Guilty Pleasures

Embarrassment caused the heat of a blush to appear on her cheeks. “I don't usually jump a guy. I just…”

“You're beautiful,” Nick admitted. “I…you're sure, right?”

Instead of answering him, she reached up and then tugged him down onto the couch for a slow, warm, lingering kiss. He must have believed her, she thought dreamily as he moved down from her mouth to her throat, then lower.

She wanted to be naked with this man, she realized. Now.

“Mari,” he whispered against her skin, leaning up to taste her mouth again.

She shivered her way out of her T-shirt and jeans, smiling as his eyes widened. “Your turn,” she murmured, tugging off his shirt. Then she stopped. She had to.

The guy was magnificent. She gaped at the smooth, muscular perfection of his torso.

His gaze revealed the fire inside as he reached for her. “My imagination didn't do you justice.”

“Likewise,” she said, fingering his corded muscles with her fingertips. “All
this
, and you can cook,
too
.”

Dear Reader,

There's only one thing I love more than a good love story—and that's great food! So it's a treat to be able to write about my two passions in one book,
Guilty Pleasures
. It's a love story set against the competitive, often crazy world of the restaurant business and it showcases both fantastic food and some of my most favorite characters.

Mari Salazar and Nick Avery worked their way into my heart with every page I wrote—I hope they do the same for you. Drop me a line at [email protected], and tell me what you think.

Also, visit www.tryblaze.com for the latest in the series!

Happy reading,

Cathy Yardley

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

“W
HAT DO YOU MEAN
,
the restaurant is closing?”

Twenty-three-year-old Marion Worthington sat in her parents' lavish dining room. She stared down at the blue-patterned china that held the meal she was pushing around with her fork. She wasn't able to choke down a bite.

“I mean Le Pome is officially going out of business, closing up shop, going under.” Marion looked up, to see her parents' horrified disbelief. “You can't honestly be surprised, after all the publicity we got.”

Her mother's face was stony and impassive. “What does Derek say about all this?”

“Derek.” Marion briefly looked away, fighting the tears in her eyes. Derek Black, the owner of Le Pome, the restaurant where she was the highly publicized head chef. Derek, who had been her lover up to about a month ago, when she discovered that he'd also been sleeping with the restaurant's interior decorator. She wouldn't have been surprised if it had actually been the decorator's idea to shut the place down and get young Marion Worthington out of his life forever. “It was his idea to shut us down, actually. After the disastrous reviews we had when we opened, I think he
wanted to shut us down the first month.” Derek Black was not a man who could handle failure, in any form.

Unfortunately, neither were the Worthingtons.

“I told you,” her father said, looking at her mother as if Marion herself wasn't even in the room. “I told you this was a stupid venture from the start. Culinary school! For God's sake, that prepares you for
nothing
in the real world!”

“Henry,” her mother said warningly. Then she turned back to Marion. “Well. I would assume you've learned your lesson.”

Marion nodded. She had.
Never let your parents set you up with a “perfect position” with an old friend of theirs. Never trust a bunch of old chefs and consultants and marketing people rather than your own instincts.

Never fool yourself into thinking you're in love.

“Well, that's over with, and I for one am thankful,” her mother said, in a business-like tone. “You'll move back home, of course.”

Marion looked at her, stunned. “But, Mom…”

“And then we'll start figuring out what you're going to do next.” Her mother's smile was crafty. “You know, it's a little late in the game, but I might be able to get you on Berkeley's wait list. The dean owes me a favor….”

“Wait a minute,” Marion said sharply. “I'm not going to college!”

Her father rolled his eyes, turning an unattractive shade of red. “I could have told you this was going to happen, Claudia,” he boomed.

Her mother's eyebrows knitted together. “Well, you're obviously not very good as a chef, Marion,” her mother said, all the more hurtful in her matter-of-fact tone. “And I don't think it's a very good profession, anyway. It's unstable, it's hardly attractive…”

“Spent all that money so you could learn how to chop potatoes and carrots,” her father muttered darkly. “Cooking is what uneducated people do.”

Marion flushed. “I love cooking. I love
food.
”

“Well, if you love it so much, why don't you go out there and keep on cooking?” Her father stood up, a vein in his forehead pulsing. “Without your cushy restaurant, without your little helpers and hangers-on. Without Derek Black telling you what to do!”

Marion closed her eyes for a second, rage burning inside her. Something, some part of her, finally snapped. She opened her eyes.

“You were the ones that liked Derek,” Marion said, her voice frozen of all emotion. “You were the ones who introduced us, who convinced him to take me on. You were the ones who liked him because he invested in Father's company.”

