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She ignored him and continued. “But about the entertainment component. I’m a chef, not an actor.” She gestured around her. “I think we’re all nervous about working in front of the cameras.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Are you telling me you’re not the least bit anxious?”
“I can’t afford to be if I want to win. And I want to win.”
“Wanting isn’t the same as doing.”
The smile her word elicited was illicit. He leaned closer, and his tone was matter-of-fact when he clarified, “I’m going to win.”
Another time she might have found such self-assuredness sexy, especially when paired with smoky eyes and a devilish grin. Since it ran counter to her own plans, however, she told him, “In your dreams, Paper.”
Finn chuckled. “I was right about figuring you for a rock. But the only thing I’m dreaming about right now—” His gaze flicked to her lips and he hesitated before clarifying, “The only thing I can afford to dream about is being the last chef standing in this kitchen.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Try a dozen of us,” scoffed the young man standing to Lara’s right.
She’d forgotten about him—she’d forgotten about all of them—as she and Finn had engaged in a quiet battle of words that carried an undertone of flirting.
Kirby Something-or-other. From where she stood, she wasn’t able to make out the last name on his badge. She pegged him to be in his early twenties. His shaggy hair stuck out at odd angles and gave the overall appearance of having been hacked off with a meat cleaver.
“That doesn’t mean we can’t all be friendly, y’all.” The speaker this time was a middle-aged blonde whose waist was as thick as her Southern accent. Her badge read Flo Gimball.
“That’s right. We can be friendly. Course, it won’t change anything. I’m going to win,” boasted a gravelly-voiced man who sported a shaved head, gauged ears and a five-inch-long goatee.
Thanks to two full sleeves of tattoos, he would have looked right at home in a biker bar. Rebel that he was, he wasn’t wearing the name tag he’d received from the security desk in the lobby, but the Gothic lettering on the side of his neck spelled out Ryder. Lara assumed it was his name—whether first, last or otherwise, she couldn’t be sure.
“Right,” she muttered half under her breath.
Sorry, but she couldn’t see Ryder in her father’s kitchen. For starters, Clifton wasn’t a fan of body art, which was probably why she had gotten a yin-yang symbol the size of a half-dollar inked on her lower back as soon as she’d turned eighteen. Her dad had been livid when he found out. She’d been smug and secretly pleased to have gotten his attention. Now, every time she wore a bathing suit, she just felt stupid.
“You got something to say?” Ryder asked in a voice as gritty as cornmeal.
The guy easily stood six-six and carried his fillet knife in a sheath attached to his belt. Fish and prime cuts of meat probably weren’t the only things he used it on. Lara gulped, a purely reflexive action that she regretted immediately when the huge man grinned as if he could smell her fear.
“Down, boy.” Finn surprised her by stepping between them. “Pick on someone your own size.”
Ryder’s laughter chewed through the silence that followed Finn’s valiant admonition like the rusty blade of a chain saw.
“I musta missed the memo that said we’re competing in pairs. What, pretty boy? Are you gonna be her sous-chef?” Ryder taunted.
The barb earned snickers from some of the other competitors.
Lara appreciated Finn’s gesture, but she couldn’t afford to be perceived as weak. Stepping around him, she told Ryder, “Actually, I do have something to say, but I’ll let my food do the talking on Monday.”
For that matter, she hoped that whatever she prepared in the allotted time would speak volumes to the trio of judges, which would include a different celebrity chef each week.
“Should be pretty quiet, then,” said a statuesque brunette whose name badge read Angel Horvath.
Her overinflated lips curved into a smile that was too menacing to be perceived as friendly, and Lara was left with the impression that it wouldn’t be smart to turn her back on the woman—or any of her fellow competitors, for that matter.
That included Finn, their kiss in the cab and his recent act of gallantry notwithstanding. They all had the same objective: winning. As Finn already had pointed out, that made them adversaries.
Tristan had returned for part of the exchange. He clapped his hands together again in a gesture that Lara was already starting to find annoying.
“Hey, chefs. I have no problem with trash talk. In fact, undermining another contestant’s confidence can be a good strategy. But save it for the cameras, please. We have too much to do over the next couple of days to waste time on your egos.”
