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Mel could almost see the ideas forming in his head. His whole demeanour was changing in front of her eyes, energy fair sparking off his disturbingly muscular body.
‘You’ve seen the food we do at The Bullion. It’s all deep-fried and artery-clogging. I need to get with the times, update the menu, make it appealing, maybe even get entertainment in on special nights, see if I can’t pull in a few more punters. Turn the place into a tourist attraction, or something. Which would be good for your business, too...’
Tony leaned forward and placed his hand over hers.
Pull away.
But she couldn’t. Tony’s fingers tightened around the outer edges of her fist, warm, strong, capable. Hands that knew how to work. Weren’t afraid of getting dirty…
Did he work out, she mused, as her eyes travelled up the length of his legs and settled on his stomach. Was there a six-pack hiding beneath that grey T-shirt? Strongly defined, hard thighs underneath those denims? Biceps made for picking a woman up and pinning her to a wall…
Get it together, girl! She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping not seeing Tony would stop those unneeded images forming in her head. It didn’t work. Was this the effect he had on women? Is that why he was known for having a string of them? Was he truly irresistible?
‘So are you going to help me? Or are you too busy meditating over there?’
Mel tugged her hand out from under his and rubbed her face wearily. It had been a long day. Between her mother’s announcement sending her stomach into free-fall and the revelation that the man sitting opposite her had decided to pit himself against her in the business stakes, she was ready to go to bed. Alone.
‘What’s in it for me?’ Mel opened her eyes to see Tony giving her a charming smile.
‘The pleasure of my company?’
‘I’m not seeing anything pleasurable about your company.’ The lie came quick and easy.
‘Well, maybe it’s time you did.’ Tony’s teasing tone was back. ‘Look, how about this for a deal. You help me create a dinner menu, maybe show me how to make a decent coffee…’
Mel’s eyebrows shot up, her hackles rising.
‘…and I promise to not serve the java until your café closes at…’
‘Three.’
‘Three it is.’
‘I still don’t feel like it’s a good enough deal for me to give you this much help…’
‘Any wine you drink at the pub will be free for the duration of your help?’
The teasing tone was tinged with desperation. Tony had alluded to things not going great, things needing fixing, but maybe he was in deeper than he was willing to let on? And maybe – an idea flitted about her mind – he could help her with her latest drama, the drama that was about to blow into town any day now…
‘Okay. I’m insane for doing this, I’ll probably regret it with every fibre of my being, but okay. I’ll help you… but you’ve got to do one more thing for me.’
‘Anything. Just name it.’
Mel screwed up her courage and forced the words out before she could talk herself out of them. ‘I need you to be my fiancé.’
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_687d66d1-c88b-55b1-95b7-cb44ef0bcfdb)
The scrape of metal on wooden floor filled the café as Tony pushed the chair away from the table and sprang up. ‘Woah, hold on there, Mel. You’re moving a little fast for me. Learning a few tips and tricks in the kitchen in exchange for getting married? I usually like to have a couple of dates first, be given flowers, chocolates, maybe even a diamond ring…’ he joked, hoping to see her demeanour lighten up.
He waited for Mel’s shoulders to sink. They didn’t.
Looked for her serious eyes to lighten. They remained serious.
‘Mel, this is the bit where you lightly elbow me in the stomach and tell me you’re joking.’
Mel stood up and folded her arms over her chest. ‘But I’m not joking. You need to be my fiancé if you want me to teach you how to cook. It’s this deal or no deal.’
Tony levelled his gaze at Mel What was she playing at? ‘You’re dreaming, Mel. Literally. I don’t do girlfriends. And I don’t do fiancées. Ever. There’s not a girl in this world who could make me settle down.’
Mel clapped a hand to her forehead and groaned. ‘Oh my God, not a real fiancé, you crazy man. There’s no way I’d put my heart in your hands, I’ve heard what people say about you, you know.’
Tony shrugged, unabashed. He knew what people said about him. It was the truth. He didn’t stick around, and he didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep. His father had shown him what heartbreak looked like, and he didn’t want to be in the position to repeat it. That meant love was off the table.
‘I don’t understand. Why do you need a fake fiancé? What for? To get back at the vet? The one who’s on a whole other continent, probably with his arm up a rhino’s butt right now?’
Mel closed her eyes as if trying to centre herself. ‘God, she’s not even here and I’m being sucked into her maelstrom,’ she mumbled under her breath.
