One Chef!

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

“Hey, Rikka.”

“Go to hell, Paul!”

Erika “Rikka” Albert hung up the phone wishing it was one of those old style things you could slam back into the cradle. She’d have to write an app that did that—crashing down cradle sound then disconnect.

For Paul she’d make it ear-splitting loud.

Add some cathedral bells, crashing semis, and howitzer fire. Maybe do a subliminal layer of the T-Rex roar from Jurassic Park just to make it scary, too.

She returned to the order she’d been preparing in her catering production kitchen. There were still fifty more pieces of baby abalone sashimi and a hundred of tuna belly to cut. A couple dozen quick rolls of her spiced salmon and avocado sushi and she’d be done—the avocados all so perfectly ripe that she could smell the dusky warmth even though they were still in their nubbled dark-green skin.

Paul Stark’s call had cost her almost thirty seconds: five for shock—it had been two goddamn years, five seconds to tell him where he could go, and twenty more resisting the urge to heave a perfectly good phone into the trash because it now was infested with Paul Stark cooties.

She rammed the phone into the back pocket of her jeans. Could feel its outline there. But putting it in the front pocket of her apron would be even worse.

It rang again, vibrated her butt as harshly as a slap.

She whirled just as Paul cracked open the door to her kitchen. Just like Lara Croft in the movie Tomb Raiders, she heaved three-hundred millimeters of yanagi sashimi blade into the door frame to leave it quivering inches from his nose.

Ignoring the blade, he opened the door the rest of the way as he arched a knowing eyebrow at her. A slow smile quirked those strong lips. His sun-tipped blond hair as light as his sister’s was dark. He was at least as handsome as his sister Kate was striking. Where her features were precise and elegant, his were an enchanting cross of rugged yet refined.

Rikka stalked over and jerked the blade out of the wood, returned to the chopping block and calmly began to re-hone the edge. After all, dulling seven hundred dollars worth of knife over Paul Stark would be a total waste of good steel.

She turned her back on him and, cursed herself for being a total lame-oid. She shouldn’t have aimed at the door jamb. After all, what had it ever done to her? She should have stuck him in the center of the forehead with that throw just like Lara Croft would have. She’d try to remember that, just in case this exact situation ever came up again.

“Already told you where to go.”

Rikka could hear him step into the kitchen behind her. He’d learned some stealth from his sister, but she still heard him. The door settled closed with a light snick as he leaned against it.

She tried to cut the toro and totally hacked the next slice. She had to reshave the slab of tuna belly to make a clean line, a loss of two pieces. At forty-five dollars a pound wholesale, that was an expensive mistake. Raising the knife once more, she paused. No question, this cut would be wrong as well if she attempted it.

Taking a deep breath, she planted both fists against the heavy cherrywood chopping block, one still clenched about the knife.

“What?!” She didn’t turn to face him.

“You’re looking great, Rikka. You always were hot in a petite Japanese and whatever way, but now you’ve definitely got something more going on. Smokin’. And I like your hair down your back like that, the pixie cut never really suited you. Really brings out the green in your eyes. What are you working on?”

“A five thousand-dollar order and you’re screwing up my timing.” She turned with the intention of hunting Paul down and scaring him off. Maybe she’d throw in a little free Paul Stark sashimi with this order; after all, it wasn’t as if it would be human meat.

It didn’t seem right though, Matsuko was a good customer whenever he was in town and she already knew that Paul was a toxic substance. Besides, she liked Matsuko and he threw a hell of a party. She’d been hoping to find someone there to drag off into her lair for a few days’ rough and tumble.

But Paul wasn’t back by the door. He stood a half step behind her and she had to look way up to see those blue eyes. It was the only feature the twins shared. Paul was blond and blue, Kate dark brunette and blue. Both had that mystical Irish coloring.

He leaned in, almost but not quite impaling himself on her still-raised and nearly forgotten blade. He inhaled deeply then sighed.

“You always did smell wonderful. Like cinnamon and sea salt on a fine sailing day.”

She remembered his smell plenty well, exactly as it had been the last time they’d been this close two years before. Man. That was it. Not leather or wood. Not rock or earth. He was that most refined essence of pure male. She was either going to have to kill him or kill herself. Otherwise she’d be wrapped around him in seconds and that would be really bad.

“I, uh,” he winced a little, “I have a problem.”

“What’s that?” It would help if he didn’t look as good as he smelled…

“I appear to have lost my sister.”