Feeding Her, page 5
part #1 of LeClarks Series
He smiled disturbingly. “Did you miss me?”
“No.” She dropped her eyes back to her work and waved dismissively toward the bar. “Gray’s over there.”
“I know where Gray is.”
Rather than sitting down across from her at the four-person booth, he sat beside her, forcing Kaitlyn to scoot toward the wall. Why did she always find herself boxed in by him?
“If you’re so worried about your investment,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “Why don’t you help? Gray’s been trying to get a delivery service on the phone all day. We need ovens.”
Landon pulled out his phone—a considerably nicer and new model, she noted—and tapped out a quick text.
“Or you could do absolutely nothing,” Kaitlyn said, unable to keep the annoyance out of her voice now.
Pleased to have finally gotten a reaction out of her, he slid the phone back into his pocket and pulled the recipe card she was translating closer.
“Hey.”
“French Lemon Apricot Tart,” he read.
Kait remembered he’d taken French in high school. An unusual choice—most of the clique of rich, popular kids took Spanish so they could order the help around in their native tongue. She and Gray had taken French, too, but clearly, Landon had retained more of his.
“You’re translating this line?” Landon asked, reading over her shoulder.
“Obviously,” Kaitlyn snapped because his nearness was making her heart beat in an irregular staccato. She scooted closer to the wall. “This booth has another side, you know.”
“Haven’t we spent enough time on opposite sides?” Landon asked, and his breath was warm on her temple. He was still too close. If she leaned toward him just a little bit, he would be kissing her hair. No, he wouldn’t be, she corrected herself. Because she would never lean toward him, not even just a little bit. Last night had been a mistake. He was a James. His parents were monsters, and he was no better. He was the reason that she and Gray were in this fix in the first place. If he hadn’t stolen the old LeClarks, they would be there right now instead of trying to make Baratellis into something she was starting to wonder if it could ever be.
“I could help you, you know,” Landon said, as though reading her mind.
“We don’t need your help,” Kaitlyn said, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking at him. She had a feeling her anger amused him a little too much. “We don’t need your money, or your connections, or your permission to—”
“I meant with these recipes,” Landon interrupted. “I’m fluent in French.”
Landon hadn’t just taken French in high school—he’d taken it in college and then done an immersion program in Nice his junior year at Princeton. He hadn’t done it to become fluent, exactly, he’d done it more because he knew his parents would hate it. They wanted him to learn Spanish or Mandarin or something useful to the business, but in a rare victory, they’d capitulated.
Landon hated the word Francophile—and associated it with pompous, poetry-reading, beret-wearing jackasses—but he couldn’t deny that he’d come dangerously close to being mistaken for one. He’d gone back to France for a year after he’d graduated, and he’d even brought a nice French girl back when the family business called him home. After he sent her packing, he kept up his fluency by watching movies and listening to books in French. He wasn’t entirely sure why. His parents had been right—it hadn’t been very useful in business. Carter thought it was because it was sure to get even the hardest-to-get girl, and Landon had certainly employed it for such purposes, but that hadn’t been the reason.
But when Kaitlyn’s head shot up and she stared at him in disbelief—he didn’t care why. Forget getting a girl into bed, shocking Kaitlyn LeClark speechless was reason enough for him. And, oh, it was about to get sweeter.
“Gray,” he called over to the bar. “How about I take these cookbooks home and translate them for you?”
“I don’t think so,” Kaitlyn snapped, pulling the old, battered cookbook back in front of her and guarding it possessively with both arms. “You’re not taking these anywhere.”
“You’re fluent in French?” Gray asked, wiping his hands on an already dirty dish towel and coming over.
“Studied it for eight years, lived there for two,” Landon said. “It’ll take me some time, but I can do it.”
“Except he can’t,” Kaitlyn corrected. “Because I’m not letting anyone, much less a James, take these cookbooks out of my sight.”
Gray sighed. “How long is it going to take you by yourself, Kait?”
“No time at all,” she snapped and tried to hide the half-written recipe.
“How long did that take you?” he asked, spotting it anyway.
“Thirty seconds.”
“Then do the rest in thirty seconds,” Landon challenged. The look Kaitlyn gave him should have frozen his bones, not induced that flash of heat in his groin.
“It’s going to take you weeks,” Gray was saying. “If Landon’s willing to help…”
Landon cut off Kaitlyn’s angry retort, “I have an idea. How about we work on them together, Kait?”
She didn’t like the way he appropriated her nickname as though they were friends. And she didn’t like this calm, reasonable tone of voice he adopted just for Gray. And she really hated the idea of them working together. But letting him take home the family cookbooks wasn’t an option.
“Fine,” she ground out. “You can help.”
Several hours later, Gray dropped into the booth across from them.
Kait looked up, surprised to see that it was dark outside. “What time is it?”
“Time to eat,” Gray said, stretching one arm across his chest and then the other. “And thanks to our crew, we can cook in the kitchen now.”
“No, we can’t,” Kaitlyn said automatically. “The gas hasn’t been turned on.”
“The gas company just left. Landon called them.”
“They came out on a Sunday?”
