Tempting Donovan Ford (4 page)

She sighed. Instead, it was just her against the world.

“I want to buy the restaurant.”

She didn’t need to tell Sasha. Her best friend was well aware of her plans.

“I know.” Sasha rocked her for a moment. “But what if you can’t?”

Julia didn’t like thinking about that. Not tonight. Not when she was already physically and emotionally drained from the long day on her feet and the surprise of the sale.

So she didn’t. She shoved it out of her mind and sat up, picking at the food in front of them. She knew that although Sasha was empathetic, she couldn’t really understand.

Their dreams were as different as their upbringings. Sasha had come from a nice suburban childhood with a big backyard and parents who were still married. Julia had grown up in a two-bedroom apartment in the city. A beautiful top-floor apartment, but far from the picket fence Sasha had known. Sasha’s mom thought gravy from a bag was an acceptable choice, while Julia’s mother had made everything from scratch, even bread. And Sasha had zero interest in owning her own place and had once told Julia that she wasn’t sure she wanted to even become an executive chef. The one night a week she ran the kitchen was enough for her.

It was as foreign an idea to Julia as growing up with two parents in the suburbs.

“Can we talk about something else? Who’s your latest boyfriend?” Sasha always had a new beau, claiming that she’d yet to find one who could hold her interest for more than a few weeks. It amused Julia to see the way she cut a swath through them, somehow always managing to have an amicable breakup.

And because she was a good friend, Sasha went along with the subject change, telling a humorous story about a man she’d met last week and how he already wanted to take her away for a tropical vacation.

But Julia couldn’t keep her mind on the story or on anything but the dilemma now facing her. She was going to have to figure something out. Luckily, she had a week and she planned to take every minute of it.

“Uh, Jules?”

“Yes?” Julia blinked, mentally rewinding their conversation to see if there was something she’d missed. Some particularly outrageous comment or a question that she hadn’t responded to, but she didn’t recall anything. Sasha’s eyes seemed to take up half her face. “What is it?”

But Sasha was busy fluffing her hair and pouting her lips.

“Okay,
who
is it?” Julia asked, smiling as she turned to see what fine specimen of man had caught her friend’s attention. And right there, having just come through the entrance in a tux that he no doubt owned, was Donovan Ford. With a beautiful blonde on his arm.

Julia swiveled back and reminded herself that she didn’t care who was on Donovan’s arm. But she turned her body just enough that she could sneak another peek.

The blonde’s dress flowed around her, rippling like waves, and was a blue so pale that it almost appeared white. There was virtually no color to her. Skin like the glow of the moon, platinum hair of a shade not found in nature and eyes an even paler blue than the dress. She looked like part of the bar’s design. The perfect woman in the perfect room, and her fingers were wrapped around Donovan’s forearm, a clear announcement that he was spoken for.

Julia hoped he got frostbite.

“Damn. There’s someone with him.” Sasha sighed heavily. “Guess that means he’s off-limits.”

“I already told you that.” Julia rarely got involved in the love lives of her staff. As long as they showed up for work on time and didn’t bring their personal issues to the kitchen, they could sleep with whomever they wanted. Even Jean-Paul.

But not Donovan.

“Yes, I remember that.” Sasha raised a strawberry-blond eyebrow in her direction. “Care to explain?”

Julia raised an eyebrow back. “Not really.”

Sasha smiled, a broad, bright smile that had won and then broken the hearts of plenty of men in the city. “Please, please, tell me it’s because you want him for yourself.”

“I don’t want him,” Julia said, but her stomach twisted. She ate another dull bite from her plate and washed it down with a sip of wine.

“Right. You just want his shares.”

“I don’t want his anything. And even if I did...” Her fingers fluttered up to her hair. “Oh, God. Stop talking. He saw us. He’s coming over.” She tucked a stray lock behind her ear though she didn’t know why she cared. So what if her hair was a bit messy because she’d only pulled it out of her bun and done a quick finger comb? That was life. Not shellacking her coif into a helmet that could break someone’s nose like the ice queen over there.

At least her clothing was nothing to sniff at. She straightened the hem of her nutty-colored tweed blazer, an investment piece she’d splurged on when she lived in Paris, and reknotted the leopard-print scarf around her neck. Paired with an army-green tee and black skinny pants, she looked chic and casual.

