One More Taste (6 page)

He watched the shift of her weight from one foot to the other, the extra squeeze she gave the folder in her hand. He'd hit a nerve. Good. Turnabout was fair play.

“I'm not holding myself back. All the years I've worked here,
laboring in obscurity
”—she said with a scoff—“I've had the freedom to cook what I want, every dish completely original instead of imitations of more prominent chefs or attempts to pander to critics' fickle tastes. Over the last decade, I've risen from a graveyard-shift line cook in the room service kitchen to the executive catering chef, one of the principal roles at the resort.” She spun the folder onto his desk and speared a finger on it. “A few months ago, Ty agreed to my proposal to open a high-concept, signature restaurant at the resort. Subterranean, I'm going to call it. We were in the process of securing funding when you showed up and ruined everything.”

He took a step nearer to her, then another, stopping just short of arm's length. This close, those freckles on her cheeks came into focus again, as did a faint, hairline scar along her jaw that curved to her chin. He refocused on her furious green eyes. “I did not take this opportunity away from you. Ty did. He was the one who contacted me, looking for investors. My presence here to execute my vision for the resort, as well as the timing of it, was at his invitation. If he let you believe your restaurant would be possible under this new vision, then he was stringing you along. He's your enemy, not me.”

Emily blanched, but only for a split second before recovering her wits. “He wasn't stringing me along. I'm sure he was grooming me for your takeover, knowing you'd want to step up the caliber of the resort's dining options. He's not my enemy. He's the employer who gave me a chance. All I need is an open door and a budget and I will give you the restaurant of your vision.”

She'd been dead on about his sixth sense and the rush he got with each thrill of discovery. He felt that familiar rush right now while sparring with her. He couldn't wait for her to leave so he could read her proposal. He should have eaten the damn soup. Now he'd never know what he'd missed. “You and I aren't so different in our ambition, you know.”

She sniffed at that, feigning a nonchalance he saw right through. “You couldn't be more wrong. I possess a patience that you clearly lack.”

Oh, this woman. She wouldn't stop pushing his buttons. He felt heat rising on his neck. He had to stuff his hand in his pockets so he wouldn't give in to the discomfort and tug his tie loose. Emily had no idea how much patience it had taken to wait for the right time to make his move against Ty Briscoe. Years of planning and strategy, years of positioning himself in the right business, with the right connections, silently closing in on his prey, waiting to pounce until the time was right—until the prey thought it was his idea and came to him, on the verge of bankruptcy and begging for a bailout.

“Prove it,” he heard himself say, not knowing exactly what he meant by the dare.

Her gaze was unflinching. “How?”

He had to think fast. “I'll give you four weeks. If you can prove to me in that time that you're as gifted a chef as you claim, then I'll hand you the reins of the restaurant along with whatever budget you require for this … Subterranean.”

She was not nearly as grateful as he'd expected, throwing him off yet again. “By taking over at the Chop House? Is that what you mean? Fine. As long as I have your approval to change the menu. Javier will be pissed to be booted from his job, but it's just a month. He'll understand.”

He hadn't thought the challenge through to its details, but it only took a moment to decide what he really wanted from her. “Not taking over the restaurant. Guests have an expectation of the steakhouse that we have to uphold. You'll cook dinner for me. As my personal chef for the month.”

The laughter she burst into caught him off guard yet again. “As in, cook for the man who thinks that food is nothing but fuel? A man who wouldn't taste my locally harvested, lovingly created, perfect peach soup? Because I'm not going to agree to this if you expect me to be your personal protein smoothie artist.”

Knox's blood pounded through his body, saturated with adrenaline. When was the last time anyone tested him like this? When had he last felt so alive? “My food philosophy makes me the perfect candidate for this challenge. Change my mind. If you're as good as you claim, then that shouldn't be a problem.”