‘Her? Who’s her?’ He took a step away from Mel. Then another. The café’s door was only a few metres away; maybe he could make his escape and forget any of this had ever happened. He’d find another way to save The Bullion, to keep it out of some grabby, money-hungry estate agents’ hands. Maybe he’d just have to return the coffee machine? Get the money back. Pay the rates. But then what? There’d only be more rates to come, and no money to pay them. No. He had to think bigger. He had to do everything in his power to attract back the locals, and to maybe even attract those from nearby villages.
Mel bit down on her lip. ‘Her is my mother. I need a fake fiancé for when my mother arrives.’ She opened her eyes and met his gaze. Didn’t even flinch when he gave her his best ‘are you for real?’ look.
‘So let me get this straight. In exchange for teaching me to cook proper pub food and for letting me serve coffee after 3 pm, I have to be your fake fiancé for the duration of your mother’s stay? I just don’t think it’s worth it. I’m getting the pointier end of the stick.’
‘Well, it’s not like we’d have to live together. And she’d only be here a few days. Mum never stays anywhere very long. And, well, I hate to say this, Tony, but you need me. I’ve heard the rumours. Mrs Harper was in here today saying The Bullion isn’t paying its bills, and that it’s also behind in taxes. That you’re only months away from being bankrupt and losing everything. Let me help you change that. And I promise that, once my mother has gone, I’ll release you from fiancé duties and continue to help you build a menu.’
Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. Damn. He’d hoped people hadn’t realised the dire straits he was in. But with his dad’s refusal to admit they were in trouble, then the cost of his funeral, and on top of that the modernisations and innovations of pubs in the closest villages, which had seen Rabbits Leap’s locals leaving The Bullion for more interesting pastures, money had been tight. Tighter than tight. Verging on non-existent. He was screwed. And Mel knew it.
‘So, Tony McArthur, will you marry me?’
Tony’s breath caught in his throat, like a noose round his neck, or a ring on his finger. ‘It seems I have no choice.’
‘Good.’ Mel nodded. ‘Well, it’s time for me to shut up shop, so we may as well make a start. Have you ever made lasagne?’
***
Mel picked up one of Tony’s knives and ran her finger over the blade. It was as blunt as she’d been back at the café. Her stomach had knotted up when she’d brought up his financial situation, but he’d left her no choice. She needed him as much as he needed her, and she didn’t have the time to deal with his resistance, not with her mother due to arrive on her doorstep.
‘When’s the last time these were sharpened?’ She turned to Tony who was propping open the door that separated the pub and kitchen, keeping an eye on the handful of punters who were nursing a beer.
He shrugged. ‘Not since Dad passed. And even then, he wasn’t one for the cooking. That had been Mum’s domain.’ He flicked his eyes away from her and focused them on the customers.
Was it her imagination or had Tony’s eyes misted up?
‘How old were you when your mum passed?’
‘Five.’
‘That must have been hard, not having her around.’ Mel rifled through a drawer and found a butcher’s steel and got to work sharpening the knife in preparation for her first cooking lesson.
Tony glanced down at his shoes and grunted. Followed by another shoulder shrug.
So it had been hard. Mel figured as much. She knew a thing or two about not having parents around, and she didn’t know what was worse. Having one gone for ever, or having one who came and went whenever it suited them…
She set the steel down and grabbed an onion. ‘Right, so you know how to chop an onion, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do. Pass the knife.’
Mel sighed, relieved. Since she’d followed him to the pub he’d been all monosyllabic answers and grunts. That, combined with furtive glances and plenty of space between the two of them, had made for an uncomfortable half hour. How they were going to fake a relationship in front of her mother she had no idea, but maybe the cooking would bring them together.
‘Stop!’ she cried out, registering the butchering going on in front of her. ‘What are you doing to that poor vegetable? What did it ever do to you?’
‘What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m chopping it up like you said.’
‘You’re killing it deader than dead. Who even thought to teach you how to chop a vegetable like that?’
‘Well, as we just talked about, my mother has been busy being deceased for the last couple of decades and my father’s idea of cooking involved a deep fryer and whatever came out of the bulk bags of bar food he had shipped in. So what little I know is what I’ve taught myself.’
Mel’s face flashed crimson-hot with embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry. Stupid choice of words.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ The deep lines running between Tony’s eyes softened. ‘So, are you going to show me how to cut an onion or are you going to just stand there looking at me with that cute little face of yours all red as those tinned tomatoes?’
‘First rule of the kitchen – don’t irritate the chef by calling her cute. Now give me that knife.’
