All Fired Up (Kate Meader) (42 page)

Lili knew she hadn’t hidden her hurt reaction in time by the way Cara quickly adopted a softer tone. “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for the restaurant. Remember I told you we had Serafina’s on Randolph lined up for the taping next week? Well, yesterday we find out they’ve had to close for health code violations. Rats!” She waved her hands in the air as if she’d seen the vermin with her own innocent eyes. “We were scrambling to find an alternative and I suggested our place to Jack. To be honest, Jack’s really grateful Dad can help out.”

In the five minutes Lili had spent with Jack Kilroy, gratitude was nowhere in evidence. In fact, he had acted like he was doing
them
the favor, though in reality, that wasn’t too far from the truth. Her earlier braggadocio about DeLuca’s healthy numbers couldn’t disguise the trouble they were in, a perfect storm of external pressures and internal entrenchment. They were lucky to boast eighty covers on a Saturday, never mind the buck and a half she’d tossed out back in the kitchen. Week nights were practically a ghost town. Classical Italian dining wasn’t quite in vogue anymore and as amazing as her father’s food was, it was getting harder to compete with the hipper, trendier eateries that had popped up all over Wicker Park. Lili had ideas for taking their game to the next level. Lots of ideas. But her autocratic father refused to play ball.

“What do you think of him?” Cara asked, dragging Lili’s thoughts reluctantly back to Jack Kilroy. “He gives good handsome, right?”

Lili gave a noncommittal shrug that did little to divest her shoulders of worry. Her sister had been drinking Jack Kilroy’s Kool-Aid ever since her New York company, Foodie Productions, began handling his show back in January. It had been a real coup for Cara to get the gig, and to hear her sister speak, the future of mankind was riding on it. Though how someone who despised food made her living producing food television was one of life’s great mysteries.

In the interests of sisterly peace, Lili decided to feign some interest. “So why is he cooking in someone else’s restaurant and not in a studio like the other hack chefs you see on TV? I’m surprised Lord Studly would be caught dead in a place like this.”

“On occasion, Lord Studly is happy to lower himself to the level of the great unwashed.” That accented voice swept over her like cut crystal. It really should come with a government health warning.

She turned and got the full blast. Wow, if he wasn’t the incarnation of sin-on-a-stick. Focus on the face, she told herself as her photographer eye drank in more details. A smattering of freckles dotted across his nose. A scar on his chin that was probably airbrushed out of magazine covers. And beautiful eyelashes, like silken, inky strands fringing his green eyes. Live-and-up-close Jack was much more impressive than small-screen Jack. She wondered how he might fare under her camera’s gaze. Very well, she suspected.

Too late, she realized she was gawping, but funnily enough, he was gawping right back. Braining someone with cast-iron cookware was starting to look like a viable pick-up strategy. She drew the edges of her sweater closer together. The scratchy brush of the wool heightened the new sensitivity of her skin, which felt like sunburn under Jack’s ferocious gaze.

He blinked and held out her Vespa helmet. “Yours, I presume?”

She took it with a shaky hand, relieved to see her camera and phone were still safe inside. “Thanks,” she muttered, wishing he didn’t turn her into such a gloopy mess.

“You rode a motor bike in that getup?”

“A scooter, actually. What of it?”

“Just building a picture in my head.”

Oh, for…never mind.
She swiped all expression from her face. “The show?”

“Well,” Cara said. “Here’s the premise.” She leaned forward as if she were making a pitch to a Hollywood producer. “It’s a cooking contest pitting Jack against a host chef in a cuisine he’s not so familiar with. Jack’s specialty, of course, is French, so he’s going up against other cuisines, preparing a brand-new menu and serving it to real restaurant customers. He’ll be competing against Dad, and whoever gets the most votes wins. Simple, right? The show’s brand new. It’s called
Jack of All Trades
and DeLuca’s is going to be on the premiere episode!”

Lili settled in against the desk and switched her attention to Jack, who lounged against the doorframe with an easy devil-be-damned grace that said he was above it all.

