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“You don’t want to run your own restaurant?” It seemed strange he would be satisfied to remain in Jack’s shadow but then, that’s what she’d been doing for years with Cara. Some people were just born to play sous chef.
He hesitated, and while she would usually put it down to the alcohol, there was something faraway in his expression. “I would like to be in charge at Thyme but Jack is not one to give up the reins so easily. He likes to be in control.”
Bet he does. The mere mention of that word in relation to Jack sent a long, shivering pulse through her body.
“But I like working with him,” Laurent continued. “He’s the smartest and most creative guy in the business.” He inclined his head to hers and the fumes knocked her sideways. His eyebrows arched up like accent marks. “Why are you so interested in Jack? You should be interested in me, chérie. The Italians and the French have always been close, oui?”
She pointed with her beer bottle. “Except when the Romans conquered France. And that whole Napoleon thing. And World War II. But other than that, we’ve always got along exceptionally well.” She grinned. “Not like the French and the British. Aren’t you supposed to be terrible foes?”
“There is a lot of the rivalry, oui. But not between Jack and me. He is my best friend.” Aw, Lili couldn’t help but be touched by his loyalty. After another few minutes of good-natured ogling, he excused himself to hit the restroom.
Arcing her gaze, she spotted Tad at the other end of the bar chatting with Shannon, the buxom bartender who reminded Lili of a female Bond villain. The kind who could crush walnuts with her thighs. Her cousin sent an impudent smile her way and bowed in the direction of Jack, now with his hands full trying to fend off the attentions of a gaggle of DeLuca women.
Do it, Tad’s grin said.
Not on your life, her frown replied. After her mouthy put-down earlier, there was no way Jack would still be interested, and even if he threw his hat into her ring again, she was so rusty she wouldn’t know what to do with it.
This night was a wash on the man front, but all was not lost. There were cookies. Double chocolate chip cookies. And they were waiting for her less than a block away in her apartment. She had just put a foot to the floor when a heady, expensive man scent, straight from the perfume counter at Macy’s, stopped her cold.
“Hey, Lil.” Marco was a sidler, one of his many talents. If his cologne weren’t so potent, he might have had a promising career in Special Forces.
“Ciao, Marco.”
“Exciting about the show, isn’t it? It’s going to be great for business.” Her ex’s favorite topic of conversation, after his Lamborghini, his Italian shirt maker, and his net worth, was how to make his twenty-five percent investment in DeLuca’s worth the time he didn’t want to put into it.
“Sure is,” she said, all too aware of Marco’s undertone. He was thinking about the personal loan he’d made to her father covering her mother’s medical bills and how soon it might be repaid.
While he yammered on about getting a local news crew involved, she observed him closely, drinking in his golden looks, that deep baritone that used to make the hair on the nape of her neck stand on end, and his habit of talking too loudly when he got excited. This past winter, she had needed a warm body to get her by and he had been kind enough to step up. Not exactly fireworks between the sheets, but he had given her what she needed—arms to hold her for a couple of hours when she felt overwhelmed by her mother, the restaurant, and her life half-written. In true Lili fashion, she had listened to all his problems and kept quiet about her own.
Then the inevitable happened: she fell for him hard just as he realized he could do much better.
He rolled his lips in, his usual signal that he didn’t approve of something. He did that a lot. “I heard you’re going to make a play for Kilroy.”
Lili almost fell off her barstool. “Where’d you hear that?”
Marco delivered a condescending smile. He did that a lot, too. “Someone’s running a book on it.”
Madre di Dio, she was going to drown Tad in wet noodles. At Marco’s sympathetic expression, Lili could feel the knuckles protruding through her skin. It would be so easy to hit him on that square jaw. He wouldn’t even see it coming because his gaze had already wandered to a boobs-on-a-stick blonde draped over the juke box. She flexed her hand; Marco’s hazy focus returned.
“I don’t think Kilroy’s your speed, Lil. Maybe you should stick with the frog. Aim a little lower.”
Aim a little lower. Marco’s words went down like pepto—they tasted awful but they were probably good for her. She could fake it up to a point, but no way, no how could she pull a league jump of this magnitude.
A glass of clear liquid appeared in front of her with uncanny timing and a wink from Shannon. Tad saluted a bottoms-up cheer with his beer bottle. Marco raised a disapproving eyebrow. She knocked back the shot—ugh, mint schnapps—and her Benedict-Arnold hormones did the rest.
Pinned against the dartboard, Jack had been stunned into submission by a crescent-shaped line of brunette admirers with a blonde thrown in for variety. Lili watched as he engaged in a rally of repelling tactics, from slow nodding to diversionary swigs of his beer. The blonde loitered at his shoulder with intent, her hand glossing over his bicep. Angela was two baby steps short of clambering on top of him. Gina, despite her affianced status, was trying to outflank her cousin with a couple of undone shirt buttons and frenzied eyelash batting.
Jack’s gaze locked on Lili’s, and she felt a sudden and startling jolt of attraction right down to her toes.
“Kilroy’s working it, I see. You’ve got no chance there, Lil,” Marco said, his tone jovial but laced with something else. She looked at her ex with interest. If it was possible for eyes to sneer, Marco’s were doing it right now. Her own eyes were drawn back to the evening’s entertainment and found Jack still staring above Angela’s frizzy curls, his gaze direct and true. His sexy mouth hadn’t moved a muscle but his eyes, in that rare green hue…they promised everything.
That look enveloped her like a curl of flame, immolating all her hesitation in a fiery burst. Just one night was all she asked. One night to see stars, to experience scorching passion, to get a little lost. A combination of the corrosive burn from the liquor and Marco’s smug grin decided it. She was tired of aiming lower.
“Later, Marco.”
Sidestepping him, she skirted around the fan club and addressed Jack. “Hey.” His eyes widened and shifted to a smoky darkness.
“Hey, yourself.”
