Hot and Bothered (Hot in the Kitchen) (18 page)

Except this year he had an actual business to run and people who relied on him. He would have to find a way to manage the pain without it affecting anyone else.

His gaze locked with Frankie’s and he tried to draw from her strength for the hard times ahead. She had made cancer her bitch a couple of years back and he had never met a more tenacious woman. He opened his mouth to say that and a million other things but was interrupted by another knock on the door. Firm this time, but no less ominous.

“Tad,” Kennedy, his manager, called from the other side. “People are asking for you.”

“I’ll be right there,” he called back.

As he stood, Frankie moved up with him, choking the knot on his tie. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she started wiping non-existent smudges off his cheeks.

“I’ll give you a moment, but do not take too long.”

Five minutes and a shot of grappa later, he crossed the threshold from back to front of house and scanned the bar. His wine bar, his dream finally come to fruition. Frankie was right: it
was
an accomplishment. The wood gleamed, the glass shone, the wine flowed. Derry’s bacon-wrapped fig and thyme appetizers seemed to be a hit with the fashionable crowd.

No one had spotted him yet so he took a moment to soak and enjoy before he had to turn on Smiling Host Tad. Practically every DeLuca in the Chicago area was here to support him. Cara had done an excellent job organizing the opening and now she presided over Shane’s triple-tiered cupcake creation, shaped to look like a champagne fountain. Clever, clever. Off near the far end of the bar, Jack and Tony stood in companionable conversation. They’d had a rocky start, but Jack had insinuated himself into
la famiglia
remarkably quickly, becoming as good as a son to Tony. Tad couldn’t help the thread of jealousy that ran through him whenever he witnessed Tony’s easy relationship with his sons-in-law.

But tonight was not a night for petty jealousies. It was
his
night, the start of the rest of his life.

He stepped forward into the room, then stopped cold when his gaze crashed over a blond, green-eyed beauty—and her sharply dressed, very tall, clearly appreciative date.

* * *

“Nice speech,” Shane said with a smirk, when Tad finally wended his way back to Cara and Shane. He couldn’t remember much about it. Something about wine and coming together and making new friends. And then something else about wine.

“Thanks,” Tad muttered, trying to put a good-natured spin on it when really he was ready to punch something.
Take a couple of deep breaths.
Over at the bar, the sharp suit laid a hand oh-so-casually on Jules’s arm and Tad’s body went into a full-scale lockdown.

“Who’s that guy?” he asked Cara, who seemed to be running Operation Get Jules Bedded.

“Darian Fuentes.” She let out a breathy giggle. “
Doctor
Darian Fuentes, actually. He’s a friend of mine from Lurie Children’s Hospital.”

Cara did volunteer work at the kids’ hospital downtown and it put her in contact with all sorts, including guys that mothers wet-dreamed up for their daughters.

“Congratulations, man. Nice digs.” Tad turned to find Conor looking all spruced up in a spiffy suit.

They shook hands. “Thanks, Conor. Glad you could make it.”

“You serving beer at this joint?”

Tad snorted and turned back to Jules and Dr. Perfect.

“Just think, our Jules with a doctor.” Cara clutched her chest dramatically.

“Kind of jumping the gun, aren’t you, LT?” LT was Shane’s nickname for Cara, an abbreviation of Lemon Tart, which suited her perfectly.

Cara looked superior. “Well, they seem to be getting along, don’t they? He loves kids, is a bit of an Anglophile, has a thing for leggy blondes. I don’t think I’m being premature here in saying this is quite the coup. Maybe I should look at getting into this matchmaking business.”

Shane laughed and kissed his wife softly. “One more service from DeLuca Doyle Special Events.”

“From meet to altar and beyond,” Cara said, her eyes bright as sapphires. “Full service events from dating all the way to family planning.”

Tad cut in, irked with how this conversation had started and even more irked with where it was going. “What are you going to do? Stand over them on their honeymoon and tell him where to put it?” He could see Cara doing exactly that in some sex clinic somewhere.
There, no, there.
Probably how she treated Shane.

