Chase Me (Paris Nights Book 2) (2 page)

Chapter 2

If there was one thing a young female chef in charge of a major establishment learned how to deal with fast, it was cocky, physical males who thought they could push the female around.

Vi had been hoping to get a good night’s sleep before tomorrow’s banquet, but it wouldn’t be the first time she’d pulled an all-nighter because an arrogant idiot had screwed up her plans. In her world, you handled things or you packed up your knives and slunk off to find some other career.

“I lied,” her burglar admitted.

It was so redundant when the male of the species said that. What else was he going to admit to? Being arrogant? Thinking she was a cute, feisty little thing?

“Damn it.” She set down the smaller knife and began to sharpen her butcher knife. “Your grandmother isn’t really ailing, is she? You just said that to try to get the wedding where you wanted it. I’m going to sic my mother on you.”

“No, that part was true!” he said indignantly. The dim LED lights that glowed in the kitchen all night made it hard to tell his hair or eye color. But she could see the size of him, the strong, stubborn chin, the outrageously delighted grin, and the insane cockiness. She’d nearly knocked him out, she’d planted a knife three centimeters from his ear, and she was holding a butcher knife and knew how to use it, and he was having the time of his life.

The idiot was flirting with her. That was what was so annoying about men.

Well, one of the many things.

Like how hard did she have to beat them with a pot over the head before they respected her abilities?

“Then you’re not actually going to have the kids.” She made her voice severely disappointed. “I knew it.” She gave her mouth a bitter twist as she angled her face away. Not enough to let him escape her peripheral vision, of course. She didn’t trust him for a second.

“You’re twisting my words.” He sighed. “I never promised that.”

“Then you don’t really want to marry me?” She pointed her butcher knife at him. “I hate it when men lie about that.”

He gave her that wicked, hungry grin. “Honey, I’d marry you tonight, if you’d put down that knife and come over here.”

“Ha.” She stabbed her butcher knife in his direction. “Got you. How are we going to get to Texas and get all your family together in one night? You probably don’t even have a grandmother who wants to see your wedding.”

He grinned at her. “I’d get
engaged
to you tonight. And your mom and my mom can fight the wedding details out.”

“Right.” She went back to sharpening her knife. She did like a sharp blade. “You know, I’m a twenty-eight-year-old female who heads a two-star establishment of nearly all male chefs. Trust me, the last thing I need in my life is another cocky, arrogant man who thinks he is the shit.”

“But I really
am
the shit,” he protested, grinning.

She sighed. At herself, because it made attraction kick hot and hungry through her when he said that. It would make her life so much easier if she didn’t find cocky men who thought they were the shit a major turn on.

“Also, I don’t mean to be greedy, but could you say
shit
again in that accent? Or if you want to broaden your English vocabulary, there’s this fantastic swear word you might try.” He pressed a fist to his heart and stared at her like a starving puppy, as if he could just will the word right out of her. “
Fuck.
”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Were you, like, Navy SEAL before you took up ‘security consulting’ or something?”

He angled his head just a little. The dim lights showed a strong jaw and a gleam in his eyes, but she still couldn’t tell their color. His hair must be brown, though—not light enough for blond, and if it was black, it would be all shadow now. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Wait, what? She’d been being sarcastic, trying to come up with the cockiest archetype of American manhood she could think of. What nail had she hit?

“I mentioned my arrogant male fatigue,” Vi said.

He grinned again. “In the right circumstances, I bet you could make me beg.”

This guy was so full of himself. It was disconcerting how much he made her insides tickle with that grin of his. It must be the adrenaline getting to her. Things had been so calm around here lately. It had been at least two days since she’d had to throw a pot at anyone’s head.

“But that’s what I lied about.” He looked woeful. “I’m not really here testing your window security.”

She sighed and set down her butcher knife to pick up the good-for-throwing knife in her right hand. “And I’m not left-handed.” She took an easy grip of the point in her right hand, holding his eyes. “But oh, right. I told you the truth about that.”

