Hungry for You (4 page)

Fortunately, Alex had already had an alarm system put in, and the fire department had gotten there quickly. Unfortunately, while the fire itself hadn’t spread far, there had been smoke damage throughout the entire building. Suddenly, instead of some light redecorating, Alex had found herself faced with the necessity of gutting the interior and fully restoring it.

Her luck hadn’t gotten any better from there. The last few months had been spent putting out fires of a different sort: chasing down shipments that were delayed or just seemed to have disappeared, workmen who suddenly quit or simply didn’t show up, orders that had somehow gotten confused so that the wrong products arrived. In a couple of instances, the workmen had started to install the wrong items before she got there, and the companies refused to reimburse her for “used” products.

Soon the money had started to run out, and she’d had to dig into her private savings. That was when Alex had begun to panic. With the opening date already set and promoted, she’d fired the project manager who had been overseeing the redecorating and promoted Peter from
sous-chef
to head chef at the original La Bonne Vie, so that she could be on site at the new building all the time to ensure that there were no more foul-ups … which had apparently convinced the little weasel that he was a world-class chef worthy of scads of money.

“The ass,” she muttered to herself, her glance sliding unhappily to the clock on the wall. Dinner bookings started at five, and it was nearly that now. If Sam’schef didn’t show up, she’d have to start cooking herself. Not that she minded. Cooking was Alex’s first love, all she’d ever wanted to do. It had been a terrible wrench to her when she’d had to pass the head-chef hat to Peter so that she could oversee the renovations at the new restaurant. But she’d had no choice.

Normally, Alex wouldn’t even have been here today when Peter arrived with his announcement. She’d only popped by the restaurant to check on things and grab some paperwork she was hoping to go over later tonight. Her intention had been to head back over to the new restaurant in time for the delivery of paint the painters were supposed to get on the walls before the diningroom tables and chairs arrived tomorrow. At least that had been the plan before Peter had turned up with his announcement that he’d been offered that ridiculous sum of money to go to work for Chez Joie.

Alex scowled at the very thought of the nasty trick being used by her biggest competitor, Jacques Tournier. They had always been competitive, their respective restaurants vying for the same upscale clientele, but this was going too far. Not only could he ruin her, but he was definitely going to do Peter and his career some damage. But then Jacques had always been a jerk.

She glanced to the clock to find that while she’d sat fretting, time had continued to crawl forward. Alex could no longer put it off; she had to get out there and get to work. The first guests would have arrived by now, and their orders were no doubt already appearing in the kitchen. She would just call the painters at the other restaurant and—

A tap at the door sounded as Alex reached for the phone. Calling out for whoever it was to enter, she started to punch in the number to the new restaurant but paused as the door opened, and Justin Bricker appeared, his usual cheerful smile in place as he stepped into her office.

“Hey, Alex. How are tricks?” he greeted easily.

Alex stared at him nonplussed, and then groaned. “Dear God, surely you aren’t the chef Sam was talking about?”

“No,” he said with a laugh, and gestured behind him with a thumb. “Cale here is.”

“Kale?” Alex echoed blankly, her eyes sliding to the still half-closed door. She didn’t see any evidence of a second man. Frowning, she set the phone back in its receiver and leaned to the side, trying to see out into the kitchen as she muttered, “Kale is a vegetable.”

“Not kale. Cale … with a C,” Bricker explained, and then glanced around and frowned when he saw that the second man hadn’t entered. Scowling, Bricker stepped out of the room briefly, and she heard him mutter, “What are you doing, man? Get in here and try to read her.”

Alex’s eyebrows rose at the words, and she briefly wondered what they meant, but then Bricker reappeared, dragging a man in a charcoal-colored suit into the room as the fellow said, “I was looking for something to cover my nose and mouth with. Dear God, how anyone can work around all this food is beyond me. The stench is unbearable. I—”

Alex arched one eyebrow as the man spotted her and came to an abrupt halt just inside the door. She’dopened her mouth to snap that her kitchen did not stink, but the words never made it past her lips. She found herself simply staring at the man. He was … interesting. Not handsome in the classical sense, but definitely interesting, she decided and
GQ
worthy in that suit. Her gaze quickly slid over his tall, muscular build, clothed in what she was sure was a designer original. Then her eyes paused at his face to take in the strong, angular features, silver-blue eyes, and clear complexion.

