Shades of Red (Sharp Edges Duet #1)

2. Boucheé à la Reine

Everything is white, pristine and shimmering in the light of the early morning sun streaming in from the wide windows surrounding the Dix kitchen. White ceilings, white floors, white marble countertops, spotlights streaming soft white light from above. There are ten prep-stations set up across three large counters and three huge stainless steel cooking stations with double ovens and gas stoves separating each counter. Each station has its own collection of perfectly sharpened knives, the razor edges glistening in the overhead light. Beautiful, stainless steel cookware hangs from three rectangular racks built into the ceiling.

As I survey the new surroundings, I’m not nervous. I’m fucking orgasmic looking at the high-end cookware, stoves that have never known a boil-over, and virginal knives that have yet to even puncture the skin of an apple. If I was alone, I would run my fingers over each little thing, familiarizing myself with the cool marble, the burn of metal as it warms beneath the flames, the weight of the knives in my hand. Promising to make each mine.

Unfortunately, the kitchen is crowded, so instead of caresses, I shuffle silently toward my station. There aren’t any names used. We don’t have identities yet, not until we’ve earned them. For now, we’re numbers. I can appreciate the emotional detachment of being reduced to a figure.

I walk to the last counter—the one with only two prep-stations instead of two on each side of it. I stand before the number nine handwritten on a piece of white paper. I contemplate the second to last number with an air of contempt. It’s a mind fuck. There’s no rationale to the numbers; we aren’t ranked based on skill. Hell, it could be alphabetical placement for all I know. Still, this is a challenge, and you’re left with the instinctive urge to be number one.

I look over at the number ten beside me, the very last of the group. The station is empty, and whoever it belongs to is late. I breathe a small sigh of relief at not being dead last. With no partner beside me to talk to, I look around the room, gauging the level of competition. There are six guys, including myself, and three girls. Not necessarily surprising given the male dominance in the culinary industry. Still, for the sake of appearances, most people tend to at least start with even numbers before narrowing down to the crème de la crème. Clearly, Dix doesn’t give a fuck about appearances.

I’m also surprised to see that French isn’t the only language being spoken in the kitchen. At my last restaurant, French was mandatory, no matter how bad mine was. Here, I hear British-accented English, Italian, and very loud Spanish coming from a boisterous chef at the front of the room. He’s the only one almost as tall as I am, and from the dexterous flick of his wrist as he tosses and catches a fileting knife in his hand, alternating from handle to tip, I would say he’s my competition.

Chef Matis walks into the kitchen, and a collective silence sweeps over the room. He’s not your standard Frenchman. He’s fair-skinned, clean shaven, and his blonde hair is silver streaked in that appealing way that would have most girls with daddy issues dropping their panties for a taste of him. His eyes are grey, stern and calculating. Even though he’s arguably the most famous chef in Paris at the moment, there’s no arrogance in his stature. Only precision.

“Please do not play with the knives, One. They are not toys,” Chef Matis scolds in a bored tone that is thickly French, no flicker of emotion in his eyes as he looks at the chef making sport with the expensive cutlery.

“Yes, chef,” the tanned chef at the front responds, his bright mood not diminished in the least as he takes the knife and places it in the row of others at his station.

“Now, before we begin, it seems we are one short,” Chef Matis announces in disapproval right as a girl, presumably my missing partner, races into the room, her golden hair windblown and her perfectly pressed chef’s uniform not buttoned all the way to her collar bone.

“Désolée, chef,” the girl mumbles softly as she looks for her station in the kitchen.

“English,” Chef Matis bites out. “There are a lot of chefs from a lot of different regions that deserve to be here. And I want us to be able to understand each other. Est-ce que vous comprends?”

The girl bites her lip, clearly shaken by being tongue-lashed in front of a large audience. “Yes, chef,” she agrees in a low voice, her eyes falling to the floor.

“You’re in the back,” Chef Matis instructs with a sharp nod toward the vacant seat beside me. “You already have a lot to prove, Ten. Do not make things harder for yourself.”

“Yes, chef.” She scurries toward the back of the kitchen, her kitten heels clicking softly against the marble.

Because I desperately want to look at her, I don’t. I keep my eyes focused on Chef Matis as he begins his welcome address, the tone of his voice even and soothing as he tells us how genuinely excited he is for this project. How Dix was conceived from his heart and how he hopes we will be willing to put a little bit of ourselves in it as well.

