Chapter 6 #2
“I don’t know. Something that will make me forget everything I know about you. Make me a dish that will force me to see you in a different light,” she said. “Like the tidbit about Shakespeare did.”
“You liked that, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “You have a very nice voice I wouldn’t mind hearing you recite a few sonnets for me.”
“Maybe our next bet will involve that,” he said.
She shook her head. “You don’t want to hear me stumble over old English.”
“Maybe I’ll have you read something a little racier to me. I think there’d be nothing sexier than listening to you talk about your fantasies.”
She flushed and shook her head. The wind stirred the short hair of her bangs. “I’m not...that is to say I don’t—“
He laughed as he realized that the unflusterable Staci Rowland was uncomfortable talking about sex. She was flirty as hell and took what she wanted when they were intimate but there was a part of her that was shy when it came to the words.
“I can’t believe you don’t have fantasies,” he said.
“Of course I do,” she said. “Everyone does, but that doesn’t mean I want to talk about them.”
“I do.”
“I’m not surprised. Despite what your father told you about sonnets you are still a man. Why is it men like to hear women talk like that?” she asked.
“It’s sexy,” he said. “And it’s not every woman’s fantasies I’m interested in.”
She turned away again to glance out at the sea.
He wondered, despite the fact that they were together here for six weeks, whether he’d ever really get to know all of her secrets.
The core of Staci was very private. Would he be able to find out more about her through her cooking and her dishes?
He doubted it. It felt to him like she was hiding herself away not only from him but from the world.
She let him see what she thought he wanted to see.
The shyness with talking about sex was probably one of the first real things he’d been able to find out about her. She was all boldness and nerve but underneath there was a vulnerable woman.
He was being honest when he said that he wanted her and it had nothing to do with the competition but he saw now that that very fact made their relationship complicated. Did she even want to give him a chance?
“How do you feel about getting to know each other during the competition?” he asked. “I’m not trying to manipulate you.”
She turned back to him her gray eyes as stormy as the Gulf of Mexico when a hurricane was blowing. “I don’t know. I want to say no. I’m here to prove something to myself and to win. And I know it’s the same for you.”
“That’s right. We both are cooking for our futures,” he said. “I think everyone here is.”
He noticed that she hadn’t answered his question. Not really. He had the feeling that if he let her she’d never answer it. “I’m not going to ignore us, cupcake girl. I want you, but more than that I want to get to know you.”
“I get it, but I’m not sure what to say. It doesn’t matter if I say no and ask you to leave me alone. You’re already under my skin. Dammit, I shouldn’t have said that.”
He laughed and tugged her off balance and into his arms, leaning down he kissed her with all the pent-up frustration he’d been feeling all day.
When he lifted his head and stepped back her lips were swollen and her eyes half-closed.
He wanted to carry her someplace private and make love to her.
But he knew the next time he and Staci made love it would change things between them and there would be no going back.
“There’s something between us,” he said.
“I know. I wish it was just cooking,” she admitted. “I have always had bad taste in men.”
“Maybe your taste is changing,” he said reluctant to let her lump him in with the other men who’d come before him.
I hope so, she thought. “I’ve been hurt in the past and I don’t want to make the same mistake again, but then I always was a slow learner.”
“What mistake?”
She shook her head. “That’s not a story I’m willing to tell you.”
“Just give me the Twitter version.”
“A hundred and forty characters?” she asked, but she smiled at him.
“Yup.”
“Thought that fairytales could come true and believed every word he said at hash tag shouldhaveknownbetter.”
“What kind of fairytale?” Remy asked.
“That there is one guy out there for me. One man who could make me complete and give me my happily-ever-after. But that’s not realistic. I can’t ignore the truth about the Rowland women.
“What truth is that?”
“We live alone,” she said.
“What about your dad?”
“Never knew him or my granddad. None of the women in my family ever knew their fathers...do you know what that means, Remy?”
“I’m not that type of man.”
“Are you making me promises?” she asked.
She wouldn’t believe him if he did. Promises after all were just words and Staci needed, no, deserved action.
“No.”
STACI WAS A LITTLE SURPRISED that he’d been so honest with her. A part of her had to respect his honesty. But the little girl inside of her who still wanted to believe in fairytales was disappointed that he hadn’t stepped up. “I guess that’s that.”
“It is,” he said. “I won’t waste your time making you promises when you probably wouldn’t believe them anyway. I’ll just have to convince you that I’m not like the other men who’ve passed through your life.”
She held her breath and her heart skipped a beat. Was he serious? Or was this just a ploy to make her believe...he’d have to be cruel to say that type of thing...to get her hopes up only to plan to dash them later.
“Okay, prove it.”
“I can’t do it right now, can I?”
