Martine sat still, her hands neatly folded in her lap. “This is why I’m telling you instead of one of the kitchen staff. They didn’t want to face you. They saw you leaving. I tried to stop you. What did you do?”
“Burned my boats.” He kept his voice steady when he wanted to destroy. Fury worse than anything he’d felt for years boiled up inside, turning into a slow simmer, ready to froth and overflow, taking everything with it. He’d go out there and smash the kitchen to pieces, before starting on the restaurant. An axe would work.
His calm maître d’ got to her feet. “I’ll tell the others to move up a station and then start the recruitment process, shall I?”
“No.” She blinked, and stared at him in shock. He rarely snapped like that these days, preferring an efficient kitchen to a frantic one. When pandemonium reigned, it was organised chaos. “Yes to the first, but I’ll take care of the recruitment myself. My father will know someone.” Nepotism bedamned, this time he’d use family connections to find someone he could rely on. His father had come across from France fifty years ago to start the business. He knew everyone.
When Martine had left, he made a few calls, the first to his rival at Chez Suisse, where he briefly outlined what he’d learned and what he’d supposed. “These two people have conspired to destroy my business. Needless to say, they won’t. But do you want people like that working for you? Your call.” He hung up without waiting for an answer. He didn’t get along with Garner Strong, and he had no desire to speak with him more than he had to, but he didn’t want his two ex-sous-chefs benefitting from what they’d done.
Then he emailed Elise.
New developments have emerged. Please come to the restaurant tomorrow evening, when there will be a table waiting for you. I want you to try the food you ordered before, only I will personally prepare it for you. I would appreciate the opportunity to explain.
He paused, read it over and added a challenge.
Do you dare miss it?
After that he unplugged the laptop and dropped it to the floor before deliberately grinding it under his heel. The sound of splintering glass only eased his mood a little. Angry with himself, angry with the whole world, he let grief and pain suffuse him. Nobody came to comfort him. Nobody ever had.
Chapter Three
Dumbfounded, Elise stared at the email. Maya, at her desk to deliver a much-needed coffee, read the email over her shoulder. “Will you go?”
“Of course not. He humiliated me in front of the whole office. Would you?” She managed to stop her voice shaking. After a good cry in the ladies’, she’d repaired her makeup and gone back to work. Not very effectively. Then she’d written her resignation letter and dropped it on her boss’s desk.
“Like a shot,” Maya said.
“Why?” She scanned the email again, the coldest message he’d ever sent her. He didn’t want this, he just wanted to work his precious justice. But his behaviour in the office had shaken her, turned her world around, made her reconsider everything she’d taken for granted up to now.
“Why not? You’ve got nothing to lose, have you?”
“Except my self-respect.”
Maya snorted. “You’ll talk about your pride next. I’ll come with you. In fact, try to keep me away. If you don’t go, I will.”
Yes, what did she have to lose? She’d like to tell him just what she thought of him now she’d had the time to think about it. From devoted lover to cold, furious enemy. Just because of a review? Was he so arrogant that he didn’t believe he could turn out a bad dish from time to time?
* * * * *
That night, dressed in a red dress that embraced her body like a lover, Elise walked into Girard’s, head held defiantly high. Behind her Maya, forbidding in black, her blonde hair caught up in a severe style, crossed the floor. Their stiletto heels beat a tattoo on the tiled floor in the sudden silence.
The maître d’, as severe as ever, took them to a table set in front of the windows, one of the best in the house. Elise expected nothing less. The waiter brought a plate of four delicate amuse-bouches, beautifully presented, and, as they discovered when they tasted them, bursting with flavour.
They weren’t asked to order. Instead, the waiter brought the duplicate of their previous meal out to them. This time the food was perfect. More than perfect; it was sublime. The mashed potato melted in the mouth, the duck so tender she hardly needed to chew. He’d balanced the tastes perfectly, everything blending together in complete harmony. Textures, colours, flavours, even the aroma so wonderful she knew she’d remember this experience forever.
Conversation palled in favour of eating. Between courses, they received tiny but perfect morsels, to cleanse the palate and fill the mouth with a flavour reminiscent of the previous course but anticipating the next.
At the close of the meal, she exchanged a glance with Maya. “I’ll have to write a new review.”
Maya shook her head. “Once you convinced me you wanted to leave, I applied for your job. I’ll write the review.”
Better that way. She’d leave London tomorrow, go back to her parents’ and rethink her life. Somewhere she’d taken a wrong turn and this experience had jolted her into action.
Out of the kitchen strode her ex-lover, holding a plate containing two tiny dishes. Her heart stuttered at the sight of him and she had to fight to hide her reaction. He placed it reverently on the table. “A final amuse-bouche.”
He met her eyes, his own unreadable. He raised his voice so everyone could hear. “I want to apologize personally for the meal you had here two nights ago. It was not up to the standard I demand. More than this, I accused you of lying yesterday. I was wrong, and I take back everything I said.” He paused. “Everything.”
What had he said? Elise groped in her mind.
I even deluded myself into thinking you returned my love.
That she returned his love. Oh, how much. How often in the last day had she castigated herself for choosing her job above him? Now she had neither. She’d thrown one away and lost the other. Integrity and honesty reviewing expensive restaurants that only the elite could afford counted for nothing next to the love that burned through her for this man.
She forced her voice into action, moving lips suddenly gone stiff. “I accept your apology.”
“Thank you.” He sounded subdued. “The last morsels are for you alone, and to take with you.”
