Chapter 10
LORENZO
Morning arrives too early, but I eagerly reach over to snuggle Abigail. She is reason enough to greet the day with a smile on my face.
But the bed is empty beside me.
I sit up, looking around the room. “Abigail?” She’s nowhere to be found. Instantly, I’m up and pulling on underwear. I slept in the nude, keenly excited for her to argue with me about it again, but it seems she did not come to bed.
In the outer room of the suite, I see her. She’s laid out on the couch, passed out with one leg on the floor and one stretched out, her arms askew. Her hair is a tangled mess, half in her face, and her mouth is dropped open as she breathes softly. Beautiful.
I should move her to our bed so she can get some real rest. Padding across the floor, I bend down to scoop her into my arms when I see movement out of the corner of my eye.
Janey is waving her arms wildly and shaking her head. I quirk my head, silently asking what’s wrong. She mouths, “I’ve got her. Alarm goes off in one hour. Let her sleep.”
It goes against every instinct I have to leave her on the couch, but if she’s so exhausted she collapsed before even making it to bed, an additional hour of rest might very well be important. I nod, slowly stepping back but watching to make sure I haven’t disturbed Abigail’s slumber.
I feel eyes on my body and look back up to find Janey appraising me openly. She flashes me a thumbs-up and a grin. “Boss lady did well with you.”
The compliment is kind, but I feel awkward in my underwear in front of Janey, so I retreat to the bedroom after shooting Abigail one last look of longing.
I would so love to carry her to bed, curl her into my side, and listen to her tell me about the flowers she touched last night.
She finds them beautiful, but what I find even more stunning is her passion.
I shower and shave, quickly getting dressed in kitchen clothes. I have work to do this morning, a private bridal party luncheon. The same one Abigail and Janey were making centerpieces and arrangements for.
But I can’t leave without touching her. Slowly and quietly, I approach Abigail’s makeshift bed on the couch and bend down to ever so gently press my lips to the back of her hand. “I will see you later, mia rosa,” I whisper.
Janey smirks at me as I leave, wiggling two fingers at me in goodbye. I trust that she’ll take good care of Abigail today.
“Chef Toscani!”
The sharp bite of my name breaks into the zone of focus I have perfected through years of practice. The entire kitchen could be on fire, sous chefs battling it out with fists and knives, and I still wouldn’t break from my concentration.
But that annoying voice does it.
“Yes?” I snap, looking up to see Meredith stomping through the kitchen. She’s wearing another black power suit, and I wonder if she sleeps in them.
She probably lies in bed like a vampire, her black heels on and legs straight with her hands crossed over her chest. And when the sun rises, she hisses at it like a pissed off cat but forces herself up.
Maybe that’s why she’s always so cold and angry?
She’s a creature of the night forced to live in the daylight.
“What are you doing?” she stands behind me at the line, arms folded across her chest.
“You are not supposed to be in the kitchen,” I remind her. “There are food and health codes.”
Her eyes narrow, and instead of backing up the way I’d hoped, she steps closer to my station. She knows what she’s doing, intentionally irritating me to get the answer she wants. I’m certain she’s accustomed to people acquiescing to her maneuvers and manipulations.
I’m not one of those people. I don’t need anything from her.
On my cutting board, I have a small pile of diced onions and a larger one of tomatoes.
The skins and juicy remnants are in another pile to be trashed.
Using the back side of my knife, I wipe the unneeded bits into my trash bowl, but one wayward tomato bit misses and falls to the floor, only to be intercepted by Meredith’s expensive black pump.
Oops! Did I do that? I think smugly.
“Ugh!” She groans, kicking her toe out to sling the tomato bit to the floor.
“Kitchens are messy places,” I say with zero apology.
Her lips press into a thin line. “As I told you at yesterday’s meeting, I needed the menu for today’s luncheon by last night.”
“Must’ve slipped my mind.” It did no such thing.
I never had any intention of sending her a menu, my food reduced to nothing more than a list of ingredients.
“No worries, I’m already preparing lunch, creating wonderful dishes the guests will love, each more delicious than the last. This, I promise. ”
Her smile is robotic, but the gleam in her eyes is dangerous. “How about this? Since you didn’t do what you were told, with each course the waiters bring out, you can come out and explain what they’re eating and how you made the dish. Really give it that personal chef touch for the girls.”
We’re locked in a battle of chicken, seeing which one of us will flinch first.
She obviously knows that table visits are something chefs dread. The fawning over our food is fun, of course, especially when you are a new chef, but it is disruptive to the flow of the kitchen to have the captain of the ship leave the bridge mid-voyage.
Plus, based on the bridal party’s interest at the dinner at Avanti, I might have to play polite with guests when I would rather be in the kitchen.
Or with Abi.
The thought intrudes into my battle of wills with Meredith, setting me off-kilter at a crucial moment, and I give in. “Of course. I’d be happy to come out and share a few tidbits about each course.”
Victory makes her teeth look extraordinarily sharp when Meredith smiles. “Next time, perhaps you’ll simply send me the menu,” she muses.
One last dig to let me know she’s won this one.
Her heels click across the floor as she war-paths out of the kitchen. As soon as the door swings shut behind her, Esmar peeks out from around the corner to whisper, “Is the coast clear?”
I grin. “Afraid of her?”
