Chapter 4
CHAPTER
FOUR
Maybe he should have called the Operation Madison meeting after their family dinner.
Brooke had talked him into staying longer at their house to discuss some new redecorating plans, and by the time they’d finished, it was late enough that they’d headed back to the house together. There’d been no time for him to talk to Madison alone.
Everyone did their best to act normal, but like the smell of overly strong perfume, the unspoken energy in the room was tangible.
Nanine’s usual calm regard seemed extra probing at dinner, even though she was engaged in conversation with her fiancé, Brooke’s father Carl, and Brooke.
The slight crinkle between her arched brows was telling.
He suspected she knew the reason for the tension and was choosing to stay quiet. For now.
Madison had kept busy in the kitchen with Nanine before the meal. Afterward, she stuffed them with a Tres Leches cake, which was delicious. Nanine asked her about the recipe’s origin, and Madison’s reply squeezed his heart.
Looking down into her lap, she hesitantly said, “I started making it when I was a kid for my birthday, and my dad liked it so much, I’d make it to keep him happy.
Later, I baked it for one of those after-work meals you get invited to as a chef, and people asked me to keep bringing it.
I’m glad it worked for you. It’s not very French, but I don’t make a lot of desserts. ”
“You should make this recipe more often,” Nanine replied. “It’s absolute perfection, Fifth Course.”
She gave a tight but pleased smile…and Kyle crumpled the napkin in his lap, thinking about how shitty it was that she’d needed to make her own birthday cake. And also how she’d had to ply her deadbeat, drunk dad with cake to keep the peace.
The only silver lining in that tragic story was hearing that serious chefs in Miami had appreciated her talent.
Thinking of her past made his mind turn to Chef Rico Gurat, whom she’d known back then.
After leaving Miami, Rico had moved to Paris and won his own star at Maison Su.
He was also very openly interested in hooking up with Madison and often stopped at Nanine’s after closing to talk to her.
Kyle gritted his teeth at the thought.
While Madison had confessed she’d thought about dating Rico, she hadn’t been able to pull the trigger. But Kyle didn’t think the guy would abandon his pursuit. Who would?
What grated him the most was how much Rico knew about Madison when Kyle was supposed to be her best friend. Rico could connect with her in ways Kyle couldn’t. They spoke Spanish together and had gone dancing at least once. They were connections to her culture he knew she missed.
Kyle planned to do something about that, but the lessons he’d lined up would take time. Time he wasn’t sure he had.
“Maybe next Sunday you can cook another one of your favorites from your time in Miami, Madison,” he neutrally suggested over the tightening of his diaphragm. “I’m sure all of us would love that.”
“Absolutely,” and “Oh, please,” resounded from their friends, with Dean finishing off the point by saying, “I’ll bring the margaritas and the pinata.”
Everyone laughed but Madison.
Yeah, she was tense. Well, so was he.
Thea had swung by earlier to talk to Madison. Since Madison hadn’t decked him or looked at him with betrayal in her golden eyes when he’d returned to the house with Brooke and Axel, he figured Thea had made some kind of impression. Thank God.
Tonight, they would talk. He hoped she was ready.
Everyone cried off early when Nanine and Carl said they were heading out, leaving Madison and Kyle in a silent house with only Pierre watching from his perch in the kitchen.
Since it was the parrot’s bedtime, Madison grabbed his burgundy throw and beckoned him to his cage, wishing him good night in Spanish.
Then she looked over at him, the most beautiful woman in the world, dressed in all black, her arms crossed over her chest.
His belly clenched as desire poured into him. All he wanted to do was cross the kitchen and take her into his arms.
“You ready to do this or what?” she asked, flint and fire in her voice.
He nearly gulped. “What are we doing?” he asked carefully.
“You know.” Accusation was in her tone as she wandered over to a cabinet and pulled out the mezcal he’d bought her, along with two glasses. “You turned the tables on me today. Operation Madison! What about Operation Kyle? Or does your life not warrant an intervention?”
That she was serving them drinks suggested she wasn’t going to stalk out of the kitchen.
Given the heat rising in his body, he shrugged out of his sports jacket and grabbed a barstool at the kitchen island.
He watched as she efficiently poured them both a healthy splash of the smoky liquor.
