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Reserved for You

Page 7

by Brenda Margriet


  “You idiot.” Larrey shouted, his flabby face shuddering in rage. “What the hell do you think you were doing?”

  Paul jumped to his feet, but Calynn grasped his wrist. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Not your problem.” He tugged out of her grip, but checked his impulse to help.

  The woman rose slowly to her feet, her back to Paul, head bowed. He could see the tension in her spine, the tendons taut in her neck. A dark mark—was it a tattoo?—on the skin of her nape nudged his memory. Then she flipped the bangs out of her face, and fuchsia flashed in the black strands.

  Recognition rocked through him. The wicked fairy.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Paul had nothing to do but wait in his dressing room while the contestants prepared their dishes. Nothing to do but think of the last time he’d seen his wicked fairy.

  After she’d stamped, teetering precariously on those high heels, out of his restaurant, he had thrown her resumé in the recycling bin. Seconds later, impulse had him taking it out and studying it. She had decent experience, although not in any restaurant aspiring to the level of cuisine at Paulo’s, and she certainly didn’t have the image he insisted on. Yet he found himself filing the envelope safely in a drawer.

  Jemma Hedge. He pictured the elaborate writing on the envelope. Intricate and elegant, it didn’t match her edge-of-goth appearance.

  He wondered if she was still mad he hadn’t told her who he was. When they’d met at Granville Island, he’d been on the verge of explaining the misunderstanding, but she’d disappeared so quickly there hadn’t been time.

  How on earth had she ended up working on Reservations for Two?

  The door opened and Lainie poked her head in. “Everything okay in here?”

  “Just fine.” He rose from the couch. “Is it time to go back on set?”

  “In a minute. They’re wrapping up.” She strolled into the room and perched on the arm. “So, what are your first impressions?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “It’s pretty overwhelming, but I’ll get used to it.”

  “We have a good crew. If you have any questions, ask. Someone will be able to help you.”

  The comment gave him his opening. “I thought I recognized one of the crew earlier. The poor woman who was knocked to the floor and spilled the squid.”

  Lainie winced. “Jemma. It was her usual brand of bad luck. How do you know her?”

  “She applied for a job at Paulo’s.”

  “I didn’t know that. I’m surprised she didn’t mention it.”

  “Why would she?”

  “We’ve been friends since we were kids.” Her phone buzzed and she checked the screen. “They’re all done. Ready for your taste-testing debut?”

  “As I’ll ever be.” He followed her to the main set, doing his best to put aside all thoughts of a slender woman with amazing eyes and a penchant for black.

  The dishes were laid out on a long table set up in front of the kitchen stations. Each was labeled with a number, so Paul couldn’t know which woman had made it. He moved from dish to dish, sampling spoonfuls of each offering, as the women waited restlessly in two rows to his right.

  Calynn stood at his left shoulder. “Care to share your first thoughts?”

  He was so engrossed in the tastes and textures his nervousness vanished. He forgot about the lights, the cameras, the large, fuzzy boom mics hovering overhead. “A few of these are spectacular. I am sincerely impressed. Which makes choosing the best difficult.”

  “What about your least favourite?”

  “That is much easier to decide.” Paul pointed to Number Seven. “Unfortunately for this lady, her dish was decidedly over-spiced, and the squid cooked much too long.”

  A collective sigh whispered from the women. Calynn addressed them. “Number Seven, please step forward.” A tall, dark-haired woman moved from her position in the second row. “Laurette, your dish has been chosen least worthy. You are in danger of being eliminated from the competition.” She turned to Paul. “Which do you judge the most worthy?”

  Paul pointed at Numbers Four and Twelve. “These two are by far the tastiest. But I am especially intrigued by Number Twelve. There’s a hint of something unusual about it, and I am curious, as a chef myself, to discover what it is. I choose Number Twelve.”

  Before Calynn could invite her to do so, a deliciously curvy woman stepped out of the front row, dark eyes sparkling with triumph. “Fenella, your dish has found its way into the heart of our Chef d’Amour,” Calynn said.

