Heat: A Bad Boy Chef Romance (8 page)

Beatrix

Stars danced in my vision. I could hear the sound of my moans echoing through the room. I didn’t recognize them as coming from me. I ran my fingers through my hair and tried to regain control. My pussy throbbed with Moreau’s cum.

For a time I watched Moreau’s muscular chest rise and fall. I needed to get cleaned up, but I didn’t want to leave the bed.

“Are you expecting someone?” he asked.

I had no idea what he was talking about. “Just you.”

There was a knock at the door. Had there been a knock earlier? I hadn’t heard it. When Moreau was inside me, the world faded away. All I could feel was the rush of heat stirring every cell of my body to life. I squeezed my thighs together.

“I should answer that,” I said, not wanting to get up.

The person at the door pounded loudly, like they were the cops. I stood up on shaky legs. A fresh chill shot up my spine. Moreau smiled at the sight of me, trembling like a newborn fawn.

I pushed my dress down and rearranged the top. I was sure I looked disheveled, but I didn’t care. I opened the door without checking the peephole first. Big mistake. Gwen greeted me with a scowling face. Her features were strangely pinched. Her big cheekbones gave her face a hollowed out look. She stared daggers at me.

“I need to talk to Vincent,” she said.

I started to lie. I was going to tell her he wasn’t here then slam the door in her face. Before I could open my mouth, she said: “I know he’s here.”

How did she know that? The expression on my face must have given away the truth. Gwen didn’t wait to be invited inside. She pushed me out of the way and barged in. She only had to walk a couple feet to see Moreau lying shirtless on his back. There was no hiding in my tiny studio apartment. Not that Moreau was the kind of guy to run and hide. He sat up and faced Gwen.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “You can’t just muscle your way into Roche’s home.”

“It appears that I can and that I did. The better question is what are you doing here? You were supposed to meet me tonight. Or did that slip your mind?”

“I never agreed…”

“Don’t. You absolutely did agree to meet me tonight. We were supposed to workout the problems with the restaurant. Apparently, fucking this dishwasher means more to you than the future of the restaurant.”

“I’m not a dishwasher,” I said lamely.

What a snob. If I was a dishwasher what difference did it make? Work is work. I suspected a spoiled, rich girl like Gwen didn’t understand that. She’d had everything handed to her in life. It was no surprise she looked down on people who worked hard for a living.

Moreau jumped to his feet. My studio apartment was starting to feel seriously crowded.

“You know that restaurant is my passion,” he said. “You’re just pissed off because you wanted me to come over and fuck you tonight. Instead I’m with Bea.”

I blushed at hearing him call me Bea. Were we finally moving past the formality of referring to each other by our last names? Should I call him Vincent now? No, he hated his first name. Everyone called him Moreau- everyone except Gwen.

“You’re fired,” she spat.

“You can’t fire me,” Moreau protested.

“I just did.”

“You don’t have anyone to run your restaurant.”

“On the contrary, I do.”

“Who? No one knows the menu or the staff like I do. If you bring in some third rate outsider, the place will fold within a week.”

“You greatly overestimate your value to the restaurant, Vincent. Everyone is replaceable. Besides, I’m not hiring an outsider. I’m hiring your former entrée preparer Marcel. He knows the menu like the back of his hand. He’s brilliant, only you failed to recognize it. He should have been given this little slut’s job, but you were thinking with your dick when you hired her.”

The muscle in Moreau’s jaw tensed as he gritted his teeth. “I have a contract. You can’t just fire me.”

“I’m within my grounds to fire you for negligence. Your contract is voided.”

“Negligence? What the hell are you talking about?”

“You let a tainted dish be served to a customer. In fact, I’m starting to think you did it on purpose. Working along with Roche, you conspired to hurt the restaurant and poison a customer by tainting a dish with old clam water.”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded. “We didn’t do anything, it was Marcel.”

