Hungry for You (11 page)

“They all have jobs,” he said quickly. “Working would fill my time while they were unavailable.”

“Oh, yes, I hadn’t thought of that,” she said, but her hand had slowed and she glanced down to ask, “You’re staying in a hotel rather than with your relatives?”

Cale chuckled at the question. “I had several offers to stay with relatives, but since most of them just got married, I thought they might not really appreciate my intruding.”

“Most of them just got married?” Alex glanced down at him sharply. “You aren’t related to that family Sam is always talking about, are you? The Argeneaus? Theyjust had some big multicouple wedding in New York last weekend.”

Cale nodded. “I flew to New York for the wedding, stayed in the city for several days to do some business and see a Broadway show or two, and then flew up here.”

“When are you flying home?” she asked.

Cale paused. He hadn’t actually set a date. He’d left his return date open because he hadn’t been sure how long he’d wish to stay. He’d wanted to look into business opportunities here while visiting. Mind you, he hadn’t expected to be taking on a job in such short order but was happy to go with what fate was presently offering if it allowed him a chance to win Alex. The question was, how long would that take?

Frowning, he rubbed his stomach absently as he tried to figure it out. He knew mortals expected a courtship. But how long would that take? A week? Two weeks? Months?

“Two months,” he answered, just to be on the safe side.

“You can take that much time away from your businesses?” Alex asked with surprise.

“Good bosses understand that working themselves to exhaustion does no one any good,” he said meaningfully, glancing at his watch. When Alex grimaced at the gentle reprimand, he added, “I have good employees working for me, ones I trust to handle the day-today issues. They will call if anything important comes up, but otherwise, probably won’t even miss me.”

“Huh,” Alex muttered. “It must be nice.”

“You have good people working for you,” Cale said quietly. “I suspect Peter wasn’t, but Bev is a jewel, and Bobby and Rebecca seem quite competent.”

“They are,” she agreed. “Bev has been a surprise. She held Bobby’s job before, and I’ve always known she was good, but she’s slid into the
sous-chef
position as smoothly as if she’s always been doing it. I actually considered promoting her to head chef and looking for her replacement.”

“Why didn’t you?” Cale asked.

Alex hesitated, then admitted wryly, “Because I’m hoping to return to the position of head chef myself eventually and would feel bad about demoting her when I did.”

“Ah,” Cale said with understanding. Rubbing his stomach, he paused to peer at their work. He was finished with the lower portion of the wall all the way to the end and ready to start on the next wall. Alex was a little further behind, but that was a good thing. He could get started on the next wall and be out of the way of her ladder by the time she got there. He shifted his tray to get started.

“So, what got you into cooking?” Cale asked as he set back to work.

Alex smiled faintly and admitted, “Believe it or not, it was my grandfather.”

“Really?” he asked with interest and glanced around to see her nod.

“He was a cook in the army when he was young, and then a line cook when he came back. He loved to cook and sort of infected me with it.” She paused to run herroller in paint and then said, “He was my best friend.”

Cale raised an eyebrow. “Your grandfather?”

“Yeah.” Alex laughed at his expression, and then shrugged. “My family moved every year until I was about ten. It made it hard to make and keep friends.”

“Why did your family move so much?”

Alex blew her breath out, but said, “My dad was a mechanic who wanted his own shop and was also handy around the house, and my mom was a secretary with a good eye for interior design who supported his dream. The year I was born, they bought an old heap of a house, spent a year fixing it up around their jobs, and then sold it and bought another. They did that every year until I was about ten, when they finally had enough money to start Dad’s garage.

“That’s when Gramps, my mother’s father, moved in. Mom and Dad worked long hours to make a go of the garage, and Gramps had just retired. His health wasn’t very good, so he moved in to help out with us kids. I have two younger sisters,” she paused to explain. “Sam you’ve met, and the baby of the family is Jo, who’s traveling in Europe right now with her boyfriend.”

“Anyway, the years Gramps lived with us were the best ever,” she said with a fond smile. “Every day after school, we’d come home to find him whistling as he pulled cookies or some other small treat from the oven. He’d say, ‘Do your homework, girls, and you can have one … But only one each. We don’t want to spoil your appetite for dinner.’ “ She chuckled. “We used to rush through our homework in record time, and then he’d bring the treats out and sit down with us at the table,and we’d all eat one with a glass of milk while we told him about our day.”

