Crazy Love (Emerald Lake Billionaires 3) (21 page)

Holly grinned at her cooking buddy. “What can I say? I’m an overachiever.”

“Where did you even find a red snapper at this time of the year?”

“I have contacts in the food industry. If I told you who my supplier was, you might think he was open to bribery and corruption. He’s not. We have a special arrangement.”

“Don’t tell me you traded a painting worth thousands of dollars for a fish?”

“Now you’re being plain ridiculous. It wasn’t worth thousands. Maybe nine hundred dollars, give or take a few quarters.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

Holly smiled. “I got myself a fish. A great big, in your face, red snapper. Look at his clear red eyes and shiny scales. He’s a real beauty and he’s all ours.”

“I still can’t believe you traded a painting for a fish.” Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “You hadn’t noticed the fish department before we went into Safeway, so your contact can’t be any of the staff there. And you don’t go near the deli or fresh produce sections. You got the fish off the frozen foods manager, didn’t you?”

“My lips are sealed.” Holly used her fingers to clamp her lips together.

Daniel looked smug after his incredibly wrong assumption. With his apron tied around his waist, he might be the sexiest man alive, but he was no Sherlock Holmes.

It was just as well her secret contact owned an art gallery and had a fleet of Greek fishermen at his disposal. Without Nick’s network of contacts, today’s red snapper might have been replaced with canned tuna. Not that she had anything against tuna—it made a great frozen casserole. But today was all about quality. And if there was anyone who knew quality when he saw it, it was Nick Costas.

Daniel pointed to the skillet. “Heat the olive oil over a low heat.”

“I think you should put the recipe on the counter,” she said while she waited for the oil to heat up. “That way I can double-check that you’re not leading me astray.”

“But that’s half the fun of cooking.”

Holly reached for the recipe card. Daniel held it a little higher, just beyond her hand. Instead of making another move for the card, she focused on his body. She leaned forward, tickled him, and waited for the card to drop.

She didn’t have to wait long. She snatched it out of his fingers, grinning at her reluctant cooking instructor. “Got it.”

“That’s unfair. I can’t help it if I’m ticklish.”

Holly fanned herself with the card. “It was an impressive tactical move.”

He handed her a glass of white wine. “It would be better if you practiced your tactical moves on this glass of wine. It needs to be added to the pan.”

“Can I have a sip, first?”

“If it makes you feel better, go ahead. Are you ready for the fish?”

She swirled the wine around the pan. “Ready, boss.” Daniel passed her the plate of red snapper. Very carefully she placed the fillets in a single layer on the skillet.

“We need more wine. The fish are sucking it from the pan.”

“That’s normal. It’s what gives the fish a different flavor.”

“If you say so,” she said, not understanding why anyone would add a cup of wine and then let it disappear. But this was a cooking date. She supposed that even the fish deserved a glass of wine.

Holly looked at the vegetables they’d prepared earlier. “Yum. This is going to be the best meal ever.”

“I’m glad you’re impressed.”

It wasn’t just the food that impressed her. Daniel had been incredibly patient, explaining all of the things that most people took for granted.

By the time their plates were on the dining table, everything looked perfect. Well, almost perfect.

“I forgot to light the candles.” She rushed back to the kitchen for her packet of emergency matches.

Daniel opened the bottle of wine and poured each of them a drink. He waited for her to sit at the table before raising his glass. “To my trainee chef—congratulations on making your first home-cooked meal. It looks amazing.”

Holly felt herself blush. “I couldn’t have done it without you. Can we take a photo of dinner?”

Daniel took his cell phone out of his pocket and passed it to her. “Go ahead. You could post it on Facebook and show the world what a great cook you are.”

“I’ve given up using Facebook. But I’ll take the photo anyway. My super-duper fish supplier will want to see the end results.”

“Are you ever going to tell me who gave you the snapper?”

“Only if you swear on my mother’s grave never to tell anyone. I don’t want to spoil a great relationship with them.”

Daniel held his hand over his heart. “I promise, on your mother’s grave, to never divulge the identity of your fish supplier.”

“It was Nick, Mia’s granddad. He knows someone, who knows someone else, who owns a fishing boat.”

Daniel picked up his knife and fork. “I’ll thank Nick for the fish next time I see him.”

“I don’t know if you really want to do that. Nick has an issue with the Crazy Love app that Blake designed. He wanted to talk to you about your intentions, but I managed to convince him that you were okay.”

“When did he say he wanted to have that conversation?”

Holly tried to remember when Nick had been determined to interrogate her date. “I think it was at the art auction. It was all Mia’s fault. Nick wants her to fall in love with someone who’s Greek.”

“He wouldn’t have liked the trial for the Crazy Love app, then.”

“He thinks that all you need to do is talk to someone to see if they’re the right person.”

“And you don’t agree?”

Holly thought about her answer. “Talking is great, but you have to find the right person first. Take us, for example. We probably wouldn’t have met if it hadn’t been for Blake’s app. The app gave us a reason to talk to each other. Now we talk all the time.”

Daniel ate a piece of fish.

Holly watched him. “Does it taste okay?”

“It’s better than okay. It’s delicious. I think you should choose the next menu.”

She tasted the fish and smiled. The wine had definitely added a subtle flavor to the melt-in-your-mouth fish. Apart from Daniel’s meatloaf, it was one of the nicest meals she’d had in a long time.

“We’ve made a meal worthy of any restaurant I’ve been to.” Holly picked up her glass of wine and held it in the air. “To good friends, an excellent cooking lesson, and the undercover agent who provided the fish. May there be many delicious meals to come.”