“I’m head of a security agency that has taken on as a client one of the billionaires coming to your restaurant tomorrow, and we were tasked with making sure that all of his meals would really be gluten-free.”

She choked. She made a mighty effort to keep her haughty, disdainful look, but she couldn’t hold the laugh back, and she had to set one of her knives down as she covered her mouth to try to suppress it. Damn it.
Never
let the cocky male make you laugh. You lost all kinds of authority that way.

“What?” he asked innocently. “He has an intolerance! It makes him bloated!”

She bit down on her lip as hard as she could, but the whole laugh escaped out into the open air. She dropped both knives and pressed her hands against the counter, trying for breath.

Her burglar grinned like a cat that had rolled in way too much catnip. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but you are really hot.”

“Is there a good way to take that?” she challenged dryly.

“Well…as a compliment? I mean, if you told
me
that, that’s the way
I
would take it.”

She sighed, wishing his cockiness and physical strength and visible attraction to her didn’t get to her the way they did. The
last
thing a female chef needed was to be vulnerable to that particular male combination. She’d never hold her own. “Did Quentin send you to sabotage tomorrow’s dinner?”

A little of the grin faded off his face. He straightened away from the wall. In the light, his hair was a kind of blue-brown, his skin faintly ghostly. “Who’s Quentin?”

“He
was
my second.”

Her burglar’s eyes narrowed just a little. It changed the whole look of his face, from cocky and dangerous to her equilibrium to just…dangerous. To everybody else. “Was?”

She shrugged, as if this kind of thing didn’t hurt every time. Why the hell did men have to make it so hard to do her job? As if everything in life was all about them and their wants, all the time? “Well, since I’m a woman, obviously
he
thought he was the real star in the kitchen and that I was just some figurehead who was sleeping with the hotel owner.”

Her burglar held up one finger. “Just a little point of interest, and not to distract your story, but
are
you sleeping with the hotel owner?”

She gave him a withering look.

He smiled. “Good.”

Oh, for God’s sake. As
if
that was his business. She tried to wither his cockiness again, but like most of the men she encountered in her career, his cockiness just thrived regardless.

“I mean, because I wouldn’t want to have to kill your boss,” her burglar said innocently.

Damn it, he’d almost made her laugh again. She rolled her eyes to cover it.

“So you had to get rid of Quentin,” her burglar said.

“After he cornered me in the walk-in after everyone else had gone home and tried to prove his masculine supremacy over me, I did.” She shrugged. “It was either that or cut off his balls, and can you imagine the media if I did that? My career would be finished. No one would
ever
eat at the restaurant of the female chef who cut off men’s balls.”

He gazed at her a moment, with a dazed look in his eyes. He gave his head a hard shake. “Hell, you’re hot.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “The idea of getting your balls cut off attracts you?”

“I’ll wear protection. So this Quentin…what’s his last name? Where does he live?”

“I took care of him,” she said dryly. That was the point, right? She took care of
all
problems cocky males presented her with. That was how she could stay chef.

Yeah, it would be nice if it was all about the food, the way she’d imagined as a kid, but she’d learned long before she finished her first apprenticeship that it was mostly about surviving in a world of sexist assholes.

“Stabbed him?” her burglar asked hopefully.

“I brought one of the pallets of milk down on his head when he pushed me back against the shelves. Mild concussion.”

He weighed that a moment. “Much of a struggle before you managed to bring the milk down on his head?”

Maybe. She lifted her chin at him and braced her feet.
Even if there was a struggle, I still won.

“Yeah, you know what? I think I’ll still pay him a little visit. Don’t worry, I can find his address on my own.”

“I don’t need a hero,” she said dryly.

He raised his eyebrows. “How do you know? It sounds like you’ve never had one.”

Chapter 3

“Okay,” Chase said, getting down to business. “Let’s get this done so I can take you out for drinks and get you out of those leather pants.”

“I’m still holding a knife,” Violette Lenoir pointed out dryly.

“Because they look uncomfortable! Come on. Admit you would rather be in pajamas right now.”

“Not for a motorcycle ride through rainy streets at midnight.”

