A washcloth.
What was it about people in hotels? she wondered for the thousandth time as she hurried back to the office behind the reception area to call the plumber. They did things that they would never do at home. What kind of ninny put a washcloth down a toilet? And now, here she was with another maintenance bill to further stretch the inn’s budget, already strained to its breaking point.
Like her patience.
The door jingled again and she flinched.
“Anybody home?” A man’s voice carried in through the open top of the Dutch door. Cady could hear his boot heels thud on the lobby floor with each step. Not one of the staff. It didn’t sound like one of the guests she’d packed off to go shopping in Freeport or Kennebunkport, either, which probably meant that it was the day’s arrival. Perfect. The fact that check-in was clearly listed as 3:00 p.m. never stopped guests from showing up an hour or two early and blithely expecting to be shown to their rooms, whether the maids had finished their cleaning rounds or not.
“Hello?”
“Just a minute.” Suppressing the urge to snap, Cady walked to the opening. “What do you—” And her voice died in her throat.
His was the face of a sixteenth-century libertine. Lean and angular, with razor-sharp cheekbones, it was a face that knew pleasure. She could imagine him dueling at dawn or seducing high-born ladies. She could imagine him slashing paint over canvas in an artist’s garret or bending over a keyboard, pounding out impassioned blues in a smoky, late-night club.
His dark, straight brows matched the wavy hair that flowed to his shoulders. He hadn’t bothered to shave that morning and the shadow of a beard ran along the bottom of his face like the artful shading of a charcoal sketch, drawing attention to the line of jaw, the strong chin, framing his mouth.
His mouth.
Temptation and mischief, fascination and promise. It was the kind of mouth that offered laughter, the kind of mouth that offered an invitation to decadence.
And delicious, lingering kisses.
Sudden color flooded her cheeks. Look at her, standing there staring at him like an idiot.
Get it together, Cady.
She cleared her throat. “Welcome to the Compass Rose. Are you here to check in?"
“Kind of. I’m looking for Amanda or Ian McBain.”
“They’re not around just now, I’m afraid. I’d be happy to help you, though."
The corner of his mouth curved up a bit. “My good luck.”
It was said with the casual ease of a guy who turned every woman he met into putty, the kind of guy who charmed as second nature. Her eyes narrowed. She wasn’t big on good-looking guys in general, and she was in no mood to be charmed, not after the morning she’d had. “Your room’s probably not ready this early, but I’ll check with housekeeping.” When she got around to it. “Here’s your paperwork, anyway. It’s Donnelly, right? Scott Donnelly?"
“Hurst,” he corrected. “Damon Hurst.”
“Welcome to the Compass Rose Guest Quarters, Mr.—” Cady stopped. Stared at him blankly. “Damon Hurst?” she repeated. “The Damon Hurst?"
“The same.”
She saw it now—the famous cheekbones, the Renaissance hair, the face that had graced a hundred magazine covers.
And a thousand tabloid stories over his half decade of infamy.
Damon Hurst, the enfant terrible of the Cooking Channel, the charismatic star who’d sent the upstart network soaring against its entrenched rival before he’d flamed out the year before. Known more for his baroque personal life and volatile kitchen persona than for his undeniably brilliant cuisine, he’d been the subject of speculation, rumors, spite and stories too outrageous to be believed.
Except that they were true.
Cady cleared her throat. “Yes, well, welcome to the Compass Rose, Mr. Hurst,” she said. “It’ll take a little time to get a room put together for you but we do have a vacancy. If you’ll just fill out the registration form, please?” She put the paper on the little counter that topped the lower half of the door.
“I’m not checking in.”
Cady frowned. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“The restaurant.”
“Ah. I see.” She hadn’t realized that the Sextant, the Compass Rose’s restaurant, had a reputation that stretched all the way to Manhattan. Then again, with his shows very publicly canceled and his restaurant doors shuttered, maybe Damon Hurst had little else to do than run around obscure eateries in Maine. She dredged up a faint smile. “The Sextant is just across the parking lot. I believe they’re still serving lunch."
“I’m not here for lunch, either,” he said. He was laughing at her, she realized, and she felt her face flame.
“If you’re hoping for a tour of the restaurant, I think you’re out of luck.” Even she could hear the tartness in her voice. “We’re shorthanded and I doubt our chef has any interest in letting you go traipsing around his kitchen.”
“My kitchen, now,” Hurst corrected. “I guess you haven’t heard. I’m the new chef."
Chapter Two
He was used to having a strong effect on women. Attraction, arousal, jealousy, anger. Rarely horror.
“Our new chef?” She stared at him, dismay writ large on her features, as though he were a fry cook from some seaside clam shack, Damon thought in irritation.
“The restaurant’s new chef,” he corrected. And tried not to wonder yet again what the hell he was doing.
“You want to get your life back in gear?” his mentor, legendary chef Paul Descour, had demanded over port at his landmark Manhattan restaurant, Lyon. “Make a fresh start. Go away from here. Find a good restaurant with room to grow and turn it into something. Remind yourself that you’re still a chef, instead of a …” He’d waved at the air in disgust and dismissal.
Dismissing what? A top-rated cooking show four years running? A bestselling cookbook? A Michelin-starred restaurant, Pommes de Terre, deemed the best of Manhattan by the Times?
And a very public firing, the voice in Damon’s head reminded him. A restaurant backer who’d walked away from those Michelin stars and left him hanging. The wreckage of a dozen friendships that littered the wake of his career. The hundred meaningless liaisons that had been poor substitutes.
And the morning he’d woken and looked back at himself in the mirror, knowing there needed to be more.
“You’re our new chef?” the feisty-looking redhead before him repeated incredulously. “I don’t believe it. This is a family business. I can’t imagine they’d do something so … so …"
“So?” he prompted, letting the annoyance show. He topped her by more than a head but she stared back at him, not giving an inch. It was the eyes that did it, a hazel that wasn’t quite green, wasn’t quite brown, eyes that stared back at him unimpressed, daring him to justify himself.
He didn’t need to justify himself to anyone.
Descour and his big ideas. Nathan Eberhardt, the new sous chef at Lyon, had left the Sextant minus an executive chef. The perfect opportunity, Paul