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“We should talk.”
“We should?” he asked in a graveled voice that guaranteed talking would be low on the list for the rest of the evening.
“Logistics,” she said, playing along. “Getting into the kitchen tomorrow to test your dishes. That kind of thing.”
“Right, we should talk about that.” He bowed to his rapt audience. “Ladies, business calls.”
The ladies shot her less than ladylike glares aimed at sending her six feet under, twice. Jack tucked his hand under her elbow, and with a gentle, but very deliberate pressure, propelled her toward the bar.
“How can I ever thank you?” he murmured, close to her ear.
Lord, that accent. Combined with his touch and that delicious man scent, it set off a high-frequency vibration throughout her body.
“Oh, I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
Nine
The crush at the bar was tight, the sliver of space between them shrinking fast, and Jack’s world was all the better for it.
“I’m sorry about the girls,” Lili said, not sounding sorry at all. “They’re just excited.”
He stole a look back at the kettle of vultures. Excited wasn’t the word, more like ravenous.
“We don’t get a lot of famous visitors,” she added. “You’ve caused quite the stir.”
“I’m not even that famous,” he said, the familiar irritation creeping into his voice. “They’re easily impressed.”
Evidently, she wasn’t and that turned him on to an unreasonable degree. She pushed one of her dark curls behind her ears while he shoved a twitching hand in his pocket, wishing he could have got there first.
“So did you enjoy the food?” she asked with a sly smile.
“It was amazing. Your father’s a great chef.” Lip service wasn’t Jack’s style. The pastas were out of this world, especially the fluffy, melt-in-your mouth pillows of gnocchi. The steak was cooked flawlessly, the fish flaking off the bone. All the same, Jack wasn't too worried about the contest. He’d been cooking on the right side of perfection for years.
What did worry him was how he’d made an arse of himself in front of her father and he cursed Cara for neglecting to give him a heads up. Luckily, Tony had been a gracious host and gave him a tour of the kitchen, in spite of Jack’s half-drunken drooling over his youngest daughter. A little acrimony might make for good TV, but he didn’t want to be on Tony’s shit list. He wasn’t sure why.
“Ready to throw in the towel yet?” Lili asked. “I never back down from a challenge.”
She laughed, a low throaty chuckle that blossomed into something full and husky, and left him scrounging for air. Her mouth was lush and he had to take breaks to stop himself from staring at her. From staring at her mouth and imagining what he'd like to do to it.
On one of his air-grasping sorties away from her mouth, he spied Laurent with a dangerously-stacked blonde near the juke box. So much for love Italian style. Not far off stood that Maximo-Mario guy, glaring in Jack’s direction. Earlier, while he and Laurent waited for the staff to arrive, this loser had tried to lease him a building for Jack’s new restaurant, the one he already had half-built in Chicago’s West Loop.
“What’s the deal with him?” he asked, nodding in the loser’s direction. Lili’s eyes sparkled, and Jack speculated that she might be buzzed. “Marco? He’s my father’s business partner.”
“My condolences,” Jack muttered. “And I used to date him.”
A mouthful of beer went down the wrong way. “Jesus, my sincerest condolences.”
Marco was speaking animatedly on his cell, though it had all the hallmarks of a one-sided conversation. He probably had the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth as his ringtone and answered his phone with ‘yello.’ Tosspot.
Lili smiled thinly. “He’s not so bad. He’s actually quite sweet.”
Oh no, he wasn’t. Jack knew Marco’s type. With his pinkie ring, his manicure, and his shark eyes, he was the embodiment of a flash geezer. And as if that wasn't enough for Jack to hate him on sight, he sported the one thing no man over the age of twenty-one should ever leave the house with—a ponytail. That Lili had found him date-worthy, and maybe more, unsettled him.
“He can be—” Her voice hummed so low he had to lean in to hear her. Standard bar trick. “He just needs a little support.”
“And that was your job? The great woman behind the little man?” What would it be like to have a woman like this at his back? Pretty damn nice, he was willing to bet. To come home and talk to her, to listen to that beautiful laugh, then bury his tension in her softness.
To come home and talk to her? That whack to the head must have knocked a few screws loose. How else to explain the leap from unbridled animal attraction to choosing china patterns and cozying up on the couch to Law and Order re-runs?