What was it with all these friends of Mortimer’s? she wondered with a frown. Every single one had perfect skin and arresting eyes.

“Well? Can you read her?” Bricker asked impatiently.

“What?” Cale glanced toward him with a confusion that seemed to clear quickly. “Oh, right.”

His gaze shifted back to her, and Alex found herself sighing as he focused on her with a concentration she recognized from every other male Sam had introduced her to since hooking up with Mortimer. It was the look that usually preceded the man’s then completely ignoring her or even walking away, the look that was giving her a complex.

“Great! Another one of your and Mortimer’s weirdo friends,” she muttered with disgust, and turned an angry glare on Bricker as she asked, “Are they all crackheads, or has listening to your music too loud made them all mentally deficient? ”

“I know they don’t do crack, so it must be the music thing,” Bricker said with amusement.

Alex rolled her eyes. “I don’t have time for this, Justin. Can he cook or can’t he?”

Bricker glanced to Cale. “Can you read her?”

“Read what?” Alex asked irritably, her gaze shifting back to Cale to see that his expression had become even more concentrated, focusing on a spot in the center of her forehead.

“You can’t, can you? “ Bricker said with what sounded like glee.

“No.” The word was barely breathed, and the deep concentration on his expression faded to be replaced by a slightly stunned expression.

Alex frowned. Cale wasn’t walking away like all the other men had after that look. Instead, he was staring at her as if she was some rare and exotic creature. She would have preferred the walking away, Alex decided as discomfort began to slither through her. Shifting impatiently, she glanced to Bricker again. “What is—?”

“He can cook,” Bricker interrupted cheerfully.

Alex narrowed her eyes, sure there was something here she was missing but completely clueless as to what that could be.

“Ms. Willan?”

Alex glanced to the door with a start. Bev, whom she’d promoted to
sous-chef
to replace Peter when she’d raised him to head chef, was standing in the doorway, an anxious look on her face. “Yes?”

“The orders are coming in and Peter—I mean Pierre,” she corrected herself with a grimace, “hasn’t come back from wherever he went. Should I—?”

“Peter,” Alex emphasized the name, “isn’t coming back. He only showed up today to quit,” she addedabruptly, recalled to her present problems. “Get started on the orders. I’ll be there in a moment.”

Wide-eyed, Bev nodded and backed out of the office, leaving Alex to glance back to the two men. Cale was still staring as if she were the crown jewels, but Bricker was grinning like the idiot she was beginning to suspect he was.

Sighing with exasperation, she shifted her full attention to Cale. “Where did you train?”

“He’s from Paris,” Bricker announced.

“He is?” she asked with surprise. Sam had said Europe, but Cale’s accent wasn’t exactly French. Actually, she couldn’t place it at all, it held hints of French, with some English intonations and even Germanic ones as well. Realizing that what accent he had wasn’t really relevant, she pointed out, “I didn’t ask where he was from, but where he trained. Was it La Belle Ecole, Le Cordon Bleu, or—”

“Cordon Bleu,” Bricker interrupted, and Alex narrowed her eyes on him briefly. When he merely beamed at her, she glanced to Cale to note that he was still staring at her. For some reason, that stare was starting to wear on her, making her feel like she had a booger hanging out of her nose or a smudge on her face or something … which just annoyed her.

Refusing to give in to the urge to run her hands over her face and nose to check, she ground her teeth together and snapped, “Fine. He trained at Le Cordon Bleu. Where has he worked since then?”

When Bricker hesitated, Cale said, “I work for myself.”

Alex’s eyes widened slightly though it wasn’t at his words so much as the sound of his voice. She hadn’t noticed that sexy, sort of husky tone to his voice the first time he’d spoken, but then perhaps she’d been too upset at the suggestion that her kitchen stank to pay attention then. Irritated with herself for noticing it now, she scowled, and asked, “If you have your own restaurant, why would you want a job here?”