  The melodramatic words made Paul grimace inside, but he approached Fenella calmly, as he had been coached to do. “Fenella.” He took her hand and kissed it, smiling over her knuckles. She grinned. “Shall we get to know each other better?”

  She tucked shoulder length blonde hair behind her ear and replied sedately. “I would like that.”

  Calynn wrapped up the show with an invitation to viewers to tune in tomorrow to join Paul and Fenella on their date. There was a beat of silence and everyone held their positions. Benedict yelled “Cut,” and the day’s taping was over.

  For the thousandth time, Jemma shoved up her sleeve. It fell down again.

  She’d found an enveloping pair of sky-blue coveralls jammed in a storage closet and exchanged them for her squid-tainted clothing. The bright colour made her feel obvious, in the spotlight, and though she rolled the cuffs of the sleeves and pant legs a number of times they kept getting in the way.

  “Not your best look.” Lainie stood in the doorway. A quiver in the corner of her mouth belied her sympathetic tone.

  “Thanks for nothing.” Maybe someday she’d see the humour in the debacle. But not yet.

  “I’m heading home. See you tomorrow. I’m sure it will be a better day.” Lainie waved and disappeared.

  “It couldn’t get much worse,” Jemma muttered. She caught a glimpse of herself in the break room mirror. The bag holding her stinking clothes dangled magically from the end of her sleeve, her fingers invisible. She couldn’t wait to have a shower, scrub off the smell of squid, and get back into the comfort of black. She closed the door and headed to the exit.

  So much for keeping a low profile. Although she couldn’t have avoided the collision. Lawrence Larrey had practically jumped in front of her. Maybe not jumped. A man of his size would have trouble breaking earth’s gravitational pull.

  At least she’d managed to keep her mouth shut during his onslaught. She’d wanted to grind a squid into his smarmy face. But knowing Paul Almeida was watching her get her ass kicked—again—held her rigid. When Larrey finished reaming her out, she deliberately tramped past Paul and Calynn, refusing to be intimidated.

  Not that he paid attention. He was deep in conversation with Calynn and hadn’t glanced her way.

  She should have been glad. So why the flare of temper when he didn’t acknowledge her?

  Pushing open the panic bar, she stepped into the moist evening air. Silver-edged clouds scudded across a watery moon, mirrored in puddles scattered over the parking lot pavement.

  Her whole body throbbed. Serving in a restaurant was hard work, but she rarely had to suffer through twelve-hour shifts, as she had today. Her left butt cheek twinged from where she’d crashed to the floor, and sharp pains shot from her elbow to her shoulder as she swapped her bag from one arm to the other. She would find bruises tomorrow.

  Few vehicles remained, as most of the cast and crew fled as soon as the cameras stopped recording. Jemma had been ordered to dispose of the squid dishes the contestants made. Thank God a cleaning staff came in to scrub the kitchen. Thirteen chefs made a major mess.

  Yanking up the drooping pants of her coveralls with one hand, she jammed the other deep in her pocket, searching for her car keys. The ancient Civic was Miriam’s. Henry had talked about replacing it, but after he died that hadn’t been an option. She and Miriam hardly used it, and once in a while, when money was especially tight, they considered selling it. But Miriam enjoyed getting out of the city for w
andering drives, and Jemma liked knowing it was available in case of an emergency, so she squeezed the lowest possible insurance premium into the budget. She was even more thankful to have it now. The sound stage was in an awkward location for public transit, and Lainie had hinted Jemma might need a vehicle to run errands. She had almost bitten through her cheek the first few times she’d driven. Thank goodness traffic would be light on her way home tonight.

  She slid the key in the ignition and turned it. Nothing. Just a quiet clicking noise.

  “Come on, Greta, you can do it.” She released the key and tried again. Same thing.

  “Not tonight, dammit. I can’t deal with this tonight.”

  Jemma pumped the gas, twisted the key, over and over.

  Still nothing.