Her father had won awards—
Chicago Magazine
’s Best Italian, two years running, albeit over ten years ago—and chefs came from far and wide to learn the secrets of his gnocchi. He was the true kitchen genius, not this jumped-up limey who coasted on his charm and cheek bones. Time to get her game face on. Never too early to start the trash talking.

“So, not so hot at
la cucina Italiana,
then?”

He appeared to be thinking hard about that, so Cara jumped into the pause. “There’s also a twist. Jack gets to pick his own appetizers and dessert, but Dad chooses the pastas and the entrées for both chefs. And doesn’t tell Jack until the day of the contest.”

Better and better. Lili could think of several dishes that could pose last-minute problems. This might be fun. Her gaze traveled the long, lean body of British Beefcake. This might be a whole lot of fun.

“Oh, you’re going down,” Lili said, then winced as she realized that could be interpreted as flirty. So not her intention, especially as she sucked soccer balls at flirty.

Evidently he hadn’t got the memo because his face lit up with a traffic-stopping smile. He probably had a million risqué comebacks on tap but he let that killer smile do all the work. Seeing it in person made a girl feel incredibly lucky.

He moved into the cramped office, inching closer like a jungle cat stalking something small and defenseless. While she was in no way defenseless, and no one would ever have characterized her as small, there was still something rather daunting about how he filled a space. Especially a confined space. A flushing tingle spread through her body and her nipples tightened. Although he couldn’t possibly have seen
that
, he cocked his head and considered her as if he had. As if her body’s reaction to him was the only possible response to a smile that dangerous.

“You think I have something to worry about?” he said in a tone that made it clear he had this one covered, honey.

Irritation over her hormonal meltdown turned her surly. “Oh, yeah. My father’s going to take you to the woodshed, Britboy.”

A slight twitch appeared like an errant comma at the corner of his no-longer-smiling mouth. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I think Britboy can cook a bowl of linguine and melt some mozzarella over a slab of veal. Italian’s not the most challenging of cuisines, no offense to your father, and any restaurant would kill to be featured on my show. It’s a guaranteed seat-filler for the next six months.”

Apparently she didn’t just suck soccer balls at flirty; she sucked spectacularly. The great Jack Kilroy had just dismissed her and her family’s livelihood as no longer worthy of his inestimable attention, and boy, did that stick in her craw.

“If you think it’s that easy, perhaps you should stop by for dinner tonight. I think you’ll find my father can melt cheese to rival any idiot-box chef. Oh, a hotshot like you probably won’t learn anything about food, but you might learn something about hospitality.”

He opened his mouth to speak and then seemed to think better of it. Good call. Stepping around her, he thrust a piece of paper at Cara. “Here’s what I need. I’ll start testing dishes tomorrow.” Pronouncement made, he stalked out of the office with all the flourish of a Shakespearean actor marching off stage.

Lili shook her head in disbelief. “I know he’s your boss, Cara, but that guy’s got some nerve walking in here and proclaiming Italian cuisine easy. And you should have heard him dissing the kitchen and our equipment. Just who does he think he is?”

Cara picked a speck of invisible dust off her low-cut blouse and tousled her perfect, platinum-blonde hair. “That, baby sister, is your birthday and Christmas presents all rolled up into one sexy, hunk-shaped package.”

See the next page for a preview of
Hot and Bothered
by Kate Meader.

Chapter 1

Tad DeLuca ground his teeth so hard he risked bone dust shooting out of his ears.

“It needs a part,” came the latest utterance from under the hood of the pizza oven. Four little words that signaled a screwing over of the major variety was about to take place. Compounding the insult, the speaker, complete with abundant ass cleavage and just-for-show tool belt, crawled out from behind the oven, butt first, and adjusted his waistband.

Too late, dude, you’re already the clichéd repair guy who can’t seem to find a pair of jeans—or a belt—to fit him.

“That’s what you said last week,” Tad said patiently. Really patiently. “You installed the…”

“Temperature regulator.”

“Temperature regulator, and said that should be it.”