Lara cast a sideways glance at Finn. The easygoing smile he’d sported was gone, replaced by an expression more in keeping with the intensity she’d spied earlier in his gaze. His game face, she thought, and experienced a flicker of disappointment that they hadn’t met under other circumstances.
THREE
Mix well
The competitors had one hour, not a minute more, to familiarize themselves with their surroundings. Finn had to restrain himself to a brisk walk when Tristan finally released them to go find their workstations. He wanted to run like a couple of the other chefs were doing, but he knew better. Haste in a kitchen was often met with disaster. So he moved quickly, but safely as he searched for his name on the white placards affixed to the stainless-steel vent hoods.
Finn had spent his entire adult life in and around professional kitchens—some of them better equipped and better run than others. For a while, he’d presided over his own in a restaurant dubbed Rascal’s, which he’d owned with his wife and best friend. Ex-wife now. And former best friend.
He was at home amid pots, pans and appliances, but he wasn’t exactly in his element here.
Finn hadn’t admitted it before, but he shared Lara’s trepidation about cooking in front of a slew of cameras for a television audience that ultimately would not taste his creations. He had no problem preparing his signature dishes in a crowded restaurant kitchen where well-ordered chaos reigned, but this was different. So much in the Cuisine Cable Network’s kitchen was unknown, unaccounted for and just plain beyond his control.
It came down to a hand of cards. Literally. At the start of each competition the host would deal three oversize cards. One specified the amount of time the chefs had to cook. Another gave the course they had to prepare—appetizer, entrée or dessert. The final card revealed the identity of the celebrity judge.
And then there was the plainspoken and pretty Lara Smith.
If the first blow of attraction had landed like a sucker punch, the second, when he’d stumbled upon her in the waiting room, had delivered the knockout.
Wouldn’t it just figure that the first woman to arouse his interest—and then some—since Sheryl had buried a knife in his back would be one he was competing against for the chance of a lifetime?
Priorities, Westbrook, priorities, he silently admonished.
Sex and his social life rated lower on the list than getting back what he’d lost. And thanks to Sheryl and Cole, he’d lost everything.
Of course, all of the chefs here were determined to win. But it was different for Finn. For him, it went deeper than bragging rights and securing a coveted position with a paycheck to match. Being crowned the Chesterfield’s executive chef wouldn’t be a stop as much as a stepping-stone. He needed it to launch his comeback.
Nothing and no one would stand in his way.
He found his station and smothered a bemused laugh. So much for putting distance between himself and Lara Smith. They would be working side by side.
At the moment, however, it wasn’t her side that had Finn’s attention. She was bent at the waist, inspecting the oven. It was all he could do to hold back a groan at his first unrestricted view of her butt. Overall, she was too slender to be considered voluptuous, but her rear had a definite curve that filled out her fitted pants nicely. If she liked to sample her cooking, as chefs were wont to do, she worked off the extra calories later. When his libido started to fantasize about exactly how, he swallowed hard and reeled it in.
She glanced over as she straightened, and smiled.
“We meet again,” he said in a lame attempt to cover his embarrassment over being caught ogling her butt.
The bright lights teased streaks of copper from her otherwise auburn hair, and idly he wondered if it was as soft to the touch as it appeared.
“That reminds me. I never properly introduced myself.” She rubbed the palm of her right hand on the thigh of her pants before holding it out. “I’m—”
“No need.” A handshake? Really? They’d already kissed. “Besides, I know who you are.”
“Y-you know?” Her eyes rounded at that and her face paled to the point he thought she might pass out.
It was a curious reaction. She didn’t only sound surprised but, well, guilty.
“You’re wearing a badge with your name on it,” he pointed out.
“I... A badge. Right. I’m wearing a badge.” She laughed awkwardly as she patted the rectangular sticker affixed to a chest that, in his estimation, was neither too large nor too small, but just the right size. She motioned to the prep table that they would be sharing. “It looks like we’re going to be working together.”
The idea, like the woman, was way too appealing for his peace of mind, so he clarified, “We won’t be working together, Lara. We’ll be competing against each other.”
“Adversaries,” she said, parroting what he had said earlier.
