“Isn’t it obvious? We’re interested in your spot! We would like to partner up—well, not partner up exactly. But we would like to make you an offer for the restaurant.”
Nick folded his arms across his broad chest. “It’s not for sale.”
“Everything’s for sale—”
“I’m not interested,” he interrupted, breaking into another stride. He shot toward the door, yanking it open. “Mr. Yum Yum—or whatever your name is—I heard you out. Time to go.”
Perry Langley packed up the novel-length stack of papers, the locks on his briefcase clicking to a close. He obeyed Nick’s demand and moseyed toward the door. On the threshold, he paused and his thin-lipped, unnatural smile returned.
“Offer’s still on the table. Here’s my business card. If you change your mind, call me up.”
Nick snatched the business card out of his hand and let the door literally hit him on the way out.
“Who was that guy in a suit?”
Rosalie arrived to Ady’s minutes later, windswept by the October gloom. The morning was another gray dud outside, signs of rain in the weighty clouds. She shrugged off her denim jacket three sizes too big and hung it up on the coatrack. Her curls she freed from under a beanie, the fluffy mane framing her face once again.
He wanted to kiss her. Instead he focused on unstacking chairs from the tables. If he didn’t look directly at her his mind wouldn’t wander. He wouldn’t think back to what happened during their last cooking lesson.
“Nobody important,” he answered hoarsely. “Are you sure you’re up for another lesson?”
Rosalie smiled wide on her walk to the kitchen. “If we’re still pretending like I’m the one who’s competing in the Autumn Festival, then yes.”
He followed her. Her remark was bemusing. “We’re not pretending anything—you are the one spearheading the Autumn Festival competition. Did you forget that?”
“It’s the whole restaurant that’s competing.”
“Rosalie, I already told you,” he said as they pushed open the flapping kitchen doors. “I don’t cook for Ady’s anymore. Project Fixer-Upper—the Autumn Festival—doesn’t change that.”
Halfway into the room, she spun around to face him. “You’re teaching me Ady’s menu now. What’s the difference?”
“It’s not the same thing.”
Nick stepped around her. He couldn’t face her, couldn’t look into her cattish brown eyes, tempted by her pouty lips, and pretend like he wasn’t entranced. He wanted to confess the feelings he had stamped down for weeks now, but knew better than to go there.
After all, Rosalie had said it was nothing.
She sighed, tying her apron about her waist. “What’s the lesson today?”
Nick was at the pantry, retrieving a bag of rice. “We’re doing a classic today. It’s a staple on the menu. Red beans and rice.”
“That doesn’t sound too difficult.”
“It isn’t. Almost as easy as spaghetti out of the jar.”
She rolled her eyes. “Are you ever going to let that go?”
“Honestly? Not any time soon,” he answered with an air of honest mocking. He set down the bag of rice and cans of kidney beans. “First things first, we’re gonna chop the veggies. Onions, green peppers, and celery.”
Rosalie flinched as if he’d said an offensive word. “You go ahead and chop. I’ll watch.”
“What, do you have a knife phobia or something? Chopping is cooking 101.”
“It’s not my thing.”
“If you’re going to cook up an entire menu for the Autumn Festival, it’s gonna need to be,” Nick said bluntly. He guided her toward the counter with the chopping board and veggies laid out nearby. “I’ll walk you through it. It’s all about technique.”
Rosalie gave up any protests and picked up the knife he had set out. Her resigned mood was palpable, causing him to frown. He wanted to ask why the idea of chopping vegetables seemed to upset her, but he refrained. Whatever it was, if she didn’t bring it up, it wasn’t any of his business.
“First thing you wanna keep in mind is to protect your fingers. You wanna hold the vegetables like this,” he said calmly, slipping into an instructive role with natural ease. He reached around her and placed her hand on the green pepper so that her fingertips were safely tucked in. Her hand was so soft he hated letting it go. “To make things easier, especially if it’s a round vegetable, slice it in half.”
“Like this?’ she asked, cutting through the green pepper with the dull blade.
“You’ve got the right idea. You want to make sure the flat side stays facedown. Then you start cutting.”
Nick was aware of how close they were. She was directly in front of him, close enough that he smelled her scent over any fragrant vegetable. That the thick curls of her hair brushed against his chest whenever she shifted in place, or when she peeked at him over her shoulder. He swallowed his attraction and stepped away.
For a long stretch of silence, Rosalie chopped the veggies and Nick hovered in the background observing. She finished the last stalk of celery and then turned to him with a shine in her eyes that was damn adorable.
“Now what?” she asked, clearly on a rush of adrenaline.
Nick grinned. “We heat up some olive oil so we can cook the veggies.”
Rosalie wiped her hands on her apron and crossed the kitchen for the stove. She moved with a sudden confidence that further turned him on. He liked seeing her this way, in the take-charge mode she assumed while at Ady’s.
As if reading his thoughts, she said, “You know, part of the reason I’ve hated cooking was because there was always so much pressure put into it. My mother tried to teach me a few times, and it never worked out. Then with Clyde—it was always thrown in my face as a failure of mine.”
“I like to think cooking should be fun. It’s creating something from nothing.”
She smiled. “Creating something from nothing. That’s an interesting way to put it.”
“It’s the truth, isn’t it?” Nick asked with a shrug. He had come up beside her by the stove. “All cooking is, is putting together the right ingredients at the right time to make something great.”
Like them. It wasn’t lost on Nick that what he described was what he had discovered with Rosalie. They were the ingredients; an experimental recipe that cooked up a delicious attraction too damn good to pass up.
It wasn’t lost on Rosalie either. She had forgotten about the bottle of olive oil and the pan waiting for her by the stove. Her gaze fixed onto his face, eyes shining as the same cooking epiphany must have occurred to her too. The already-small gap between them began to close.
“I like the way you think,” she said softly.
“That’s a first. No one’s ever told me that before.”
She let out a lone giggle. “First time for everything.”
Their faces were inches apart as they both gave up fighting the force that pulled them together. Nick’s palms cupped the undersides of her cheeks and his pulse sped as he stared into her dark eyes. They leaned closer and their lips brushed in a teasing prelude to a kiss.