Lucky Flash: A Lucky O'Toole Novella (The Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Series) (10 page)

The Bazaar hummed with activity as I paused in the doorway.
 
This close to dinnertime I felt a burger was in order, or at least a hug from the chef.
 
I had gone too long without and was feeling the pangs.
 
I dove into the sea of humanity and went with the flow, fighting my way to the side when I arrived in front of the Burger Palais.
 
Yes, I am on the record as having opposed that name.
 
I lost.
 
I wasn’t broken up about it—Jean-Charles seemed happy, so I was content in defeat.

A few of the folks waiting in line gave me a dirty look as the hostess waved me through.
 
The energy didn’t drop by much when I stepped into the welcoming confines of the restaurant.
 
Jean-Charles’s transformation of the prior tenant’s garish pizza joint still surprised me.
 
Brick walls with drippy mortar, green leather banquets and chairs, white tablecloths, and the soft illumination of brass sconces created an elegant, yet welcoming, environment.
 
A bar in warm wood imported from Scotland and fronted by green leather barstools circled from the right-hand wall.
 
The kitchen worked behind a wall of glass on the left-hand side.
 
I paused to watch my chef.
 
Resplendent in his chef’s whites, he toiled, his back to me, over a grill full of rounds of meat sizzling over glowing coals.
 
Jean-Charles put an ahi burger on the menu, which I thought was an insult to all the meat-lovers everywhere, but it’s been a big seller.
 
Again, I was gracious in defeat, although he did like to rub it in a bit too often.

He didn’t break stride as I eased in behind him, circling his waist, then planting a light kiss on my favorite spot just behind his right ear where his hair curled seductively over his collar.
 
“I have missed you last night.
 
Christophe wanted you to read him the
Very Bad Bunny
story again.
 
He was most … how do you say it?”

“Put out?”
 
I nibbled on his ear because it was there.
 
Christophe was Jean-Charles’s five-year-old son who both charmed and terrified me.

A shiver chased through my chef.
 
“You must stop that.
 
I cannot concentrate.
 
Yes, put out, this is it.
 
He tells me I do not get the voices right.”
 
He muttered a curse as he flipped one of the patties into the waste trough and then tossed a fresh one on the grill.
 
“You see?”

I wasn’t feeling the least bit sorry.
 
“I’ll read it to him tonight, if I’m invited.”

Jean-Charles leaned to the side and turned to get a look at me with those baby blues.
 
“Ah, this is a joke.”

I tried not to stare at his lush lips.
 
So, to avoid any awkwardness, I did the only thing I could—I kissed them.
 
Long and deep, tasting, savoring.
 
Another shiver, this time mine.
 
“Mmmmm, I do love the taste of hamburgers.”

“So I am just another meat on the hoof for you?”
 
Jean-Charles loved American idioms, even if most of the time he got them charmingly mixed up.
 
“This is how you say it,
non?
”

“Innuendo.
 
I love it when you do that.
 
Sexy as hell.”
 
Which, of course, he always was, but no need to stoke his already healthy ego.

Rinaldo, Jean-Charles’s executive chef, elbowed us aside.
 
A mountain of a man with thick black curls, three chins, and a ready smile, shot us one.
 
“You two, go find a room.
 
The meat requires delicate handling and undivided attention.”

A smile ticked up the corner of Jean-Charles’s mouth, his eyes still glued to mine.
 
“Special handling, indeed.”

“Me first.”
 
I grabbed his hand and pulled him to the bar.
 
“Pour me a glass of Schramsberg Brut Rosé and talk dirty to me.”

I watched him as he released the cork with a mouth-watering pop; then, with a thumb in the bottom of the bottle, he cradled it in his hand as he poured a frothy flute for me.
 
A French chef who thinks I’m the tastiest dish and a flute full of bubbles, nothing better.
 
“How’s the restaurant coming?” I asked.
 
“I haven’t made it over there today.”

“We will be ready for the opening December 21
^st
.
 
A Christmas party to remember.”
 
He leaned casually on the bar.
 
He preferred that to sitting next to me.
 
Easier to look at me that way, he’d told me.

I relaxed into his recitation of the progress that had been made, what still needed to be done, and what needed my particular brand of attention, making a mental note of those items.
 
Despite my very real misgivings, Jean-Charles had crawled into my heart and stayed there.
 
Our relationship had grown and matured.
 
We enjoyed business, good food, his son, and each other.
 
So why did I have this niggling worry that once he decided to shift the spotlight of his focus elsewhere, once he decided I was a bird in the hand, so to speak, that he would put his energy and charm to other uses, leaving me in the shadows?
 
He was a man of intense passions and driving ambition.
 
His son first, then his restaurants and me.
 
Could I be happy with that?

Jean-Charles fell quiet and raised an eyebrow.
 
“Where did you go?”

“I’m sorry.
 
What did you ask?”

“Have you reviewed the guest list for the opening?”

“Not yet.”

“Invitations need to go out in a few days.
 
We only have three weeks.”

“I’ll do it when I get to the office.
 
The calligrapher is waiting for them.”

He refilled my flute, which I hadn’t been aware of draining.
 
“I do have something to tell you.”
 

Something in his tone made me pause. I really hate it when people do that to me.
 
