start. Go away from here. Find a good restaurant with room to grow and turn it into something. Remind yourself that you’re still a chef, instead of a …” He’d waved at the air in disgust and dismissal.
Dismissing what? A top-rated cooking show four years running? A bestselling cookbook? A Michelin-starred restaurant, Pommes de Terre, deemed the best of Manhattan by the Times?
And a very public firing, the voice in Damon’s head reminded him. A restaurant backer who’d walked away from those Michelin stars and left him hanging. The wreckage of a dozen friendships that littered the wake of his career. The hundred meaningless liaisons that had been poor substitutes.
And the morning he’d woken and looked back at himself in the mirror, knowing there needed to be more.
“You’re our new chef?” the feisty-looking redhead before him repeated incredulously. “I don’t believe it. This is a family business. I can’t imagine they’d do something so … so …"
“So?” he prompted, letting the annoyance show. He topped her by more than a head but she stared back at him, not giving an inch. It was the eyes that did it, a hazel that wasn’t quite green, wasn’t quite brown, eyes that stared back at him unimpressed, daring him to justify himself.
He didn’t need to justify himself to anyone.
Descour and his big ideas. Nathan Eberhardt, the new sous chef at Lyon, had left the Sextant minus an executive chef. The perfect opportunity, Paul had said. Sure. The perfect opportunity to come up to the sticks and get dissed at the front desk by some clerk in a dirt-smudged work shirt and shaggy hair.
Find a good restaurant with room to grow and turn it into something.
“Look, whether you believe it or not, it’s happening,” he said shortly. “They probably just forgot to tell you.” Or didn’t bother, he thought, diagnosing her as a troublemaker on sight.
“Oh, trust me, they didn’t forget.” Temper snapped in her eyes. “So let me get this straight. You’re Nathan’s replacement?"
“Looks that way,” he agreed. “And you are?”
“Cady McBain. Amanda and Ian are my parents.”
“Ah.” He raised his eyebrows.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She was ticked because she’d been blindsided. “I guess they forgot to run it by you."
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.” “Maybe not,” he said, “but it’s bugging you.” She scowled at him. “Does Roman know?”
“Roman?”
“You have met Roman, right? Your sous chef?”
“Oh, right.” He shrugged. “I haven’t met any of the staff yet. I was down in New York.” None of her business that he’d taken the job sight unseen, and happy to get it. He hadn’t been foolish, exactly, with the money he’d made. At least not all of it. The problem was, you couldn’t eat a TriBeCa loft or a Le Corbusier sofa. For form’s sake, he’d taken a few days to think over Amanda and Ian McBain’s telephone offer, but he’d already begun making arrangements to be gone for however long it took to fight his way back.
The hazel eyes were narrowed at him. She might have had lashes that a few of his model-actress ex-bedmates would have killed for, but they did nothing to soften that stare. “Listen to me. Roman Bennett is the most talented, hardworking line cook you’ll ever meet. He’s been killing himself twenty hours a day since Nathan left to hold this place together. You give him a hard time, you’ll answer to me."
His lips twitched; he couldn’t help it.
She glowered. “Don’t laugh at me.”
It took all he had not to. Here she was, a head shorter than he was and she was threatening him. And she was dead serious, he realized, the smile fading.
“I’m not a jackass,” he said.
“You’ll pardon me if I prefer to wait and see on that one.” The snap in her words stung. Now it was his turn to step a bit closer. “Wait and see about what?” “Whether you live up to your reputation.” Taking his time, keeping control of the irritation, he leaned down to rest his elbows on the counter so that they were eye to eye, lip to lip. She smelled faintly of apples. And he could see her decide not to budge. “It’s a good thing we’ll have lots of time, then.”
For a minute, neither moved. And he couldn’t help wondering what she would do if he shifted just a bit closer, tasted that mouth of hers while it was open and soft with surprise. He saw her shoulders rise slightly as she took a breath, saw those hazel eyes darken to caramel brown.
And flicker with alarm.
She did move then, abruptly. “Stop playing games.” Her voice was sharp.
“Stop playing hardnose.”
“I’m not playing anything.”
“Really?” He watched the pulse beat in her throat. “This could get interesting."
Just then, the door behind him jingled. “We’re back,” a voice announced from the door and he turned to see a woman with Cady’s eyes walking in.
He could almost hear Cady’s sigh of relief. “This has been fun, but here are my parents. I guess it’s time for you to finally meet your staff."
“I guess you’re right,” Damon said. “See you around.”
“Not if I see you first.”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve taken on here?” Cady stared at her parents across their kitchen.
“Of course,” Amanda said pleasantly, glancing over her shoulder as she stood at the counter with bread and cold cuts. “Do you want me to make you a sandwich, too?"
“No thanks,” Cady muttered.
“You can give me hers,” Ian said cheerfully. “There’s nothing like fasting for a couple of days to make a guy appreciate food.” “You’re changing the subject,” Cady returned, although a sandwich was starting to sound increasingly good for someone who’d skipped lunch. “Why Damon Hurst, of all people? There have to be tons of qualified cooks out there.”
“Cooks, maybe, but not chefs, and not as many as you’d think. At least not who’d move up to Grace Harbor."
Okay, so a tiny tourist town, even one an hour from Portland, wasn’t for everyone. Still … “There has to be someone. Why Hurst? Why him, of all people?"
He’d leaned in and stared at her with those eyes and she’d almost forgotten how to breathe. This could get interesting. Just thinking of it made her furious.
Just thinking of it made her shiver.
“We hired him because he was recommended by Nathan, for one thing,” her father said, pulling a bowl of potato chips toward himself.
Cady blinked.