Her mother blanched. Her father, on the other hand, stared at her with bug eyes. “I'm not saying I wasn't to blame,” Marion said, feeling the pain like acid in her chest. “But damn it, I'm not going to apologize for trying. And I'm not going to be what you want me to be.”

“Really? Even if it means you're going to be washing dishes and…and…I don't know what the hell else
it is! Doing grunt work in some smelly, hot grease joint? How very
noble.
How completely idealistic!”

“Put it this way,” Marion said, standing up and putting her napkin down on the table. “I'd rather wash dishes in a grease joint than take another bite of food from a man who has complete contempt for me.”

Her father gaped like a goldfish.

“I am so ashamed of you,” her mother said in the intervening silence.

Marion spun to look at her mother, who had tears in her eyes.

“How can you talk to us like this?” Her mother's voice was muted and her eyes wide. “After all we've done for you? All the strings we've pulled? Everything we've sacrificed…”

“I never asked you to, Mother,” Marion said, and earned herself another scathing glance from her father.

“Ungrateful,” her father spat out. “You've never thanked us once. Well, you want to make it on your own? Don't want to ask us for anything? Then get out!”

Marion stared at them for a moment, and her mother looked away. Finally, without another word, she left.

Marion headed for her car. She sat in the driveway of the stately home on Nob Hill, the place she'd grown up in. The place she'd hated for so many years.

She was twenty-three years old. The dream of her life, her restaurant, had closed its doors forever—with enough of a cloud of failure that no one would want to hire her. Her lover had abandoned her, her family
had thrown her out. She had nothing: no help, no living. No love.

She turned on the car, taking a second to brush the moisture from her eyes.

One day, I'll have a restaurant that I run my way. No more asking permission from a man who wants to use me. No more pandering to the opinions of critics. No more trying to become someone I'm not to meet the expectations of people who care more about their image and social standing than about their own daughter.

“No more,” Mari whispered.

And as of that moment, she was officially starting over.

Seven years later

N
ICK
A
VERY STARED
at the cloud-darkened sky, pulling his coat a little more tightly around him as the cold rain slapped the sidewalk in waves. It was eight o'clock at night. He'd just spent the day—hell, the past
month
—meeting with the top brass of some of the finest restaurants in San Francisco, and it had come to nothing. Now, he had just parked his car in one of the worst neighborhoods he'd been in since he was a kid, and was standing in front of a restaurant, wedged between a pawnshop and an empty storefront. The windows gleamed like a beacon of warm, welcoming light, as opposed to the shocking neon of the adult theater down the street. He glanced up at the sign: a woman, winking, her finger to her full lips in a gesture of silence.

Welcome to Guilty Pleasures.

If his mentor from the Culinary School of America hadn't specifically told him about this place, Nick thought, pushing the door open, he'd be getting back in his car by now.

The walls were painted in every color, all rich and vibrant enough to make the place explode with it. The
chairs were cushioned and deep, the wine glasses uneconomically large, the dishes a riot of different patterns. From the furniture to the flatware, nothing matched. If there was a style, it seemed to be Early Garage Sale. Considering the muted, tasteful décor he'd been surrounded by at Le Chapeau Noir, the restaurant he'd worked at and managed for the past four years, it was something of a shock.

It's not as much of a shock as getting fired was.

Nick gritted his teeth and walked up to the host's podium, noting how empty the restaurant seemed for a Saturday night. He wasn't going to think about Le Chapeau Noir, Phillip, or the whole ugly incident until he got this job. Then, only then, would he work on getting his reputation back.

And getting even.

A man in a tight navy T-shirt and black slacks gave Nick a once-over from the host's podium. “Table for one?”

Nick shook his head. “I'm here to see Marion Salazar.”

“I see.” The man smiled slyly. “Come on. Kitchen's this way.”

Nick followed him to the back of the restaurant. The man pushed the swinging door that led to the kitchen opened with a flourish, and Nick was barraged by the noise and clamor of an obviously busy kitchen. “Mari! Another one!”

“Another
what,
Mo?” a female voice emerged from the ruckus.

“Applicant for the cook's job,” Mo replied. At
that, the kitchen staff went quiet, staring at Nick with open curiosity. “A real yum, too,” the man added. He motioned to Nick to step forward, adding in a stage whisper, “Now everybody's going to want a good look at you. Go on, work it.”

Nick walked with purpose toward the back of the room.
Work it, like hell.
What had Leon sent him into, anyway?

A woman with black hair pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck had her back to him, working over the grill, plating up what looked like meat loaf on a bed of mashed potatoes before drowning it in a savory-looking brown gravy. It smelled promising. “Order up,” she said, sliding the dish into the order window with a theatric swirl. She turned to him. “So. You're applying for the cook's position, Mr….?”