Keeping a spare change of clothes in her office was a necessity of being friends with Sasha. Sasha liked to go out after work and Julia liked to go with her. She loved cooking, but the industry could be hard on a person’s social life. She worked while others were out and having fun. When she was off work, most people were in bed. Now Julia wished she’d begged off after work and gone home to bed, too.

She could feel Donovan’s eyes on her, homed in, noting everything about her. A shiver passed through her. She hid it under a small smile and picked up her wineglass, raising it toward him as if in toast. A statement that she saw and acknowledged him but no further contact was necessary.

He didn’t take the hint.

“Sasha.” Donovan strode up to their table looking very dashing and debonair and just the slightest bit mussed. His bow tie was angled as though he’d stuck his fingers beneath it to loosen the knot and his cuffs weren’t perfectly even. A man who knew who he was and didn’t have to put on a show for the little people.

He bent to kiss Sasha on the cheek, and Julia inhaled his scent. Basil. Fresh and just a little spicy, like the scent of summer. Another shiver rocked through her, rocked harder when he turned toward her.

“Julia.” He bent to kiss her cheek. Cool air radiated off his skin, highlighted the warmth of his lips.

The shiver didn’t come back, but that was because Julia was swamped with a wave of them. She swallowed and tried to act like his kiss, his nearness, didn’t affect her in the least.

“Who’s your date?” Sasha wanted to know.

Julia kicked her. Asking Donovan about his love life was not appropriate. Even if she wanted to know, as well.

Sasha pinched her under the table but didn’t redact her question.

To his credit, Donovan didn’t look flustered or flushed at being interrogated by a pair of women he barely knew. “Tatiana Ivanova.”

Julia eyed the blonde. Her name suited her, cool and exotic and glamorous. Tatiana had stopped at a table of well-dressed people near the middle of the room, clearly friends, judging by the way she helped herself to a sip of wine from one of the goblets.

“Is she your girlfriend?”

This time, Julia didn’t kick Sasha but she did listen keenly for Donovan’s answer. Not that she cared what he said. Girlfriend, fiancée, wife, it didn’t matter to her and didn’t affect her life in any way. And yet, there were her ears, so finely tuned to any nuance that they were practically swiveling.

His eyes strayed to Julia and locked there. “I wouldn’t say that.”

She sipped her wine, feeling his gaze like a touch. It warmed her to the core. She sensed rather than saw Sasha sit back, knew she was going to have to answer a ton of questions later, but suddenly she didn’t care. She met Donovan’s dark gaze. “Oh? Then what would you say?”

Heat flared in his look, reached out to curl around her. Even with the limited lighting, Julia saw his eyes darken, the small curve of his mouth and the opening of his body as he angled himself more fully toward her. Signs of attraction. Her breath caught and held. She forgot Sasha was sitting right there, watching and listening to everything.

Donovan ran a hand through his hair, leaving lines through the dark waves. “She’s an old friend that I should get back to.” But he didn’t turn to look at the woman in question.

“Of course.” Julia tried to swallow the spark of attraction as easily as the wine. It was nothing she would act on anyway. “Enjoy your evening.”

He didn’t say anything, just watched her for a few seconds longer and then excused himself with a polite nod.

Julia watched him walk back, the easy way his hand slid around his date’s waist and the familiar look she gave him, leaning back just slightly so their bodies were touching from chest to thigh. A different kind of pulse coursed through her. Hot and envious. Which was ridiculous.

“You want to tell me what that was about?” Sasha asked.

“What what was about?” Julia feigned ignorance, swirling her wine in her glass without sipping.

“About the fact that I’m sitting over here with my eyebrows practically singed off.” Sasha fanned herself.

“You exaggerate.” Julia swirled again, watching the legs of the wine run down the inside of the glass, and willed her eyes to stay there and not where they wanted to go, which was to see what Donovan was doing with his blonde date.

“Really? Then why can’t he stop staring at you?”

“He’s not.” But she looked because she couldn’t help herself. It was instinctual. Anyone would look. And found Donovan’s dark eyes on her. Heat flamed in her cheeks. He shouldn’t be looking at her like that when he had his hand on another woman. Except he didn’t anymore. He’d taken a step away from the lovely Tatiana, his hand resting by his side.

