Flirting with Felicity (11 page)

Blake leaned against the counter while he watched
Felicity work in the Dolce Vita’s kitchen. She inspected each dish before
placing it in the warming window for the wait staff to pick up and deliver to
the patrons of the restaurant. He’d learned during the last two hours that
working in a kitchen was as physical as it was choreographed.

“It’s like meshing a ballet with professional basketball,”
Felicity had told him when they’d started working this evening.

She’d been right. He hadn’t worked this hard in a long time.
He was exhausted after only two hours. How did Felicity do this every night? He
pushed away from the counter and went to join her. She dressed a long, narrow
plate with five ravioli. “What kind of ravioli is this again?” he asked,
surprised that he really did want to know. He’d dined in many of the finest
restaurants around the world, and yet the way Felicity blended flavors and
textures in the dishes she served fascinated him.

“Butternut squash with cashews in a passion fruit vinaigrette
and a coconut emulsion.” She handed him a sprig of fresh sage. “Tear off the
leaves and sprinkle them across the plate.”

He did as she’d asked, but he couldn’t stop wondering about
the woman beside him. “Why did you decide to be a chef?”

“Being a chef?” Her laugh held a brittle tone. “It’s a life
that chooses you; you don’t choose it.”

Blake paused. It was the kind of answer he usually gave—the
kind that politely revealed nothing. Which made him hunger to know more. “How
much longer will the dinner rush last?” he asked as he stretched the small of
his back.

“Tired already?” she asked with an arch of her brow.

“I’d be lying if I said no.”

She grinned and took the plate from his hands and set it in
the pass-through window. “Hans?” she called to her sous-chef. “Will you take
over?”

The younger chef nodded and set down the spoon he used to
stir a large pot of marinara sauce. As Felicity stepped aside, he took her
place, inspecting the dishes that were ready to be served.

Blake followed Felicity from the kitchen. “Your sous-chef is
very obedient. All your employees are, really.”

“Sometimes,” she said absently. Then with a frown she added, “I
don’t manipulate them if that’s what you mean.” Her posture became defensive.

He raised his hands in a gesture of submission. “It was an
observation, not a comment on anything.”

She nodded, accepting his explanation, then said no more,
dismissing the subject. “Come with me, I want to show you the other side of
working in the kitchen.”

They headed into the dining room. She stopped just out of
sight of the patrons. “Watch them. This is the payoff for all our hard work.”
She smiled as her gaze moved over the crowd. Every chair in the restaurant was
filled and several more people waited in the bar area for tables to open. He
looked from table to table, watching as diners sampled their food. He saw the
plate of ravioli he had just garnished as it was delivered to a young woman in
her early thirties. She thanked the waitress, then eagerly picked up her fork
and took a bite of the handmade pasta, and groaned her pleasure. Enjoyment slid
through him like a warm, magical elixir. And something inside him unraveled.

Felicity was right. It was almost better watching them eat
than eating the food himself. “What’s next?” Blake asked.

“I thought we could talk,” she said with a soft smile.

At the soft curving of her lips, a warmth flowed through him.
A feeling of connection, camaraderie clung between them, something new and
fragile. He was loathe to let it go, but they couldn’t stand there in the dining
room forever. “Talking it is. Here?”

She shook her head. “If we stay here, we’ll be interrupted by
either the employees or the guests. How does the rooftop garden sound?”

“Great.”

Her face lit up and she smiled. “I’d like to get out of these
clothes and wash off the scent of garlic, if you don’t mind.”

“Are you asking for help with the task?”

“No.” She chuckled, the sound both nervous and surprised. “Meet
me there in twenty minutes. That is, if you still need more convincing about
why the hotel should remain in my care.”

“I’m not ready to surrender yet, if that’s what you’re
asking.”

Her smile faded along with the intimacy of the prior moments.
“Make yourself comfortable here in the lobby, or you can make your way
upstairs. I’ll join you as soon as possible, and I’ll do everything in my power
to change your mind.”

In the next heartbeat she was gone.
Make yourself comfortable?
He hadn’t been comfortable since the first moment they’d met. Something about
Felicity’s determination set him on edge, and brought out a strange protective
instinct in him that he hadn’t felt for ages. Usually he only felt need when it
came to women, but with her, he felt something more, something softer, tender.

Blake frowned and dismissed the thought, donning the mantle
he’d shaped over the years. He had a job to do, and such thoughts would not
help him achieve his goal. He was too close to getting what he wanted to let
emotions get in his way.

Felicity raced to her room and unlocked the door.
She had to shower and find something appropriate to wear. She had to change
Blake’s mind about the hotel.

Eager to return to Blake, Felicity headed for the bathroom
and turned on the shower, letting it warm up while she took off her usual
chef’s attire. She’d shown Blake what she could about the people who worked at
the restaurant and the hotel, and she’d shown him the patrons who used the
services she provided. It was time to hit him hard with the last weapon in her
arsenal. She reached for a small box beside the bed and set it on the coverlet,
hoping what was inside would do the trick.

Then, clipping her hair on top of her head so as not to get
it wet, she stepped into the water. She allowed the warm moisture to soak away
the scent of garlic as well as her doubts. Minutes later, refreshed and
certainly more awake, Felicity shut off the water. She grabbed a towel and, as
she dried herself, wondered what might be appropriate to wear.

She wasn’t trying to seduce him, yet an alluring dress might
help her cause more than a blouse and a conservative pair of pants ever could.
On that thought she stepped from the bathroom and headed to her closet. Her
choices were few. She had the black sheath dress she wore the day before, a
peach-colored sundress, or her dark blue satin wrap dress. Paired with her red
heels, the attractive yet subtle blue dress would be perfect for her cause.

