Hard No: Secret Baby Enemies to Lovers Romance by Hazel Parker (fun to read txt) 📗

“I’ll leave you to it. I trust you know where everything is. If there’s anything else you require, just call me on the intercom.” He turns and exits, leaving me with a lot of brown paper-wrapped parcels and a gnawing desire to hit this one out of the park.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s do this. We’ll see who’s sorry at the end of the evening this time.”

I’ve heard other chefs say that when they’re in their groove, time doesn’t exist for them. For me, though, there’s always an undercurrent of urgency to keep everything moving forward, for everything to be perfect.

It’s not an unpleasant sensation. Instead, it’s like fuel for the engine. As long as I stay in motion, everything will be fine. It’s when I stop moving, or worse, exit the kitchen, that I devolve back into klutzy Steph White.

In my restaurants, I insist on delivering my most exotic meals directly to the patrons myself. I like to be a part of the entire process that way. Carrying the plates is almost like carrying a magical talisman—while I have them in my hands, I don’t have to worry about stumbling or running into anything. It makes me feel charmed. I wish that I could have that feeling during the other moments in my life.

Enough overthinking. I unroll my knife holder and pluck out the first blade.

It’s time to cook.

Curtis is nice enough to check in on me from time to time as the hours pass. He offers me a glass of wine, which I regretfully decline. I don’t want to take time away from what I’m doing to even sip at a beverage.

The meal begins to come together like interlocking puzzle pieces. Everything is going to be ready on time, as long as I can keep moving, moving, moving.

A few minutes after six, there’s the faraway sound of the front door opening and allowing someone entrance. I can faintly hear Curtis talking with the arrival, who is presumably the man himself, Stone.

Stone appears momentarily in the doorway to the kitchen, holding a briefcase. If this is his rumpled, end-of-the-day look, he plays it off very well. Not a hair seems to be out of place.

“Ms. White,” he says, nodding to me. “Everything seems to be going well.”

It’s not very good diplomacy, but I keep at it at the cutting board rather than stop and talk with him. “Like clockwork,” I say. “It’ll be ready at seven sharp.”

“Excellent.” He stands there for a bit longer. I wonder if he’s going to say anything else or just eyeball me. It occurs to me that either one would be all right with me.

“Well,” he says at last, “I’ll leave you to it and see you shortly.”

With that, he leaves, and I’m alone again. I’m both pleased with myself that I didn’t miss a beat just now and a little disappointed that Stone hadn’t stayed longer.

Seven o’clock rolls around, and everything is finished, exactly as planned. I give the plate a last once-over, searching for any flaws or imperfections. I find none.

Stone is seated at the head of his inconveniently large dining room table again. He makes to stand when I enter the room, but I wave him back down with my free hand.

“You said casual,” I remind him, “so we’re keeping it casual.”

“Fair enough. It looks wonderful, even more so than the last time you were here.”

“Thank you.”

He accepts the plate and places it before himself.

“Can I get you anything else?” I ask him.

“A chair,” he says immediately. “Why don’t you join me? I suspect that you made enough for two, yes?”

Actually, he’s right. When I’m on a job like this one—even though I’ve never been on one exactly like this one, oh no—I always cook at least two of everything. Call it my backup plan; in case something goes wrong with one dish, I have a second waiting in the wings.

Still, I feel a little bit grubby in my dressed-down outfit in such posh surroundings. “Thank you, but I’ve got a lot of cleanup to do. You enjoy, though.”

“Come on,” he prompts. “I want you to reap the benefits of what you’ve sown here. This looks like a truly magnificent meal.” He gestures not to the chair on the opposite end of the table, the one which had been occupied by Jamie Wells on that fateful night last Saturday, but to the one on the side, closer to where he’s sitting.

Now that I’ve delivered my responsibility, namely the appetizer, to him, I’m starting to get that old familiar feeling of not knowing what I should be doing with my hands. True, I could go and start putting the kitchen back in order, get ready for the main course, but I’m curious about how my dish goes over with him. Hell, I’m curious about Stone himself. Maybe a little dinner conversation wouldn’t be so bad.

“If I’m not intruding,” I say.

“Wouldn’t ask if you were,” he replies. “I’ll wait until you get back.”

“No, go ahead and start while it’s hot. It won’t take me long to plate up a second time.”

“I’ll wait until you get back,” he repeats.

As I said, it only takes me a few minutes to put together another dish and rejoin Stone in the dining room. I have barely seated myself when Curtis appears off to the side.

“Ms. White, would you care for a glass of wine?”

With my nerves jangled from adrenaline, it’s a request I can’t resist again. “Yes, thank you, that would be just fine.”

He ducks out and reappears moments later with a Willamette Valley pinot noir. It’s exceptionally good.

The food, though, I have to say, is the star of the table. There’s a difference between taste-testing the ingredients of a good