Julia reminded herself that he was her de facto boss. That he’d bought the restaurant out from under her. That she needed to focus on her career if she wanted to reach her goals.

And wondered what that hand would feel like on her waist.

CHAPTER THREE

J
ULIA SLID HER
arms into the sleeves of her charcoal suit jacket and eyed herself in her bedroom mirror. It had been a week since Donovan Ford had barged into her restaurant and her life. And although she’d realized almost immediately that her options were limited, she’d felt obligated to take the full seven days just to ensure he knew he wasn’t calling all the shots. He might sign the checks and be the one with his name on the deed, but the kitchen and everyone in it were hers.

She ran a lint brush over her jacket, making sure there were no extraneous pieces of fluff on the dark wool, before fixing the collar of her crisp white dress shirt. Paired with a matching pencil skirt, her mother’s pearls and a pair of simple black heels, she knew she looked stylish and in control. Exactly the look she was going for in her meeting with Donovan Ford about the contract she still hadn’t signed. She grabbed her purse, did one last check in the mirror and headed out the door.

The day was cool, one that brought color to her cheeks and made her glad she kept a pair of leather gloves in the pocket of her winter coat. She slipped them on, covering up her short nails, nicked hands—the badges of honor every chef had—and caught a cab from her downtown West End apartment to Yaletown, where the Ford Group had their administrative offices.

She’d done her research and knew they owned the entire building. She peeked through the windows of Elephants, cheeks flushing as she recalled the flash of jealousy that had accosted her there when she’d seen Donovan walk in with his date. But that was a week ago, and in the interim, Julia had come to realize that she was over it. Over him.

She was surprised to see how full the wine bar was for a Monday at lunchtime. Tables of business professionals with bottles of sparkling water instead of wine. It was as full as La Petite Bouchée
had been on Saturday night, a sobering realization, but not one she needed to analyze now.

Julia continued past the wine bar’s entrance to a smaller, less ostentatious door that had the company name written on it in gold font and opened into a tiny entry with an elevator and stairwell.

After a quick debate, she took the stairs. She appreciated the echo of her heels off the concrete walls. Strong, powerful, just as she was. She’d worked with some of the toughest chefs in Europe. A meeting with her new owner wouldn’t rattle her. Even if she did find herself thinking of him at the most inopportune times. Though she blamed much of that on Sasha, who’d somehow gotten the crazy idea that Julia liked Donovan.

Julia shook her head. Of course she didn’t like him. For one thing, he was thwarting her plans to buy the restaurant herself. For another, he wasn’t her type. She liked creative types who worked with their hands and weren’t afraid to get dirty. Plus, she barely knew him.

So no, she didn’t like Donovan so much as she knew they needed to have a good working relationship. Nothing more, nothing less.

She reached the top of the stairwell and rolled her shoulders. Breathed in and out. No reason to linger even if she did have a bit of time before the kitchen expected her. She affected her best moue—the French expression that indicated boredom or a desire to get this over and done with—and opened the stairwell door.

A young woman with the kind of smooth skin that came from good genetics sat behind a long wooden desk that shared the same glossy effect as the bar downstairs. Clearly, this was their brand. All sparkle and flash. Julia swallowed. She hoped there was some substance beneath the sheen.

There was a handsome man leaning up against the desk. Julia recognized him as a Ford immediately. The younger son, Owen. He looked like Donovan, but sweeter or maybe just more relaxed. Whatever he’d been saying to the receptionist made her laugh.

She stopped midgiggle and cleared her throat when she noticed Julia. “Good afternoon.”

“Hello. I’m Julia Laurent.” She glanced at Owen, who appeared to have perked up at the mention of her name. Great. Exactly what had Donovan been telling his family about her? She decided to ignore the question. No need to borrow trouble. Maybe it was nothing, just human interest at putting a face to a name. “I have an appointment with Donovan Ford.”

The woman nodded. “Yes, Ms. Laurent. If you’d like to take a seat, I’ll let Mr. Ford know you’ve arrived.” She gestured to a long white leather Barcelona couch. It looked custom-made, the tufted seat and back running the length of the entryway.