Her fierce countenance fell away, and he could plainly see the wheels turning in her mind. “Luckily, October is a light wedding month. The menus are done and the food ordered, for the most part. I can supervise during the day, and then my assistant, Nori, can run the kitchen during the events since I'll be busy in the evenings devoting all my energy to … to…”

“To pleasing me.” Holy shit, that'd come out wrong.

Emily didn't blink an eye. “No. To bringing you to your knees. In four weeks, you'll be begging me to run your restaurant.”

Another rush coursed through him. He gritted his teeth against a smile. Emily Ford was stubborn, arrogant, and driven. Just like him. If she really was as extraordinary a chef as she claimed, then maybe he had discovered a diamond in the rough, one that might prove to be a lucrative investment, indeed.

“You're going to need more than dinners. Breakfast and lunch, too. I can serve them here at your office.”

“I don't eat breakfast.”

She didn't seem to hear him. “I'm going to need keys to your home and 24-hour access.”

Right. She was going to be in his home, every night. Another part of the challenge he hadn't thought through. The realization had his control tilting off balance again. He dashed off his address on the back of a business card, then extricated the house key from his personal key ring. “Of course. As I said, I don't eat breakfast and I take most of my meals here, so the keys to my house will rarely be necessary.”

She curled her fingers around the key, clearly taking his words as a further challenge. “And yet, that's where I'm going to feed you tonight. At your house. I'll see you at seven.”

“Make it eight. And plan on dining with me. What good is a fine meal when eaten alone?”

He wasn't sure what made him tack on that last requirement of the challenge, but his blood heated at the thought. What better incentive for pulling himself away from the office earlier than sharing nightly meals with the beguiling Emily Ford?

The pink returned to her cheeks. “That's not necessary.”

“Oh, I think it's very necessary. Consider it an extended interview.”

“Fine. Then I'll see you tonight at eight.”

Anticipation coursed through him with intoxicating purpose as he watched her stride from the room. No matter how this little experiment turned out, the daily battle of wills with Emily Ford was bound to keep him on his toes. He couldn't wait.

 

Chapter Three

Emily stood on the wooden dock attached to Knox's boathouse and watched the final rays of sun dance on ripples in the lake. Her mind drifted over the menu she'd built for her and Knox's first dinner together.

Damn it.
She sucked a breath in through her teeth, royally peeved at herself. She had to stop doing that, turning even the most benign thoughts into something pseudo-sexual—especially when it came to the man who held her future in his hands—no matter how achingly handsome he happened to be. She'd long considered herself immune to desire, ever since her epiphany after a bad date two years earlier when she'd realized how much more satisfying food was than sex or men or any sort of lust-fueled bullshit. Like a nun, she had a higher calling than succumbing to a mere mortal's baser needs.

She forced her attention back to the lake, where tendrils of fog were settling in for the night. More than any other season, she loved the way autumn felt. The chill in the air and the low, early retiring sun made people hungry for the types of foods she most loved to cook: hearty, soul-nourishing foods that connected people to the earth and the soil. The kind of food Knox Briscoe should be eating, if only he would abandon his ridiculous ‘food as fuel' naivety.

Nearby, a fish jumped from the water with a tremendous splash that sent droplets raining down on the wood and her feet. She wasn't the greatest when it came to identifying species of fish unless they were on ice at her favorite fishmonger's storefront, but she was pretty sure it was a carp. Or maybe a bass. Either way, it looked like a protein she'd love to design a meal around, if only she knew how to fish.

It was a tough sell to tear herself away from the peace of the water, but she wanted to make one more pass through Knox's house and search for future menu inspiration before he arrived to dine on a meal that included seared foie gras with vadouvan-spiced bread and huckleberry compote. It was a great menu with a flavor profile sure to wow anyone, but she was still having trouble figuring out exactly what made Knox tick, and therefore, the ideal emotions to elicit in him with her food.

She walked up the well-worn dirt path from the lake to the stairs that led onto the deck, then let herself in through the kitchen door. Her produce was drying on a towel near the sink and the huckleberries cooled in a pan on the stove, but she barely gave the room a look before pushing through the swinging door to the house's great room.