He shot Maya an apologetic smile and she shrugged and spread her hands. “Fine by me.”
“Unless,” he said to Elise, his voice deepening into the rasp she always associated with the bedroom, ‘You want to share them with me.”
She swallowed.
“Elise, please take me back.” Without warning, he dropped down on to one knee, the emotion on his face raw and unconcealed by any semblance of civilization. “I love you. I don’t want to lose you. Even if I hadn’t discovered what happened, I would have found you. I’m a fool. I shouldn’t have let a mere meal come between us.”
Everyone in the place gasped. A
mere
meal? Had he really said that?
But she took no notice of anyone else. Tears sprang to her eyes, trickled down her cheeks. She did nothing to stop them. He closed his eyes, biting his bottom lip. “Elise, don’t. I’m not worth it. I’ll accept your gracious acceptance of my apology and say no more.”
How could she stop herself? She didn’t want to. Now she’d realized what really mattered in her life, how could she send him away again?
She reached out and touched him, her hand resting on his wrist, where the pulse beat hard and strong. He opened his eyes, focussing on the physical connection between them. “No. I want you back, too. I should have talked to you, trusted you, known you would never produce a meal like that.”
He covered her hand. “I don’t deserve you.” He got to his feet, holding her hand now, and she let him, drawing her close, he delivered one tender kiss. “I couldn’t have borne it if I’d lost you.”
The other diners burst into applause.
* * * * *
Remy didn’t wait for the restaurant to close but took her home, pausing only to change his kitchen whites for street clothes. He snagged the final amuse-bouches, now encased in Girard’s signature gold box, and climbed into the taxi someone had called for them. He held her hand all the way there, but didn’t do anything else. His eyes told her why, burning, eating her up with desire. If he moved closer, they might not get out of the taxi at the other end for quite some time.
He almost dragged her into his apartment, slamming the door behind them with a careless kick, and taking her straight through to the bedroom. He couldn’t wait, feared waiting in case she disappeared in a puff of mist. After dumping the gold box on the bedside table, he pulled her close and finally took her mouth in a passionate kiss. She opened for him, as hot as he was, driving him crazy.
He unzipped her dress, and moved away just enough to let it fall to the floor. It puddled at their feet on the bare, polished wood, abandoned and unmourned. His jacket joined it a moment later, and then his T-shirt. He moaned softly and bent to nuzzle her neck. “Remy.” She sighed his name, a benison, as he unclipped her bra and eased it off her to join the growing pile of clothes.
“Elise, my Elise.”
He could say that now, his need for her rampant, to reclaim her as his. This time he wasn’t letting her go, wouldn’t give her a chance.
The rest of their clothes followed in quick succession and he eased her on to the bed, leaning over her, his cock grazing her stomach. Gazing into her eyes, he bent and kissed her, a gentle salute of intent. Their lips parted reluctantly.
“I won’t let anything come between us, ever again,” he murmured.
She glanced down to the hard ridge pressing against her and laughed. He smiled, then laughed too, before snagging a condom from the bedside drawer and sheathing himself.
She touched his waist, spread her hand wide as if to encompass every part of him, making his senses shiver, then curved her palm around to his buttocks and gave a vicious tug, dragging him down to the hot welcome of her body.
He moaned as he slid inside her, savouring every moment of the bliss he always felt when their bodies joined. Watching her, her eyes half closed, a dreamy smile wreathing her face as she gazed up at him, he knew he’d never tire of this sight. “So beautiful,” he whispered. He withdrew almost to her entrance, then thrust deep, hearing her sigh of appreciation as the best music in the world.
Bending, he licked her nipple, already beaded hard, then took it into his mouth, enjoying the texture and taste of her. The best flavour in the world. He could never hope to emulate the way she tasted. Nor would he want to, because her body was a highly secret taste, for him alone. He wouldn’t share.
The scent of their lovemaking rose to embrace them in its reminder of their intimacy as he plunged inside her, the sound of their bodies punctuating their steady rise to orgasm.
“Remy, don’t stop.”
“Never.” He uttered the words as a promise. “I need you, hunger for you every minute of the day.”
She lifted her hand, threaded it through his chest hair and palmed his nipple. He bared his teeth and growled at her, the caress driving him harder, on towards the inevitable. He pistoned in and out of her body, taking care to angle his cock just right so he touched her most sensitive spot with every stroke. She helped him, her other hand on his buttocks urging him to continue, her back arching as she approached her climax.
Frantic now, he ground against her, meshing their pubic hair and watched her all the time, the expressions in her eyes growing from desire, to need and then to ultimate ecstasy as she exploded all around him in utter bliss.
He shared it, then it was his turn to groan in submission as he shattered and re-formed, as if in slow motion he gave himself to her utterly and irrevocably.
* * * * *
Lying between Remy’s bedsheets, replete with his loving, Elise snuggled close, smelling his special scent mingled with the aroma of their recent lovemaking. He’d loved her into submission then loved her some more. “I’ve packed my things,” she said. “I was going back to Manchester tomorrow.”
“Too far,” he said firmly. “Except, I’ve been thinking of starting another place. That’s why the timing of the review was so disastrous. I’ve started negotiations for a property in Edinburgh. Would that do?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m stepping back from the kitchen, Elise, becoming a chef patron. I want to expand.” He ran his hand over the soft skin of her stomach making her think of babies, permanence, thoughts she’d never dared entertain before with Remy. “I already have four restaurants in the south. Now I want more.”