He looked. No. He
gaped.

She was wearing a black long-sleeved T-shirt instead of the requisite chef's whites, and the slogan Orgasm Donor was printed on it in bold white letters. The snug-fitting shirt molded her body like a lover's hands. She seemed poured into the jeans she was wearing, as well—and filled that container in the best possible way. Her jet-black hair, now that he was looking at her directly, sported a streak of royal purple. Her face was a perfect ivory oval, and her exotic cat-like eyes were deep violet-blue. Her lips reminded him of the full wickedness of the woman in the sign's logo. The more he stared, the more he realized that there was more than a resemblance.

She
was
the woman on the sign.

“I'm sorry, I don't know your name.” Her smile was friendly, perhaps a touch flirtatious.

“Nick. Nick Avery.” Mechanically, he held out a hand, trying to get his bearings. Her hand was warm in his palm. “And you'd be…Ms. Salazar?”

“Marion Salazar,” she said, sending him a wink that shot an unexpected zing through his system. “Mari to my intimates.”

The way she said
intimates
ought to be illegal.

Not what you're here for, Avery.
He had enough problems right now. Getting lustful about his potential employer was the last thing he needed.

She glanced around the kitchen. “I know we're not terribly busy tonight,” she said, her voice a low drawl, “but isn't there something else you guys could be doing?”

The crew quickly erupted into faux industry, the resulting noise almost deafening. Nick sighed. Mari smiled apologetically.

“Well, it's way too loud around here. Come on, follow me to our spare office.” She pointed to a door at the back of the kitchen. It led to a little storage room with a cluttered desk in the corner. He glanced around. There were no chairs to sit on.

She perched on the desktop, letting her long legs dangle as she studied him. “So. Do you have a resumé I can look at?” She grinned. “I'm assuming you have…experience.”

There it was again—that sly smile, the way that every word out of her mouth seemed to have two meanings.

He pulled his resumé out of the portfolio. She wiped a hand off on the apron tied around her hips, and took the paper, scanning it. She let out a low whistle.

“Impressive. But I don't think I can hire you.”

He blinked. She couldn't have heard about what happened at Le Chapeau— Phillip wouldn't have said anything that blatant, not to someone like this. Any other restaurant owner would be afraid of a lawsuit, for potential slander, but Phillip wouldn't be—his family's flesh-eating lawyers would make him feel pretty safe there. But it had only been two weeks. Phillip had already spread the word to the four-star class restaurants in San Francisco.

Even in the restaurant community's hyper-speed grapevine, it would take longer than a few weeks to filter to an off-the-radar place like this.

“May I ask why?” he said, keeping his tone even.

“Graduated with honors from the CSA, helped open one of the most expensive and celebrated restaurants in the city, written up as one of the top ten hottest chefs in
Bon Appetit
and
Saveur
magazines?” She shook her head. “You don't want a job here.”

“I wouldn't apply here if I didn't,” he said, not wanting to add
I can't get a job anywhere else at the moment, short of a diner.
“I'm looking for a change.”

Her eyebrow quirked up expressively. “This isn't a change. This is a step down for someone of your…stature.” Her tone was sarcastic. “And the job is a sous-chef, not a head chef. We've already got one of those here.” She paused. “Me.”

He shrugged. Head chef or no, she could use a good second-in-command chef-chef, from the looks of the chaotic kitchen. “I don't mind.” It was just temporary, anyway.

“Well, I do,” she said, and her tone turned sharp. “I don't need a chef who's got a lot of credentials and just yells orders. I need a working line chef, somebody who can get it done. Not somebody who just looks good in a suit.”

“Leon Grunning sent me,” he drawled, keeping his anger at bay. “If I could work for him, I suppose I could manage to make myself useful.”

Her expression softened immediately. “Leon sent you?”

“He'll give you a letter of recommendation if you need one.”

She shook her head. “I'll just give him a call. I was going to call him at the end of this week, anyway,” she said, surprising Nick. Leon had been a tough son of a bitch as a teacher, and few students stayed in contact with him. He wondered when Mari had graduated—and how she herself had done in the CSA's rigorous program.

“Okay.” She got up off the desk.

“Okay, I have the job?”

“Okay, you get a trial run.” She adjusted her apron. “Leon's word means a lot to me…but the restaurant means a lot more. I see how you work with my crew first, then you're in.”

Five years with a top-ranked restaurant, and here he
was, trying out like some novice?
Oh, man, if I didn't need this job…

But he did need this job.

“When do I start?”

She looked him up and down. “Well, tonight's as good a night as any.”

