The Winemaker's Dinner: Entrée (2 page)

Sensing that the others in the room likely didn’t share their enthusiasm, no matter how romantic the gesture was, Jaden released her iron grip. She slid down the length of Ivan’s body and gave him a long look, laced with love and lust, letting him know this little tryst was far from over.

“Great! That shot’s ruined,” a bearded man grumbled from behind the closest camera. “I don’t have anything else to do tonight.”

Though she felt badly, Jaden couldn’t help but smile as the cameraman took off his ratty LA Kings hat and tossed it into the air, throwing a mini temper tantrum.

“Sorry about that, baby girl,” Ivan whispered, squeezing her hand. He bent and picked up the bouquet of flowers. “I’ll put these in your dressing room while you finish up.”

“Yeah, I think that would be a smart idea,” another cameraman mumbled from behind them.

Jaden glanced over and saw a hint of a smile on his face.

“Can we please wrap this up, Ms. Thorne?” he continued. “It’s getting late, and we all have lives to get back to. I realize we’re not as exciting as Prince Charming, but time is money.”

“Of course,” she said. “I just needed a moment there. Not sure what came over me.” Though a bit embarrassed by her lapse in professionalism, Jaden couldn’t stop smiling. Ivan was here, in LA, and that’s all that mattered.

“
I’m
sure,” said Kat, who stood nearby. She burst out laughing and was joined by at least a few on the production crew.

“I’ll see you soon,” Ivan said. He glanced down as he traced a sensual path along the neckline of Jaden’s chef’s jacket with the tip of his finger.

Standing on her tiptoes, Jaden placed one last kiss on his lips before returning to work. As she walked back to the set, she looked over her shoulder to watch Ivan disappear out the door. The heat of a blush rushed to her cheeks as she admired his muscular form.
Damn, the man looks just as good coming as he does going
.

Then, as if with the flip of a switch, Jaden snapped back into her role as Chef Thorne. “Next, always be sure your mint is fresh,” she repeated, picking up where she’d left off. With her head back in the game, they’d be finished filming in no time flat. But her heart had already gone out the studio door with Ivan.

“Wild Horses”

O
KAY
, F
OCUS
,
J
ADEN
T
HOUGHT
. The promise of what was hidden beneath Ivan’s clothes lay just beyond this next shot, and just out of her reach. Oh, how she’d enjoy torturously removing each item and wiping that cocky grin off his face. Not that he’d mind. Hell, he was probably waiting in her dressing room at this very moment, half naked and sprawled out on the sofa. But the sound of Brett hollering
Action!
snapped Jaden out of her revelry, and she went to work. Adding the last touch of minty flair to the plate, she held it up and waited the fifty years it seemed to take for the little red light on top of the camera to turn off. Five…four…three…two…one…

“That’s a wrap!” Brett shouted, circling his finger in the air. There was a sudden flurry of activity on the studio floor as the crew hurried to store their equipment and start their weekend.

Rather than having all the food go to waste, Jaden usually set out the plates of finished dishes for the crew, but today she relinquished that duty to one of her sous chefs, whizzed through her customary thank yous, and headed for the door.

“Ms. Thorne, don’t you want to see the final take?”

“Not today,” Jaden replied as she hurried past Brett. She flung open the large glass double doors and raced down the corridor, past a group of onlookers watching her as if she were crazy, and to the door at the end of the hallway marked
Chef Jaden Thorne
. Her mind reeled and her heart beat so fast that she thought it might actually explode.
Is Ivan still here or did he go back to my place? God…I hope he’s as horny as I am.

“Well,” she whispered to herself. “Let’s see what’s behind door number one.”