Mel took the knife off Tony, grabbed a fresh onion, chopped the top off it, halved it, then began running the knife down the length of it, making lines half a centimetre apart. When she reached the other end of the onion she spun it round and efficiently sliced it width-wise, watching with satisfaction as little cubes of onion crumbled onto the board.
‘It’s like magic.’
The wonder in Tony’s voice made her grin. It had seemed a little like magic to her the first time she’d watched a chef do it, too, but after peeling and chopping her thousandth onion in a matter of weeks it had well and truly stopped feeling magical and simply felt like second nature.
She ran her finger down the blade of the knife to clean off the last few bits of onion, then flipped the handle in Tony’s direction.
‘Your turn.’
Tony glanced sceptically at the knife, then turned the look on her.
‘It won’t bite,’ she said.
‘But you might.’
‘Not if you don’t want me to…’ Her words came out low, sweet… and there was no missing the seductive tone. Mel mentally kicked herself in the shins. What was going on with her? She was acting like… someone she never wanted to act like.
Tony’s lips quirked as his eyebrow raised in amusement. ‘Geez, Mel. Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?’
The sparkle was back, sending the warmth that had bloomed over Mel’s face skyrocketing. ‘Yeah, it’s hot. It’s just the oven. Another rule – if a recipe says preheat the oven, preheat the oven.’ She fanned her face furiously. ‘That’s a mighty good oven you’ve got over there. Works fast.’ Stop burbling, she ordered herself. ‘Now stop gawking at me, pick up the knife and chop that onion like I showed you.’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’ Tony saluted and took the knife from her.
He held it gently, as if it might bite. The complete opposite to the confident manner with which he’d grabbed it before hacking at the onion a few minutes ago.
‘Chop off the top,’ Mel instructed, keeping her voice soft, calm, so as not to freak him out any more.
His fingers took hold of the fresh onion and held it to the board. His knuckles turned more and more white with tension the closer the knife got to its victim. His shoulders bunched up once more.
‘You don’t have to be nervous. You’ve got this. You can do it. It’s just chopping an onion. I mean, you did it before, badly, but you did it.’
The knife clattered loudly onto the stainless-steel bench as Tony took an abrupt step back.
‘What’s wrong? You’ll be fine.’
She reached out to touch his arm but he jerked it away so it was just out of reach.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do this. What if I bugger it up? What if it all goes wrong?’ His blue eyes were panicked as the words rushed out.
Mel knew he wasn’t talking about the onion. He had the look of a person who could see their future falling apart. His voice held the same fear she’d felt to her very core when her business in Leeds had started to fall over. His eyes had the same wild look she’d seen reflected back at herself every time she’d been packed up, pulled out of school and taken somewhere to start a new life.
His life was spinning out of control and he didn’t believe he could do a single thing to slow it down. But she could.
‘Here. I’ll help.’ She picked up the knife. ‘We’ll do it together.’
Mel faced the bench and indicated for him to get behind her. Tony nodded in understanding and encircled her with his arms. One hand fell atop of her onion-holding hand, the other her knife-holding hand.
‘Relax.’ She wriggled her knife-holding hand, the hand he was currently squeezing every last drop of blood out of.
‘Sorry,’ he grunted, loosening his grip.
Mel focused on the onion and tried to ignore the tension she could feel radiating off him. Tension, and heat, and the slightest aroma of salt mixed with a hoppy earthiness. He smelt like a man should. Raw. Pure. Her body swayed backwards a little, closer to him. A mind of its own, it wanted to feel him against her, to see if they were a good fit.
Snap out of it. She wasn’t here to have a fling with the town playboy, she was here to work, to show him how to make a simple lasagne, and that was it.
‘So we chop the head off the onion.’
She pressed down on the knife, feeling him press along with her, his hand hot upon hers.
‘Then we cut it in half.’
They swivelled the onion round and sliced through it, the two halves separated, releasing its potent aroma.
‘Now you peel the layers off,’ she instructed, momentarily feeling bereft when his hands left hers.
‘Now we slice down the length.’
His hands were on hers again. She couldn’t ignore the way his touch sent tingles racing up her arms, through her body, upsetting a flutter of butterflies that had been hibernating in her stomach. Was she really this desperate for a man? Did she need one so much that the tiniest hint of touch, the smallest flash of interest, sent her into a swooning mess?
‘Have you forgotten how to cut an onion?’
His breath was hot on her ear. The butterflies danced again.
‘Of course not. I was just taking it slowly…’ She fished around for an excuse. ‘Um, so, you know, you don’t forget how to cut an onion.’