It’s like they’re priming me for good news, only to cut my legs out from under me.
 
When she’s not felled by twins, my mother was a master.
 
“Okay.”
 

“Why do you say it that way?
 
Like you are holding a shield.”

“If you have good news, why don’t you just tell me?
 
When you set me up like that I think it’s only to deliver bad news.”

Jean-Charles shook his head.
 
“Sometimes I do not understand you.”

“Yeah, me either.”
 
I took a sip of bubbles, holding it in my mouth, trapping the air, feeling it expand, then drinking it down like cotton candy.

“Holt Box is going to be my guest sous chef.”

 
“Whoa!
 
You mean the hottest former star in the country music scene that, if the rumor mill is correct, is considering ending his retirement?
 
That
Holt Box is going to be
cooking
for the party?”

“And serving.”

I gave him the slanty eye.
 
“And what’s the downside?”

My chef gave me his patented Gallic shrug, the one I found almost irresistible. “He likes to cook.
 
He likes my food.
 
There is no downside, as you say.”

“He asked?” I didn’t try to hide my skepticism.

“It is this simple.”

“No money?”
 

“
Oui.”

“Wow.”

“Yes, this.
 
Wow.”

We were staring at each other, my thoughts wandering from the conversation to something even more delicious when I felt someone elbow me.
 
“I knew you’d be here.”
 
Romeo slid onto the stool next to me.
 
“May I have a Wild Turkey and tonic, hold the tonic,” he asked the bartender.

I pretended to be happy to see him.
 
I wanted no part of his investigation.
 
What I wanted was a piece of my chef, for the weekend, which technically I had off. “No detective points for you—I’m not hard to find.”
 

“True.”
 
Romeo took a sip of his drink.
 
He pretended to like it, but his eyes watered, exposing him.
 

Jean-Charles gave me a wink as he handed the brave detective a glass of water.
 
“Wait until you are a hard man before you go for the hard stuff,” he said.

Romeo gave me a wide-eyed look, managing to keep a straight face.

“Nope, I’m not going to hit that one out of the park,” I said.
 
“Be my guest.”

“Not touching it.”

Jean-Charles looked first at me, then Romeo.
 
He wanted an explanation.
 
I wasn’t going to give him one.
 
Not when I couldn’t have a hands-on demonstration.

 
“So apparently you have a reason that you are looking for me?”
 
I asked Romeo, ignoring the quizzical look on Jean-Charles’s face.
 

“I’d sure like to find out if that ring has been out of the case lately.
 
Maybe on loan or something?”

“I know just the person who can help.”
 
I chugged my remaining Champagne, making Jean-Charles grimace at the disrespect.
 
“What’d you do with Johnny Pismo?”

“A friend bailed him out.”

“Really?
 
Johnny Pismo has a friend?
 
Who?”

Romeo fixed me with an unreadable stare.
 
“Busta’ Blue.”

“You let him take him?”

This time Romeo’s look was pure innocence.
 
“Who was I to say no?”

The warmth of Jean-Charles’s kiss still lingered as I pushed through the office door, the young detective in tow.
 
The Babylon was just gathering strength as day headed into night, and the energy from the lobby below pulsed through the walls.
 
Brandy, my youngest assistant, manned the outer desk, which made the young detective blush and stutter.
 
They’d been seeing each other, but I stayed out of it—although, I approved.
 
Romeo paused to talk to his gal while I sailed right on through to my old office.
 
Miss P, her feet on the desk drawer, leaned back in my old chair just as I used to do.

“Be careful, you might end up like me.”
 

“There are worse things.”
 
Miss P, all spiky golden hair, bright eyes, stylish attire, and an undercurrent of sarcasm was more me than I used to be.

I brushed the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock from his perch, one butt cheek on the corner of her desk.
 
The gorgeous Australian was Miss P’s boy-toy and fiancé.
 
Over six feet, chiseled, with brown hair, golden eyes, and dimples… he was total swoon material.
 
The fact that he was also a true-blue guy and Vegas’s primo private investigator just sweetened the pot.
 
Dane had worked with him.
 
A momentary cloud dimmed my unusually sunny disposition.
 

Dane.

Now there was a disappointment—the proof to my rule that all men are pigs.
 
Of course, as with any rule, there are exceptions, but, sadly, he was not one of them.

Still unused to seeing Miss P behind my former desk, I looked for a chair in which to alight.
 
Promotions had launched us both one notch up the corporate ladder, which created this office musical chairs game and actually changed nothing other than our take-home pay. “I need your help.” I flopped onto the couch against the wall.

Miss P grabbed a pen and paper.
 
Brandy with Romeo in trail stepped into the office.
 
Searching the desk for my cockroach paperweight, a gift from the employees when I’d done battle with a particularly odious guest who’d decided to scam the hotel by letting loose thousands of the beasts.
 
Playing with it while I talked had become a comforting habit.
 
Too late I realized once again this wasn’t my desk.
 
My eyes on Romeo, inviting him to participate in the retelling, I regaled the group with my tale of Johnny Pismo and Liberace’s ring.

“So the bloke had the real ring when it was supposed to be in the case in the museum,” Jeremy summed it up rather succinctly.
 
“Did he say where and how he got it?”