  A broken car meant repair bills. Repair bills meant money. Money she didn’t have. She needed the car so she could earn money to pay the repair bills to fix the car so she could work.

  “Dammit, Greta.” She flung the door open and rocketed out. Circling the defunct carcass, she vented her frustration, about the car, about the whole day. Inventive curses blued the air about her, and muted bongs echoed through the lot as she pounded on the roof.

  Taking an especially vicious kick at an innocent tire, she stumbled over a pant leg and landed flat on her back. Panting heavily, she stared at the light polluted sky.

  Until the silhouette of a man’s head blocked her view.

  “Do you need help?” Paul Almeida asked politely. She closed her eyes.

  Paul studied her as she lay on the ground. Her chest heaved and she breathed strongly through her nose. She was so slender, those absurd coveralls looked empty, as if someone had discarded them on the ground. Her pale face glowed against the dark, wet pavement.

  “Are you hurt?”

  She started as if she’d forgotten he was there. “Go away.” Or hoped he’d left.

  “Is something wrong with your car?”

  Her eyes popped open. “No. I always dance and shout and punch it before I drive. It’s my personal ritual.”

  He grinned.

  “Here, let me help you.” He held out a hand.

  She rolled to her knees and straightened up, using the action to distance herself from him. With the limp ends of the sleeves, which had unrolled to cover her hands, she swept gravel off her knees. He didn’t mention the dark patches staining her butt and shoulders.

  “So we meet again.”

  She glared at him bitterly. “Yes.”

  He decided to mention the elephant in the parking lot. “Look, I’m sorry about not giving you a job. But things seem to have worked out for you. Can we pretend we never met, and start over?” He held out his hand once more. “I’m Paul Almeida.”

  She ignored his hand yet again. “Yes, that’s right. You’re Paul Almeida...the Chef d’Amour.” She sneered at the title. “You’re the handsome piece of meat on a ridiculous reality show.”

  Maybe if he didn’t agree with her, at least a little bit, her contempt wouldn’t sting so badly. “You’re working for that ridiculous reality show, too,” he said pointedly.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t believe I’m going to find love on it.”

  Another shot, another bulls-eye. Neither did he, and he still felt like he was cheating because of it. “That’s not why I’m doing it.”

  She rolled up her sleeve with jerky movements, head lowered, face in shadow. “Of course not. You’re doing it out of the goodness of your heart.”

  Paul threw up his hands. “What the hell’s your problem? All I did was offer to help.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  He gave up. “Fine. Have a nice night.” He spun away and strode to his Murano.

  So much for attempting to be a white knight. Jemma was no damsel in distress. She was too bitchy to be a damsel.

  He shifted his SUV into Reverse. Through the side window he saw her, spotlit by an orange vapour lamp, the area around her charcoal dark. He kept his foot pressed on the brake. She slammed the driver’s door and stalked off, a plastic bag swinging at her side, the legs of those preposterous coveralls dragging.

  She passed through the security gate and turned right.

  “Dammit,” he groaned.

  He waited for the guard to raise the yellow barricade and turned after her. For such a short person she covered the ground quickly.

  Letting the SUV idle slowly, he matched her pace. He lowered the passenger window. Cool evening air swirled in, along with the hint of squid. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She refused to look at him. “I’m going to the bus stop.”

  The sound stage was in an industrial zone, filled with enormous warehouses, and she had a long way before she reached the main road. “Why not go to the office? If you won’t take my help, fine, but someone else would give you a hand.”

  She snorted. “The perfect ending to a not so perfect day. I made a fool of myself once tonight. The last thing I need to do is look even more incompetent.”

  He rolled a few metres in silence. He should let her be, let her handle it her own way. He couldn’t. “Let me give you a ride.”

  She kept marching. “I can’t. Even if I wanted to, I can’t.”

  “What do you mean, can’t?”

  “It’s against the rules for cast and crew to fraternize.”

  He laughed. “This isn’t fraternizing. This is me trying to be a decent human being.”

  “I’m going to catch a bus. If you weren’t here, that’s what I’d have to do anyway.”

