“Ten minutes, Nick,” the floor manager called from outside the door.
“Gotcha, Jack.”
Ten minutes. He needed every single second of that time to revamp his plan. Thanks to Jasper’s late arrival that morning, Reese Dunbar had already gotten off to a shaky start with Leonie. Had the guy done that on purpose? He hadn’t been keen on officially hiring Reese after Nick told him he’d offered her a job. Had Leonie not called about then, informing the supervising producer that she was changing up Nick’s on-screen wardrobe to better grab the network’s attention, Reese might still be unemployed. But Jasper had been so incensed about Leonie making yet another decision without him that he decided to make one without her.
Reese Dunbar was an eyeful, especially when she wasn’t engaged in haranguing her boss or crying over her lost job. But he’d have to put his usual lady killer routine on ice with this one. With effort, he shut out thoughts of her form-fitting chef’s jacket and tried to focus on how he was going to sell her to his aunt.
God, he wished Leonie wasn’t so dead-set against anyone else hosting the show, including herself. A new face, especially the one on Reese Dunbar, attached to that body and connected to a brain that really knew how to cook could revitalize the show to the point where the network might actually want to pick it up. Why couldn’t Leonie see that?
He stared at the man in the mirror, splayed his fingers through his hair.
I’ve got to get back to acting while I still have my looks. Much longer and I’ll be playing character parts, getting by on my wit and charm
. Hell! He was doing that now. Playing the urbane fool whenever he forgot a step in food preparation or called some ingredient by the wrong name.
“Nick, darling, are you in there?”
Leonie. Thank God he’d locked the door. For once, she hadn’t been able to breeze into his dressing room uninvited. He loved the woman dearly, like a mother, but he didn’t want to see her right now. He’d avoided her as much as possible since their dinner meeting over a week before.
“I’m clearing my head,” he called back. “I’ll see you after the taping.”
“I need to speak with you now.”
He counted to ten, willing her to give up and leave, knowing full well that wasn’t going to happen.
“Nick? The door seems to be jammed.”
He rolled his eyes, suppressed a sigh. Reluctantly, he set the soda can back on his dressing table, crossed the small space to the door and unlatched the lock. “Can’t it wait?”
A flash of bright green shot past him. “I came to tell you that I forgive you.”
He raised a brow. “Okay. I’ll bite. Forgive me for what?”
His aunt adjusted her bracelet, a thin strip of green enamel. Eyes wide, she said, “For leaving me to fend for myself at that restaurant, of course.”
“I paid the bill on the way out and cued your driver. How exactly did you
fend
?”
She waved a hand. “Not that. For threatening to leave the show.” She came over to him, briefly touched his arm, issuing a bright, aren’t-I-the-brave-one smile. “I’ve had some difficult moments since our dinner. I wasn’t sure you’d show up this week.”
“I haven’t changed my mind. I’ll stick it out a couple more months and see how well you do with the network.”
She immediately teared up. “Oh, Nick. You’ve made me so happy.” She didn’t give him a chance to respond but instead took his hands. “You’re the key to all this. The network is going to be so impressed with you.”
He withdrew his hands, shaking his head. “You’re not hearing me, Leonie. I said I’d stick around
for
you, to lend support
to
you, not for you to build your entire campaign around.”
She frowned, bit a lip, but then a weak smile emerged, like the first hint of sun after a rainstorm, the kind where, just when you think blue skies are on their way, an even heavier downpour follows. “Okay, dear. I want you to be really comfortable with the direction I see the show taking.”
Comfortable enough not to leave. He could almost hear her thoughts. But just the same, he’d taken a stand, not the stand he would have preferred but a stand nonetheless, and Leonie had seemingly gone along with it. Besides, he wanted her in a good mood when the subject of Reese Dunbar came up.
Which occurred about two seconds later. “Have you heard about Jasper hiring a production assistant?” she asked. “Without my approval.”
“Met her. Not bad on the eyes.”
“Of course, you’d notice that.”
“Jasper seems to be impressed with her.”
That stopped her momentarily. “That fool? He was probably taken in by her looks too.”
“C’mon, Leonie. Jasper’s not like that. He’s still not over his dead wife.”
