He wasn’t sure if he imagined the barest hesitation. “I’m fine. Old and decrepit, but fine. And I’d be finer if my only grandson would marry before I die.”
“Not this again,” he said, but there was no malice in his response. His gran had been saying the same thing for the last decade, since he hit thirty and showed no signs of finding a wife. “Trust me, you’ll be the first to know if I ever lose my mind and slip a ring on any woman’s finger.”
Izzy tut-tutted. “You always make light of this, but I’m not getting any younger, Manish, and I don’t want you to be alone after I’m gone.”
Izzy had always been a bit of a hypochondriac, and he wondered if it was his gran’s way of seeking attention since he’d graduated. He knew his long hours in the ER meant he didn’t visit her as often as he’d like, but while she’d always have some medical complaint or another, she didn’t mention death very often. Probably out of superstition, so hearing her say it twice in this conversation, after mentioning it at the wedding, seemed strange.
“Love you, Izzy. See you next week.”
“Take care, my boy. There’s an Indian dance next weekend, some extravaganza in Noble Park, that would be good for you to attend to meet—”
“I might be working,” he said, the lie sliding from his lips before Izzy could drop names of prospective brides he had to meet at the dance.
He heard her disappointed sigh, so he tempered his response with, “We’ll talk about it when I get home.”
“Hmm, okay,” Izzy muttered. “See you then.”
She hung up, and he slid his cell back into his pocket before he’d be tempted to check it. Not that his fruitless search for messages during conference breaks had elicited a response from Harper as he’d hoped. She’d ignored his text, and while he’d never hound her, he’d been tempted to call on more than one occasion after a long day of listening to rambling lecturers.
Maybe their first memorable meeting had been their last and he needed to move on. He never did this. He usually went on one date with a woman, maybe two, and his longest relationship had lasted seven days. Harper wasn’t interested. He needed to forget her.
As the bartender placed his martini on a coaster in front of him, a mini commotion near one of the function rooms captured his attention.
A woman who had her back to him was gesturing madly at a guy in chef’s whites, brandishing her cell in one hand and oddly, a turkey baster in the other. The chef looked seriously freaked as the woman continued to gesture wildly, her arms windmilling. Crazy foodies.
Then the woman turned and his breath caught.
Harper.
13
Harper couldn’t believe this was happening.
She’d planned everything to the nth degree for the most important shoot of her career, and now this.
“What do you mean Kylie isn’t coming?”
The junior chef took a step back, like he expected her to whack him over the head with the turkey baster in her hand. “She called in sick.”
“Sick,” Harper echoed, knowing it wasn’t this guy’s fault some flaky assistant had bailed on her, but wanting to clobber something anyway, and he happened to be closest. “Isn’t there a replacement?”
“Uh . . . we’ve rung around, but nobody is available.” The chef took another step back and glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. “I really should be getting back to prepping the dishes for the shoot.”
The shoot. The shoot she had to prepare for solo, an impossible task on her best day, but today, being tasked to make the great Jock McKell’s dishes appear perfect so people all around the country would drool over them and flock to the Storr Hotels, she knew she was fighting a losing battle. That well-stocked minibar in her room was looking mighty tempting right about now.
“Go,” she said, shooing him away, not surprised when he bolted. She’d come on pretty strong, her disappointment and worry morphing into anger that the junior chef hadn’t deserved.
She should’ve known something was up when Kylie hadn’t returned her call yesterday. Illnesses happened, and in this industry, when you were sick it was best to keep away from food. But this job was huge for her and she felt like she’d screwed it up before she’d begun.
So much for her big break. If she couldn’t pull this off, her name in the industry would be mud and she’d be back to catering parties for wealthy socialites. Ugh.
“You okay?”
She froze.
That deep voice laced with an underlying hint of amusement.
It couldn’t be.
She turned and stared into startling gray eyes and the too-handsome face she’d last seen covered in whipped cream.
As if this day couldn’t get any crappier.
“What are you doing here?”
Manny looked as shocked as she felt. “Medical conference. I’d ask you the same but it’s obvious.”
“It is?”
“You were at the conference too, but in the DIY artificial insemination lecture,” he deadpanned, pointing at the baster in her hand.
An unexpected laugh spilled from her lips when it was the last thing she felt like doing. “I’m here for a big job. Wayne Storr, the owner of this hotel chain, was at Nishi’s wedding and liked what he saw with the food presentation, so he hired me for a massive shoot. National coverage in travel magazines to be placed in all his hotels.”
“Congratulations,” he said, admiration in his potent stare. “I’m glad he saw the great job you did, unlike some other food Neanderthal who dismissed your hard work.”
The corners of her lips curved upward. He had an inherent ability to make her smile when she felt like crawling into a corner, curling into a ball, and rocking. “You already apologized for that.”
“Yet you didn’t return my text?” He tapped his bottom lip, pretending to ponder. “Interesting.”
“I didn’t have time, what with organizing this job,” she said, feeling her face flame at her fib. “A job I’m on the verge of screwing up, big-time.”
“I thought you looked a little hot and bothered, and that guy you were talking to was petrified. What’s going on?”
Just like that, the comic relief Manny had provided for the last few minutes faded away and the enormity of her situation crashed over her.
“For jobs this big, I require an assistant. We’re shooting three dishes today, three tomorrow, and the amount of work required in preparation is massive. We need to shop for props, create props, arrange surfaces, unpack equipment, and that’s before the real hard work starts.”