Chapter Five #2
‘Relax, Leo, I’ve heard worse. This is a kitchen, after all, although I must admit that is a new one on me. So inventive! I should have asked—who do I report to?’
‘Me.’
She slung him a look. ‘I mean, who is the head chef?’
‘You are. I thought that was understood.’
The way he was watching her reminded her of a cat playing with its prey. Refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her fall apart, which was presumably the plan, she lifted her chin.
‘Oh, I understand totally.’
Displaying a combination of self-possession and determination, she gave the high ponytail she wore in bouncy defiance a determined swish and lifted her chin before stepping into the room.
Leo followed her. He had sat through many boardroom battles, but this was different, much more earthy.
The blood on the walls in this argument might be tomato-based but it was all a lot more real.
Despite the fact that a full-scale war appeared to have broken out in the kitchen, Amy immediately felt some of the tension leave her shoulders.
This was her world, and she took in at a glance a very well-equipped kitchen that any restaurant would have been proud of, though no kitchen she had ever worked in had ancient beams sitting cheek by jowl with the latest in culinary high-tech.
It was actually a relief to have something to distract her from the things that Leo’s presence did to her.
The prickle caused by the man who had guided her was still there, just under her skin, but her stomach had stopped its athletic flips and it was a relief to be able to split her focus and concentrate on something other than his dominating presence and, of course, her reaction to it.
Taking advantage of the fact that no one seemed to have noticed she was there, she allowed herself a few moments of invisibility to absorb the scene of general noisy chaos and diagnosed too many bosses, too many egos and an excess of testosterone.
The ratio of male to female accounted for that, though she knew from personal experience that any woman here could give as good as they got.
First one person and then another noticed their visitors, until only the two main swaggering protagonists continued to eyeball each other, the noise now just the insults they were still hurling.
Amy put some extra distance between her and Leo, the action both professional and personal. She didn’t want to be seen as part of the management, acknowledging that while not out of sight or out of mind, it helped her brain function to distance herself from all that undiluted masculinity.
‘Don’t look at him,’ she said, thinking, Excellent advice, Amy, take it yourself, before inserting herself into the centre of the drama and adding in a soft, cool voice that nevertheless carried, ‘I’m in charge.’
A ripple of shock moved through the room like a wave, leaving shocked silence in its wake. A silence broken by the sound of liquid boiling over from a pan, sending plumes of steamy acrid smoke into the air.
Amy strode over to the stove and switched off the gas, directing a frowning stare into the contents of the pan while muttering. She slid a sly sideways glance in Leo’s direction. ‘He wouldn’t know a remoulade from a roulade.’
Someone laughed, which Amy, ever the optimist, took as a good sign.
‘Right.’ She swung back with a smile that gave no hint of the fact that her heart was hammering against her ribs, or the fact that the tall figure she had just mocked had his obsidian stare fixed like a laser on her.
She didn’t wilt. Instead, she channelled the adrenaline.
‘I’m Amy and…well, we can do the introductions later,’ she continued briskly, waving a hand around the room before walking across to a board where a menu was pinned and took it down.
‘So—’ her eyes flashed from the paper to the tall lanky man who had been at the centre of the disagreement ‘—dinner, for how many?’
‘Thirty,’ a voice supplied.
‘And the issue you were arguing over is…?’
‘I ordered lobster and this…’
‘I ordered what you said, and you said crab—’
Because the two men looked ready to face off again, Amy spoke over them.
‘Always annoying when there’s an order mix-up,’ she agreed with a been there, done that sigh. ‘I worked with an Italian guy who used to say granchio when he made a mistake—it means crab, doesn’t it?’
There were several nods of agreement and several grins in recognition of the irony.
Someone threw out a remark in Italian.
‘Sorry, guys, my Italian is purely culinary based. English and French are my limit. I love that challenge, don’t you, to use the ingredients at hand?
I remember when I couldn’t make the chilli crab salsa to top a pea risotto that I had planned.
Of course, the crabs arrived too late, which is typical.
’ She paused to allow the mutter of rueful agreement.