“No,” she said. Thinking he probably never would. She wasn’t going to pin any hopes on Remy. He was here for his own reasons, as was she. There was no point complicating things any further.
“We should be heading back.”
“Not yet. I want you to show me around LA.”
“Um, why?”
“We have the afternoon free and if I’m preparing a meal for you, I need to know more about you.”
“Ha,” she said. “How is walking around a city with me going to help?”
“I was thinking we’d go to the LA farmer’s market.”
“The good produce will already be gone. Besides it’s more of a shopping center with permanent merchants.”
“Then show me something that says LA to you,” he said.
“I’m farther south,” she said. “Los Angeles isn’t really my town.”
“I don’t think the producers will let us drive to San Diego,” he said with that half-grin of his that made her breath catch.
There was no denying he was a very attractive man.
Even standing on the shore with the breeze ruffling his thick, black, curly hair just made him sexier.
His eyes were shadowed by the sun. His T-shirt complemented his broad chest. His faded jeans hugged his legs and when he turned she let her gaze linger on his butt.
She wanted to reach out and touch him but didn’t.
She had to keep control of herself. Until he proved to her that he wouldn’t love her and leave her.
“Well?”
“Well, what?” she asked. Distracted by his body. She wished she’d gotten to see more of him last night.
“Where can we go that says LA to you?” he asked. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” she said. Johnnie’s in Culver City jumped to mind.
It wasn’t that far from where they were and the sandwiches were.
..well not really LA more New York Jewish Deli.
The kind of thing that could transport the diner to another place.
It was perfect to demonstrate what she’d said to him earlier.
“I’ve got an idea. I’ll talk to Jack and see if we can get a car.”
“Very well. I think we’ll probably have to take others with us,” he said. “I can’t see the producers allowing just the two of us to go off on our own.”
“I agree. That’s okay, Remy. You’ll figure out how to woo me even with others around.”
“That’s right,” he said.
They walked back to the house and she was happy to finally be in the midst of the other competitors.
There was a tension in the house probably because those in the bottom three would be cooking tomorrow to stay in the competition.
She was glad that the only thing she had to think about tonight was Remy and not going home after the first week of competition.
She found Jack and asked him if they could make a trip to Johnnie’s.
Twenty minutes later he confirmed they could and seven of them headed to the Escalades.
She was surprised that Quinn came with them.
Thinking he’d want to stay behind and work on his knife skills like Christian and Frances who were also in the bottom three.
She was squeezed in the back seat between Remy and Quinn. She tried not to notice that she still loved the scent of Remy’s aftershave. “Have either of you been to Johnnie’s before?”
“Not me,” Remy said. “This is my first time in Los Angeles.”
“I’ve been here before but I tend to frequent the high-end restaurants,” Quinn said. “I’m not surprised you like a walk-up diner.”
“What’s your problem with me?” she asked Quinn.
He shrugged. “I just don’t see how someone with your tastes could beat me in the kitchen.”
“My tastes? Quinn food isn’t for the epicureans out there all the time. Today’s challenge was to cook for college students. Do you really not get where you went wrong? It doesn’t matter how obscure your ingredients are if the customer doesn’t like it...that’s cooking 101.”
“She’s got a point,” Remy said. “I tried to introduce a new dish at my last restaurant and the clientele revolted. They wanted the dishes they’d come there expecting.”
Quinn nodded. “I guess I wasn’t seeing the big picture.”
Staci smiled.
“I said I was wrong,” he admitted.
“I don’t want you to be wrong, just to stop blaming me because you didn’t win.”
He didn’t say anything else on the drive and when they pulled up to the roadside diner on Sepulveda and everyone piled out of the vehicles, Remy took her hand and stopped her.
“What?”
“I just wanted us to be together when we go up there. What is it about this place that speaks to you?”
“The tradition of it,” she said. “And it reminds me of a trip I took with my mom and grandmother to New York City. We ate in a diner there...it was a good trip. The only real vacation I had with my mom since she was working all the time. When I take a bite of the pastrami sandwich here I remember that day and her laughter.”
Staci feared she’d said too much but Remy just nodded. “For me it’s beignets at Café du Monde. My dad and I used to walk down there every Sunday morning and I’d sit while he read the paper. It was just the two of us...”
“Food should do that every time,” Staci said. “I can’t always capture it but that’s why the traditional recipes are important. Finding that familiar flavor and taking it some place new.”
“Yes,” he said.
But Staci could tell that he was lost in his own thoughts.
She wondered if she’d given away too much by bringing him here but then she had learned over the years that most people only saw what they wanted to in her and in themselves.
Remy wouldn’t realize how important food was to her and her past or that it was the key to all her secrets.
He’d have to have been listening to what she hadn’t said to figure that out. And he was after all just a man.