ll lose me, and I’ll think about losing her forever, too, and wonder how I can possibly do it. I can’t listen, Willow. I can’t.”

  “And you don’t have to,” Willow said, putting all her firmness into it. “Turn the mobile off unless you need to call Dave or me, and turn it off again when you’re done. Tell the person at the front desk that you can’t be disturbed, and to please say you’re unavailable. Six months from now, when you’re in the new job and on your way, and your mum and dad see their ultimatum isn’t working, will they really risk losing you forever to get their way? Your mum won’t. I heard her. And if you find you can’t do it,” she decided to add, “or if the job and being on your own isn’t what you want after all, you can change your mind, you know. You can still go home, and, yes, they’ll take you back again. And before you say it—I don’t care what your father says. If your mum doesn’t run his heart and his home and his life, call me surprised. That is a woman who rules her world. You don’t get that battle command from nowhere.”

  A long silence, and Azra said, “Yes. She does.”

  Willow smiled. “Thought so. Trust your mum to find a way, if you show her you mean it.”

  “She’ll hate you, you realize,” Azra said, getting some laughter in her voice at last. “It’ll be all your fault. Quite possibly a lesbian, or a prostitute after all. The cooking’s your clever front, that’s all.”

  “Lesbian prostitute,” Willow agreed. “Pity I’d be hopeless at either. Destined to live with and never marry that bloke in the burger shop, though, because I let him catch me with his dirty hands and persuaded him not to throw me back. I won’t be able to get him to put a ring on it, because I’m too old and too skinny, and then there’s my harlot past. Fortunately, I’ll still have my sad, lonely, pathetic career.”

  Azra laughed again, then said, “Got to go. Good luck today with your own problem. I should’ve asked you. I just realized I didn’t.”

  “Never mind,” Willow said. “I’ve got it.”

  She’d finished the conversation in the carpark of the Habitat development. Now, she jumped out of the van before she lost her nerve, headed to the apartment block, and rang a bell.

  Not yet nine o’clock. Amanda had to be here, or . . . or they’d have the conversation at Nourish. She wanted to have it here, though. Element of surprise.

  The door opened. Not Amanda. Tom, wearing a black T-shirt and black-and-white board shorts with a pattern of skulls, snakes, and roses, like a sad over-fifty rocker. She gave them a quick glance, then looked hurriedly up at Tom’s face again, because she was going to laugh otherwise. She’d imagined Brett wearing those board shorts, which was why she was smiling instead of the businesslike expression she’d planned on when she said, “I’ve come to see Amanda. Is she in?”

  “Of course. On the patio. She’s on the phone at the moment, though. Come in.” Willow could see that as soon as she stepped through the office space, because most of the ground floor of the modern apartment was one large, high-ceilinged room whose entire glass end wall opened onto the patio. Fortunate, as there were no other windows except the two end walls on either floor. A sleek, functional kitchen with high-end appliances was tucked into one corner, while a white sectional couch anchored the other, with a backdrop of distressed whitewashed boards that complemented the pale-gray flooring. Two bedrooms and another balcony upstairs, a study behind the kitchen, a tiny patch of garden beyond, and the beach five minutes away on your bike.

  She hadn’t been here since she and Amanda had signed the partnership agreement. When she’d complimented her new partner on the sleek apartment, Amanda had said, “That’s what a lifetime of hard work will earn you. Keep it up, and you’ll get there, too.” Which was true, so why had it sounded so patronizing? It wasn’t like caterers tended to get rich. A stylish non-beachfront apartment in a new block was an accomplishment, especially if your partner wasn’t bringing in much of the lolly.

  Tom detoured into the kitchen and asked, “Can I make you a coffee?” Which made her feel a bit guilty for her thoughts.

  “Yes, please,” she said, since Amanda was still on the phone. “A latte would be nice.”

  Tom began spooning espresso into the basket of an Italian machine and asked, “How are you going with the photography these days?”

  “I’ve been a bit busy for it,” she said, hitching her tote higher on her arm, “but I’ve managed to get some good shots lately. I did one of three rainbow lorikeets sitting on a branch that I’m a bit proud of, in fact. They look quite saucy. Comical.”

  “I’d be happy to introduce you,” Tom said, busy steaming milk. “I know most of the gallery owners. You may be able to get a trial spot that way. Personal connections always help.”

  She’d been here three minutes and was already forcing down a retort. She knew she was a better photographer than Tom. Surely that wasn’t just wishful thinking. Biting her tongue wasn’t the plan today, so she said, “Thanks, but I’m good.” After that, she headed out to the patio.