“He usually sent us to watch television then while he started dinner, but I’d leave Jo and Sam watching cartoons and go into the kitchen to bother Gramps. I’d ask what he was doing, and why he was putting this or that in, and he’d explain patiently and give me a small task to do. By the time I started high school, he was letting me do larger tasks and even letting me cook while he assisted me. I’ve loved cooking ever since, and when I graduated from high school, I decided to train as a chef.”

“Your grandfather must have been proud,” Cale said, and frowned when he saw sadness claim her face.

“I’m afraid he never knew. He died of a heart attack toward the end of my last year at high school.”

“I’m sorry,” Cale said quietly, absently rubbing a hand over his stomach.

“So am I.” Her tone was solemn. “He was a wonderful man.”

“What about your other grandparents?” Cale asked.

“Oh.” Alex sighed. “My father’s parents died before I was born, and my mother’s mother, Gramps’s wife, died of brain cancer when I was little. I don’t even remember her. Gramps was it.”

“Well, I’m sure he would have been proud to know you went on to become a chef.”

“He would have been bursting with it,” she said with a laugh. “Especially since I trained in Paris. He always used to tell me Paris produced the world’s best chefs. He would have been impressed that I went there.”

“You trained in Paris?” Cale stopped painting at the news that she’d been so close geographically so many years ago. If not for fate, he might have met her then.

“Nothing but Paris would do,” she assured him on a wry laugh. “I was determined to be the best chef in the world.”

“Did you like Paris?” he asked, wondering if she would like his home.

“I loved it,” Alex assured him. “The smells, the sights, people watching … It’s the only place I know where absolutely everyone seems to be wandering around with baguettes in hand.” She grinned and admitted, “I was almost sorry to come home when I was finished training.”

“But you did,” he prompted when she fell silent.

“Oh yes. I managed to get a job as a line cook in a good restaurant, then worked my way up to
sous-chef,
but my dream job was head chef. It probably would have taken another four or five years to find that kind of position anywhere if I hadn’t opened La Bonne Vie.”

“Did you make the money for that the same way your parents did? Renovating houses? ”

“No. I’m neither handy like my dad, nor do I have a good eye like my mom,” she said. “I started La Bonne Vie with my share of the inheritance when my parents died in a car accident.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m sure they’d be pleased with your success. The one is doing so well you’re opening a second,” Cale praised.

“Yeah, if I don’t go bankrupt before opening night,” Alex said dryly. She glanced down and suddenly asked, “Are you all right?”

The question and her concerned tone of voice made Cale look up to see her backing down the ladder.

“Jesus, you look awful,” she murmured, stopping beside him. “You’ve been rubbing your stomach intermittently for the last little while, and I thought something might be wrong, but you’re pale as death, Cale.”

He glanced down to see that he was indeed rubbing his stomach. He was also suddenly aware of the gnawing sensation troubling him. He needed to feed, Cale realized unhappily. He hadn’t fed since … well, actually he’d only had the one bag at the enforcer house in the last forty-eight hours. Cale had unexpectedly entertained a couple of cousins in his hotel in New York last week and had used up more than he’d planned during his stay. His supply had run out yesterday, but he’d decided that rather than send for more, he could hold out until he got to the hotel in Toronto, where a cooler of blood should be waiting.

Unfortunately, Cale hadn’t yet made it to the hotel. He’d received a message from Marguerite asking him to stop in once he’d landed and had headed straight to her home after claiming his rental car. As it turned out, that had been something of an ambush. He’d arrived to find Marguerite, her husband Julius, and Lucian and Leigh waiting for him.

Cale hadn’t even gotten through the door before Marguerite was telling him about her certainty that Alex was the one. He’d heard her out, taking in Lucian’s solemn face and crossed arms the whole while, and had known instinctively that Lucian was there to back Marguerite and would just pester him until he agreed to meeting the woman. That being the case, the first chance he’d gotten to get in a word, Cale had agreed to go to the enforcer house and arrange to meet the woman. He suspected he’d surprised everyone by agreeing so easily, but the moment he had, Marguerite had insisted he should head over at once. Lucian had spoken up then, giving him a quick rundown of the people there. He’d then given him directions before sending him on his way to the enforcer house, where he’d managed to get in one bag of blood before being hustled off to the restaurant.