Landon glanced up briefly to say, “Of course they did.”
Kaitlyn and Grayson exchanged looks. Does he really think the gas company normally works on a weekend? Kait’s look asked.
Gray shrugged his shoulders as if to say: Who cares? Our ovens work.
“Our first meal,” Kaitlyn said aloud. “What should we make?”
Landon bent his head back over the recipe he was copying, unsurprised to hear the siblings say in unison, “Beef bourguignon.”
It was the recipe that had made the LeClarks name in the late 18th century, and the first meal they made when they immigrated to the United States. It had never been a particularly popular menu item, but never-the-less Alice and Arthur LeClark had made it for all special occasions. Landon himself had eaten it for three birthdays in a row.
“Do we have everything we need?” Kaitlyn asked enthusiastically.
“Everything but the mushrooms,” Gray said. “If you get the beef started, I’ll run out and get them.”
It wasn’t until Gray was gone that Kaitlyn realized that this arrangement meant she’d be alone with Landon. Sitting beside him all day had so inured her to his presence that she hadn’t even considered telling Gray that she would go to the store.
“If you want to keep working on the recipes,” she said casually, “I’ll start dinner.”
Landon closed his laptop and smiled unsettlingly. “I’ll help you.”
“It’s a one-person job.” Kaitlyn pushed at his shoulder. To her surprise, he stood up.
“Then I’ll watch,” he said, following her into the back. “It’s been a while since I’ve been in a kitchen.”
Kaitlyn suspected he meant it literally. He probably had his meals delivered on silver trays. “That’s strange for someone who owns a restaurant,” she said, pleased to find that her voice was even. Maybe this wouldn’t be as awkward as she was imagining. Maybe they could actually talk. She opened the large commercial refrigerator and scanned it quickly.
“Why don’t you make gratin dauphinois,” she suggested, pulling out the ingredients. If Landon was determined to be in the kitchen with her, she had to give him something to do other than watch.
When he didn’t answer, she turned to see him lounging against the service counter, his eyes on her. Kaitlyn’s breath caught. Yes, she’d definitely have to keep him busy. It had only been a few months—Gray’s birthday in March—since she made the beef bourguignon, but if Landon kept watching her like that, she’d surely burn the meat or over salt the stock.
“Landon?” She prompted, pretending as though she hadn’t noticed the look in his eye. “Do you remember the recipe or—”
“I remember,” he said and smiled faintly, “making it for your eleventh birthday when I was fifteen.”
Kaitlyn did, too. He’d undercooked the gratin, but Kait didn’t mind. It had made her feel very mature, having this popular high school boy make her a birthday dish.
Landon had been mortified though. He was supposed to be perfect, was supposed to hide any parts of him that weren’t. Hadn’t his parents drilled it into him? Wasn’t it the first commandment?
“You were a funny kid,” Landon said, focusing on Kaitlyn again. “You ate so much of those lousy potatoes you could barely eat your cake.”
Kaitlyn shrugged. “It was the first thing you ever made by yourself. I didn’t want you to give up.”
Landon glanced at the potatoes on the counter. “I can’t remember the last time I peeled one of these.”
“It’s like riding a bike,” Kaitlyn said and fished a potato peeler out of the drawer. “Here, see for yourself.”
Landon did. Not because he had any particular interest in making the dish, but because he could tell she needed him busy. He chopped into the meat of the potato a few times as he got the hang of it again, but she was right. Peeling the rough, brown wrapping in wide ribbons was a skill his hands remembered. After two slow starts, he undressed the rest in record time.
“You were always good at that,” Kaitlyn said, watching him slice the naked potatoes into thin medallions. “My dad said that with a few more years, you’d be a better prep cook than Gray.”
“Your dad was generous.”
“He cared about you.”
“And look where it got him.” Landon combined the potatoes with milk and garlic in a large saucepan and turned to face her. “You know that’s why my dad hated him.”
“Your dad didn’t need a reason to hate people,” Kaitlyn countered. “All they had to do was breathe to get on his bad side.”
Landon shook his head. “You got him wrong. He didn’t need a reason not to give a shit about people, and most of the time, he didn’t. But he only expended energy on hating the poor suckers who got in his way.”
Kaitlyn flushed. “My dad wasn’t a poor sucker, and he never got in your dad’s way. The only time they interacted was when your parents came to our restaurant.”
“You said it yourself,” Landon stepped closer, not to intimidate her but because he wanted to look her in the eye, to make her understand. “Your dad cared about me. He let me hang around here with Gray. He taught me to cook.”
“What’s wrong with caring about you?” Kaitlyn challenged. “We all did. Back then,” she added hastily when his eyes flickered to her mouth.
Landon pulled his gaze back to hers with difficulty. “Don’t you get it? Your family made me soft, and my dad knew it. He didn’t want a son who could chop fucking potatoes. He needed a son who could chop people’s heads off in business. Who could keep the company at the top no matter what it took.”
“Is that what you wanted?” Kaitlyn asked. “It didn’t seem like it at the time. You liked cooking. I thought you wanted to be a chef.” She tilted her head challengingly. “I think you still want to be a chef. Why else would you have started Rathskeller?”
