Hot and Bothered (Hot in the Kitchen) (43 page)

“I didn’t know.” Jack’s brow knitted furiously. “Cara, tell me it’s not true.”

“It’s not true,” Cara repeated, sort of truthfully. She hadn’t slept with anyone in too-long-to-recall and even then, she, or he, never stayed overnight. It was one of her rules, or it had been until a week ago when she woke up with a screaming hangover and a big lug of an Irishman twined around her body.

“You destroyed my last pastry chef,” Jack said. “Shane’s been here only a couple of weeks and you’ve already got your hooks into him.”

“Now, now, Jack,” Lili soothed. “You can’t tell your employees who they can and can’t be with.”

“Oh, yes I can. She made Jeremy cry. The poor guy left because Cara stomped all over him.”

Cara bristled, then covered with a languid wave. Everyone’s impression of her was of a woman who took no prisoners when it came to life and love—an impression she did little to dispel.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Jeremy and I went on one date and it didn’t work out. Can I help it if you employ weak-willed, mewling kittens just so you can surround yourself with yes men who’ll bow down and kiss your ring?”

The man
had
cried, though, the wuss.

Lili’s unearthly blue eyes zeroed in on Cara, making her shiver with their perspicacity. “So if you didn’t do the deed with Shane, what happened? You hightailed out of that Vegas hotel like you were auditioning for Girl Being Chased #2.”

“Nothing happened. We just had a few drinks and that’s it. Nobody got stomped on.” Much. She felt her head cant slightly in Shane’s direction. It completely sucked to have no control over her body.

And then as if she had summoned him out of thin air, he was there. The distance from dance floor to table should have given her a decent interval to adjust but Shane had bounded over like a big Irish setter, throwing Cara off kilter. Any farther and she’d be listing like the
Titanic
in its final moments. His hip-shot loll against the table’s edge made his ancient-looking jeans cleave fondly to his thighs, prompting Cara’s own thigh muscles to some involuntary flexing of their own.

Who wears jeans to a wedding? While everyone else wore tuxes and dark suits, Shane was embracing the American Dream with button-fly Levis, weathered cowboy boots, and a sports jacket that stretched a little too tight over his annoyingly broad shoulders. Only after that snide thought had formed did it occur to her he had probably borrowed the jacket, likely from one of the other chefs.

Unavoidably, her eyes inched up, up, up, taking in overlong, mink-brown hair that just begged to be raked. The melty mocha eyes with a hazelnut corona ringing the iris. The jaw scruff that hadn’t made acquaintance with a razor in a couple of days. The… oh, she could go on and on.

So she did. Down, down, down she traveled that granite-hard body, before resting her gaze on his large hands, not that she needed visual verification of their size. She distinctly remembered how big they were because she had awoken with one spread possessively across her stomach a week ago. She knew just how devastatingly erotic Shane’s hand felt on her bare skin.

“Sure, I’m looking for a new dance partner,” Shane said with that Irish musical lilt that did wondrous things to large segments of the American female population. Cara liked to think she was immunized against all that
faith and begorrah
malarkey, but she reluctantly acknowledged Shane’s accent was one of his most appealing features. Like the guy needed more help to sell the goods.

Shaking off her appreciation, she tried to draw on all the reasons she was mad at him. “What happened to your last one?” She looked to see where the cast-off Maisey had landed but the poor girl was nowhere to be found. “Did you make her ill with all that jumping around?”

“Ah, I’m just too much for one woman,” Shane said, exploding into that cheeky smile that had caught her attention the moment she’d entered the bar at the Paris hotel in Las Vegas. A patchwork memory of numerous drinking establishments flashed through her querulous mind. In every one, the guys had got there before the girls. And in every one, Shane Doyle had been first on his feet, motioning to his seat as soon as the lady mob arrived to meet up with the bachelor’s posse for the tandem shenanigans.

A nice mama’s boy, she had decided. Polite and mannered, the kind of guy she usually liked to date because they let her call the shots. Where to go, what to do, how to please her. A few tears might be shed when they parted—not by her, of course—but so far it had worked out swimmingly.

How had she messed up so spectacularly with Shane?

The band took a break and the music switched to DJ-determined wedding classics. First up, the oom-pah booms of the
Chicken Dance
, and Cara found herself a tiny bit curious to see Shane’s interpretation.

