“Maybe. Probably. You can call me a guest chef specializing in ethnic cuisine if the health department cares about my qualifications.”
“Ethnic cuisine?”
“Nobody makes Italian food like a Cesare.” His chest puffed up with pride. “You think I’m kidding about Giselle learning all her best recipes from me? Besides, I told Giselle I’d check in at the hotel while she was gone to make sure her investment in the business is protected. She might be overseas, but she’s still a partner. The Cesares have a vested interest in the smooth operation of this place.”
Lainie glanced around the hotel lobby, seeing twenty other places she needed to be right now. The chef disaster couldn’t have come at a worse time. What choice did she have besides accepting Nico’s offer? At least until she came up with a better solution.
She’d simply agree to let Nico and his cute butt stick around Club Paradise a little longer. And if she couldn’t stand the heat, all she had to do was stay away from the kitchen.
“Fine.” She thrust out her hand to seal the deal. “I appreciate the help until I can make other arrangements tomorrow.”
He enveloped her palm in his, his touch too gentle and too deliberate to qualify as a handshake. She shivered with awareness and hoped he didn’t notice.
He smiled, that arrogant grin of his telling her he didn’t miss a thing. “Agreed.”
Extricating herself from that tempting touch, Lainie willed herself to cool down as she walked away. But when a male chuckle echoed in her ears, she had the feeling it didn’t matter how much distance she put between her and the kitchen.
Things were already beginning to heat up.
“THIS MOVIE’S ALL ABOUT SEX, steam and sizzle,” Hollywood A-lister Bram Hawthorne declared around a mouthful of scrambled eggs the next morning as he sat across the table from Nico in the back of the Club Paradise kitchen. “I don’t know if it will have any kind of critical success, but I think moviegoers are going to love it.”
Nico wolfed down his own plate of food in the lull between the insane breakfast hours and the upcoming lunch crowd. He’d cooked his butt off all morning—everything from dry wheat and basic eggs over easy to complicated omelets and breakfast soufflé. Thankfully, a local vendor had been delivering plenty of pastries ever since Giselle left, so he’d avoided that headache. But still, Nico had never worked so hard in his life. Even a full day of practice defending rapid-fire, one-on-one breakaway shots had been a walk in the park compared to cooking for two hundred guests.
And when it was all over, Bram Hawthorne’s manager had come sneaking in the back door with the movie’s most bankable talent so the star could eat his breakfast in peace. Nico might have been more star-struck if he hadn’t been so exhausted.
The discussion of sex and steam caught his attention, however. Especially since his cooking had been impaired by thoughts of sex and steam with Lainie Reynolds.
“From what I’ve heard about the movie, it sounds like it’s got story to spare, too. Critics seem more tolerant of sex and sizzle if there’s some substance to back it up.” Nico had been a closet movie buff since forever. The cinema had been the only place for real escape after he’d lost his mom as a kid, and then his dad as a teenager. Something about a darkened theater gave you the illusion of being able to walk away from your own hurts and step straight into the fantasy world on screen.
Come to think of it, maybe that was part of his obsession with Lainie. She was a fantasy. A tough-as-nails businesswoman who posed an enticing challenge but would never be interested in the long haul. And after his experience with Ashley, that sounded just right to him.
“That’d be a nice bonus.” Bram grinned and a hint of his Mississippi accent drawled through his words. He couldn’t be any older than twenty-five, but he’d been a Hollywood phenomenon since a walk-on appearance as a flamboyant waiter in a Harrison Ford flick. “But I’ve found out firsthand that what the critics say don’t figure into your paycheck. Actors get paid for how many seats they fill at the theater—end of story.”
Nico nodded, a little surprised at the Machiavellian thinking in a twenty-five-year-old, but who was he to judge? Bram seemed nice enough. He had the Joe Movie Star grin going with fifty-thousand megawhite teeth, but he was lucky if he hit six feet in boots. Spiky brown hair and gray eyes made up for a lot with women, apparently. But the guy had to be pretty damn down-to-earth to break bread in the kitchen with a sweaty athlete posing as a cook.
“More coffee?” Yet another waitress appeared to fill their cups, the third new face at their table since they’d sat down.
This one was blond and blue-eyed and way too innocent looking. She was the antithesis of Lainie Reynolds in every way but the hair color. Where Lainie was sleek and sophisticated, this woman nearly bubbled over with energy and too much enthusiasm.
Or maybe that was only when she waved a coffeepot under a superstar’s nose.
“None for me, thanks.” Bram had been polite to all the waitresses, doling out grins every time he’d been interrupted.
Nico could think of too many hockey stars who couldn’t be bothered to be nice to anyone in the food-service industry unless they were out to…get laid.
His gaze tracked back to Bram. Had the guy been lining up after-hours entertainment all this time?
“Then is there anything else I can get for you?” The fluffy-haired waitress leaned forward, her bountiful breasts now prominently displayed.
Shoving his last bite of eggs in his mouth, Nico knew when he was being a third wheel. He scraped his chair backward across the ceramic tiles when a sharp feminine voice pierced the din of kitchen sounds.
“Excuse me, miss, may I ask what you think you’re doing in my hotel?” Lainie cruised to a stop beside the table, belatedly taking in her famous guest’s presence. “If I’m not mistaken, you’re no longer employed here.”
Nico noticed her already perfect posture straighten by a few more taut degrees. If he hadn’t seen her barefoot and sipping homemade Kentucky brew with his own eyes yesterday, he never would have thought her capable of loosening up an inch. She wore a navy suit with some sort of black-lace camisole thing underneath and a strand of fat pearls around her neck. He squinted hard to get a better view of the black-lace thing, but with her jacket buttoned, he could only make out about two square inches. Just enough to make him undress her shamelessly with his eyes while she spoke to the red-faced waitress.
“My girlfriend who works in the coffee shop has a room here this week,” the younger woman shot back. “We’re trying out as extras for the movie.” She hooked her thumb in the pocket of her jeans and cast a sly smile in Bram’s direction. “I’m Daisy Stephenson, by the way.”
“But what are you doing here, in the kitchen, which you know perfectly well is an employees-only area?” Lainie arched her eyebrow, her gaze never wavering from the waitress who perhaps wasn’t a waitress, after all. In fact, she didn’t even have a uniform on, just a coffeepot in her hand.
Bram cleared his throat. “Sorry to have descended on you like this, ma’am.” He reached into his wallet and laid way too much money on the table for the eggs Nico had made him. “It’s my fault for bringing outsiders into the kitchen, but I had my manager check with your chef and he seemed to think it would be okay.”
Nico couldn’t believe the guy was throwing him in the fire on this one. He didn’t remember okaying the presence of a pseudowaitress. But before he could say yea or nay on the cock-and-bull story, Lainie was already relenting.
“Of course it’s not a problem, Mr. Hawthorne.” She doled out a very pleasant expression to smooth things over, but Nico noted she still didn’t smile. Not really. Her stretching of the lips was Mona Lisa-esque at best. “I hear you’re starting filming already today, so we’ll just be out of your way.” She