He nods vehemently. “Yes! She is like a fox, a patient and cunning hunter that pounces when you least expect it.” He snaps his teeth, his fingers claws that scratch at the air in a charade that looks more like a lioness than a fox. But I get his point. Meredith is not one to be underestimated.
“Well, she’s gone for now, so let me get this prep finished.” Esmar comes over to help me, and after a while, Gilberto arrives as well.
Just in time because the front-of-house manager comes back to ask for my approval of the table setting. “Since I don’t know the menu, we want to be sure the silverware is appropriate.”
I get the feeling he’s one of Meredith’s minions, doing her bidding. Intentionally or not.
But it’s not an unusual request when I’ve kept the menu to myself. It’s not a secret. I just wanted to let the fresh ingredients speak to me and create something truly special.
I follow the manager to the floor and see that they’ve set up a lovely table by the open windows.
The salt breeze off the sea blows in gently, rustling the pink- and white-striped runners that line the length of the table display.
White china plates are nestled on silver charger platters at each place setting, and that is layered onto a large, fresh palm leaf.
Abigail’s doing, I’m sure.
As if thinking of her conjures her in truth, she walks in with a lush arrangement. “These are the last ones,” she says to no one in particular.
Janey follows along behind her, carefully carrying a tray full of small buds bursting with floral color.
“Let me help with that,” I tell Abigail, taking the flowers from her. “Where does it go?”
She nibbles her bottom lip as though she’s not sure, staring into my eyes vacantly, and I wonder what thoughts are spinning in that head of hers. The possibilities make me smile.
“Oh, right here,” she tells me finally, pointing to the center of the table. “And Janey, set that down and we’ll spread those out.”
Janey glares at me with a raised brow. “Oh, no worries, I’ve got this.”
I have the decency to look remorseful as she sets the tray down.
“These are beautiful,” I tell Abigail earnestly, which earns me a soft smile.
Before I can say anything else, I hear those tell-tale heels clicking across the floor.
“There you are, Miss Andrews. Is this what you’ve made for today’s luncheon?
” Meredith couldn’t be more condescending if she tried as she looks at the vibrant symphonies of color Abigail and Janey have created.
She reaches toward the main arrangement, frowning as she flicks a bloom with her red-tipped fingers.
“Please don’t touch them,” Abigail scolds automatically. Gentler, she says, “They’re fragile and will blacken from the oils on your hands.”
Surprisingly, Meredith drops her hands back to her sides.
“Yes, each setting has a palm leaf, and the tablescape will have lush greenery accented with the main arrangement, smaller collections of buds, and freshly halved coconuts. The beauty of the tropics,” Abigail explains. She makes flowers sound like a vacation escape.
Meredith continues her barely veiled insults. “I guess they’ll do. It’s better than the overly simplistic one from yesterday, at least.”
Abigail’s back goes ramrod straight, and her teeth click as though she’s choking down the words she really wants to say. I’m pretty sure what she’s swallowing is ‘Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.’
Not able to stand by and watch, I step forward. “Great job, Abigail. I’m sure Claire will love them.”
Meredith cuts her eyes to me as she likely prepares to go mano a mano again.
Measuring the distance between me and her and me and Abigail, a light goes off in the depths of her dark eyes.
“Oh, I should’ve introduced you two, but it sounds like you already know each other?
” Curiosity and calculation are palpable as she looks me up and down once more.
I let Abigail handle this one. It’s reasonable for us to know each other from before, and even if we weren’t familiar through Violet, we could’ve met here at the resort. At yesterday’s meeting, even. But we specifically discussed keeping the whole honeymoon thing to ourselves.
“Yes, Lorenzo is my best friend’s cousin. I was surprised to see him here.” That’s the truth, and her smile makes it seem like a pleasant surprise at least.
“Hmm.” Meredith doesn’t give anything away, and neither does her Botoxed face. “Well, let’s get everything set. Miss Johnson will be here shortly, and we won’t have you standing around when she approaches.”
I dip my chin in agreement, but my eyes wander to Abigail as I step into the kitchen. I can’t help it, nor do I stop the smile I give her, hoping it’s enough to get her through the afternoon’s festivities.
“So, she loved them? I knew she would,” I murmur into the darkness of our bedroom hours later.
We survived the luncheon, even the chef table visits where they didn’t ask about ingredients or anything food-related. No, the bridal party might’ve oohed and ahhed about their dishes, but what they really wanted to know was all about me.
How tall are you?
Can I see your muscles?
Say something in Italian.
Are you single?
Can you sing?
I’d done my best to play the flirtatious asshole, walking the line of pissing them off and making them want more.
But now, lying under the blankets with Abigail, the day disappears into a bubble outside a world of the two of us.
Without a word about it, we’re facing each other to talk through the darkness.
We are both on our ‘sides’ of the bed, but very close to the middle, making me yearn to reach out and caress Abigail.
“She did. Claire said they were amazing and asked if she could take the main arrangement back to her suite because she liked it so much,” Abigail whispers back, and I can hear the unfiltered delight. “What about you? Did they love the food?”
I balk in faux offense, even though she can’t see me. “Of course they did. Though I mostly felt fortunate to leave the luncheon with my clothing on. That bridal party was hungry, and I think they thought my chef’s jacket was simply a charade for a stripper.”
“No way,” Abigail says slowly, and I’m sure she’s going to say more, but then I just hear the poof of her breath releasing as she begins to fall asleep.
There’s more to say, but for now, I’ll let her rest. Tomorrow’s another day in paradise.