Dreamveil (23 page)

“She’s just a kid,” he told Dansant in an uncertain tone. “She ain’t got the chops for it.”

Dansant tried another approach. “Do you like Rowan, Lonzo?”

“Yeah, Trick’s okay,” he admitted reluctantly. “For a woman.”

Dansant suspected that his
garde-manger
’s chauvinistic attitude toward the fair sex would never change. “She has learned a great deal from you.”

Now the burly man’s chest puffed out. “I’ve taught her a couple things, sure.”

“Then you will agree that it is a credit to you that she has moved up to become the new sous- chef,” Dansant told him. “That is why you will accept this, because it was your teaching that helped her.”

“No shit?” His expression became filled with confusion, and began to clear. “I’m that good a teacher, huh?”

Dansant had suspected appealing to his chef’s vanity would be a way around his stubborn will. “Yes, you are. And you will watch over Rowan and assure that others are respectful of her. An insult to her is the same as an insult to you. Do you understand my instructions now?”

The last of the doubt faded from Lonzo’s harsh features. “Yes, Chef.”

It was rather comical, watching the reception the line cooks gave Rowan when she returned from the market with the Italian parsley Lonzo had sent her to buy. Vince cuffed her shoulder as he passed by her, and George asked her if she needed help setting up Bernard’s old station to her liking. Manny gave her advice on how to stock her speed racks, and even Enrique watched her anxiously, so that when she needed a certain pan or dish he had it at her station before she could call for it.

Much to Dansant’s disappointment, Rowan showed no reaction, although she flinched several times whenever he came near her. Unlike the enthusiasm she had shown on previous shifts, now she took no interest in his preparations, and left her station only to make a quick trip to the restroom halfway through the night.

Her cooking was as inventive and marvelous as Dansant had hoped. She remade his
cuisses de canard au chou
, using a dusky merlot instead of the traditional cognac, and cranberry jelly instead of tomato paste. The result did not greatly change the appearance of the dish, but subtly altered the aroma and emphasized the flavors. When Dansant made the first of his customary rounds of the dining area, his patrons raved over the dish.

“This reminds me of the duck we used to have at Thanksgiving every year,” one delighted matron told him. “My grandmother used cabbage in her stuffing, and would glaze the bird with cranberries and burgundy.”

“I thought Americans celebrated Thanksgiving with turkey,” Dansant said.

The woman chuckled. “Not when their father goes duck hunting every November.”

The kitchen remained busy for the rest of the night, and Dansant decided to keep his distance from Rowan to let her enjoy her victory. It wasn’t until after closing, when the line cooks congratulated her on their way out, that Rowan looked directly at him, her eyes filled with suspicion and dislike. He returned her gaze until the last cook had left, and watched her stalk toward the stairs.

“Rowan.” He watched her come to a halt. “Don’t go.”

She spun around, her features tight, her eyes glittering. “Is there something else you wanted, Chef?”

“You have obviously had enough congratulations,” he said, walking toward her. “I thought you would be pleased.”

“I would be, if they were sincere.” She closed the distance between them. “What did you do to them?”

“Do? Nothing.”

“The same way you did nothing to those kids the night we went to the opera,” she countered.

She thought he had hypnotized the line cooks. Well, it wasn’t far from the truth. “I may have threatened to fire them all if they treated you badly.”

“They’re cooks. That would have made them behave worse.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Have you ever done that to me? Hypnotized me, made me forget things?”

He didn’t stop to wonder how she had come to such a conclusion. He also felt a fresh wave of shame for the times he had used his influence over her. “I have only tried to be your friend, Rowan.”

“Friends don’t fuck with other friends’ minds, Dansant.”

He could compel her now to forget all about this unfortunate discovery, and tomorrow night she would be back at his side and happy to be there. And he would be even more of a monster than he already was. “If I have said or done anything to upset you, I apologize.”

She sat down on the bench by the table where the line cooks ate together. “I don’t know what to believe from you anymore. You’re making me think crazy things.”

He wanted to tell her everything, but it was not yet time. He had to first regain her trust. “How can I convince you that I am sincere?”

She seized an apple from the bowl of fruit on the table and tossed it to him. “Take a bite of that.”

He regarded the apple and then her. “Why?”

“Because if you’re who I think you are, you won’t. You can’t.”

He polished the apple on his sleeve and took a bite, and then another. Only when he had reduced it to a core did she sigh and prop her head in her hands.

“Do you want me to eat something else?” he asked. “A pear, perhaps? Some blueberries?”

“No,” she said, her voice muffled by her hands. “I’m an idiot.” She lifted her face. “And I’m sorry. My imagination has been in overdrive lately.”

“It served you well tonight,” he reminded her as he came to sit beside her. “Your cooking was very imaginative, and inventive. The patrons loved your duck.”

She grimaced. “It’s just food.”

He took another apple from the bowl. “Food keeps us alive, but cooking, that is like life.”

“That’s basically the same thing.”

“
Non.
Food comes to us new and untouched, as we are to the world when we are born,” he told her. “Preparing it changes it, makes it a thing like us.”

“So that crate of Italian parsley Lonzo sent me out for,” she said, “that would be like a box full of newborns?”