  “Would you rather call a friend? I have a cell phone you can borrow if you want.”

  “I have my own, thank you very much.” She hissed the words. “And if there was someone I could call I would.” She must have realized how pathetic that sounded, and waved a hand to bat the words away. “I mean, I don’t want to bother anyone this late.”

  He glanced at the dashboard clock. It ticked over to 9:14. “This is stupid. I’ll drive you home. It’s not far out of my way.” Which was a white lie, but she’d never get in if she knew the truth.

  She halted abruptly. He hit the brakes, jerking the vehicle to a stop. She leaned in the window. “How do you know where I live?” Suspicion narrowed her eyes.

  “From your resumé.”

  Her eyes widened. “You read it? Why? Since you were pretty certain you wouldn’t hire me.”

  He exhaled. “Does it matter why I read it?” A transport truck rumbled past, the single sign of life he’d seen since leaving the parking lot. “If you don’t get in, this is what’s going to happen. I’m going to follow you to the bus stop, and wait until it comes. Then I’m going to follow the bus until you get off, and keep watching until you go in your apartment.”

  “I don’t need a keeper.”

  “Of course not. But I am not leaving you here alone.” He shoved open the door. She stepped back to avoid getting smacked. “Get in, dammit.”

  Jemma hesitated a moment longer, then warily climbed in. The SUV smelled of spices and leather and Paul. She hadn’t noticed before, but he carried with him the scent of baked bread, red wine, and comfort. She shook her head. How could someone smell like comfort?

  Whatever it was, he smelled better than she did at the moment.

  Her reluctance to accept his offer had nothing to do with him as a person. Not really. It was simply he’d been present during three of the worst moments in her recent history. She couldn’t bear to think of what karma might do to her now she was seated inches from him, in a rapidly moving vehicle.

  “You can’t let anyone at work know about this.”

  He merged onto the main road. “Me, giving you a ride home.”

  “I told you. I am absolutely not allowed to have any sort of relationship with you, or Calynn, or any of the contestants. I could lose my job.”

  “I’m pretty sure you can’t get fired for accepting a ride because your car broke down.” They sped onto the Knight Street Bridge, the lights overhead flick
ering, strobing. “What exactly was wrong with it?”

  “It wouldn’t start. It kept making this weird ticking noise.”

  He responded with a soft grunt. She waited. When nothing more was forthcoming, she said, “What do you think it is?”

  “Not a clue. Ask me to make a Toulouse cassoulet from memory, I’m your man. Anything to do with gears and pistons and watchamacallits...” He shrugged.

  They traveled on in silence. Damp seeped through the material under her butt and on her back. Great. She was leaving wet spots on his leather seat.

  Paul drove through the late evening traffic instinctively, his attention inescapably drawn to the woman sitting on the seat beside him. Her fierce streak of stubbornness amused him, teased him. He wondered idly how strict the “no fraternizing with crew” rule really was.

  Slowly the jangling tension emanating from her slim form eased. It was a pity he had to break the calming quiet.

  “We’re coming to your street. Do I turn left or right?”

  She answered brusquely. “Right. It’s the second apartment block on the left.”

  There was nowhere to park, but traffic was sparse, so he pulled up across from the entrance and punched on his four-way flashers.

  Jemma had the door open before the wheels stopped turning.

  “Thanks for the ride.” She hopped out. “You’ll understand if I don’t say hi at work.” She shut the door and scooted around the front of the SUV.

  Paul called through the window. “Good night, Jemma.” He waited as she unlocked the glass door fronting the building and disappeared inside.

  The car seemed oddly empty without her prickly presence, but the smell of squid kept him company the rest of the way home.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The next morning, Jemma was up before Miriam. Leaving her grandmother sleeping peacefully, she grabbed her laptop and headed for the coffee shop. It was the first Date Day for Paul and his chosen partner. They were going on a whale-watching tour, and Jemma needed to be at the Steveston Pier by one-thirty. But first she had to figure out how to get there.

 

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