“Bonjour,” she whispers beside me, her voice so quiet I can barely hear her over our head chef.

“Bonjour,” I answer without a glance, keeping my eyes fixed on Chef Matis.

“Ahh, American,” she says, a note of derision in her tone.

Now I do look at her, surprised by her comment. “Excusez-moi?” I ask, continuing in French as I feign obliviousness. How exactly can she peg me as an American with one French word?

“Please stop. It is like you’re raping my ears.” Her voice is haughty, and her English, like every other Parisian willing to speak it, is annoyingly perfect.

“Fine,” I concede, crossing my tattooed arms over my chest. “How could you tell?”

She scoffs. “Please, Americans speak French like they’re mimicking an American cartoon character who’s pretending to be French. It’s terrible.”

“Fair enough,” I retort, appreciating her ability to call things as they are, even if she’s discriminating against my entire country while she does it.

Unable to resist the urge any longer, I let my eyes roam over the girl beside me. Her hair is that rare color that looks like actual spun gold, radiant and striking even beneath the artificial light in the kitchen. She has long bangs framing her face; it makes her look innocent and young, although I’d say she’s about my age and just out of school. Her eyes are a light blue that’s almost violet; they’re wide and round like saucers. She barely has any makeup on, and she doesn’t need it. Her skin is like cream, her cheeks naturally rosy. A bit of liner is swiped above and beneath her blonde lashes, and her full lips are stained a bright, cherry red.

She ruined her lipstick a little when she bit her lip, and I want to run my thumb over her bottom lip and smear it even more. There’s nothing quite so beautiful as a girl who is an absolute mess. I banish the enticing thought before my cock has a chance to introduce himself before I do. I turn away and try to focus on Chef Matis as he shares about all the local farms they source their produce from, where they harvest their fish, the countryside dairy farm they get their beef from.

From the corner of my eye, I see the girl frown, misinterpreting my silence as offense rather than restraint. In all honesty, it’s preferable to her knowing that I’m ignoring her so that I don’t picture what that creamy skin looks like covered in sweat and cum and red. She’d look like berries and cream, and I bet she’d taste just as sweet.

Fuck, there’s no hiding the tenting in my pants at this point. As discreetly as possible, I move to the cooking station, pressing my erection against the stainless steel to hide it and leaning over with my elbows beside the gas burners. I feel her move beside me, mimicking my stance against the stove.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’ve been told I can be a little tart.”

“Is that the French way of saying you’re a bitch?” I ask, my eyebrows raised. She groans like she already hates me, and I can’t help but laugh.

“Is this how you usually accept an apology?” she asks, frustration creeping into her tone.

“I wouldn’t know. I’m not typically on the receiving end of them.”

“T’es pas possible,” she mutters under her breath.

I smirk down at her. “Now that I have heard before.”

“And I have the pleasure of sharing a station with you all summer? Génial!”

“Hey, I’m not so thrilled with the arrangements either,” I scoff, even as our little scuffle sparks something warm and tingling in my blood. “Some people don’t have the luxury of showing up whenever it suits them.”

She shifts uncomfortably, tugging the hem of her uniform down. It’s only then that I notice a smear of red above both knees, a nude bandage peeking out on one side beneath her chef’s whites. I quirk a brow at her, expecting some sort of explanation for why she stumbled into the kitchen twenty minutes after the rest of us.

“I fell,” she answers vaguely, frowning when she notices me staring at her knees again. She crosses her legs and leans over the stove to keep me from studying her. “I was biking from my apartment—on time, I might add—and my wheel slipped out from under me. I had to run back home to change and clean up a bit.”

“I’m pretty uncoordinated,” she adds, shifting again on her pointy-toed shoes.

“That must be a terrible detriment in the kitchen.” My full lips curl into a devious smile. “Should I hide the knives? Wouldn’t want someone to lose a finger.”

She looks up at me like a kitten who longs to have the claws of a lion. “It would probably be advisable if you want to keep all your fingers,” she bites back.

“You wouldn’t threaten so lightly if you knew what I could do with these fingers.”

Her gasp of shock informs me that I’ve accidentally said this out loud. Usually I’m more adept at keeping those sorts of thoughts in the dark corners of my head where they belong. She glares at me, her delicate sense of decency offended by my slip. I scowl back, my body turning rigid beneath her haughty gaze as she arches her dainty brow and presses her lips into a firm line. Clearly, she thinks I’m beneath her. I’m tempted to show her exactly what it feels like for me to be beneath her.