Unfazed by his snappishness, Cara curved her lips. “Some people need the extra push, don’t you think?”

As family, Tad was contractually obliged to love Cara, but sometimes he had a hard time liking her. She was so freaking bossy and too damn organized for her own good, and this latest example of interference took the champagne fountain-shaped cake. Since meeting Shane and getting knocked up, she had become even more insufferable. Like all happy people, she wore that air of smugness that made everyone who wasn’t in the same boat of puppies and unicorns want to strangle her.

“Big deal,” Tad said, getting back to Dr. Perfect. “So he hands out lollipops to kids after they give blood.”

Cara gave him the DeLuca stare down. “He’s a pediatric oncologist.”

“Guy treats kid cancer?” Two cents from Conor.

“Sure does, and he looks damn fine while doing it,” Cara said.

The guy who treats kid cancer was currently making Jules laugh so hard her breasts bounced. Tad didn’t have to be close to know what her laugh sounded like. She didn’t dole it out freely and he remembered every single one she’d gifted him with. Now every smile she gave to this jerk was stolen from the bank she had for him.

From this angle, her profile was all curves, which made him realize that Jules had rarely worn anything figure-hugging or revealing until she had started on this dating business. As if he had wished it, she turned and he got the full picture. More like the whole photo album. Dressed in an emerald green dress that draped over her hips and breasts just perfectly, she looked like a goddess.

From beneath scowling eyebrows, Tad watched her, trying to interpret her body language. At times like this he wished he didn’t know her so well. She was stepping away, just an inch or so at a time, but then Dr. Feelgood cupped her elbow and drew her back to him. A very calculated gesture that unfurled her body and eliminated any hesitancy that had existed before in her stance. Was she so starved for contact, so desperate for attention, that the simplest touch was enough to draw her in?

She was a freakin’ time bomb.

Her quiet strength and radiant luminosity drew people into her burning orbit. That she was owning her power swelled all sorts of things in him—his heart, his cock, the green lump of jealousy like a foreign object in his chest.

Not so foreign, he supposed. Since Jules had put herself out there, he had been jealous of every man she considered worthy of a first date. And it shamed him to admit it, but he was envious of her bravery. She had made a decision to take the next step and risk her heart; the mere idea scared him shitless.

Jules scared him shitless.

He bet there was a really long-ass German word for what he was feeling right now, but standing here sulking wasn’t going to get it done. He shoved a foot a few indignant inches in front of his rigid body, ready to make his move. Just as Jules and the doc parted.

Thank Christ.

She walked a few steps his way and then encountered… Tad turned to the empty space to his left, not quite believing his eyes. That Conor fucker had slunk away and beelined for Jules.

Blood was in the water and the sharks were circling. Herb farmers, gruff chefs, cancer doctors, barmen firefighters… what next? The entire clergy at St. Jude’s?

“You okay, man?” came Shane’s soft Irish burr.

“Fine,” he gritted out. “I’m going to do the host bit.”

“You do that,” Shane said. As Tad stalked away with that acid bath traveling from his stomach to his throat, he could have sworn his so-called friend was humming Kiss’s “Calling Dr. Love.”

* * *

Dr. Darian gave her hand a squeeze before moving off to grab her another glass of wine. Her third.

Oh, dear.

They’d had a nice, innocuous chat about toddler antics and the latest
Iron Man
movie, and she hadn’t felt nearly as stupid as usual. Feeling a touch squiffy always helped. That he appreciated her in this dress, which revealed more than it covered, sent a thrill of pleasure through her that somehow managed to mitigate the smallness she felt in the presence of this clearly intelligent man.

Once she had figured out she was never going to win any awards in school, she had compensated by becoming popular with boys. Smile at her, flash a dimple, say her name in a low rumble, and she was a goner. Touch her gently, tell her she was pretty, murmur a kind word, and she was toast. All these things were fuel for her dangerously low self-esteem. Who needed to know she couldn’t read when conversations without words were eminently preferable? Who needed to know she wasn’t nearly as stupid as she appeared when she was safely cradled in the arms of a guy who didn’t care to ask the hard questions?