“Marcel told me everything,” she continued. “He told me that you were out to sabotage the restaurant because you were mad about what I was asking you to do. If you couldn’t have things your way, then you were determined to destroy the whole place.”

“You can’t honestly believe that,” Moreau said. “This is my life, my reputation. I would never destroy my life’s work this way.”

“You just did,” she said. “Marcel will take over the restaurant starting tomorrow. I don’t want to see either one of you ever again.”

She turned on her heels and pushed past me, hitting my shoulder as she left. It suddenly occurred to me that when Gwen announced, ‘
You’re fired
,’ she was talking to me too. We were both unemployed.

Moreau grabbed his wine glass and threw it against the wall. It shattered, sending glass shards all over the floor. I didn’t blame him. I felt like throwing something too. What if Gwen decided to blacklist me around town? I’d never work again.

“I’m sorry,” Moreau said. “This is all my fault. I’m going to fix this.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to make it right.”

I took a step back and leaned against the kitchen counter. I could feel my dreams slipping away. I’d never work as a chef again or save up enough money to open my own restaurant. It was over through no fault of my own. I did nothing wrong. Sleeping with Moreau was all it took to have my dreams stolen from me.

“Don’t move,” he said. “You’ll cut yourself.”

I hadn’t been paying attention. I’d almost stepped on a piece of broken glass. Moreau found a broom and started to sweep up the mess.

“I was such a fool to think I could work with her,” Moreau said. “I should have known this would blow up in my face. I’m so sorry, Bea.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Moreau should have handled the situation with Gwen better, but I couldn’t blame him for this mess. She was acting beyond unreasonable.

“What about the other investors?” I asked. “Maybe you can go to them and convince them this is a mistake.”

Moreau shook his head slowly. “No. Gwen calls the shots. She has majority control over the restaurant. The others have no experience in the restaurant business. They look to Gwen for guidance. Whatever she decides they go along with. It’s over.”

“That fucking snake Marcel- I should have thrown a pot of boiling water on him.”

Moreau smiled. “You’ve been hanging around me too much.”

He had a point. Moreau’s temper and demand for perfection was rubbing off on me. I wanted to destroy Marcel.

“He can’t just ruin our lives and get away with it.”

“He won’t,” Moreau said. “Gwen’s made a huge mistake. Marcel is not qualified to run the restaurant. No one respects him and he’s in way over his head. He doesn’t have the discipline to run a restaurant or the talent.” Moreau sat down on my bed and ran his hands over his face. “This isn’t over- not yet.”

I was suddenly angry at Moreau. “That’s easy for you to say. You’ll find a new job in a heartbeat. What about me? I’m nobody. I’m finished.”

“Do you really think I’d abandon you like that? Whatever happens we’re in this together now.”

He took my hand and pulled me to him. I sat down on his lap. He lifted my chin and kissed me sweetly.

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

“Don’t worry. Gwen’s not the only one with connections.”

Moreau

“You have got to be kidding me,” Bea said skeptically. We stood in front of the trailer. The outside was rusted and covered in graffiti. “This isn’t going to work.”

“Don’t be so pessimistic. It needs some work, but we’ll fix it.”

“
Some
work?”

“Okay, a lot of work. I’ll hire some guys to take care of the rust and give it a fresh paint job, then we’ll take care of the inside.”

Bea had been less than enthused about my idea. Instead of working at a new restaurant and giving Gwen the opportunity to destroy us again, I decided to take to the streets. Bea and I would start a food truck.

“This feels like a step backwards,” she said. “I mean, we were working in one of the best restaurants in the world, and now…”

She looked at the flat tires on the trailer with disdain.

“I know it looks bad, but you have to trust me. We’re keeping them guessing. Gwen expects me to try and find a job as an executive chef at a new restaurant. She has sway with almost all the investors in this business. The rich are a close knit group. They socialize together, date one another, their kids marry into each other’s families. She has influence with almost everyone in this business. She won’t have control over us here. We can do whatever we want.”

