Marie stood up and began pacing the small area from the bulletin board to the opposite wall. Her blood pressure was climbing through the roof. She put a hand over her heart and felt the hard beat of it against her palm. “Okay, okay I can have a cohost—I can deal with a cohost, but not Van MacAllister. I’ll cook with anybody but him.” That’s good, Marie. Good compromise. Reasonable.
“Trust me, Marie.”
“Ha!”
“I’ve got a good feeling about this, Marie. A good gut feeling.” Like I care about your gut feelings! she thought, beginning to feel sick.
“It’s an awful idea. We won’t like each other,” she told him, grasping at straws.
“Have you ever really met him?”
“Face to face?” she asked, needlessly. She knew she was creeping toward ridiculous but she had actually made a point never to meet Van MacAllister. Call it pride, call it trying to avoid having a criminal record. Whatever it was, she hadn’t actually met him. She could go her whole life hating him from afar.
“My ears are burning,” a deep, sarcastic voice said from the doorway behind her.
Simon shot her a look that clearly said “behave,” as he stood to shake hands with Van as he entered the room.
“Hello, Giovanni,” he said.
“What’s he doing here?” Marie asked, realizing suddenly that this had been in the works for a while and she was obviously the last to know. Marie’s stomach twisted; she could not have felt more betrayed.
“I invited him to this meeting,” Simon answered.
“You’ve been having secret meetings behind my back?” she cried. Nothing upset her like secret meetings. They were childish and she always ended up getting screwed. “Simon, I can’t believe this.”
“Just hear us out,” Simon urged.
Deep breaths. Calm thoughts. Beaches. Waves. Puppies. Babies. None of it was working. And actually being in the same room with Van was filling her head with very unadult and unreasonable thoughts. Like arson.
Van turned and she got her first real look at him.
Marie was not a woman to get knocked off her feet, though for a moment she was taken aback by the sheer injustice done to him by photographs.
He still wasn’t handsome, not by a long shot. But he was just standing there and he seemed to take up the entire room. He was dressed in head-to-toe black, which might explain why he seemed so dramatic. He had a whole brooding, smoldering thing that on any other man would have Marie drooling.
Too bad it’s wasted on this guy, she thought.
But it was more than the way he looked. Van seemed even sharper than he came off in pictures or from across the street when she spied on him through her windows. Sharp and very focused. It was absurd, but in that moment Van MacAllister, man’s man and general all around pig, looked like a pirate.
She hoped, fervently, that Van MacAllister had a small penis. The man deserves a small penis.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said with sarcastic politeness. He leaned in toward her and the air when he got close to her crackled, like a nearby storm. The scent of garlic and rosemary lifted off him. She took a deep breath before she could stop herself.
“I gather that you have a problem working with me?” His eyes were hard and angry, and for a moment she felt like he was seeing right through her. Right into her petty and jealous heart.
“Problem?” She plunked her hands on her hips. “Why in the world would I have a problem with you? Just because you’ve—”
“Van, we’re thrilled you could make it today,” Simon said, trying to talk over Marie.
“Speak for yourself, Simon,” she said, not taking her eyes off Van, the pirate chef. She was mad, not attracted, and just because she had a hard time looking away from those eyes didn’t make her any less angry. In fact, it made it worse. He was a jerk. And he was her type. All of the careful cultivation of Marie’s calm and reason vanished.
“Is this about what was printed in The Examiner?” he asked. “Because it was taken completely of out context.” The look on his face, contrite and apologetic, made his features softer, his dark eyes somehow warmer. But Marie was not going to be fooled.
“Sure it was.”
“It was.”
“I’m not arguing with you.” She crossed her arms, and even shrugged and batted her eyelashes at him.
“Good.” He was looking at her carefully and she could feel him picking her apart to see if she were serious.
“Okay!” Simon clapped his hands together and sat down, but Van remained standing, eyeing her. She eyed him right back. If this was going to be some kind of staring contest, hell if she’d be the first to blink!
The room felt warmer. Simon seemed far away while Van seemed so close she could reach out and touch the zipper of his coat, or the scar on his chin, which was fascinating to look at.
Oh no you don’t, not this guy! She tried to wrestle her wayward hormones back in line.
“So, we’re ready to get to business?” he asked, like they were going to split a cab or go halves on a pizza. For a moment, Marie had trouble breathing through her anger and disbelief.
“You mean your business of taking over part of what I’ve worked so hard for?”
“Marie!” Simon interjected, but Van held up a hand, curtailing Simon.
“I think we should avoid the words ‘taking over,’” Van said calmly.
“Okay, how about this?” she sighed, looking up at the ceiling, pretending to think. “How about the business where I work my ass off for a year and then just when things start to go right for me you get to come along and share. Share? Do we all like that word?” She glanced around, liking the abashed look in Simon’s eyes and the muscle that was ticking in Van’s jaw.
“Right. So I work hard and you come and share in my success. Which, frankly, I’m thankful for because I was having such a hard time handling it on my own.” She took a step closer to him. “If you want to be on TV, Van, go find your own show.”
The silence in the office had an echo. She could actually hear the blood beat through her veins, her breath in her lungs.
Van cleared his throat. “Point taken.” He nodded, his smile tight.
“Good, then…” She made a move for the door so she could show Van out. “I think our business here is done.”
“But—” Van shifted, blocking her way. He crossed his arms over his chest while he pinned her to the wall with his eyes. She felt the sharp popping shocks from the static and animosity surrounding them. “While I certainly appreciate your little speech, let’s understand something—I was approached by the producers. By Simon.”
“Whom