“Good God.” Chase had to put a hand to his heart to calm it down. “You have a motorcycle, too? Is it by any chance a Harley?”

“A Ducati.”

He considered. There was no help for it. He was going to have to make a sacrifice. “I’ll do all the ironing.”

She raised her eyebrows.

Fine.
Fine.
“And the dishes five days a week.”

“Am I supposed to be coming home from my eighteen-hour days as a top chef to make my man a steak in this scenario?” she asked ironically.

He snorted. “I’ll make the steaks, thank you. I’ve seen what you people do to meat.”

Her jaw dropped. Pure outrage blazed so high in her eyes it pretty much grabbed his dick and tried to yank him right over to her by it. Damn, that was a hot look on her. “You think
I don’t know how to make a steak
?”

“You probably cut it into tiny spirals and make some commentary on Plato with it. Serve it on this much potatoes”—he held up thumb and forefinger in a stingy circle—“that you mix with, God knows, celery root or something. Beets. Who the hell knows?”

She was so mad he was going to have to kiss her in half a second or totally lose his mind. She ran that knife up and down that sharpener, the sound singing dangerously through the air.

“I’ll make the steaks,” he said firmly.

She slammed the knife down on the nearest cutting board. Ouch. She could take a man’s arm off with that kind of cleaving action. “You like to live dangerously,” she said.

“I know,” he said woefully. He patted his heart with his hand. “I’m sorry,” he told it bravely. “I’ll try not to let her break you.” He gave the Blonde in Leather his puppy look, this time channeling wistful courage. “Be gentle with it,” he whispered. “It’s not as tough as I look.”

She rolled her eyes.

He grinned. “Grandma is going to love you.”

“I’m going to call the cops now,” she said firmly.

There was so much to be said for a woman who thought about stabbing him, hitting him on the head, and dismembering him before she remembered she could depend on someone else to handle her problems. “Now, Ms. Lenoir, why break your record by calling for help now?”

She winced. “It’s
Lenoir
.” Something different and a hell of a lot sexier happened to the R and the vowels when she said it.

Those damn French classes. “How about I call you Vi? Your last name is going to change anyway.”

“I put a lot of effort into my name. So no, I’m not giving it up to some cocky idiot who thinks his own identity is inherently more important than mine, just because he’s a man.”

A beautiful idea hit him. “
I
could be Lenoir. That’s much more exciting than Smith. I think my grandma would be okay with it. She didn’t really have much choice about the name change back in her day, but she always thought Smith was boring.” Well, she definitely would have, if Smith was her real last name.

Violette Lenoir sighed heavily. “Are you some kind of manifestation of my worst nightmare?”

“Hey.” That hurt. “You’re straight out of
my
dreams.”

“You know I crush a hundred men just like you on a daily basis?”

Okay, not that he wanted to destroy her self-confidence or anything, but…seriously? “I’m pretty sure you don’t, honey. Just because they pretend to be me in video games doesn’t mean they’re actually like me.”

Just for a second, a flicker of genuine caution showed in her eyes, and her left hand scooped up another throwing knife. Aww, and they’d been getting along so well. He backpedaled. “But don’t worry, sweetheart. I may not be crushable, but you’re safe with me.”

“You’re not. Safe with me.”

He sighed with delight. “I know.”

“Are you sure your heart is as fragile as you pretend?” she asked dryly. “It looks as if bullets bounce off it from here.”

“Kevlar.” He thumped his chest with his knuckles, where he was, in fact, wearing a vest. “But underneath it’s pure mush.”

“So aim for your throat?” She hefted the left-hand knife.

He beamed at her and opened his hand over his heart in civilian pledge position. “I’d unzip my body armor for you, honey.”

She sighed heavily. But her lips twitched.

Yes.
He pulled a victory fist. “Now about those drinks. I don’t want to keep you all night, sweetheart—” He paused. Grinned. “At least, not all night here. So—”

“No?” she interrupted, disappointed. “Because I’ve always had a fantasy about this counter.”

Oh, hell, yeah. He sprang to attention. Coming away from the wall, a part of him rising up eagerly, and—