Heat in the Kitchen (2 page)

A stranger that was working in
his
kitchen.

Hey, that final thought brought him up short.

What the
hell
was she doing in
this
kitchen!

His irritation had returned.

*

Aaargh!
The music in her ears screeched to a halt as her brain became oblivious to all but the impact of boiling water on her hand.

'What do you think you're
doing?'
She shot round and lashed out with fright and pain.

Having been working in her own little bubble, with her music blaring in her ears, her heart had nearly failed her when she'd got the hand on her shoulder. The shock had jolted her and the boiling water in the kettle that she'd been pouring into a jug had ended up over her instead.

'I could ask the same of you.' Matt said dryly, ignorant to the outcome of his action as he grabbed her earphones out of her ears.

He was warming up with indignation now over a stranger being in his own private space.

'What the
hell
do you think you're doing in
my
kitchen?

'How did you get onto the Estate?

'Who let you into this building?' Matt fired off the questions as fast as his brain thought them, having finally got it out of the gutter where it had been languishing just moments before.

He knew he sounded curt and that was partly because of his unexpected reaction to her. He was also genuinely annoyed that a stranger had got onto the family's private estate, into the building that housed his professional kitchen and made herself so at home.

The pain from Ella's hand was shooting up her arm. It must have registered on her face because Matt finally realised what she'd done.

'You idiot!' Matt grabbed her arm and pulled her across to the sink where he shoved her hand under a fast flowing tap of cool water to alleviate the effect of the burn. 'Don't you know that water from a boiling kettle will scald you? What the hell were you thinking of?'

'What was
I
thinking of?' Ella screamed at him. She winced as she heard the pitch of her voice. Oh great, she'd turned into a screaming banshee. It wasn't just the effect of getting a kettle of boiling water all over her fingers either. She was face to face with the man who had haunted her dreams for most of her life. Dreams that had changed from a little girl's thoughts to adult ones as she'd got older.

Defence seemed her best option here to cover her embarrassment.

'You've got a nerve! If you hadn't jumped on me and frightened me half to death I wouldn't have poured boiling water all over myself in the first place!'

Matt humphed, not in the right frame of mind to admit she had a point.

'Leave your hand under the tap, fingertips facing the water.' With that instruction Matt left the room.

It seemed like forever before he returned and checked her fingers.

Matt dragged her over to where he kept a first aid kit and set about treating her hand. He gently prodded each of the burnt fingertips causing Ella to wince over and over. Finally, he wrapped her hand in clingfilm to limit infection.

'You may not be doing much for the next couple of days but it shouldn't need hospital treatment. You've been lucky.'

'Lucky?'
Why couldn't she stop screaming?

'I've got a buffet for forty people to prepare and I'm playing tomorrow. I can't afford to have my hand out of action.'

She bit back a sob. One born from pain and frustration, as well as an element of delayed shock, but she wouldn't give in and cry. She didn't do tears, not in front of anyone. Especially not in front of this man who she had loved for more than half her life, who was obviously angry and she didn't understand why.

For the first time Matt noticed all the food stuff scattered across every surface of the kitchen.

His beautiful, top of the range kitchen that was always so neat and orderly, even when he was creating new dishes or filming for one of his TV shows.

Well it looked like little Miss Purple had taken whatever dynamite she'd used to create her own appearance and exploded it in his kitchen.

His attention refocused on his very purple, but nonetheless beautiful intruder. Covered in purple and pink she may be but her face had only a light pink gloss on her lips and a touch of mascara on her lashes that accentuated ice blue eyes. He tried not to dwell on those eyes. Her lovely, natural looking face didn't jell with the fashion disaster and hair but Matt couldn't work out what was the real her and what wasn't. The clothes and hair were making such a loud statement, they overshadowed the rest of her.

His brain caught up with the conversation and he responded to what she'd said.

'You may be doing a buffet for forty people but you still haven't answered any of my questions. I repeat, how did you get in and what are you doing here?'