“He doesn’t really,” Bricker spoke up when Cale hesitated. “He’s here visiting in Canada for a while, but offered to help out until you can find a replacement chef.”

“Oui.
What he said.” Cale nodded with satisfaction and smiled at her, making Alex catch her breath.

Had she thought he was just interesting and not handsome? What was wrong with her, she asked herself, and then frowned as she noted how hot it was in her office. She would have to check the thermostat before she left and see about turning it down, Alex decided, avoiding the urge to tug her sweater away from her chest and fan herself. She then frowned at that thought. Before she left? She was thinking as if she’d already decided to hire the man. That wasn’t right. While she appreciated that he was willing to help out when he was here on his vacation, for all she knew he couldn’t cook spit.

Forcing herself to regather her thoughts, she cleared her throat, and asked, “Are you any good? Is your restaurant successful?”

“Alex,” Bricker said dryly. “The man’s wearing a designer suit. His watch is diamond-encrusted. He’s
very
good at what he does.”

Alex blinked and glanced from the suit—which reallylooked very nice on him—to the watch he now appeared to be trying to hide by tugging his sleeve down over it. Despite the discomfitted reaction to Bricker’s pointing out his outer signs of success, she caught a glimpse of the sparkling watch face and acknowledged that the man had money, which suggested some level of success at what he did.

A curse and the crash of shattering glass from the kitchen made up Alex’s mind for her. She would test him out, and if he could cook, she would accept his help. It would at least give her some more time to find a replacement for Peter while allowing her to make sure the renovations to the new restaurant didn’t run off course again.

“He can cook something to reassure you if you like,” Bricker announced suddenly.

Alex nodded at once, and then raised her eyebrows in surprise as she noted the horror on Cale’s face and the sharp way he turned on the other man.

“You can,” Bricker said insistently, then in tones that suggested a meaning that she didn’t understand, he added, “Trust me.”

Three

“All right, this will be your station.”

Cale came to a halt behind Alex and managed to drag his eyes off her rear and to her face when she half turned to glance at him. My life mate. The words drifted through his mind with a lot of wonder attached. Marguerite had been right. He couldn’t read Alex Willan. She was his life mate. The knowledge kept rolling through his brain, but Cale was having trouble wrapping his mind around it. He’d finally met his life mate. After all these centuries, he would have a life mate. He need no longer be alone. He would be mated.

Nope, Cale thought on a small sigh, no matter how he presented it to himself, his brain appeared numb and unable to take it in.

“Or I suppose you’re used to the French term
mis en place,”
Alex added, drawing his attention again.

Cale nodded stiffly.

“Really, as head chef you’ll no doubt be all over the kitchen,” Alex went on, turning stiffly away from him to wave over the area she’d led him to. “But this is where you’ll mostly be working when you aren’t riding herd on the others.”

Cale managed another stiff nod when she glanced back at him and tried to look like he knew what she was talking about, but his gaze slid blindly over the gleaming metal services before him, his mind taken up with the litany running through his head. Life mate. Life mate. Life mate.

“This is a small enough operation that the head chef does triple duty, acting as the
saucier
and fish chef as well,” Alex explained almost apologetically. “That’s what you call the sauté chef and
poissonnier
in France.”

Cale pursed his lips and nodded again, her words not really making it past his thoughts about spending eternity with her.

“As I mentioned, Bev is the
sous-chef,
your right hand. Go to her if you have any questions. But she too does triple duty and takes on the jobs of roast chef and grill chef or what the French call the
rôtisseur
and
grillardin
.”

“Grillardin,”
Cale echoed, managing a nod for the attractive redhead named Bev when she glanced over to smile at him curiously.

“And then Bobby over there is the vegetable chef and roundsman, the
entremetier
and
tournant,”
Alex added, apparently translating it to French out of concern that he might not know the English terms. She needn’t have worried—he didn’t understand the French ones either.