She must read the threat in my eyes because she startles, her big blue eyes wary as she backs away from me slightly and digs her teeth in her bottom lip. And fuck me, that little habit of hers will be the death of my sanity. I want to be the one tearing into her skin, maybe even breaking it so I can see her bleed just a little. I bet it would be the prettiest shade of red.

Fuck, now I’m fixating, and I really shouldn’t be letting myself disappear like that when I have a challenge to win. Groaning at the effort it takes to focus and pull myself back from the edge of obsession, I shove that part of myself deep down and leave it to drown before dragging the last remnants of my professionalism to the surface.

“Can we just start this whole thing over from the beginning?” I ask, almost managing to keep the sultry rasp out of my voice as I hold out my hand. “I’m Grey.”

She huffs dramatically before she takes my hand, her fingers twining with my own. I ignore the flames trying to flicker through my veins at the feel of her bare skin against mine.

“Aurélie,” she offers at last, the name like a poem on her tongue.

“Pretty,” I can’t help but say, my fingers still wrapped around hers.

“Are we bothering you, Nine and Ten?” a loud voice calls from the front of the kitchen.

We both turn to find every eye in the room trained on us, Chef Matis glaring with his arms crossed over his broad chest. And I am suddenly very aware of how close Aurélie and I are standing, our hands still touching. “No, chef. We were discussing today’s challenge, chef.” I shove away from the stove and walk backward to my prep station. With a slight delay, she follows, moving to stand rigidly in front of her own spot.

“Is that so?” Chef Matis continues, his cold eyes fixed on me. “Then perhaps you can tell us what you all will be cooking today?”

I swallow hard, caught in a lie with no way to escape. “No, chef,” I answer, embarrassment thickening in my throat.

“I see,” Chef Matis responds, no discernible emotion in his tone. “One, will you please remind Nine and Ten what they will be attempting to make today?”

“Bouchée à la reine, chef,” he responds like a soldier reporting to a drill sergeant. Not a bad comparison by all accounts.

“Correct.” Chef Matis turns his stern gaze back to me. “Do you think you can handle that, Nine?”

“Yes, chef.” Not a chance in hell.

“Parfait. Since you both were already so prepared for the task that you didn’t need to listen to the instructions, you and Ten will have five minutes less to complete your dishes. Then you can show us all how real professionals cook. Yes?”

“Yes, chef,” we both answer in unison, though she sounds absolutely livid. If I had to guess, she’s as eager to use her knives to sift through my entrails as I am to use mine to slice through her clothes. It’s an intriguing contrast, and I can’t immediately decide if the lust and violence don’t pair well together.

“Begin,” Chef Matis commands, and the entire kitchen bursts into motion. Most head for the walk in and the pantry, a couple start with gathering their cookware. And me—I have no fucking idea where to start.

“What are you doing?” the girl with golden hair asks when she comes back to her station, her arms full with canisters of flour, salt, and a large block of butter. I still haven’t moved, and I survey her chosen ingredients with growing unease.

“I’m ruminating,” I lie, feeling a sheen of sweat break out against my palms as nervousness pricks at my insides. I wipe my hands on my uniform, hoping she doesn’t notice my panic.

She slams all the items on the countertop. “Merde, you’ve no idea how to make bouchée à la reine do you?”

“I thought I would just wing it,” I answer with a shrug.

She chokes a little, her big blue eyes going even wider. “You cannot wing pate feuilletée. Puff pastry is very delicate and precise. You need to have exact measurements and skilled technique to get the layers perfect.”

Pastry for our first challenge, and I was too distracted by the golden girl beside me to even listen to the instructions.

Fuck my life.

I hear a distinct string of French swear words unbecoming of her pretty mouth as she seems to consider what to do with my incompetence. She disappears to sift through the rack of cooking utensils, appliances, and supplies. She storms back, rolling her eyes as she slams a kitchen scale and two metal mixing bowls on the counter.

“Clear your station, espèce d’imbécile d’Américain,” she demands, her hands on her slim hips in a stance that is distinctly patronizing. “I’ll help so you don’t disgrace this kitchen with whatever monstrosity you think passes as pastry.”

She intentionally steps on my toes in her red pointed heels while crossing my side of the kitchen, and mon Dieu, I think she’s already stolen my heart.