And for the first time, I’m not the one who comes first.
Liam and I finish at the exact same time, with him letting out a sharp breath over my shoulder, gritting his teeth as he joins me a million miles over the edge.
Slowly pulling out of me, Liam sets my feet back down onto the floor.
“Have fun getting ready for the afterparty now,” he says, cradling my naked hips against his.
Oh, right, the afterparty. For the second time since Liam stepped into the kitchen, I forgot it was starting in a couple hours. “You, too,” I say, looking up at him, “Because I’m technically done cooking, and you still have to go back to Crave.”
Liam looks over at the clock on the oven. “Holy shit,” he says, “I have to be on the red carpet in less than two hours.”
Taking a step back, Liam reaches down to the kitchen floor and pulls his jeans back up over his hips. I stick my tongue out at him.
“Enjoy your last few hours as the trendiest restaurant in the neighborhood,” I say, “Because you’re about to get destroyed tonight.”
Liam raises his eyebrows at me, “Oh, you’re going down. Two hours, one hour, five minutes, I can out-cook you in any amount of time.”
“Famous last words,” I say, as Liam grabs his shirt from the kitchen floor and throws it on, “Have fun on the red carpet.”
Liam stops in his tracks and smirks at me. “Have fun trying to get a bunch of cooks you’ve never met before to cook specialty pizzas they’ve never heard of until a couple days ago.”
I growl at Liam, all the overwhelming need I felt for him less than a minute ago getting channeled back into anger. “What are you cooking, anyway?”
Liam grins. “Your specialty,” he says, “Ramen.”
Ugh, that actually does sound good. “Whatever,” I say, “Pizza always wins.”
“So do I,” Liam says, “So we’ll just have to see what happens.”
And with that, Liam grabs his shirt off the floor and disappears into the living room and out the front door, leaving me alone in his kitchen, which might be even more ruined for me than my dress after what just happened.
I look over at the oven clock. Ugh, speaking of my dress, I need to get over to the hotel pretty soon.
With a sigh, I head down the hall to Liam’s bedroom, where the frilly purple dress is still laid out on top of the covers, waiting for me to put it on and try and beat Liam at his own game tonight.
I slip it over my head, biting my lip as the feeling of the frilly fabric against my skin brings up all kinds of memories, memories that are amplified by the fact that my body’s still not over what he did to me just now.
Catching my reflection in the bedroom mirror, I furrow my brow, trying to look serious and not like a girl who just got her brains fucked out.
“He’s your enemy,” I say to my reflection, “He’s your worst enemy, and tonight, you’re going to destroy him.”
Then, with a deep breath, I step away from the mirror and start getting ready to head out to the hotel.
Hopefully, by the time I get there, the feeling of his lips on mine won’t be the only thing I can think about.
Chapter 19: Liam
I just added a bunch of chili oil to the spicy ramen. How spicy do you want it?
I think for a second, loosening the collar of my tuxedo a little bit.
How spicy is it now?
“I was supposed to be on the runway tonight, you know,” Anya says from the other side of the limousine, “But my agent booked another one of his clients by mistake. Her name’s also Anya.”
“Wow,” I say, tapping the back of my phone while I wait for Matt to tell me how spicy the ramen is.
“Yeah,” she says, “And then he wanted me to show up with the other Anya’s boyfriend, who’s also one of his clients, so it would start a bunch of drama and make headlines. So I just told him, ‘I can’t, I’m already showing up with this guy who owns a restaurant downtown.’”
“Yeah, that’s crazy,” I say, as my phone buzzes in my hand.
I just tried some and I’m sweating.
I bring the phone down into my lap.
Okay, that’s probably fine. How many flavors do we have left?
I look out the limousine window, and even though we’re still at least ten minutes away from the hotel, the sidewalks are already packed with people, and the traffic is insane.
Matt texts me back.
Just the miso and we’re ready to go.
Someone brings their phone up to the limousine window, snapping a picture of Anya through the tinted glass. “Don’t worry,” she says, “They can’t actually see us through the tint.”
With a shrug, I text Matt.
That’s perfect. Let me know when it’s all done. I’ll keep my phone on during the show.
“You’ll keep your phone on during the show!?” Anya says, leaning over to look at what I’m texting.
“It’s the only way I can keep in touch with the other cooks while I’m watching a fashion show,” I say.
Anya slinks back down into her seat. “Hmm. Okay, I guess that’s fine. Just try and keep the cameras off you.”
“Oh, trust me,” I say, “I will.”
The limo crawls through the standstill traffic, the crowds of people packing the sidewalk getting bigger and bigger as we get closer to the hotel. It seems like overkill for one little fashion show, especially since there’s no way all these people are getting in, but I guess there are a bunch of celebrities that come out to this. Which is fine by me, if I can get one of them to shout out Crave on their social media.
Or admit that my ramen is better than Riley’s pizza. Oh, man, that’s a long shot, but if I pulled that off, it’d be fucking amazing.
“What are you smiling about?” Anya asks.
“Oh, nothing. Just thinking about the afterparty.”
She looks amused. “It seems like you think about work a lot. Is it stressful running a restaurant?”