As well as sounding angry, now he sounded sarcastic.
Way to go Matt
,
what is wrong with you?
He could tell by the stubborn jutting out of her chin that she'd heard the sarcasm too.

Taking a deep breath, Ella told him, again, that she had a buffet for forty people to prepare, as if that explained everything to him.

'Why are you still being obtuse and not answering my questions? You clearly know you shouldn't be here. I'll help you remove all this…,' Matt helplessly waved his arm around at the endless amount of food abandoned everywhere, '… stuff. You can go find somewhere else to mess up. And don't worry, I'll clean up in here after you've gone.'

Ella looked around her and saw everything through Matt's eyes. In their rush to unload the car, her and Tess had just dumped everything wherever they'd found a bit of space. In normal circumstances, she wasn't this disorganised or untidy.

*

'Matthew Christophe Duval-Adams! What do you think you're doing?'

Blessed with a French mother and English father who had linked their surnames together for the children, Matt had also been given a French middle name to add to his English first name. The whole lot was a mouthful that only his mother had ever used, and then only when he was in trouble. He did use the double-barrelled surname for professional purposes but otherwise he preferred to be Matt Adams.

Matt groaned as that critical voice rang out across the kitchen. If his mother had still been alive he would have sworn it was her, but no, his baby sister had somehow morphed into their mother when his back had been turned.

He looked over at his sibling and raised his eyebrows as if to say 'what does it look like?'

Tess stared him out.

He heaved a big sigh. 'I haven't lived with you for all of your twenty six years to not know the look you're giving me means you know full well what's going on here.'

Tess continued to stand there.

'Spill Tess. And will you
stop
using my full name like that. I keep expecting mum to be standing there.'

Tess grimaced. 'Sorry Matt,' she said quietly. Like her siblings, Tess knew how hard Matt had taken their parents' death fourteen years earlier, and he still carried the pain. Unlike the others he hadn't fully let go.

'Ella had nowhere else to turn. She recommended her sister to do a wedding to help keep the cost down for a friend and her sister has pulled out for the most
pathetic
of reasons, yet again leaving Ella to face the music. Her sister was going to prepare it all with her college pals today but that hasn't happened and she left it to the last minute to tell Ella and she feels responsible but she's got nowhere to prepare everything so I offered her the use of your kitchen.' She heaved in a much needed breath. 'That's what you do for friends - Ella went to our school, oh, way, way back and Ronnie and I lost touch with her, but we met again just recently and rediscovered our friendship.' She was blathering, badly, but continued to hold his eye. Only Matt's eye was stronger and she weakened.

'You were supposed to be away this weekend.' She ended defensively.

'Oh, so that makes it okay does it - that I would have been none the wiser? Tess, you know how I feel about my professional kitchen and it's not a place for amateurs to play around in!'

Her fighting spirit returned. 'Don't start shouting at me Matt. Whichever woman has let you down tonight does not give you permission to shout at everyone.'

'It's not a woman who.., oh, never mind,' he sighed.

He really didn't deserve the reputation he had and resented that his own sister was taken in by the tabloids as well as everyone else. He was really too tired to continue arguing, he just wanted his kitchen to himself so he could lose himself in creativity. He tried telling his sister that but he knew before he opened his mouth he was on a losing battle.

Resigned to his fate, and unable to say no when his sister needed help, he turned back to where Ella was still standing, looking a lot more composed than she had been. He was hit by a jolt again and briefly closed his eyes to get his thoughts and his body under control. What was wrong with him? She was a purple and pink tarty mess for goodness sake.

Opening his eyes, he breathed in a deep, reinforcing breath. 'Okay, here's the deal. Tell me what you've got to do, I'll help and then you'll be gone quicker and I just might get some space this side of Christmas.'

'Matt don't be obnoxious. It doesn't suit you.'

Before Tess could say another word Matt turned back to her.

'Tess, this is my kitchen and here, if nowhere else, my word is law. We will get on a whole lot better if I have less people in it. She can stay,' he said, pointing at Ella. 'You can go and I'll see you later.'