When she pulled out a barstool across from him on the other side of the island, he stood up and walked around to sit next to her.
“Something wrong with your side?” she practically hissed.
Impossibly, he smiled. This was the Madison he loved. The one who got all snarly and called him on every damn thing. This was the woman he adored.
“No, I was merely coming to sit next to you.”
He heard the impassioned sigh she gave before she pushed her stool a few feet away.
“When we first met ten years ago, did you ever imagine we’d become friends?”
Her gorgeous eyes immediately went to slits. “What made you ask me that? Aren’t we talking about Operation Madison?”
“In a second.” He sipped his mezcal smoothly, leaning an elbow on the island. “Answer the question.”
Her frustrated exhale ruffled her short black bangs. “No. You looked way too perfect back then.”
Another sip coated the dryness of his mouth. “What changed your mind?”
She started tugging at her black jeans as if she couldn’t bear to look at his face. “You were kind to Thea. Nanine adored you. And you didn’t make fun of me or try to get into my pants and then act like we’d never met. There! Are you happy now?”
His heart pulsed with hurt for her, and he recalled what she’d said earlier about making her own birthday cake, over and over again, as a kid.
Some people would have given up and stopped making a cake or celebrating altogether.
That took determination—and a desire for happiness, didn’t it?
He filed that away. “Do you know what I thought about you?”
“That I had great fashion sense?” She smirked. “No, what?”
He bit his lip to keep from chuckling. “I thought you were awesome with all your badass rebel attitude. You didn’t give a shit about who I’d been in Austin or who my family was. None of that impressed you. In fact, it worked against me. I got to start fresh and just be me.”
“We all had a second chance to ditch our past.” She took a healthy sip of her drink. “But some things linger, don’t they? Like me loving mezcal. It’s from my other life, just like you’ve carried things from your past here with you.”
He didn’t know where she was going with this line, so he waited. Patiently. Like he always did.
She finally looked him straight in the eye, and he could see the fear banked in her gaze. “You want to know why we’re friends, Kyle? It’s because you always stop and listen before you act. Usually in my interest.”
His inner wince made him shift on his barstool. “Do you think I’m acting against your best interests by asking our friends to help with Operation Madison?”
Drumming her fingers nervously on the island, she worried her mouth. “That’s compliqué, like the French say. Part of me knows that’s something you’d never do, and yet you put yourself on the other side of some kind of chess game with me today. We need to talk about that.”
A chess game, huh?
“I’m not playing you, Madison. When I say I want you, I mean it. All the way.”
She held up her hand as she swallowed thickly, clearly as affected as he felt.
“I know that. And I need to stop hiding under the covers like a little kid and go balls to the wall, so to speak. I want you. You want me. We’re best friends.
Blah-blah-blah. We’ve talked it to death. The smart thing would be to wait.”
A snarl caught his mouth. “For what?”
“The Michelin decision.” She bit her lip before pressing her hands to her cheeks. “It’s only ten weeks away.”
“No,” he immediately answered and then winced. “God, I want to say, sure, but do you really think we can take another ten weeks of this tension and—”
“Temptation?” she added, expelling a heartfelt breath.
“Not really. Also, I have to be flat-out honest here. Thea planted a dark seed in my mind today, one about me cooking even better if I finally let myself be with you. She made a good argument. Her breads went from incredible to out of this world after she and Jean Luc started seeing each other.”
Thank you, Thea.
“Yes, they did.”
“Will you feel weird or used if I say I’m as tempted by the possibility of boosting my cooking up another level as by finding out what it would be like between us?”
He started laughing, like double over and fall off his chair laughing. “Oh, Mad, please use me. However you want.”
She grabbed his shoulders and righted him on the barstool. “That’s what I thought, so listen carefully. You made your move today. Here’s my counter.”
He watched as she leaned back and pulled a folded recipe card out of her jeans pocket. Interesting…
Taking another sip of his drink, he tried to imagine what the hell she was thinking, and then she waved it in the air between them.
“Thea—in her usual sweet way—brought me a recipe card for my life as part of Operation Madison.”
“Ah…the dark seed.” He bit his lip to contain more laughter, but not before Madison caught the movement.
She glared at him accusingly. “You think this is funny?” she spat.