She suspected Dr. Darian had a decent set of forearms underneath that worsted wool. Probably not Tad DeLuca quality but she bet they would do just fine. She looked over to find the dishy doc chatting with Jack. Knowing her brother, he was giving him the third degree and angling for his social security number so he could run a background check.

A brush against her bare arm diverted her attention from the Gestapo interrogation. She turned to find Conor Garcia going in for the hug.

Jules had always liked him, and it was nice to see a friendly face, especially one so handsome. Half-Irish, half-Cuban, which was a pretty kick-ass genetic combination, he also had chocolate brown curls winging strong cheekbones. His cerulean blue eyes hinted at devilish depths.

He held onto her a couple of seconds longer than necessary, then gave an indolent dip of a gaze over her body. Promising, promising. If she’d had any doubts as to his interest, they were swept away with his words.

“Holy smokes, Jules, you are gorgeous!”

Unable to help herself, she loosed a giggle that smothered her nerves. She didn’t look half bad. The dress she wore was a touch tight around her doughy middle but it draped in all the (other) right places. Her Pour Le Victoire pumps fulfilled their function as sparkly foot props, lengthening her legs and making her feel sexy. All night, she’d had no shortage of appreciative looks.

She only wished someone else was paying her attention, but Tad had barely glanced at her. Busy schmoozing, he had made no effort to come her way. He cut circles around her, sometimes close to where she stood, but then he was off to talk to someone else.

And the wound got a nice salting with how fit and fine he looked in that suit, like Don Draper had time-traveled to the twenty-first century. The charcoal grey fabric stretched indecently across the tight arse and broad back she saw more and more of as the night wore on.

“So how’s tricks, Conor?” she asked, determined to enjoy this handsome man’s attention.

He grinned, cocksure as they come. “Not bad. I heard you’re on the market. You want to catch a drink some time?”

Blimey! Conor wasn’t one for small talk. “Well, I’m starting out low-key. Meeting for coffee, that kind of thing.”

“Mine’s black with two sugars. And I like my eggs over easy with two strips of bacon.” He winked, drawing her smile.

“Cheeky bugger.”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying. I’m serious about going out on a date, though.” He leaned in close, sending his aftershave wafting beneath her nostrils. Something expensive that summoned a flutter in her stomach.

Over at the bar, Tad stood in a cozy huddle with the Queen of the Night, aka the sloe-eyed critic who had been in his office a couple of weeks ago. Something she said made him laugh and his unsubtle eye lock on her hectare of boobage was the heifer’s reward. Sighing, Jules turned back to Conor, who had somehow managed to close the miniscule gap between them.

“I hear you have a complex points arrangement. How’m I doin’?”

She cocked her head. Ten points for looks, an extra five for that impish look in his eyes. Gainfully employed, owned his own business, hot damn, a firefighter. Ten, twenty, thirty points right there. Sense of humor and a quick wit added on another ten.

“You like kids?”

“They’re our future.”

“You nice to your mother?”

“Dinner every Sunday.” At her mouth twitch, he amended, “Every other Sunday.”

Hmm, what was wrong with him? She touched two fingers to her lips, seeking out flaws.

“Longest relationship?”

“Two years.” He gave a slight shrug. “She cheated.”

Her hand flew to his arm. “Oh, Conor, I’m so sorry.”

There was no missing the flash of hurt that crossed his brow, but he speedily dialed up a toothy grin. “It was a while ago. I’m long over it.”

Perhaps, but Jules couldn’t help feeling for him. Or awarding him extra points for sensitivity. Dr. D had competition.

“So what do you say we go somewhere a little more—?” Frowning, he pulled his phone out of his pocket, its buzz loud above the chatty crowd. “Looks like we’ll have to take a rain check. I’m on call at the firehouse. Five alarm on the south side.”