“Yes, he is,” she replied a little too fast. She glanced away, played with her bracelet. Turning back, she added, “He’s still very loyal to her, but he does show signs of moving on. I hope that doesn’t mean he’s trying to replace her with a younger woman.”
He pulled at the neckline of his black knit tee. Too tight. Checked himself in the mirror one more time. “Careful there, Leonie, or you’ll have me thinking you’re interested in the guy.” He’d said it in jest, attempting to lighten things, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of her pink neck. What did that mean?
He checked his watch. A minute before he had to be on set. Not enough time to discuss her relationship with Jasper, but sixty seconds to plant the seeds of the next part of his exit plan. “I’ve got an idea for changing up the show’s format. Where I go on location to interview other chefs.”
Leonie’s eyes flickered several times, but rather than reply, she took his place at the mirror to inspect her own appearance and patted a coiffure that didn’t budge. “Not now, dear. Taping starts soon.”
A knock on the door proved her point. “Time, Nick.”
Damn! How did the clock always seem to be on her side? “Be right there.”
His aunt grabbed his wrist as he passed her on the way to the door. “Find out the real reason why that woman’s here,” she directed. “Use that charm of yours.”
He returned a vacant look.
“The new PA, dear! Focus.”
He gave her a tolerant, if-you-insist grin. Manufacturing a sigh of resignation, he said, “Guess I could check her out.” Yes! She’d just given him a blank check to initiate the next stage of his plans for Reese Dunbar. Plans that might just work after all.
****
“Today we do the actual taping of this week’s episode,” Jasper explained to Reese as he escorted her to the set’s control booth. “Tomorrow is debriefing, but that only involves Leonie, Nick and me.”
He went to the main console in the booth and indicated a nearby chair for her. Just like that, he launched into his directorial duties, leaving her to fend for herself. The crew—she counted maybe twenty people previously engaged in frenetic activity—all settled into apparently pre-established positions. For a man who had appeared exceedingly low key when he’d first introduced himself, Director Jasper Walters ran a tight ship.
The show seemed to revel in the idea that a genial, heart-stoppingly handsome heterosexual male could prepare his own meals.
Big deal. Male chefs dominate the food world, or I’d be further along in my career than I am.
Every one of Nick Coltrane’s seemingly unlimited assets, particularly his magnificently molded body, was exploited. Not quite the way she approached cooking, but with the right audience demographics—love-starved females—the concept probably had a certain appeal. It didn’t do much for her. Her eyes were glued to the monitor only because she was getting a lay of the land. An incredibly sculpted landscape, but she wasn’t there to appreciate the view.
“Next, we blend the cooked pasta with tomato sauce, the pine nuts and a dash of oregano,” Nick told the camera as he ran a wooden spoon through the mixture in his skillet.
He drew the utensil through the pan at an agonizingly slow pace, undulating its path, turning over the contents as if hating to lose sight of one morsel as it fell beneath its sisters. Pausing to check the taste, he brought a spoonful of the concoction to his lips, inhaling it first before taking it into his mouth. “Ummm,” he murmured, appraising his work.
“Umm,” she mouthed back, sinking into her seat. Oh, God, did she actually say that? Out loud? No, she couldn’t have. The man’s technique was absolutely wrong. And yet…
“Camera 2, pull back. You’re fixated on Nick’s pecs,” Jasper ordered through his headset.
Nick spread the mixture lovingly in the baking dish as if he couldn’t bear to part with it, then hefted it over to the wall oven. “Bake this at three-hundred-fifty degrees for forty-five minutes.”
“Is that an example of Nick’s new wardrobe?” the director asked no one in particular about Nick’s tight-fitting, long-sleeved black tee and black pants.
About time someone else noticed that the host’s garb resembled the duds of some Hollywood hottie actor. Why didn’t he wear a jacket like every other self-respecting chef? She could hardly drag her eyes away from it.
Jasper grumbled, “God, give him a cape and he could pass for a vampire. Especially with all that tomato sauce he’s stirring up today.”
A now dry-eyed Deborah, seated next to Jasper, glanced up from jotting in her notebook. “Leonie wanted to turn up the sex appeal by dressing Nick in dark colors.”