‘But the coconut crab rice the next day proved a massive hit, and it actually became our signature dish.
‘As the newbie and as we’re on the clock, how about I’m the runner tonight? Any spare whites?’ Amy asked, teasing her ponytail into a knot and producing extra pins to secure it there.
‘Not that would fit you, Chef.’
Someone shook out a black apron. ‘Will this do for tonight?’
‘Perfect!’
Leo watched as the diminutive figure wrapped the apron strings three times around her narrow waist and smiled sunnily at her audience before she picked up the hot handle of the burnt copper saucepan using a cloth.
‘How about I put this pan in to soak and make another batch of…’ she arched a brow and picked up a bottle off the counter ‘…Marsala sauce?’ Amy said, picking up another bottle that lay beside a work station, glancing at the label with an approving nod before applying herself to a pile of shallots.
She was well aware that her knife skills were being marked out of ten by her audience. But as she was quietly confident that she was a twelve and a half out of ten, she was not bothered by the scrutiny.
After everyone had begun to drift away to quietly take up their own tasks, Leo watched her for a few more moments in silence. The other staff gave him some wary glances that managed to convey he was in the way. Amy, completely immersed in her task, appeared to have tuned him out completely.
His chagrin at the situation held a thread of self-mockery. He had orchestrated this and it had not produced the result he had anticipated. Far from finding herself thrown into a situation she couldn’t cope with, Amy hadn’t seemed even slightly stressed.
Cope? The woman had conquered without even raising her voice.
She had turned his imagined scenario on its head.
Instead of falling apart, she had calmly taken charge and seemed on the brink of winning over her very critical audience.
An audience that had already managed to make three, that he knew of, very experienced chefs hang up their chef’s hats and walk.
Avoiding someone who was wildly whipping something in a massive metal bowl, he moved to where Amy stood, receiving several slightly nervous but distracted head nods on the way.
‘Don’t you want to see your room, unpack?’
Amy threw him a quick, incredulous glance over her shoulder. ‘Now?’ Her astonishment at the suggestion shone in her soft brown eyes. ‘I’m working, but fine, later…someone here can show me the way, I’m sure.’
Leo’s jaw clenched, shock and outrage flashing cold in his eyes, then his sense of the ridiculous reasserted itself as he tried to remember the last time he had been dismissed.
When was the last time he had laughed at himself?
‘Fine.’
Without looking at him, she waved a fluttering hand of dismissal.
His exercise in humiliation was not going to plan, but Leo was a long way from admitting defeat. Amy was in her element now, but there was a big difference between a dinner and the upcoming gala event.
His phone vibrated and he glanced at the caller identity, his mouth twitching into a smile as the image of a svelte six-foot blonde with a penchant for six-inch heels formed in his head. She was ambitious, voracious and enjoyed sex without emotional mess, as she called it.
He continued to walk, ignoring the call and shoving the phone back into his pocket, the image swiftly fading from his mind and replaced by the small dynamic figure he had just left in the kitchen.
The kitchen was the one room in this building where people didn’t bow and scrape when he appeared, but today he had been totally invisible; there was another star shining too brightly. He had to admit to being surprised and, also albeit reluctantly, impressed.
Pretty hard not to admit that Amy had handled a room full of massive egos like a pro, which, of course, she was—a fact that was only just bedding in.
It might, he conceded, not be as easy as he had anticipated to make her want to run for cover.
This Amy was not averse to a bit of manipulation herself…
The acknowledgment made him smile. Though the smile faded as his thoughts made the leap to the other ways she might have changed and grown…
and the people—the men in particular—who might have joined her on that journey.
Amy knew there could have been improvements—the chef basting the sirloin had been a bit stingy with the butter in her opinion—but the meal was apparently a success which, in this environment, seemed to amount to a win.
Especially as Leo’s grandfather was visiting, a figure who, reading between the lines, seemed to inspire awe rather than affection.
Amy was not someone who thought a kitchen worked better on fear, insults and a lot of curses thrown into the mix. As with any organisation, the message at the top filtered down. It did not make her feelings warm towards Leo, who was boss here.