He stared down at his clothes, aghast. This was a Prada suit, for God's sake! “Tonight? But I'm not dressed…”

She grinned, and he realized she was taking acute pleasure in his discomfort, so he shut his mouth. She was trying to prove a point. Well, he would pay for dry-cleaning. Hell, he'd sacrifice the suit if he had to. When his plans were finished, he'd be able to buy five more if he wanted. “Tonight's fine,” he said curtly.

“Great.” She walked over to a cupboard, pulled out an apron and a chef's toque, a smaller hat than he was used to. “You'll be working the line…setting up the ‘meez', expediting orders, whatever else I need you to do,” she said.

The “meez” or mise-en-place was the setup of basic ingredients. So she was going to have him chopping onions and the like, and calling out orders.

He'd show her, he thought.

He pulled off his coat and placed it on the desk. Then he removed his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves, pulling on the apron. “Where do you want me?” he said.

She smiled, a wicked, sensual smile that he was sure was unconscious, even if it sent a blast of heat through his system.

“I haven't determined if I want you yet or not,” she said slowly, the smile mocking him. “But you'll be the first to know.”

He was tired, too tired to play games. He stepped up to her until they were only inches apart, gratified by the way her eyes widened like saucers.

“Trust me,” he said, in a low voice. “You'll want me.”

They stood like that for a moment, face to face, challenging. And could have cooked something just from the sudden, inexplicable heat between them.

She was the one who broke eye contact first. Her smile faltered slightly, then came back in full force.

“Well, then…
stud,
” she said. “Get on with it. Let's see if you're everything you think you are.”

 

M
ARI COULD STILL FEEL
the heat from Nick's gaze, an hour later, sequestered in the back room with her best friend and the restaurant's business manager, Lindsay.

“He certainly is good looking,” Lindsay said, with her usual understated tone. “But can he cook?”

Mari nodded. “He's not just a pretty face, from what I've seen. He's efficient, he's thorough, and he seems to know what he's doing.”

Lindsay smiled demurely. Her shoulder-length blond bob was streaked with highlights, but her crystal-sharp green eyes were shrewd. “And you want him.”

Boy, do I ever,
Mari thought, then shook it off. That wasn't what Lindsay was asking—that wasn't some
thing Lindsay would ask. “Yeah. Ever since Rinaldo quit to move to New York, we've been running shorthanded, and I've been making up the difference. I'd like to start sleeping again.” She'd like to start sleeping
with
someone again. Although at this point in her restaurant's nascent stages, only six months in business, a social life still seemed out of the question. She looked at the sleek black laptop Lindsay had propped up on the scarred desk surface. “The question is—can I afford him?”

Lindsay's brow furrowed with concentration. “It doesn't look good, I have to tell you that,” she said. “We haven't picked up enough business, Mari. You're maintaining a decent profit margin, but we're not putting out enough meals.”

If anybody would be able to tell the future of a restaurant's business, it would be Lindsay…not only was she an MBA and a crack accountant, her parents had owned a restaurant since Lindsay was a kid, and Lindsay's head for numbers had revealed itself at an early age. Mari took a glance at the spreadsheet, and nodded grimly. “So I can't hire him?” That caused a pang—and not just from the standpoint of finally getting some rest.

She hated to admit it, but he was
very
good looking. And, just as sexy, he was a hell of a cook. For someone as interested in the culinary arts as Mari, the way a man handled himself in the kitchen was an indication of how he handled himself elsewhere.

She got the feeling Nick would be an expert in the kitchen…and other places.

She shook the thought off, waiting for Lindsay's response.

Lindsay took a deep breath, and Mari could almost see the calculations working in her eyes. “If you hired him at base pay, you could probably manage,” Lindsay said slowly.

“Base pay?” Mari shook her head. “Have you seen the guy's resumé? Four Seasons, Blackstone's. He was managing Le Chapeau Noir, for pity's sake.”

Lindsay's eyes narrowed. “Yeah. What happened there, anyway? I get the feeling he got fired.”

Mari thought about it. “I don't know.”

“You don't know?” Lindsay's eyes widened. “Don't you think that's something you ought to investigate before you think about hiring someone? He could be an embezzler or something….”

“Or he could have been set up by his partner,” Mari said in a flat tone of voice.

Lindsay stopped, her sharp gaze softening. “You know I didn't mean that,” she said, her voice gentle. “I know how hard it was for you to get a job…after the whole Le Pome nightmare.”

Mari winced just to hear the name of the restaurant she used to run…one that had gone out of business in a spectacular burst of failure, thanks to the owner's mismanagement and her own naive need to please. “An old teacher of mine recommended him,” she said instead. “He needs a chance. And he's good… I'm not just saying that.”