/>   Amanda had had long enough.

  She’d planned to talk this over with Brett, but somewhere between the beach and Azra’s mum, she’d changed her mind. Now, she set her latte down on the black-metal-and-glass table, took a seat in the chair to Amanda’s right, crossed her legs, and waited.

  A lift of Amanda’s perfect brows at her, and the other woman said into the phone, “I’ll work up some possible menus, Stephanie, and get back to you, shall I?” And after a minute, “I can certainly promise that, if it’s important to you. I’d be closely supervising in any case, with an event like this.” Another pause. “Of course I can guarantee it. It is still my firm, after all. And I can’t wait to have a sit-down with all of you to lay out some possibilities. I’ll be sending you some exciting new ideas as well that you’ll be the first to see. I think we can promise to be out ahead of the curve on this. I’ve just had a brainwave, in fact. I know we can put together something truly special for them. Right. I’ll give you a ring on Wednesday, then, and run down some sample menus that you and I can put in front of the bride and her mum soon. Let’s get this nailed down. How does nine Wednesday morning sound? Wonderful. We’ll speak then.”

  She pushed the button to ring off, turned to Willow, and said, “How lucky you’re here. October wedding for two hundred fifty, and the highest of high end. It’s Nick Dean, the surfer. Won the . . . the something last year, apparently.”

  “The Triple Crown,” Willow said. “Has a new contract with Rip Curl as well. Earning in the millions, I’m sure.” She’d seen the engagement ring on Dean’s Instagram, in fact. She didn’t stalk celebrity wedding news, but she did stalk the occasional surfer, and it had been hard to miss the flash. The ring had been one of those square ones with tiny diamonds set all around the solitaire to make the stone look bigger. She’d wondered if it were actually tacky, or if she was jealous.

  No, envious, according to Brett. Envy was wanting what somebody else had. She didn’t want that ring, though, and she didn’t want Nick Dean, who seemed like a nice enough bloke but didn’t have the depth that . . . some other men did, behind their watchful gray eyes. So—no. Not envious.

  “Yes, well,” Amanda said, “whoever he is, he’s booked all of Nightcap Estate for it. They’re doing it on a Sunday, to get the date. Not sure what the rush is, but if this wedding doesn’t end up costing well over seventy thousand, I miss my guess. And the bride wants ‘something modern.’ This could be very good news indeed, because nobody’s better at that than you, darling, and this would be publicity and word of mouth. If we’re going to land it, we’ll need you to put some sample menus together over the weekend, and to make them sound just as special and unique as I know the food will be. We’ll talk about it Monday, let’s say. That will give us time to tweak until we’ve got something wonderful.”

  “So that was Stephanie Oxford,” Willow said. One of Brisbane’s top wedding planners. “And she doesn’t want me involved, even in the discussion.”

  “So silly,” Amanda said, “but what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, will it? By October, this will all be a dim memory, and we’ll be laughing about it. Meanwhile, we go along with the client, because as you know, a wedding planner is never wrong, she just needs a wee nudge from time to time.”

  “Let me see if I have our schedule straight, then,” Willow said. “I’m to do most of the cooking for the three weddings this weekend, and you’ll be doing the finishing at the venues.”

  “As usual,” Amanda put in. “I did it before you came, didn’t I? Twenty years of it, in fact. We have a division of labor now, that’s all.”

  “And in between all of that,” Willow said, “I’m to come up with something spectacular enough to land a celebrity wedding. While disassociating myself from the whole thing like I’m an employee.”

  “On the other hand,” Amanda said, “if you don’t do that, we may not have a firm at all. Being in business means doing what you have to do, I’m afraid.”

  “This would be a good time, then,” Willow said, “to tell you that I’d like to replace the images on the website with my own photos, which are closer to current standard. Surely we’ll have our best shot at landing Dean’s wedding if our photos are up to par. I’d like to have somebody redo the entire site, for that matter, as soon as possible. We could look cleaner. Simpler. More up-to-date. Black and white on the homepage, maybe. Classic.”

  Amanda looked at her, long and steadily, and Willow didn’t drop her gaze. She’d bought in. She was an owner.

  “I’m going to say this once,” Amanda finally said. “I see an ego issue in you. I’d ask you to think about that honestly. There’s no individual success or glory in a partnership. There’s only the partnership. To make it work, each partner needs to be honest about her abilities, and frankly, Willow, you could use some work on that. This is a perfect example. You have no photography training. You’re a chef, and yet you think that not only should you revamp our food and take the client meetings, you should also take our photos now? And direct a website redo? Why, exactly?”

