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“Nope. The kitchen’s pretty much broken down anyway.” She nodded to the other work stations, all of which were clean and empty, the last of her line cooks having checked out for the night a few minutes before. It was a rarity that Carly wasn’t the first one in and the last one out, a self-imposed high standard that all but married her to her job. She put the milky, opaque calamari in a bowl, tossing them evenly with batter before checking the temperature on the deep fryer. At least the kitchen was faithful.
“So, you want to tell me why you’re in such a foul mood?” Adrian replaced the containers in the lowboy, breaking down the last station with practiced ease.
Carly blanked the frown from her face, but of course Adrian had seen it. An unexpected trickle of melancholy squeezed her stomach tight against her ribs, and she ladled the calamari into the basket of the deep fryer with a shaking hand. “Not really.” God, the whole thing was ridiculous. It had been a couple of kisses, nothing more. She really needed to get over herself. “Why, am I that bad?” Despite the knot in her belly, a tiny smile moved across her lips. It felt hollow, but at least it was a start.
“A loaded question if I ever heard one. I just know you.” Adrian pulled a pristine white plate from the stack at the pass and met her at the deep fryer. “You think too much and it’s going to wreck your head.”
Carly snorted and put the tawny rings of flawlessly fried calamari on the plate, piling it high and plating it with her secret-recipe dipping sauce before sending it out with the server. “You’re such a sweet-talker. Really.” But Adrian was right. Wallowing in what had happened with Jackson wasn’t going to make it any different. She needed to let it go, just like everything else. “Come on,gnoccone. Help me finish cleaning up, would you?”
Adrian laughed in a hard burst. “Did you just call me a big dumpling?”
The grin that found its way to Carly’s face was long overdue. “I believe I did.”
“You’re the boss,” he grumbled, but the smile beneath his darkly stubbled jaw was obvious. They fell into step together, trading jibes and jawing about whether the Yankees had a shot at winning the pennant until the kitchen was well past clean.
“Um, Chef di Matisse?” Bellamy poked her head into the kitchen from the pass-through to the dining room just as Carly took one last swipe at the stainless steel counter with her dish towel.
“Hey, Bellamy, I thought you’d gone home. Excellent work tonight.” Carly popped the top button on her whites and ran a hand over the blue and white scarf keeping her braid at bay.
A look of pleasure flashed over Bellamy’s features, but it was quickly replaced by hesitance. “Thank you. I, ah, just wanted to let you know that there’s a customer still in the dining room. He’s asking to see the chef.”
Carly stiffened. Gavin, the restaurant manager, was supposed to handle all complaints. If anything came back to the kitchen, it went right from Gavin’s hands to hers, no exceptions.
“Is there a problem?” she asked. Something about this didn’t feel right.
“Oh, no, no. The server said he just wants to compliment you on the food.”
Carly’s shoulders shifted in a slump of both weariness and relief. On occasion, she’d go out to the dining room to greet a customer, although it was usually one of the resort execs or some other VIP. Usually Adrian went for civilians, mostly because she couldn’t be spared from the kitchen.
“Whaddaya say, Ade? You want this one?” While it was good PR—not to mention a lovely ego boost—to go out into the dining room when someone came offering praise, what Carly really wanted was to go home and soak her aching feet until they resembled prunes. “Pretty please?”
“Oh, no.” Adrian’s gravelly laughter cut through the kitchen. “As you can see, there are no weeds in the kitchen.” He gestured to the back of the house, which was sparkling clean and silent. “It’s your name on the menu,gnocchella.”
Carly’s mouth popped open. “Tiny dumpling? Seriously?”
“You started it. Go, bask in the adoration of your fans. I’ll catch you on the flip side, Chef.” Adrian didn’t even bother to hide his amused smile as he sauntered toward the service exit that led to the back parking lot.
“The customer’s at table twelve. Goodnight, Chef,” Bellamy murmured as she ducked back toward the dining room, the swinging door making a thunk-thunkas she disappeared.
Carly smoothed a palm down her jacket, which other than being splattered with a little bit of lemon dill sauce, was in fairly decent shape. She took a deep breath, letting it press against her ribs before exhaling in a slow puff. Five minutes of meet-and-greet and then she could go home and put this crummy day—hell, the whole crummy week—behind her.
God, she really wished the ache in her chest would take a hike. It was bad enough her feet were killing her. If she wasn’t careful, she’d have a full-bodied mutiny on her hands. Of course, the ache in her chest had nothing to do with the breakneck pace of her job or the arduous hours spent in the kitchen.
Nope. That could be attributed to a certain broad-shouldered, blue-eyed con artist whose kiss she couldstillfeel on her lips, despite numerous teeth scrubbings and half a bottle of Listerine.
It really had been a hell of a kiss.
“Get over yourself, di Matisse,” she grumbled, nudging the door open with one shoulder. Earth-moving kiss or not, Jackson Carter was a thing of the past.
* * *
Jackson sat back,shifting his frame against the polished wood of his chair, and drummed his fingers on the sage-green tablecloth beneath them. The dishes had been cleared and the check taken care of, but unlike everyone else who’d enjoyed a late dinner at La Dolce Vita, Jackson’s mind wasn’t on heading home. He’d waited until the end of the dinner shift on purpose, and with the exception of a couple people still straggling at the bar, the place was finally empty.
Bellamy appeared from the back of the restaurant, making his pulse tap along with his fingers. She dipped her chin in a definite nod, blonde curls bobbing from their haphazard ponytail, before disappearing thorough the front entrance.
It had taken some doing on both his and Shane’s part to convince Bellamy to play along with his apology strategy so he could avoid getting the manager instead of Carly. Admittedly, the appreciative-customer ruse was pretty weak, but it was unlikely that Carly would come out if she knew he was the customer, and waiting for her in the parking lot seemed less apologetic and more scary-stalkerish.
The ironic part was, the minute he’d crossed La Dolce Vita’s threshold, Jackson’s stomach had roared to life with all the subtlety of a stampeding bull. Everything on the menu had piqued his interest, even the stuff he’d never heard of. In the end, even though the idea of calamari made him wary at best, he’d ordered what he’d come for. It might be the only way Carly would listen long enough for him to at least apologize.