“We were talking about the cake,” Jack said, defaulting to his one-track mind. Marriage to Lili or bust. In telepathic communication, both chefs’ gazes slipped to the slice of maligned cake now insulting everyone by its mere presence on the table.

Shane scoffed. “Whoever made this rubbish should be shot for crimes against pastries.”

That pulled a deep laugh out of Jack and a juvenile eye roll out of Cara. Ah, chef humor.

“So I’ll expect something amazing for my wedding.” He squeezed Lili’s waist. “We both will. You up for it?”

A weird look passed over Shane’s face, clearing his cheer. If Cara didn’t know better, she would have thought he was annoyed, even angry. Which made no sense considering what an honor it was to have Jack choose the new guy for such an important commission.

“I would think you’d want to bring Marguerite in from Thyme,” Shane said, his voice as tight as the set of his mouth. “She’s your best pâtissier.”

Thyme on Forty Seventh, Jack’s New York outpost and Shane’s stomping ground until two weeks ago when he transferred to Chicago, sported any number of culinary stars, and Marguerite was the brightest of them all. Cara was in full agreement with Shane. It wouldn’t have surprised her in the least if Jack wanted to fly the talented Frenchwoman in for the occasion.

Shane’s mood change appeared to have passed unnoticed by Jack. “Yeah, she’s great, but I want you. You’re a wizard with desserts and after chasing me around for months trying to get a job, I think you’re ready for the big leagues.”

Shane smiled but it was as if the effort might result in the death of a puppy. There
was
something. “We could do angel food and pistachio cream, or maybe a rosemary-lemon to keep the Italian theme.”

“I like how you think,” Jack said, smiling broadly. “Keep it up and we’ll talk next week.”

“Sure,” Shane said with a dimple blast in Cara’s direction. A return to charming, sunny Shane.

Flustered, she felt her hand move to the still-full champagne flute she had been shunning since the toasts, but before her fingers made contact, he cocked his head. One of those,
Need a chaser of impaired judgment with that bubbly?
head tilts that decelerated her brain. Damn the man and his caramel-hued eyes, now narrowed and holding her captive.

“Back to the dancing,” he said.

Cara had important things to say to Shane. Very important things. And avoiding him wasn’t going to get it done. After years of unhealthy denial, she had vowed to meet her problems head on, so she wasn’t entirely sure why she had let a whole week go by without pulling Shane aside and telling him how it was. How it will be. She’d put it down to how busy she was ensuring Gina’s wedding wouldn’t be a complete debacle. Declining to examine that closely was about the only thing preventing her from losing her ever-loving mind.

Before she went off on him, it might be easier to soften him up on the dance floor. Besides, there was something just so adorkable about his enthusiasm. She uncrossed her legs and flexed a perfectly-pedied foot clad in a Jimmy Choo peep toe. Her feet looked stunning in fuchsia.

Shane’s gaze brushed fire across Cara’s skin as he reached for her sister. “Lili, would you do me the honor?”

Lili slid out of Jack’s lap and Cara’s heart slid into her stomach.

“That’s if you don’t mind, Jack,” Shane added.

“Oh, you wouldn’t catch Jack dead on the dance floor,” Lili said. “He’s much too image conscious.”

“I’m not afraid of looking foolish. You’ve heard me sing,” Jack said blithely. “I draw the line at the
Chicken Dance
, though.”

“It’s ironic,” Cara said, aiming for levity after being snubbed by Shane because there was no doubt that’s what had happened here.

“Ironically stupid,” Jack replied. “Just make sure I see daylight between you two.”

Laughing, Shane led a willing Lili out onto the dance floor and jumped into flapping his arms with gusto. Lili fanned her hips with both hands then moseyed into the fray with jerky hitches more appropriate to a Taser victim.

Cara’s heart boomed at ten times the beat of the music as she fought to recover her aplomb. It was easy to see why Shane would prefer to dance with Lili, who was never afraid to get into the spirit of things. Unlike stuck-up, no-fun Cara, who needed to drink her weight in vodka to go a little bit wild.

A buzz of her phone alarm reminded her that the next wedding planner task was imminent and that she had more important things to worry about than the mistake that had followed her home from Vegas. She would deal with Shane Doyle later.

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Contents

  Cover

Title Page

Welcome

Dedication