“Yep. And as I already told you, I intend to win.”
She notched up her chin, not appearing to be cowed in the least by his bravado.
He found her arrogance a surprising turn-on when she replied in a haughty voice, “You keep telling yourself that, Paper. You just keep telling yourself that.”
* * *
Smooth.
Lara patted the badge even as she wanted to give her forehead a slap. She supposed the fact that she was so lousy at lying was a testament to how rarely she did it. Deceit did not come naturally to her. No, that would be her mother.
Even with her father—especially with him—Lara had always been truthful. Blunt and tactless, yes, but truthful all the same.
At least Finn was no longer staring at her as if she’d grown a second head. In fact, he wasn’t looking at her at all. He was going about his business, as should she, since they had only an hour in the kitchen studio.
Satisfied that the oven and stove-top burners worked, Lara turned her attention to the prep table. While all of the contestants had their own ovens, the tables, which ran parallel to them, were ten feet long and intended to accommodate two chefs. All of her preparations, including plating the finished product, would take place on that single length of stainless-steel real estate, and she was going to have to share it with the handsome man who had her mind wandering to other uses for a handy horizontal surface.
“Something wrong?” He stopped what he was doing and looked over at her.
Lara felt a flush creep over her cheeks, one of the curses of having a redhead’s fair skin.
“No. Nothing’s...wrong.” She forced her gaze from him to the prep top, where a couple of containers filled with spatulas, slotted spoons and the like, and some bottles of oil were all that delineated one chef’s side from the other. “It’s just not a lot of space for two people.”
“Worried I’ll take advantage of you?”
She felt her face flame anew as a couple of more inappropriate thoughts threatened to storm the gates of propriety. Worried? More like wishing.
“I just hope you’re not one of those chefs who like to spread out.”
“I’ll keep all of my stuff on my side if you’ll do the same.” To illustrate his point, Finn moved a bottle of extra virgin olive oil to his section.
“Actually, I think we’re supposed to share the oil.”
He glanced at the trio of bottles, which were filled with different varieties, some of which were intended for cooking, others for adding flavor afterward.
“Ah. So I see.” He moved the bottle back to the dividing line. “Are we good?”
“That depends.” She canted her leg out to one side and settled a hand on her hip. She was only half kidding when she said, “When you’re cooking, are you neat? Some chefs aren’t and it’s a pet peeve of mine.”
Indeed, it was one of the rare points on which Lara and her father actually saw eye to eye.
“As a pin. What about you?”
“A place for everything and everything in its place.”
“Then I’d say the two of us will get along fine.”
“Yes, we’re...” Her gaze homed in on his mouth as she recalled their kiss. “We’re very...”
Finn’s smirk told her he knew exactly where her mind had wandered.
“Compatible? Is that the word you’re looking for?”
Oh, she had a feeling they would be that and then some.
She looked away and blurted out the first thing she could think of. “The knives aren’t bad.”
Five of the most essential blades clung to magnetic strips that were mounted on the wall behind each contestant’s stove. Even at a glance, she could gauge the quality. The network had spared no expense.
“Will you be using them?” he asked.
“Please.” She snorted at that. More so than any other utensil in a chef’s kitchen, knives were personal, their weight and balance suited to the user. As such, they were the one item the contestants were allowed to bring with them from home. “Are you kidding?”
He shrugged. “Just trying to get a feel for what kind of chef you are.”
She was the kind who deserved to be heading up the Chesterfield’s kitchen, a job she was going to do her damnedest to earn.
Tristan, apparently having overheard their conversation, said, “Remember, chefs. You’re limited to seven.” He’d been making the rounds in the studio, hands clasped behind his back, his expression reminiscent of a warden’s. “Are you finding everything to be in working order at your stations?”
“So far so good,” Finn said.
She nodded in agreement.
Once Tristan had moved on, Finn said, “I wonder if Ryder will show up next week wearing all of his knives on his belt. The guy’s a trip.”
The visual nearly had her smiling.
“I was going to say scary. Thanks for earlier, by the way.”
She might not have needed Finn’s interference, but she’d appreciated the gesture.
“He was just trying to psych you out.”