Landon laughed scornfully. “Look at me, Kait. I’m one of the richest men in New York. I run a billion-dollar business. Why the hell would I rather have been a chef?” He hadn’t meant to get angry—he wasn’t angry, why would he be? Like he’d just told her, he had everything. And he could have her, too, if last night was any indication.
Infuriated by his dismissal of her family’s business, she started to turn away, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him. He’d meant only to keep her from turning away, but he caught her off balance and she stumbled back against him. Landon considered the repercussions for a split second, but he was an opportunist. Born and bred to turn any situation to his advantage. When she opened her mouth to let loose the furious words on her tongue, he cut them off with a hard, searing kiss.
Kaitlyn considered the curved, 10-inch blade in her hand, but then Landon deepened the kiss, and she fell into it. She barely noticed when he slid his hand down her arm and deftly removed the knife from her grip.
She’d never kissed anyone like this—someone with a hard mouth and a clever tongue, who nipped at her lower lip and made her want to bite back. She was raising her hands to his hair—unsure whether she was planning to twist her fingers in it or rip it out—when the front door bell jingled and icy cold reality was thrown in her face. She was kissing Landon James again. Worse, she was doing it in what was supposed to be a fresh start for LeClarks. And worse still, Gray was about to walk in on them.
She wrenched away just in time and was chopping the beef in large, irregular pieces when her brother walked in, holding a carton of mushrooms aloft. He looked around at all the ingredients on the counter curiously and joked to Landon, “Are you making your famous gratin dauphinois?”
Landon suspected his smile was more a baring of teeth, but before he could speak, Kaitlyn said, “I’m making it. Landon has to go.”
Gray’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re not staying for dinner?”
“He’s a very important man, Gray,” Kaitlyn said, feverishly chopping. “Didn’t you know? He has an empire to run. He’s not some chef.”
“Okay,” Gray said slowly, wondering what he had missed in the half hour it had taken to get back with the mushrooms. “Are you sure?”
Landon’s eyes were on Kaitlyn as he nodded slowly. “For now,” he said with a bright, savage note to his voice that Gray had never heard before. “But I’ll be back. You can count on it.”
Chapter Seven
On his drive home, Landon decided that he was going to get Kaitlyn LeClark into bed, fuck their history. That second kiss had dispelled any squeamish remnants of ever having felt like a surrogate big brother toward her. She was no child, and he was no relation. But he wasn’t going to chase after her. He would wait for her to come to him.
But what was he going to do while he was waiting? Landon took the long way home and considered his options. He’d already dated or slept with the eligible single women in town, though he supposed the turnover rate of marriages could have freed up a few. Not that a ring mattered much to him. It wasn’t on his finger, after all. But married women came with complications, especially in a small town. Now, New York—that was a different story. You could go out every single night and never run out of exquisitely beautiful, available women. Married, single, polyamorous, it didn’t fucking matter because the odds that you’d ever see them again were minuscule.
So why not go back to New York, the inner voice that sounded like Carter suggested. Landon found himself nodding in agreement. Why not, indeed? It would be easier to work out of the New York office for the next week with the merger coming up. If Gray needed anything, Landon could handle it with a phone call. And if Kaitlyn needed anything...well, it would do Kaitlyn LeClark good to have to wait.
Kaitlyn sat in her living room, the TV on to some mindless reality show, waiting for Landon. He’d said he would be back, and he wasn’t the patient type. Every time headlights swept across the living room window and a car door slammed shut, she gripped the stem of her wineglass tighter, expecting to hear his imperious knock any moment.
Time after time, the footsteps passed her door and faded into the distance. Kaitlyn’s heart finally stopped leaping at the sound, and the wine dragged her eyelids lower. Pulling the afghan off the back, she curled up on the couch and closed her eyes.
She was grappling with a strange sense of relief and disappointment. It was good that he was staying away, but she’d had more things to say to him—for starters, to never try anything like that again. But time and time again, her unconscious mind tugged her back into the memory of his arms closing around her, his mouth coming down on hers. Kait buried her face in the rough couch cushion to erase the memory of his lips, the way his tongue deftly parted hers, and the heat that shot through her from head to toe when it did.
How long had it been since she’d been kissed like that? Had she ever been kissed like that? The boy she’d dated in high school had been too inexperienced. She’d had her share of advances from coworkers when she worked at La Fontaine, but those had been unwanted. And she’d only dated one person since La Fontaine, and he had been a sweet sapling of a man. He’d read her poetry and kissed her gently and made her feel safe.
That had been important then, when all Kaitlyn wanted was to feel safe as she rebuilt her career. Her entire life, she’d had one dream. To go to a respected culinary institute, get an entry-level position in a highly respected kitchen, and work her way to the top. She’d checked off the first two items on the checklist with relative ease, but she hadn’t been expecting the toxic, misogynistic atmosphere that New York kitchens seemed to pump out of the air vents. She’d learned to deal with it, though. After a few unwanted encounters that ended with the tip of her knife resting inches from their liver, the men who didn’t seem to understand the word “no” learned how far they could take a joke with her.
And then one forgot.