Bea opened the backdoor and looked inside the trailer. “Whatever we want… as long as it can happen inside a kitchen the size of my closet,” she said.

The inside of the trailer needed a lot of work. By the time we put all the cooking equipment inside we’d barely have enough room to move. Still, I was confident we could make it work.

“What about Gwen and Marcel?” she asked. “I hate the idea of them getting away with it.”

“Don’t worry about them. It will take care of itself in time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Boone will take care of it.”

“Boone? The foodie guy?”

“Yeah, the one with the blog.”

Boone had given my food an amazing review. I wasn’t sure if it was because of Gwen’s skills in the bedroom or because he genuinely liked my cooking. In any case, I’d contacted him to inform him that Gwen was only fucking him to get a good review and that I was unceremoniously fired shortly thereafter.

He laughed when I told him. Apparently, he genuinely liked my food; fucking Gwen was a bonus. We would have gotten positive marks regardless.

Now that Marcel had taken over the restaurant, he’d thrown out my menu and created one of his own. Boone had promised to go back to the restaurant unannounced and review the food again. I could tell he was itching for drama. He asked me to provide a quote for a new piece he was working on about Gwen’s influence in the restaurant business. It was clearly going to be an expose on her shady business dealings. I couldn’t wait. Half of her restaurants had ties to the mob. She’d started out running restaurants that were money laundering fronts.

This piece would destroy the restaurant, and if didn’t, the bad reviews Marcel’s new menu was getting would.

“Look at this,” I said to Bea.

I showed her a new review on my phone. A national paper had shown up the night of Marcel’s big debut as executive chef. They’d savaged the food and the service. The place was in shambles, customers were cancelling reservations left and right. It wouldn’t be long before Gwen was forced to shut down and Marcel was out on his ass.

I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the rest of the kitchen staff and servers though. They didn’t deserve to lose their jobs over this mess. The kitchen staff was talented; they’d land on their feet. If everything went the way I was planning with the food truck, I’d hire back most of them shortly.

“When we expand to a restaurant, this will all seem like a distant memory,” I said.

“Wait, what? What restaurant?”

“Once we hook everyone with our amazing food, we’ll attract investors. We can expand to an actual restaurant.”

“Are you serious?”

“Absolutely. This is only the beginning.”

Starting over with Bea was exciting. The last time I felt this way I was nineteen, practically homeless, and desperate to get in a kitchen. The hunger I’d lost was back in full force.

Three Months Later

Beatrix

“Behind you! Watch out!” Moreau called.

I ducked as he lifted a tray of fresh vegetables over my head. We’d developed a certain rhythm to working in such tight spaces. It was a kind of trapeze act. You had to know exactly when to move and duck. Then there was the matter of timing the dishes perfectly. If I was too slow the meat would go cold by the time the sauces and roasted vegetables were ready. If Moreau was too slow, the meat would burn. In the beginning, we’d ruined a couple dozen dishes trying to get our timing right. Now we worked like a well-oiled machine.

I ventured a glance out the window. The line for the food truck was down the street and around the block. Demand was so high that several customers had brought lawn chairs with them, so they could sit while they waited.

I couldn’t believe it. Were we really this in demand? People were willing to wait over an hour to get a taste of our food. We were making money hand over fist and the best part was that we didn’t answer to anyone. We had total control over the menu, the service, the ingredients. It was a lot of work, but I was in heaven.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my arm. Moreau’s hand slid around my hip as he slipped around me. I handed him a plate full of kimchi sweet potato fries to go with the rest of the order. It was one of our most popular side dishes and we’d just sold out.

“The sweet potato fries are finished,” I said.

“Already?”

I checked my watch. It was only half past twelve. If we kept selling out at this pace, we’d be completely out of food my three. Moreau handed the food to the waiting customer then ran outside to change the chalkboard menu outside the truck. He scratched out Kimchi Sweet Potato Fries and wrote, ‘Sold Out,’ next to it.