Over the oven guy’s head, the pizza oven loomed, mocking Tad’s foray into the world of business ownership. Flatbreads were one of the cornerstones of his new wine bar menu—or had been—and now he was thinking about his backup plan. The nonexistent one. Of course, a chef was needed to cook the menu, and the notable lack of one since his new hire had upped and quit this morning was yet another problem that needed urgent attention. The joys of being his own boss.

“It’s not the regulator this time. There’s a—” He said something incomprehensible and Tad tuned out. Three semesters of engineering coursework under his belt didn’t really qualify him to talk pizza oven repair shop, but maybe if he’d stuck around college longer, he’d be on more of a conversational footing here. Unfortunately, thinking about his college days inevitably led to thinking about how they ended, conjuring memories that scorched him fresh to this day.

“How long?”

Still in an ungainly squat, Oven Guy rubbed the back of his neck while he caught his serrated breath. “A week. More like two.”

God
damn it
. The man’s eyebrow shot up as if Tad had spoken that aloud. He hadn’t, but the pulverized bone dust blasting from his ears might have given anyone pause.

In less than a week, he was slated to open Vivi’s in trendier-by-the-second Wicker Park, just a stone’s throw from his family’s restaurant and old stomping ground, DeLuca’s. Going from bartender to bar owner seemed like a logical progression but fate hadn’t been on speaking terms with logic for a while. His first location choice had burned to the ground before he signed the lease. He had been outbid on the second. But now it was all systems go. The wine cellar was stocked with favorites, old and new. Publicity was in motion and staff was in training. The menu had been worked out with his chef—now his ex-chef.

It had taken him a while to get here. Years of dwelling on his mistakes and making excuses to stay stock-still. Letting people down was second nature to him, but
this
—he looked around at the gleaming, polished surfaces of his new kitchen—would be his way back in. Making Vivi proud might get him there.

A menu of delicious snacks would definitely help.

“Penny for ’em, babe,” Tad heard softly in his ear. “Or should I just tell you what’s going on in that charming head of yours?”

Smiling away his irritation at how shitty the day had gone so far, Tad turned to greet the girl-next-door blonde who could make it all better. Hair in a Muppet topknot, dark circles under her green-gold eyes, her shirt shapeless and wrinkled over baggy desert camo pants rolled to just below her knees. If it were anyone else, he would guess she had just tumbled from a warm bed where she had been well and truly serviced. But this was Jules Kilroy, his best girl but not his girlfriend, and who, as far as he knew, had never been on a date—or anything more—in the two years he had known her.

The smart mouth upturn of her lips couldn’t disguise how tired she looked. Neither did it detract from her pale, fragile beauty, which had him itching to wrap his body around her and gather her tight to his chest.

Instead of focusing on all the reasons why he wanted to protect her, which inevitably led to the reasons why that was a terrible idea, he moved his gaze back to the safer territory of that smirk. When Jules wore that look, it was easy to remember why they had become friends in the first place. They had connected the moment she showed up in his family’s restaurant, knocked up, beat down, and in need of a pal.

Some pal he had been. He jerked his brain away from that thought and dialed up a friendly grin.

“You don’t want to know what’s going on in my head. It’s a whirling cesspit of debauchery that would make your hair curl.”

She gave a discreet chin nod to Oven Guy, who had once more descended to all-fours to poke around the appliance mechanics.

“You’re thinking there’s nothing more attractive than the sight of a generous arse peeking out of denim.”

He’d always liked that word.
Arse.
Or really he liked the way Jules’s lips shaped it. Her British sing-song accent hadn’t diminished one iota in the time she had lived in the states. It wasn’t one of those regal voices that sounded like her mouth was filled with plums, either. It was a good-time girl voice. A little husky, the kind of rasp you might get from screaming above the boom-boom bass at a club the night before.

Which wasn’t likely. Up until her baby bump had made her conscious about shaking her booty on the boards, they had been quite the team on the dance floor. Now she had her hands full with her eighteen-month-old, Evan. The kid was adorable but those circles under Jules’s eyes confirmed he was also a handful.