She held her breath and opened the door. Much to her dismay, Ivan was nowhere to be seen. But in his place was a very shocked-looking Kat standing amidst what had to be at least sixteen dozen roses. Oversized bouquets of white, pink, and yellow blooms had been arranged on every available surface. The fragrance was so beautiful and powerful that it momentarily overwhelmed her, and she took a step back into the hall. How on earth had he managed to pull off something like this…again? And where
was
he? He was the real bouquet, a constant reminder that life is beautiful and precious. Walking carefully to the center of the room, Jaden looked around for some sort of note, something that might give her a clue about what the hell he was up to this time. And then she saw it: a small, white envelope attached to a black-and-gray bear that sat with the only red roses in the room. Jaden slipped the card from the envelope and began to read:

Your love has become the very definition of my smile-and I love to smile.
Say hello to BoBo! You helped create him. ;)
I’m running a few errands, but I’ll see you soon!
~Ivan

As tears began to well in her eyes, Jaden glanced around the room again and sighed in exasperation. If only Ivan had stayed behind to share this with her. Grasping BoBo in her hands, she took in every detail of the patchwork bear. Suddenly she recognized the black velvet bag that Ivan’s, and now her, favorite wine came in. As she turned the bear over, she identified strips of every piece of clothing she’d ripped from Ivan’s body, spilled sauce on, or otherwise destroyed, and BoBo’s eyes were the buttons from the infamous Perry Ellis suit jacket he’d been wearing the night they met. All of it reminded her of the romantic sprint they’d embarked on less than a year ago. It had taken both their hearts from zero to sixty in an instant.

The only thing that perplexed her was the red, silky material of BoBo’s ears. She racked her brain but couldn’t come up with any reasonable source.
I’ll figure it out
, she mused and looked around the room again. How much had this little stunt cost? And how much trouble had he gone through to get all these flowers delivered to the studio? But she quickly dismissed the
how
of it all and focused on the fact that Ivan was really
here
. He was in LA, and in a less than an hour she would feel the warmth of his arms as they wrapped around her and his sultry scent washed over her. A smile crept onto her face as she imagined all the ways she could reciprocate for this grand gesture—for him once again sweeping her off her feet.

Having forgotten that someone else was in the room, she jumped when Kat approached from behind.

“Need a hand?” Kat asked as she picked up a brush from the makeup table.

Jaden smiled. Despite Kat’s crazy makeup and sometimes scary Goth girl appearance, she’d become more than a makeup artist and personal assistant. She was one of Jaden’s only friends in LA. Tilting her head back, Jaden sank into the chair. “Make me look stunning.”

“That’s not very difficult.” Kat chuckled and began to brush through Jaden’s loose, ebony curls.

Jaden relaxed under Kat’s expert touch. She loved having her hair brushed. Even as a child, she would sit for hours while her mom combed her hair and put it up in ringlets. She could feel her eyes growing heavy with sleep as Kat worked her magic, curling tendrils of her hair and pinning them together at the base of her neck. It wasn’t until Kat began to speak that Jaden forced open her eyes.

“We’re almost done,” she said. Pinning the last tendril into place, Kat picked up a mirror and held it to give Jaden a view of the cluster of curls that gathered at her neck and cascaded down her back.

Jaden smiled. A sexy ponytail. It was perfect!

Kat put the finishing touches on Jaden’s hair and gave it a spritz of hairspray, and a soft knock on the door caused both of them to look up.

“Come in,” Jaden called.

The door opened and Stacey entered, carrying a clipboard in one hand and balancing a Styrofoam cup in the other as she tried to shut the door behind her.

“Jaden, I just wanted to ask you—” Stacey started, but stopped as she took notice of the ridiculously large display of roses. “Jesus, what are you now? A florist?”

Jaden laughed and waved Stacey forward as she stood up from the chair. “Would you mind getting my black dress from the closet?” she asked Kat before joining Stacey on the sofa.

“Let me guess! Ivan’s in town for the weekend?” The words were out of Stacey’s mouth before Jaden even had a chance to sit down.