I laugh. “Yeah, obviously. I mean, I love it, it’s just an insane amount of work. Especially doing what we do with all the different ingredients. People will only ship stuff to us in bulk, so we have to use it up fast or eat a big loss. So even though we’ve got a full house every night and we’re getting all these catering jobs, it still doesn’t stop us from being a bad year or two away from going under.”
“That sounds horrible,” Anya says, looking out the limousine window at the crowds of people trying to peer through the tint.
“It’s really not,” I say, “It’s amazing. It’s just hard.”
“Well, like I said,” Anya says, “My uncle owns a bunch of restaurants out in Miami. Five-star restaurants in the middle of South Beach, some of the best on the east coast. And, honestly, there’s really not that much of a difference between you and them. They just have more resources to work with, thanks to my uncle backing them financially. If you wanted, I could talk to him about moving you out there and bankrolling all your expenses.”
I look at Anya like she just grew a second head. Did she seriously just make the offer that I think she did?
“Really,” she says, “That’d probably be so much easier. He could just take care of the business stuff and you could focus on the cooking. And instead of being this up-and-coming trendy restaurant trying to make a name for itself, you’d be one of the biggest restaurants in Miami right away. Plus, the money he’d give you up front just to get started would probably mean you’d never have to worry about going under ever again.”
Holy shit. I thought just catering this was our biggest win yet, and now I’m getting offered guaranteed up-front money to move out to South Beach?
Now, my first reaction is still to say fuck no. After all, I’m pretty sure Anya mentioned wanting to get into the restaurant business herself, and since it seems like everything that’s not modeling is about as interesting to her as watching grass grow, she doesn’t exactly strike me as a very good business partner.
But if she’s seriou
s about her uncle, I’m not sure she knows how amazing that offer is. It could take us years to get to that level on our own. Most restaurants never do, even really fucking good ones.
That’s assuming she’s serious, though. I’m still not convinced she is.
“When was the last time you talked to your uncle?” I ask.
“Two hours ago,” Anya says, “I already told him about you. He says a restaurant where the menu changes every night would blow up in South Beach. So with my recommendation, which you’ll get if you give me a stake in the new location to make my agent happy, all you have to do is say yes.”
I don’t even know what to say to that. But it’s not yes. Not yet, anyway. I need to have a long, long talk with Anya’s uncle first. And Matt, to make sure that he’d be okay moving out to Miami. I mean, I’m sure the waves out there would make him pretty happy.
Shit, I’m already talking myself into it. I can’t do that yet.
I wonder what the look on Riley’s face would be if I told her that, though? Fuck, she’d probably be happy about me leaving the city and open her restaurant in peace. I wouldn’t get the satisfaction of beating her fair and square, either…
“Obviously, you don’t need to decide now,” Anya says, “I mean, who wants to talk about boring business stuff right before a fashion show? I definitely don’t. I just thought I’d bring it up, and I’ll put you in touch with my uncle after the show if you’re interested. I’m assuming you are, right?”
I take a deep breath as the limo rounds a corner, bringing the hotel into view, along with the red carpet in front of it, stretching out towards me like the long tongue of some kind of hungry animal.
“Yeah,” I say, “I’m at least interested in talking to him. Get me his number.”
“I’ll text it to you,” she says, “And then, we can focus on what’s really important.”
The limo stops at the end of the red carpet, and Anya steps out through the door, smiling for the first time since I’ve met her as a hundred cameras go off in her direction. I wait a couple seconds for the next limo to pull up behind us and draw the cameras away before I get out and join her.
Focus on what’s really important, huh?
Sounds like a good idea.
I just wish I knew what that was.
Chapter 20: Riley
Riley’s Pizza Kitchen:
The OFFICIAL Restaurant of LA Fashion Week
Hmm, I was hoping the organizers would design a super fancy sign for my table, but this one is just okay. It’s got the same lettering we use on our menus and our sign out front, but I don’t think the word “OFFICIAL” is big enough. I told them to make it huge.
“Does anyone have a marker?” I ask the hotel chefs laying the mini pizzas we’ve spend the last few hours furiously cooking up out on the table.
“I do,” says one of the guys setting up the speaker system behind us, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a thin black marker.
“Thank you,” I say, taking it from him and underlining “OFFICIAL” three times with thick, bold lines before handing it back to him.
“What do you think?” One of the chefs asks as the last tray of pizzas is laid into place.
“Wait, are we done?” I ask, looking down at the table.
“Yeah, if you like the way it looks.”
I look the table up and down, letting it hit me for the first time in hours that hundreds of people are about to try my version of Mom’s old recipes for the very first time. “I love the way it looks,” I say, “So yeah, I think we’re done.”
“Alright,” the chef says, clapping his hands together as the other chefs start heading back down to the kitchen, “We’ll be back up in an hour with the rest, let us know if you run out earlier than that.”
“I will,” I say, “Thank you so much!”
As the chefs leave, I’m not exactly alone on the hotel roof, but the only other people are hard at work setting up the lights and sound for the party. Right now, the only light up here is coming from the massive, illuminated swimming pool, bathing everything in a wavy, blue-green light.