Daniel clinked his glass against hers. “I’ll second that. It’s been great teaching you how to cook.”

“I didn’t think I’d enjoy learning to cook, but you’ve made it fun. Thank you.” Ten months ago she wouldn’t have imagined she’d be eating a home-cooked meal that she’d prepared, with a man who was probably the best person she’d ever met.

She wished her mom could have been here to meet Daniel, to share her wisdom on what she should do next, and to answer questions about her dad.

Daniel frowned. “Is everything all right? You look sad.”

“I was thinking about mom.” Holly blinked, trying to hold back her tears. “I’ve got a little hole in my heart that she used to fill. Most of the time I can put a Band-Aid on it and focus on everything else that’s happening in my life. But sometimes, when everything else doesn’t seem quite so important, the little hole gets bigger and I miss her.”

“She would have liked your fish.”

Holly wiped her eyes and laughed. “She would have liked you, too. Thank you for teaching me how to cook.”

“You’re welcome, but this is just the beginning. There’s a whole world of recipes waiting to be discovered. We could even make an app that teaches people how to cook.”

“It’s probably already been done. There must be a lot of people who don’t know how to cook.”

Daniel sipped his wine. “I’ll find out and let you know. You could be the Nigella Lawson of the app world.”

“It’s hard enough being Holly Miller and H. Jones without adding another name to my list. I’ll leave that privilege to someone else.”

“Have you decided what you’re going to do about your father?”

Holly took a deep breath. “Mia asked me the same thing yesterday. I haven’t contacted him because I’m not sure what I’d say. All I remember of my father is walking in the woods with him. He knew the names of all the trees and what you should do if you got lost. Why would he suddenly want to speak to me?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you should ask him.”

She pushed a piece of asparagus around her plate. “I might not like his answer.”

“If you don’t ask, you’ll never find out.”

Holly put her fork down and stared at Daniel. “What would you do?”

“I don’t know. But if you’ve got questions about him, this could be a good time to ask.”

She rested her chin on her hand. “I could make a list of all the things I’ve wanted to know and email it to him.”

Daniel didn’t say anything.

“Or I could ask you to meet him. You could tell me what he’s like.”

Daniel smiled. “Not going to happen.”

“He’s an artist. Artists have friends. Maybe one of his friends could tell me what he’s like before I meet him.”

“Why don’t you want to see him?”

Holly looked down at her plate. She thought of the times she’d sat on her mom’s front porch, waiting for her dad to come home. “It’s not meeting him that’s the problem. It’s saying goodbye. I don’t know if I could do that again.”

“It sounds to me as though you need to work out what’s worse.”

“Unanswered questions or a broken heart?”

He shook his head. “Beginning a new relationship with your dad or not having the confidence to try.”

Holly let his words work their way into her heart. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

She left the table and took her phone off the top of the fridge. She sat beside Daniel and took a deep breath. “Here goes.”

With trembling hands, she found the message Hannah had forwarded to her. She called the number and waited.

The strength in Daniel’s gaze kept the phone to her ear. His confidence gave her courage.

Her breath caught in a painful knot when a man answered the phone.

“Hi, dad. It’s Holly…”

***

Daniel didn’t know what was worse. Waiting for Holly to call him after she’d met her father or worrying about Sam living on his own in New York.

The doctors at the Heart Center hadn’t been happy about discharging Sam. He needed more support than the appointments he’d booked at a private clinic in New York. But Sam, being Sam, hadn’t listened to the doctors’ advice.

All Daniel could do was be there for him and make sure he was okay.

He looked out his office window and wondered where the year had gone. A thick blanket of snow covered the mountains, creating the picture-perfect winter scene that Montana was famous for. The number of tourists hitting town had already doubled. According to the local newspaper, the business community was anticipating a bumper ski season.

Apart from Holly and Sam, his next biggest concern was making sure his app worked in the Sudan. Last week, he’d sent one of his team across to North-East Africa. He needed to be sure the Red Cross staff knew how to use the program. Without their assistance, the app wouldn’t make it past its first hurdle.

Someone knocked on his office door. “Come in.”

Louisa Markham, one of his staff who had moved from New York, held a file toward him. “John Fletcher dropped this off for you.”

“Thanks. How’s the new apartment?”

“Better than I thought. My neighbors are friendly.”

“If you need anything, let me know and we’ll sort it out.”

Louisa hesitated in the doorway. “There is something I need.” When she had Daniel’s attention, she smiled. “More noise. I can’t sleep at night because it’s so quiet. Where are the yellow cabs and mounted police?”

“You’ll soon get used to the quiet. I can almost guarantee that you won’t miss the smog, rush hour traffic, or the long lines at the supermarket.”

“I’m going skiing with everyone from work this weekend. Are you coming with us?”

Daniel shook his head. “Not this weekend. I’ve got something else planned.”

“Okay, but you can’t complain that you weren’t invited.”

“Just don’t break any bones. We’ve got a tight schedule over the next few months.”

Louisa rolled her eyes. “I’ll let everyone know you’re concerned about our health and safety. The marketing plan for Corrie’s app will be on your desk this afternoon.”

When she left, Daniel opened the folder from John. Contrary to what Holly thought, he wasn’t quite as trusting when it came to her father. After she’d called her father, they’d gone to see Nick. If anyone could tell them about her dad, it would be him.

Nick had been an important part of the arts world for a long time. He knew everyone, and if there was something he didn’t know, he knew how to find the answer.

Daniel had been surprised to learn that Holly’s father was none other than Brian Miller, a world renown oil painter, philanthropist, and recluse. Like his daughter, he preferred to stay out of the limelight.