Jaden nodded and both women giggled like little girls as they surveyed the myriad of flowers surrounding them. But despite Stacey’s smile, Jaden wondered if deep down she was jealous. Stacey had clearly been fond of Ivan at The Winemaker’s Dinner, and he could deny it until he was blue in the face, but Stacey had a crush on him. Who could blame her? Not too many men would go to such great lengths to woo a woman, and the garden of roses that encompassed them was proof that Ivan was in a league of his own.

“What do the two of you have planned for tonight?” Stacey inquired, plucking a yellow rose from a nearby vase and raising it to her nose.

“Oh, you know Ivan,” Jaden replied. “I’m sure he has something special planned, but he had to take care of some business first.”

“He’s just full of surprises, isn’t he?” Stacey said, shaking her head as she returned the rose to the vase. “Well, what the hell are you still doing here? Get your ass home!”

“That’s the plan,” Jaden replied, standing up. Then she realized Stacey must’ve come in to discuss something other than Ivan. “Was there something else you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Stacey said with a laugh. “I wanted to be sure you were planning on coming to the dinner party Kevin’s hosting for Damian. Sunday, six p.m. sharp!”

How the hell could I forget about that?
“Don’t worry. We’ll be there,” Jaden responded in the most enthusiastic tone she could muster. The corner of her mouth twitched as she forced a fake smile to her face. It hadn’t seemed possible, but she was now looking forward to this party even less than before. Not only was the whole thing annoying, it would take her away from private time with Ivan. The only thing she wanted to do this weekend was Ivan. Literally.

“You know,” Stacey said, pausing in the doorway. A lusty look spread over her face, brightening her features and making her look five years younger. “Kevin did well when he chose Damian. That boy is stunning. I wonder if he gives private cooking lessons.”

Jaden laughed out loud. She could hear the roar of the cougar from across the room. Leave it to Stacey to set her sights on some blond-haired playboy. Not just a cougar, Stacey was an Alpha Cougar. Jaden, on the other hand, had no desire to even meet the guy.
One Hot Kitchen
was still kicking ass just like it had been, thank you very much, and as long as she had Ivan, she had everything she needed—and then some.

Once Stacey disappeared, Jaden turned to find Kat holding her dress. She slipped out of her kitchen whites and luxuriated in the satiny softness of the dress as she smoothed it over her shoulders and down the length of her body. After applying a fresh coat of pineapple lip gloss and a touch of perfume, she gathered her belongings and left the studio. The town car was parked in its usual spot in front of the building, but Adam, her personal driver, was standing beside a food cart with a hotdog in one hand and a soda on the other.

At the sound of her heels clacking against the pavement, Adam looked up. “Are you ready to go, Ms. Thorne?”

“Let’s do it! And for the last time, Adam, it’s Jaden, not Ms. Thorne.”

“Yes, ma’am. It won’t happen again.”

Of course it would happen again. It happened every time. Adam was always professional, and no matter how many times she’d asked him to call her Jaden, he refused.

She often brought him a container full of whatever they’d cooked on the show, but in her haste this evening it had completely slipped her mind. She silently cursed herself—and Ivan’s ability to scramble her brain. Over the past few months she and Adam had come to be good friends. He was as much protective older brother as studio-appointed driver.

As Adam finished off the last bites of his hotdog, she slipped into the backseat of the car and pulled the small, white envelope from her purse. She reread the card several times, grinning from ear to ear as she looked at BoBo and tried to piece together what sort of surprise Ivan had up his sleeve this time.

After a few moments Adam slid into the driver’s seat. He lowered the glass partition. “Ms. Thorne, would you mind if we stopped at Chateau Marmot? I have to drop off a package for my sister, and she’s already been waiting over half an hour.”

Ivan had to have finished his errands by now and was probably waiting at her place, but Adam always went above and beyond. How could she say no? With a slight nod, Jaden replied, “Sure, as long as we can make it quick. I have plans tonight. Ivan’s in town!”