What Emily considered her greatest skill and the secret to her culinary success was that she was part fortune teller. She read people, their past and their future and their emotional temperature. She could spend a little time with a couple and understand what was missing in their lives, what they needed, what food could provide for them beyond their own limited understanding of taste and nourishment. She'd been perfecting the art for years, but as she'd told Knox that morning in his office, she couldn't get a clear read on him, try as she might.

She'd spent the afternoon trying to read him through his home and the land he'd chosen, but something was missing from her analysis. She had no inspiration at all. Clearly, he craved beauty and solitude, as evidenced by the view. The house itself was modern and cavernous. Though she suspected it had come fully furnished, she bet the cold, minimalist aesthetic appealed to Knox's need for control. Beauty, solitude, and control did not a satisfying meal make, especially for Knox, especially after stepping into the warm, inviting aura of his study.

In the study, on a table against the wall, she'd found a record player attached to a high-end sound system. Next to it, a collection of classic rock. Near to that were photographs of Knox's family sitting on the lowered tailgate of a truck, his parents crouched behind the three kids. Knox sat in the middle, looking to be seven or eight years old, and had his arms around his brother's and sister's shoulders. Emily had never seen a photograph of Knox's father, Clint, before. The family resemblance to Knox and Ty and Tyson Briscoe was strong. The same nose, the same angular jaw and high cheekbones, the same looks of intensity in their dark eyes. Clint, on the other hand, drew his looks from Granny June's side of the family, as Carina did. Emily recognized Carina's smile on Clint, as well as the shape of her head and the shading around her eyes.

There was only one room Emily had yet to explore. After a quick check of the driveway and the garage to make sure Knox wasn't home yet, she stole upstairs through the waning light. She counted five bedrooms on the second floor and as many bathrooms, but the master suite at the end of the hall was the only one with any semblance of personal touches to it.

The moment she stepped through the threshold, she expected to be overcome with warnings from her conscience that she was trespassing, but her drive to slay the challenge Knox had set up for her superseded any ethical or moral concerns about invading his private space. How could she mind overstepping some boundaries when her future was at stake?

The room smelled clean, fresh. Several sets of cufflinks sat in a dish on a darkly stained wood vanity near the entrance to the ensuite bathroom. One window in the long row of them had been cracked open. Beyond the glass, the bedroom boasted an expansive view of the lake. Behind the hill on the opposite shore, she spied the rooftops of Briscoe Ranch and the chapel.

She flicked on a light switch near the door, and a row of tasteful, recessed lights came to life above a large, masculine-looking bed. After another glance down the hall and a quick listen to make sure she was still alone, she walked into the room, heading straight for the bed. She smoothed her palm over the gold, black, and red duvet, in a style that reminded her of the Far East, covering his king-sized bed. An embroidered image of a black rose adorned one corner, the petals tumbling away from the stem like shaved slices of black truffle over a golden sauce.

Her spine snapped straight and she gasped aloud, rocked by a sudden explosion of inspiration. She'd been right about the peach soup. About foie gras and vadouvan, butter and cayenne. Knox's whole world revolved around the yin and yang of old and new. His pricey, stylish suits worn with old-fashioned gold cufflinks; a minimalist, modern home contrasting starkly with the well-used record player in the study. And especially the line of work he'd chosen, taking old businesses and giving them a new shine. Even beyond that, the act of buying a huge stake in Briscoe Ranch was the biggest yin and yang of them all—a new opportunity, colliding with an old family name and an old family rift.

“Of course. That's perfect,” she muttered, collapsing back on the duvet. She closed her eyes and spread her arms over the fabric, feeling the textiles with not only her hands but the skin of her whole arms.

She knew how to feed Knox so that the food would seep into his skin, through his layers of comportment. She had a plan—an irresistible plan that would turn him to putty in her hands—but his room was barely the tip of the iceberg. She needed so much more information. What had he been like as a child? What dishes had his mother made him? She needed his stories and history and—