I step over to the other side of the table, looking out at the empty roof that’s minutes away from being the site of my first public appearance as a restaurant owner, something I never thought I’d be until I got that call from Sam back in New York.
And now, I’m here.
I wonder what Mom would think if she could see me right now.
This high off the ground, it feels like she’s right above me, looking down and smiling.
“What time is it?” I ask the sound guy who gave me the marker.
He checks his phone. “Five minutes until midnight. The show should be wrapping up, but it’s probably going to take people half an hour or so to get up here.”
“Gotcha,” I say, looking down at my table and making sure I have everything I need. And yeah, it all looks good.
I think I’m just a little nervous.
“Are these for the guests?”
I jump a little as I look up and see a young couple that look like they stepped off a magazine cover standing in front of the table, decked out in designer clothes that look like they could singlehandedly pay off my restaurant loan. “Um, yes! Is the show over?”
The man chuckles. “Nope, not yet. They’re really dragging out the end, so we left early.”
His wife puts a hand on her stomach and frowns. “I got hungry, and I heard there was food up here.”
“There absolutely is,” I say, gesturing down at the spread in front of me, “Homemade family recipes courtesy of Riley’s Pizza Kitchen, the official restaurant of LA Fashion Week.”
The hungry woman in the designer dress looks down at the spread, grabs a plate, and loads it up with a Greek Eggplant, a Spicy Hawaiian, and a Pepperoni Paradise.
Meanwhile, her husband looks up at me. “And you’re Riley, I presume?”
“That’s right,” I say, “My mom started the business, and I’m carrying it on.”
“Wow, these are really good, baby,” The hungry woman says, her eyes lighting up as she bites into the Spicy Hawaiian. I can’t tell if I should be flattered or if she’s just really hungry.
“Here,” she says, holding out one of her pizzas to him, “Try it. It’s not like New York pizza at all.”
“Tell me about it,” I say, “Everyone says the pizza up there is great, but whenever I tried some, all I could think about was how much I missed my Mom’s recipes. Are you two from New York?”
The guy in the tuxedo chews thoughtfully on a bite of Greek Eggplant before responding. “Yeah, we flew out here for the show. She’s a model and I provide financing for businesses in the city. But your restaurant is out here, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, “I was living in New York, and then I relocated here to reopen the business when I got approved for a loan.”
The investor takes one more bite of his pizza, really taking his time with it. “Yeah,” he says under his breath to me, his wife, or no one in particular, I can’t really tell, “I think this would really stand out.”
“Oh, look,” his wife says, tugging on his cufflinks, “They do have champagne up here. I could really use a drink to go with all this food.”
“Well, Riley,” says the investor, as his wife heads over towards the table full of champagne glasses, “It seems like you’re pretty established out here, but if you ever want to relocate back to the Big Apple, give me a call. I could set you up in midtown Manhattan and you could be serving your Mom’s recipes to hundreds of customers a day. Here’s my card.”
He holds out a business card as he leaves, I take it from him, and then he’s off to the champagne table with his wife, disappearing into the crowd of people on the roof that’s been slowly growing while we were talking.
“Wow, three whole pizzas. Congratulations, that’s already more than I thought you could give away. Meanwhile, the ramen’s not even up here yet and we’ve already handed out twenty bowls downstairs.”
<
br /> With a death glare on my face, I turn to face Liam, who’s casually leaning up against the edge of my table in a tuxedo. I’m not used to seeing Mr. T-Shirt-and-Jeans dressed up like this; the way the fancy clothes totally fail to hide how big he is makes him look like a superhero in disguise.
Or maybe a super villain. Yeah, let’s go with that.
“Okay, but how many business opportunities have you gotten? Because that guy wants to move me to midtown Manhattan.”
Liam gets a strange, distant look on his face for a second, then snaps back into his usual cocky self, a smirk forming on his face as he looks me up and down. “Nice dress.”
Instantly, my neck gets hot and my cheeks get pink. It’s been four days since we had sex for the first time, and it still only takes two words to bring every detail of it back into my mind at once. “Not now,” I whisper through my teeth.
Liam raises his eyebrows. “Not now?”
“You know what I mean,” I say, my eyes darting down to my pizzas.
“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.” Liam says, getting behind the table with me and placing his hands dangerously low on my hips. “The party’s barely started, and you’re already thinking about what’s going to happen tonight when we get back to my apartment.”
“I am not,” I say, but he’s right. If this is some kind of strategy to take my mind off of this party…well, it’s working.
“Um, so…”
Pushing myself as far away from Liam as I can, I turn to face the young model who’s stopped in front of my table.
“Are these pizzas free to take?” she asks.
“Absolutely, help yourself,” I say, “We’ve got five different flavors from Riley’s Pizza Kitchen, the official restaurant of LA Fashion Week.”
Liam snorts, and I kick him under the table.
“And if you’d rather have something a little more sophisticated,” he says, “Head on over to the other side of the roof and grab a bowl of miso ramen courtesy of Crave, the best restaurant in LA.”
Screw You, Lover: An Enemies To Lovers Romance Page 11