Jasper shook his head, nearly dislodging the headset. “I have no idea why that woman keeps pimping Nick to the audience. All hundred women watching are already in love with him.”
“I, uh, think she wants to impress the network,” Deborah offered.
“Is she still fantasizing that one of those network honchos is going to tune in?”
Deborah swiveled her chair the other direction and busied herself with her note-taking. Over her shoulder, she mumbled, “Something about her new campaign to catch their attention.”
“By creating her own meat market?” Jasper’s voice rose, but he immediately lowered it when he noticed he’d attracted others’ attention. Muttering to himself, he said, “We feature beef
stew
around here, not beef
cake
.”
Deborah sniggered but went back to her notes without commenting further.
Apparently Leonie McCutcheon preferred perching on the edge of the kitchen set to sitting in the control booth. Every time Jasper halted taping, she rushed over to Nick with a stack of notes and launched into perpetual lecturing while her nephew ignored her.
On one break, when only Reese and the director remained in the booth, Jasper motioned for her to join him at the control panel. “Got it down?”
“I hope you’re kidding. I can’t believe all the interruptions. So far, the host, uh, Nick, has barely completed one item on his menu. In a restaurant kitchen, that pasta dish would have been done an hour ago.”
The older man nodded, his earphones bobbing again. “Hope you’re a patient woman.” He ripped a page from Deborah’s abandoned notepad and quickly sketched what appeared to be a floor plan of the kitchen set. “On the next show, you’ll be handling anything that goes on stage right. Since that includes the stovetop, you’ll be watching over whatever Nick happens to be stirring up that day. Your prep work will primarily be whatever goes into the pots and skillets.”
“Okay. What else?”
“That’s it. You get the script three days before the shoot. The next two days, you make sure we have everything on hand or purchase what we don’t. Our other production assistant, Trudy, has been handling all that on her own. She’ll be delighted with the help. You also test the recipes to make sure they work. Just before taping, you prepare the dishes in their different phases. That way, Nick can place one item in the oven and swap it out with another that’s been baked the prescribed time.
“Who determines the items to be prepared? Nick?”
“That would be Leonie.”
“But Nick’s the chef.”
“Leonie’s the executive producer. The show’s her baby. She chooses the food.”
“Got it.” Although she didn’t. Leonie McCutcheon might have a terrific reputation as a caterer, but Nick was the chef here. What chef would leave those decisions to someone else?
Her new boss glanced back at the set. “We need to get rolling again. Maybe I can be out of here by ten, for once.”
Ten? It was only one o’clock in the afternoon. Although Nick had warned her about the long hours on taping day, they appeared to be halfway through the taping already. Another hour, at most, should finish things up. What was supposed to happen for the following eight hours?
By three o’clock, she began to understand. What Jasper had neglected to mention was that they taped the show three times. Different camera angles, different quips from Nick. Even different clothes, although they were duplicates of the original black ensemble. The host should not appear to have slopped food all over himself, a talent at which Nick seemed to be quite adept.
They were ten minutes into the second taping when Nick let out a yelp and dropped one of the pots. “Ahhhh!” he screeched, cradling the hand that had touched the hot handle.
A small army swooped in to provide aid.
“Careful!” he shouted. “There’s hot oil on the floor.”
“Are you okay?” someone called out.
“Somebody get the first aid kit,” another shouted.
The executive producer shoved her way in to him, close to babbling. “Nick? Nick, darling. How bad are you hurt?”
“I-I’m okay, Leonie. All I need is some salve. God, this hurts, though.”
Leonie brought a slim hand to her mouth while she gawked along with the rest of the crowd.
With everyone else apparently functioning in slo-mo, Reese raced out of the control booth to the set. Pulling Trudy aside, she asked, “Does that sink behind Nick work?”
“Huh?”
“Is there running water in it? We need cool water. Not cold. Not hot. Will it do that?”
“I think so.”
Reese maneuvered her way to the counter, dodging the many would-be helpers who weren’t helping and avoiding the executive producer. She grabbed two of the tea towels intended for picking up hot pots and skillets, turned on the water, tested the temp, then doused the two towels.