That one bag hadn’t been nearly enough, he acknowledged as Alex raised a hand to feel his forehead. The gnawing sensation in Cale’s gut immediately intensified in response to her scent. He definitely needed to feed, he thought, and didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until Alex frowned and said, “We just ate.”

“It was a very small burger,” he muttered and moved away, ostensibly to set down his roller, but really to get away from Alex and the blood he could actually smell pulsing under her skin.

“Yes it was,” she said almost apologetically. “I always get the little cheeseburgers rather than a proper burger. It’s those reconstituted onions. I really like them. Still—""And it’s the only thing I’ve eaten all day,” he interrupted as he straightened.

Her eyebrows flew up, and she was suddenly moving. “Okay. Time to go.”

“You don’t have to come with me,” Cale said with alarm when she grabbed her purse and coat.

Alex shrugged her coat on. “How long have you been in Toronto?”

“Today,” he admitted with confusion.

“That’s what I thought. So you don’t know where the nearest twenty-four-hour grocery store is. I do.”

“Yes, but I can find my way back to that restaurant we visited earlier,” Cale assured her, thinking he’d make a quick run to the hotel, drop off his suitcase, grab a bag or two of blood, and hit the drive-thru again on his way back. He’d enjoyed the food they’d had earlier and wouldn’t mind more of it.

“No way,” Alex said firmly. “There’s absolutely no nutritional value to that stuff, and you haven’t eaten all day. We’ll go to the grocery store and gather the fixings for a nice healthy picnic.”

“But I thought I’d stop and check into my hotel on the way back and drop off my luggage,” he said desperately.

Alex turned to peer at him wide-eyed. “You haven’t even checked into your hotel yet? ”

“No. I’m afraid not. I went straight to my aunt’s from the airport, then on to the … er … well Mortimer’s place, and then wound up at your restaurant and now here,” he finished.

“Oh, well we should head straight to the hotel first then, and we should get moving. They could give your room away,” she said worriedly, rushing out of the room.

“Right,” Cale muttered wearily, collecting and shrugging into his own jacket. This complicated things.

Six

“This is nice. I’ve never been in this hotel, but the
rooms are lovely.”

Cale glanced around as he followed Alex into his hotel room. It had been twenty years since he’d stayed at this particular hotel. It was owned by an immortal who ensured that the windows had blackout curtains and the closets had outlets for special travel refrigerators. That thought in mind, Cale paused to open the sliding glass door to see if his blood had been delivered. The closet was empty.

“What’s wrong?” Alex asked coming up beside him.

Cale forced away a frown. “Nothing. I was just debating whether to change or not.”

She looked him up and down. “Well, I guess that depends on whether you were planning to help me finish the painting or not … I mean, you don’t have to if you—”

“I’m helping,” he interrupted as she began to babble.

“Thanks,” Alex said softly, and then cleared her throat. “Then you should probably change. You seem to have managed to avoid getting any on your suit yet, but I wouldn’t want you to tempt fate.” She glanced around and then said, “I need to go to the washroom. You could change out here while I—” She paused suddenly and frowned. “Or did you want to shower or something?”

“Why? Do I stink?” Cale asked with amusement, and she flushed.

“No, of course not. I just thought, well I always feel like showering after a flight, and you did spend all those hours over a hot grill and—”

“I’m good. A shower would just delay eating. I’ll shower after we finish painting. You go ahead and go to the washroom, and I’ll change.”

Alex nodded and moved to the bathroom door. “I’ll take my time.”

Cale wheeled his suitcase to the bed, opened it, and rifled through the contents in search of a casual shirt and jeans. He then quickly stripped off his clothes and began to dress. He’d pulled on his jeans, done them up, and picked up the long-sleeved maroon shirt he’d taken out when a knock sounded at the door. Taking the shirt, he crossed the room to answer it and released a relieved breath when he saw the man on the other side holding a large cooler in hand.