Felicity set aside her towel and slipped into her bra and
panties, then her dress. After she’d tied it about her, she ran her fingers
through her dry hair, settling the platinum-blonde curls loose about her
shoulders. She scooped up the box and stepped into the hall, making her way to
the hotel’s bar for the cocktails she’d asked Ryan, her bartender, to prepare
for her.

Minutes later, armed with two peach Bellinis and with the
small box tucked under her arm, she stepped out into the warm night air in the
rooftop garden. Blake was already there. He had changed into black pants with a
perfectly pressed white shirt. He turned at her entrance, his face alight with
an appreciative smile.

Felicity found herself caught and held by the warmth in his
eyes. It would be so easy to go to him, to reach out and touch his lips, gently
trace the smile with her finger. Desire flared. She held it in check as she
moved toward him and offered him a tall champagne flute.

“What’s this?” he asked, accepting the proffered glass.

She put the small box on the table she’d set between two wicker
chairs. “A peach Bellini, Bancroft-style.”

He took a sip. “Delicious,” he said, his tone warm and
stirring as he studied her from head to toe. Desire swam in the depths of his
blue eyes.

An answering warmth flared to life deep in her core as she
took a sip of her own drink and turned her attention to the sun as it slowly
sank beneath the horizon, casting threads of orange and red over the Seattle
skyline. “There is something wonderful about a sunset,” she said more to
herself than to further their conversation.

Even though she wasn’t looking at him, she could feel Blake
slip beside her, resting his hip against the edge of the brick balcony. Felicity
continued. “Here in Seattle, the sun seems to hover at the horizon as though
waiting for something.”

She’d always loved that fact. The sun did just sit there,
especially in the summer, waiting, as the horizon turned a darker gray. With
every moment that went by, the sky deepened from gray to dark blue and finally
to black, until night was upon them. In comparison to the sun, the night had a
beauty in its own way—one of mystery and possibility.

It was the possibility that flowed through her now.

Silence settled between them, stretched as the softness of
the night descended. The solar lights that dotted the balcony came on, flooding
the area in a warm, gold light. She turned away from the balcony edge and
returned her glass to the table between the two chairs. She picked up the box
and took off the lid. Inside she removed three pictures and handed them to Blake.
“I found them in Vern’s room before you came to help me.”

Warm evening air ruffled his hair as he accepted the old
photographs. His smile faded and his voice dropped to a near whisper. “Where
did you say you got these?” His fingers trembled ever so slightly as he tried
incredibly hard to be invincible. His gaze clung to the picture of himself as a
child, posed between his mother and father at the front entrance of the hotel.
He flipped to the second picture of himself and his parents a couple of years later,
this time on the same balcony he and Felicity occupied now.

His features softened as he looked at the last one—his
mother, holding a baby in her arms. Felicity assumed it was Blake, though she
didn’t know for sure. “I don’t have many photographs of my parents. They were
put into storage somewhere after the accident. It’s been so long no one
remembers where they are.”

Felicity had read that his parents had died in a boating
accident sixteen years ago. Painful longing flitted across his features. She
knew the look. It was the same one she’d tried so hard to hide throughout her
entire childhood. She could see the twist of pain that moved through him.
Admiration flared. He’d been orphaned, abandoned by his only family, and left
to figure out life on his own. She wasn’t certain how he’d done it . . . how
he’d taken that pain and fashioned it into something he could live with. He
could have used what had happened to him and turned it into anger. Instead,
he’d turned his energy toward the environment much like she did toward the
homeless.

“My parents and I lived at the Bancroft for a time while our
house was being built on Mercer Island.”

“From the photos, it looks like those were happy times.”

He flipped back to the two of him and his parents. “They
were. My parents died shortly after this last picture was taken.” His voice was
thick, as though holding back his emotions. “I’m the reason they’re dead.”

“Why would you say that?” she asked.

A faraway look entered his eyes. “I’ve never told anyone this
before.”

She said nothing, simply listened.

“My father and I fought on the day before he and my mother died.
It was a heated argument about something stupid. I threw a handful of coins at
him. It startled him enough that he slipped and hit his head on the floor. My mom
suspected he had a concussion, but he wouldn’t do a damn thing about it. He
drove their boat into the rocks because of that concussion. I’ve blamed myself
for their accident ever since.”

An almost aching tenderness unfolded within her. The need to
reach out, to thread her fingers with his, rose like a wave in her. She wanted
to take him in her arms, without words—to let him know that she cared,
sympathized. “None of what happened to your parents was your fault. It was an
accident.”

“Felicity—” Her name, spoken so gently, hung between them.
Slowly he lifted his eyes to hers. “Thank you for that.”

“With the perspective of adulthood, you have to see that the
accident could have had any number of causes. Your parents wouldn’t want you to
carry the blame for what happened to them.” Her heart thudded against her chest
at the look of relief in his eyes. She couldn’t say anything more. Instead, she
simply brought a hand up to his cheek and rested it there. The world slowed to
an aching, exquisite crawl as longing she had tried so hard to ignore spiraled
through her.

He pressed into her touch. Moonlight cast him in a cameo of
pale light as her breath caught, released, then became a sigh of wonder when he
reached up and brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear.

The moment spun out, seemed to lengthen, and a thick, charged
silence followed. A cloud drifted past the near-full moon, leaving only the
soft, glimmering gold light to wrap around them, closing out the world beyond.