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“You’ve made breakfast for numerous women the morning after,” Christian reminded him.
“That’s because I’m usually in their apartment and it seems like the polite thing to do after they’ve sucked my dick. So I’ll amend my statement and say this is the first time I’ve made breakfast for a woman I didn’t even get the pleasure of sleeping with.”
With a devilish grin, Christian said, “Trust me, you would have gotten a hell of a lot of pleasure out of sleeping with Bayli Styles.”
“Then you should have invited me over.” Rory moved on to the rib eyes and the strips, ensuring they were trimmed to his specifications.
“The thought certainly crossed my mind.” They were the only ones in the kitchen at present. The prep cook was taking inventory and the chefs would begin trickling in over the next hour or so. Christian added, “She’s phenomenal, Rory. It’s next to impossible not to offer her the hostess job out front, because she’d rock our customers’ worlds when they come through the door. But she’s—”
“Destined for more than that,” Rory finished his sentence.
“Yes, she is. And we need to talk about a reboot of the show. I’m thinking we do a webcast of a half-dozen episodes for a test run. Then we go back to the network with a full season planned out. I’m talking tucked-away gems, undiscovered beaches, Mediterranean seaports—rather than meccas. Asian villages, African safaris, places difficult to find on a map that are brimming with the potential for culinary brilliance.”
“Authentic all the way,” Rory concurred. “Nothing commercialized, no overrun destinations. I like it. But who the hell has time to pick these places and fully research them?”
“That’s where Miss Styles comes in, initially. She’s a book hound. Even works part-time at a library. We’ll start paying her a salary as soon I negotiate with her agent, and she can research her heart out.” Christian flashed his confident grin. The one that had likely scored him an invitation into Bayli’s bed last night.
Rory felt the sting of not having been a part of his friend’s discovery of every erogenous zone the raven-haired beauty possessed. He’d fantasized about her several times since meeting her, and Rory was more than interested in stripping her bare and worshiping her gorgeous body. While Christian did the same. Until they both had her so worked up, she came harder than ever before.
Rory’s groin tightened at the thought. It was all he could do not to grill Christian over how she tasted, how he’d fucked her, what sort of sexy sounds she made when she was aroused. But Rory tamped down the urge, because he wanted to discover all of those things firsthand.
But there was still business to focus on.
He said, “She’s also going to need to spend time with me in the kitchen. So she knows how to work around me, not get in my way. Assimilate to my style. Understand what I’m doing so she can seamlessly interact with both me and the audience.”
“Agreed. How do you think she’ll pull that off?”
“I’ll run her over a few times before she figures out how to move with me.”
Christian smirked. “Try to be gentle.”
“It won’t be intentional, for Christ’s sake. But if I’m not operating in my normal mode, then the show will be stilted and appear scripted. That’s what fucked us last time. We don’t want it technical to the point of being tedious or frustrating, and we sure as hell don’t need it to be a procedural how-to. This show needs to be more cutting-edge. More on the fly and—”
“Sam the Cooking Guy, not Hell’s Kitchen.”
“A combination of both, actually,” Rory said. “But not a bumbling mess because beauty and the beast are tripping all over each other. We need to be in sync and she needs to anticipate my movements and recognize when I begin improvising because a better idea has popped into my head.”
“Rory,” Christian said with exasperation in his tone. “Let’s not set her up for failure by expecting the impossible from her. The two of you barely know each other.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to spend some time together.” He grinned. “Not exactly torture, right?”
SEVEN
The library was meticulously laid out and Bayli spent half of her time shelving books and the other half on a special project for the curator, who was searching for information on an Italian vase presumed to be from the sixteenth century that his husband, the curator of a museum, wanted to get his hands on to display with a similar collection.
Bayli loved searching for lost treasures. She’d spent a couple of weeks scouring books and making phone calls to see what kind of authentic documentation she could unearth related to the missing piece. She’d fallen down a few rabbit holes with misguidance but was quick enough to recover and head in a different direction.
Today, her diligence paid off.
At a little after three, she collected the books she’d checked out earlier and added her pièce de résistance to the pile. She crossed the expanse of the main floor and knocked on Dr. Phillip Holdsworth’s partially opened door.
“Come in!” he called from inside. “I’m at the conference table.”
She bypassed his desk and walked to the back of the large room where the wiry blond was bent over a half-dozen books spread open on the table. Phillip was an interesting character with a slight British accent, though he’d only studied abroad—he’d actually been born in Ohio. He was married to his work as much as he was to his life partner—who followed the same pattern. They were both petite, almost delicate-looking men with contradictory boisterous personalities and a quirky sense of humor.
Bayli had clicked with Phillip instantly, and when he’d invited her to lunch with Colin Holdsworth during Bayli’s first week at the library, she’d felt honored. And had been amused by all their tales of wayward travel where pretty much anything that could possibly go wrong for the couple always did.
Yet they never told their misadventures in a negative light—in fact, it seemed to please them to have such unintentionally eccentric escapades. And their stories captivated Bayli, which might have been the reason why Christian’s new idea of a travel/cooking show got her so jazzed. Because what he was contemplatin
