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

to get lost and leave you to your business,” he observes, but he is smiling as he says it. “You’re the professional here, Ms. White. I will leave you to it.” He steps back and recedes into the hallway in a cloud of assistants.

“Feel better now that you’re on familiar footing?” I ask Daniel as we unpack our gear.

“A little,” he says. “I half-expected everything to be solid gold.”

“Please. He’s rich, but he’s not the man on the Monopoly board.”

“Excuse me? He’s got a Degas just hanging out there for the whole world to go up to and poke.”

“I don’t think Monroe gets his possessions poked a great deal by the masses.”

“Maybe.” He thinks for a moment. “Do you suppose a person can be so rich that they don’t even register how expensive things can be anymore?”

“I guess you can get used to just about anything. Anyway, it’s game time now. We have a lot to do and lunch has to roll out at noon on the dot.” I pick up my knife and use it to pop the string on the first parcel. “Let’s get busy.”

My first inclination is to have Daniel and I serve the meal to Monroe and his small group of guests, the same way we would for any other private cooking job. However, I feel like we’d get lost trying to find our way topside, so I grudgingly allow Monroe’s servers to do the job for us.

We have precious little time to sit around and wonder how well the food’s going over up above, though, before we have to start prepping for dinner. For some reason, Monroe wants to eat early, at four-thirty, so we’ll really have to hustle to be ready by then.

Daniel looks noticeably less green about the gills as we work around each other in the ridiculously spacious kitchen. He’s like me in the respect that when he has his game face on, nothing can bother him.

Myself, I’m in the zone, too. Soon it will be all over, time for champagne back at the restaurant to celebrate.

Or maybe champagne with Trent, I think. That would be even better.

These two weeks would have gone by in the blink of an eye if it hadn’t been for the fact that I hadn’t seen Trent at all during them, so busy had I been with planning today. Not that we’d been completely out of contact, though. He had called me often and texted me even more often to see how I was doing.

Not once had he suggested that I take a night off, though, or even take a break of any kind. I appreciated that. He knew how much today means to me, and he wanted to give me all the space I needed.

I wonder if I could be so accommodating if our roles were reversed. After all, we are in the fledgling stages of…whatever this is, when the two people involved want nothing more than to be around each other twenty-four-seven. Joined at the hip, as it were.

You mean, at the hips, the devil on my shoulder says. That would go down even better than champagne.

I try to settle the butterflies in my stomach that this last thought stirs up. Have to concentrate on the right here, the right now.

I am putting the finishing touches on the plates with two minutes to spare when the servers reappear. When they leave, Daniel and I high-five, just like contestants on one of those cable cooking shows. Yes, it’s definitely going to be champagne time back at the home base later today.

Not half an hour goes by before one of the servers comes to fetch us.

“Mr. Monroe would greatly enjoy your presence on deck,” he says.

“We have been summoned,” I murmur to Daniel, who’s gone back to looking slightly ill. “Relax, I don’t think we’re going to have to walk the plank.”

“If you say so,” he says unhappily but follows along gamely enough as we are led topside.

The late afternoon is even more gorgeous than the morning had been, the sun shining down from a clear blue sky and the barest hint of a breeze blowing across the water. Monroe sees Daniel and me coming and rises from his seat.

“Ah, Ms. White! Mr. Jeffreys! Excellent!” He raises his arm for attention, which is a little unnecessary, as everyone’s eyes snapped to him the instant he stood up.

“These are the ones responsible for today’s excellent meals,” Monroe announces. “I can’t speak for anyone else here, but I can say that I myself have never had better.” He raises his wineglass high. “To the chefs,” he toasts.

“To the chefs,” repeat the voices all around us, including one right behind me that strikes me as familiar. I turn.

Holding aloft her glass and studying me is Jamie Wells, the model who so recently fled a housefire of my own making.

She looks singularly beautiful in a light dress with her auburn hair pinned up. An emerald pendant gleams mellowly in the hollow of her throat like a tiger’s eye.

She does not look overjoyed to see me. This is unfortunate, but, to be fair, understandable.

“Ms. Wells,” I say. “It’s good to see you again.” She doesn’t reply. “Under better circumstances,” I try. Still nothing.

I’m wondering how long this awkward scene is going to draw itself out when she finally speaks directly to me.

“It’s a good thing we’re on the water,” she says. “Just in case.”

Absurdly, I glance around for Trent. Of course, he’s not there. The only person I have in my corner at the moment is Daniel, who looks appropriately outraged, but keeps his mouth shut. That’s good. We are, after all, still on the job. It wouldn’t do to serve up a large piece of his mind to one of the boss’s guests.

Jamie notices Daniel’s glare, though,