A loud groan went up from the crowd. It made me smile. I didn’t want to disappoint our customers, but leaving them wanting more had a certain appeal. Moreau ran back inside and we got back to work.

I was wrong about us selling out by three o’clock- we sold out by two.

We cleaned and closed up shop early. I was exhausted. Moreau handed me a beer. We sat next to each other on the steps of the food truck. People still wandered up to the trailer hoping to order. The disappointed looks on their faces when they saw we were closed gave me a rush. We were one of the hottest food spots in the city.

“What’s next?” I asked.

“Next: we slave away in this tin can for a couple more months. I’ve already got investors interested in a restaurant. They want to build a brick and mortar store version of our little food truck. Then, it’s me and you. We need to work on expanding our menu, picking a location, choosing a decorator, hiring staff-”

“Stop. I don’t want to think about it right now. Let’s just enjoy our success.” I clinked my beer bottle against his. “To our success.”

I took a long drink of my beer. It was ice cold, perfect for a hot day. Working inside the food truck all day was like working inside an oven. A beer was exactly what I needed. Moreau leaned in close and kissed me.

“Hey you two, break it up,” a familiar voice said.

I looked up and was surprised to see Tyson. I jumped up to greet him with a hug. He looked taken aback by my embrace. He laughed it off then shook Moreau’s hand. Moreau looked less enthusiastic about the way I greeted Tyson. I gave him a look that warned him to be nice.

“What brings you here?” Moreau asked Tyson.

“I quit the restaurant. After Marcel took over everything went to shit. He changed your menu to a pretentious French mess. The customers hated it. What made it worse was that Marcel didn’t care about quality control. He’d buy low-quality food from the cheapest grocers, then do nothing to supervise the preparation of the dishes. The food was terrible. We were bleeding customers like crazy. And Gwen decided it was the perfect time to put as many tables as she could fit inside the restaurant. We actually got shut down by the fire marshal one night- that’s how bad it was.”

I couldn’t help smiling. The restaurant deserved to fail after the way Gwen had treated us.

“The writing’s on the wall,” Tyson continued. “It’s only a matter of time before they shut down.”

“So, you’re here looking for a job?” Moreau asked.

Tyson shrugged. “I noticed you don’t have any desserts on your menu. I thought maybe I could lend a hand. I know how much you hate baking,” he said with a smirk.

“I don’t know,” Moreau replied. I elbowed him in the side. “The trailer is pretty tight as it is. Bea and I barely have room to walk around.”

“I’m sure we can make it work,” I said.

Moreau sighed. “Okay. You’re hired. I hope you don’t mind helping out with the customers. I need help on that front too. It’s not easy taking orders and payments while cooking.”

“No problem.”

I laughed with excitement. Our little kitchen had expanded to three. Soon we’d have a full staff and be working in a restaurant co-owned. I wrapped my arms around Moreau’s neck and kissed him. He slipped a hand around my waist to my lower back and pulled me close.

“Are you two like this all the time?” Tyson asked.

Moreau kissed me harder. His kiss left me hungry for more, but that would have to wait until later. I looked into Moreau’s eyes and marveled at what my life had become. Not only did I land the world’s hottest chef, but I would soon have my own restaurant. Life had thrown me a curveball, but for once everything had turned out in my favor.

“Let’s get to work,” Moreau said. “We need to prep for tomorrow. Tyson, I need a list of ingredients from you for your desserts.”

“Wait, now?” he said. “I haven’t really thought about it…” Moreau gave him a look. “Okay. I’ll write everything down.”

“Good. Roche, I want you to work on expanding our menu and prepping the vegetables for tomorrow.”

“Aye, aye captain,” I replied.

I smiled. Moreau was still Moreau. It was nice to know some things never change.

The End