  “Because,” Willow said, attempting to focus on one issue, not everything that had risen like a tsunami at Amanda’s words, “I was speaking to a client—a very sophisticated client, used to the best—who said that our photos look second rate, and they make our food look that way, too. To use the exact words, ‘Shot from Mars, and greasy, like the food pictures on the door of a bad Chinese restaurant.’ I didn’t earn a Cordon Bleu certification so I could cook for a bad Chinese restaurant.”

  Amanda’s head jerked back. “And this sophisticated client would be who? Somebody you’re involved with, perhaps? Men don’t always tell the truth, , especially when they want something from you.”

  “This is the second time this morning,” Willow said, “that I’ve been called a prostitute. That’s some kind of record for a skinny ginger, surely.”

  Amanda sighed. “I did not call you a prostitute. I merely said—”

  “That I’m too stupid to know when a man’s trying to get something from me. Well, never mind. Brett Hunter can get something from me anytime he wants, and he knows it. He doesn’t have to say nice things about my photography, and he doesn’t have to say nice things about my food. And yet he does. Because I’m a good photographer, and I’m a better chef.” She was losing the war for containment, let alone the war for control. Pity she no longer cared. “I’m also your partner, you need my ideas and my photography to land this event, and it’s long past time for me to assert myself. I’d like the login and the password to get into the books, please. I need to know what we’re doing here. I need to know where we stand.”

  Two beats. Three. And Amanda said, “I don’t remember the current password. It fills in automatically. Anyway, Tom’s been doing most of the work on the books.”

  Willow was sitting up absolutely straight. “Then go get your laptop, please, and ask to reset it.”

  It was a staredown. Willow, though, had been raised with two tough Aussie blokes and an uncle who, rumor held, chewed on iron filings instead of gum. Amanda must not have had her advantages, because she blinked first.

  “Fine,” she said. “One minute.”

  It was more like five, and Willow stared out across the tiny patch of garden toward where the sea would be, if she could see it, didn’t drink her coffee, and listened. She could hear Amanda’s voice in there, back in the office, probably, talking to Tom. Sharp as a chef’s knife.

  When Amanda came back, she was holding a slip of paper that she set on the table. Willow didn’t pick it up. Instead, she pulled her book out of her tote, removed the rubber band holding it together, flipped the cover open, and said, “Read it out to me, please, and I’ll write it where I’ll be able to find it.”

  “Login NourishCatering,” Amanda said, her voice clipped. “All one word. Password IDoItB3++3r. I Do It all one word, with capitals, no word spaces, then Better. Capital B. Number Three. Plus plus. Number Three. Lower-case r.”

  That was the secret
password? Willow nearly laughed, but she wrote it down, read it back, and waited until Amanda nodded. Then she closed her book, fastened the elastic around it again, and said, “I have a van full of veggies, dairy, and meat that needs to get into the cooler.”

  “Good,” Amanda said. “Don’t let me stop you, please.”

  “After that,” Willow went on, “I can start working on the Castle-DeAnza wedding for tomorrow, and wait for you to join me. Or I can . . . not.”

  “I have no idea what you’re saying.” Amanda was holding herself rigid.

  “Let me be clearer, then.” This was it. Willow put both palms down flat on the glass table, but she didn’t look at her hands. She looked at Amanda. Time to be a redhead. “When you assure clients that I won’t cook their food, that I won’t be at their event, you’re agreeing with them that I poisoned people. That I’m not to be trusted. That’s prolonging the problem instead of putting it to rest. I won’t allow you to tell them that anymore.”

  A flush had risen into Amanda’s carefully pore-free cheeks. “Exactly who do you think you are to tell me what you’ll allow? You didn’t build this firm.”

  “I’ll tell you who I am,” Willow said. “I’m a classically trained chef who doesn’t make mistakes with food safety, and who won’t allow my partner to suggest I did. I’m a woman with less than two thousand dollars in the bank and everything I have—my capital, my reputation, and my future—tied up in this venture. But I. Will. Not. Allow it.” Her hand slapped down onto the tabletop with every word. “I’m plating the food at that wedding tomorrow. I’m going to be front and center owning those recipes I developed, those perfectly prepared dishes I created. And I’m going to be meeting with Stephanie Oxford, Nick Dean’s fiancée, and Nick Dean’s fiancée’s mother along with you, talking about what they’re looking for and suggesting ways we could give it to them. I’m a surfer, I’m young, and I know what’s going to make their wedding one to talk about. I’m going to match their food to their lifestyle. To her flowers and her colors. To her personality. To her day. I’m going to win that job, or I’m going to die trying.”