He ignored her sarcasm. “We take food and shape it and blend it with other things to make it more than it is, better than it is. That is like childhood, when we first discover what will make us what we will be. Then it is tasted and tested and becomes more than it is, something wonderful and beautiful to see and touch and taste and smell. Something that can give comfort and pleasure as well as sustain life.”

“Which makes us the same as cannibals. Yum.”

“It is not the same, and you know,” he chided. “What we create, what we are, is consumed by hunger, but surrendering to it allows us to become a part of another living thing. That is when we truly come alive. As for food, if our passion has transformed it, has made it what it was meant to be, it can never be gone or forgotten. It becomes part of another life. It will live on in them forever. As we do.”

She uttered a shaky laugh. “You make it sound like sex.”

“Love,” he corrected. “That is why it is so important to us,
oui
? Why it pleases us so much. When it is done correctly, cooking does not feed our pride or lust. It does not make us better or more noble. It is not meant for us at all. It is our gift to the world. A gift made from the purest, deepest love. The love we feel for others. The love we know in our dreams.”

She rubbed her eyes with her fingers. “Yeah, well, some of us don’t get that dream. Some of us are dumped here. Dirty and worthless. Unwanted and unloved. Just like garbage.”

“You are wrong.”

Dansant drew Rowan to her feet. “Close your eyes.” When she tried to step away, he put his arm around her. “Let me show you what I mean. I
did
eat the apple for you.”

So he had. Reluctantly she closed her eyes. “If you’re going to feed me something to inspire me, it had better not be that tuna that came in yesterday. Lonzo said it smelled off.” She felt something cool and wet against her bottom lip, and smelled warm, ripe peaches. “I’ve seen that movie
Nine and a Half Weeks
, too, so no jalapeños.” But when she licked her lower lip, she tasted the smooth, decadent taste of heavy cream.

What the hell is he doing?

“If you open your eyes,” he warned, “it will not work.”

“All right.” She waited.

The smell of peach darkened, became more complex. At the same time something brushed her top lip, dusting it with a sandy substance that her tongue discovered was crystals of brown sugar.

“Do not swallow yet,” he whispered against her ear. “Only open your heart, and taste.”

She knew the tiny dot of liquid he put at the corner of her mouth was vanilla extract from the intense smell, but another dot on the other side turned out to be almond. The two blended on her tongue with the sugar and the cream, making her hungrier for the peach slice he had to be waving around under her nose.

But when she opened her mouth to take a bite, he placed a fragment of something thin and crumbling on her tongue that tasted of butter and flour. Then something popped, and the juice of a blackberry dripped over the fragment.

His hands cradled her face. “Now us.”

He put his mouth to hers, opening her to his tongue, which tasted of a peach that had been poached in a dark wine. Her head whirled as he kissed her, and all the flavors came together as their mouths melded.

Rowan wanted to jerk away, but the coolness of his tongue slid against the heat of her own, and kissing him back was suddenly everything, the world without end, all that she was pouring out from her mouth to his, a flood of hunger and satisfaction entwining and melting and becoming something more. She clutched at the softness of his white jacket, afraid she would drop into some dark and mindless place with him, and then terrified that she wouldn’t, that he would end this and leave her alone and cold.

“Shhh.” He lifted his mouth and kissed her temple, holding her, rocking her a little. “Do you see now,
ma mûre
? It begins with a single thing. A peach. A blackberry. A kiss. And then we make it more. We make it love.”

She couldn’t believe she was crying, but she was, all over his immaculate whites. The tears flooded her eyes and streamed down her cheeks, dashing the beautiful taste in her mouth with salt.

“You can’t do this to me. Not now. Not when I don’t know . . .” She would not mention her feelings for Sean. And there was no way in hell she would ever tell him that she’d suspected him of being a vampire—or that she felt just as strongly for him as she did Meriden. She ground her forehead into his shoulder. “I can’t do this now.”

“I know.” His hand stroked over her curls. “But the time will come when you can. I hope it is with me, Rowan. I would very much like to be there.” He kissed her forehead. “I must go now. I will see you tomorrow,
oui
?”

“Yeah.” She managed a wan smile. “Have a good night.”

After Dansant left in his cab, Rowan went upstairs to shower and get ready for bed. Although watching her boss eat normal human food had gone a long way toward reassuring her, she had a whole new set of problems. He was definitely interested in her; he would never have kissed her like that if he were gay.

She would not think about the kiss. If she did, she’d be up all night remembering it and savoring it and dissecting it, moment by moment. After all, it had been the best kiss of her life.

Hearing Meriden coming up the stairs helped clear her head. She pulled on her clothes before she stepped out to catch him on the landing.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” He turned to unlock his door.

“Got a minute?”

He turned on her. “Are you going to cry all over me again?”

She winced. She had been going heavy on the water-works lately, something Dansant seemed to have no problem with but she suspected Sean hated. “No. I just wanted to explain—”

“No explanation required, Cupcake.” He went into his apartment and slammed the door in her face.

If that didn’t decide things for her, nothing would. Meriden wasn’t interested, and Dansant was. She could have the prince instead of the frog. And why was her hand reaching for his doorknob? She didn’t give a damn what Sean thought of her, or why he’d shut her out—again—or whatever new bug had crawled up his ass. She’d just go in and make that clear to him, once and for all, so there were no future misunderstandings.