Tess went to object but she had enough years' experience of her big brother raising her that she knew when to retreat gracefully.

'Okay. I've got a flight to catch later anyway. Be nice to her Matt, she's really lovely. Don't be fooled by appearances, as you always used to say to me. You might like her better if you ask her why she's dressed like a Christmas tree fairy reject.' Tess grimaced, turned to give Ella a sympathetic look and silently gestured to check that she would be okay. She went to leave the room and then turned back again.

'Go!'

'Okay, okay. Play nice Matthew. I'll be checking up on you, even if I am in France.' Tess tossed him a cheeky grin and breezed out the door.

*

Matt raised his eyes upwards. 'Now that my interfering sister has left the room and I'm resigned to having to put up with you, let's start again.'

Ella humphed. 'That's not a very good 'start again' if you're going to keep up that attitude!' She had recovered her composure now and was ready to fight back.

'Hmm, feisty little thing aren't you?'

Ella was five feet eight and hardly 'little' but then up against Matt's reported six foot three she probably was so she let that comment go.

'Well, we've established that you're Ella and I'm Matt. Tell me what you're trying to do here.'

He glanced at her hand wrapped in clingfilm and before she could open her mouth, continued. 'You're obviously not going to be doing much with that hand so I suppose I'll have to do most of it. I'll work out jobs for you as we go along.'

He sighed again.

He seemed to be doing that a lot around her. He looked at his watch.

'It's getting late, what time is the wedding reception tomorrow?' He stared at her expecting a reply.

Oh, now it seemed, she was allowed to speak!

'They intend getting to the reception by about three o'clock and having food served from about four. You don't give people much of a chance to talk, do you?' Ella observed with indignation.

Matt chuckled. 'I told you, this place is my domain. I don't need to. Tell me the menu and let's get on.'

Ella explained the range of choice her sister had decided on for the buffet.

'My sister talked generally to Penny, my friend, about what she would lay on. She's still at college so it's the basic stuff you find in buffets. Penny's on a tight budget - her dad lost his job - so she was happy with what was suggested….'

Matt looked impatiently at her as he waited for her to get to the point.

'Er, from what she said and the food Tess helped me unload, I think she intended doing things like savoury tarts and quiches, sandwiches, kebabs, meat platter, vegetable crudities and dips, um, chips, cheeses, fruits, apple pie and profiteroles.' Ella ran out of steam and cringed as she waited for Matt's response. He didn't disappoint.

'Hmm, standard fare and not very imaginative. Is she any good at college?' Without waiting for an answer, again, Matt moved on to his next thought.

'Tell me how you intended getting all the preparation done on your own? By staying up all night or perhaps praying for time to stand still? You're a real whizz of a chef I take it?' Ella couldn't fail to miss the sarcasm in his voice as he fired questions at her that he didn't seem to want an answer to. Before he could think up his next batch of questions, she jumped in.

'Er, no. I'm not. A chef, I mean. I hadn't really thought about what needed to be done. I just panicked about my sister dumping it on me and Tess offered me the use of this place.'

Matt stared at her in disbelief.

Ella looked away, feeling incredibly stupid as she realised the enormity of what she had taken on. She looked down at her feet. It seemed Matt had a way of making her feel like a naughty child.

Not much wound Matt up, but losing his chill-out time, especially after the week from hell that he'd had, was one of them. He'd overseen three catering events - one for the British Prime Minister, one in Brussels and another in Paris. He was knackered from the early starts, late finishes and the different flights. On top of a heavy schedule he'd had the press chasing him all week over a pack of lies, for which a public apology was expected in tomorrow's papers. Today, they'd all gone to their parents' grave, as they did every year on this date, and then had a late lunch together. This was the one day of the year that really got to Matt, even after fourteen years. Zander had left immediately afterwards to catch a flight to Australia, Ronnie had headed off shortly after that to Spain and Tess had gone home to pack for France. For the first time, on the anniversary of their parents' funeral, Matt had been left to find his own way to cope with the continued pain, and Ella was now in his way.