Passionate Chef, Ice Queen Boss / Rescued in a Wedding Dress: Passionate Chef, Ice Queen Boss / Rescued in a Wedding Dress

‘Actually, I hadn’t thought that news would travel through the restaurant at all.’ She tugged so hard on her ribbon that it came out in her hand. Scarlett compulsively threaded it through her fingers and decided it wasn’t fair that she had dressed for success and got through a big day, only to be startled by the strength of the gossip mill right at the end of it.

‘Your nose is scrunching,’ he said softly. This observation was followed by a frown that seemed self-repressive before he quickly turned his gaze away and headed for the door. ‘It’s less than five minutes’ walk to your bedsit. I’m sure you can deal with my company for that long, despite your efforts to avoid me today.’

‘I did not.’ She had, though, and why did a tingle go over Scarlett’s skin and her breath catch in her throat at the thought of him walking her home, for goodness’ sake? ‘As for moving to the bedsit, it’s not that I wasn’t happy at Mamma’s villa.’

‘Happy to the degree that you chose to move yourself into a bedsit after just two days there? And that was with your mother not even in residence in her home at the time.’ He shook his head. ‘You left her at age twelve, preferring to move to the other side of the world and live with your father, Scarlett. I haven’t forgotten that you told me that, or of your inability to feel close to her.’

He hesitated. ‘I also hear plenty about Lisa in terms of her ownership of Sorella. Your mother’s restaurant is our key rival for business here.’

‘Well, at least this way I avoid any conflict of interest.’ Scarlett dropped her guard a little. ‘I’m sure Mum would understand. Working for Luca, I couldn’t allow that. Really, I should have thought of it before I came over here.’

‘Certainly. I’m sure your mother should understand this.’ A twinkle in his eyes showed that he could see the strategy in Scarlett’s outlook. A moment later his smile faded to a more serious expression. ‘Scarlett, this morning I said things about you—’

‘It’s all right. You explained why you made me the ogre of the piece.’

He shook his head. ‘I could have thought of a better way to handle that. Realising Dante’s situation…threw me off. Enough that it took all my attention to not let him know what I’d worked out.’

‘You allowed him to keep his pride.’

‘Sometimes pride is all a man has left.’ The moment the words emerged, he clamped his lips together.

There were shadows in the backs of Lorenzo’s eyes as Scarlett searched them. But he quickly shielded those eyes with long silky lashes.

‘Will Dante be able to move into that boarding accommodation?’ She needed to focus on that, not on her rising consciousness of Lorenzo.

Anyway, it had to be a ‘workers co-operating for the better good’ kind of affinity that Scarlett was feeling. Anything else would be quite insane.

Lorenzo nodded. ‘He did so this morning.’

‘That’s good.’ Scarlett glanced behind her to make absolutely sure they truly were alone. ‘I can get alongside him; watch him for a while to make sure he’s okay. That that horrid man, whoever he is, isn’t still—’

‘You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll keep a close watch on Dante.’ Oh, his voice was so deep, so soft.

As was the expression in his eyes as he looked at her. Out of nowhere a sense of affinity rose between them. Scarlett opened her mouth and spoke straight out of that fellow feeling. ‘I trust you to do that.’

She realised that she did. Without any hesitation, she knew she could trust Lorenzo with that. He might have hurt her, let her down five years ago, but she just knew this.

He’s a good head chef, Scarlett. Isabella had said this.

When Luca discussed Lorenzo, he’d gone even further. I have great faith in him.

Maybe it was the faith of Isabella and Luca that gave Scarlett this belief in Lorenzo. Or maybe it was what she had seen of his work practices and ethics in the past two days. But they didn’t seem to compute with the ‘love rat’ image Scarlett had carried of him for the past five years.

As Scarlett really didn’t know how to address these thoughts, she turned her attention elsewhere. ‘You said this morning that Dante had taken a key that Luca kept as a spare? That Dante used that to let himself into the restaurant?’

‘Yes. Luca had a secret hiding place where he kept a spare key in case he ever lost his.’ Lorenzo drew a key chain from the pocket of his chef’s pants. There were two matching keys on it. ‘I knew about it, but I thought Isabella and I were the only ones aside from Luca who did. I should have thought better of that assumption.’

He shook his head. ‘In any case, that hiding place is no more. Would you like the second key?’

‘No, I have one from my uncle.’ Luca had run Rosa with a naive degree of trust in some respects. This became more and more clear to Scarlett the more she learned about the restaurant.

‘Then perhaps we should go.’ Lorenzo uttered the words quietly.

‘Yes.’ Scarlett glanced up. The expression in Lorenzo’s eyes made her breath catch in her throat.

Awareness, consciousness, memory. They were all there and for one brief moment they were all inside her, too. The feelings were so unexpected, and so opposite to what Scarlett had believed she felt towards him for five years, that she froze.

He drew a breath and stilled for a moment too before he blinked and got his feet moving and led the way to the kitchen doors. He pushed one open and stood back for her to precede him.

Somehow they made it outside and somehow she managed to say something about work as they headed across the square towards her bedsit. Her landlady had told her she travelled a lot, which suited Scarlett just fine. ‘I hope the staff will realise they’re not being given unreasonable conditions with the changes I’ve handed to them tonight.’

‘If you continue to make and implement all your decisions without informing me before you put them into action, you’ll make your job here harder than it needs to be.’ His words were a soft murmur as his gaze travelled once again over her face, her eyes, and dropped…to her mouth before he gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

Scarlett forced herself to breathe carefully and evenly and not allow herself the same examination he had just taken. ‘You feel that, as Head Chef and Manager, we should join our forces more?’

She had wished she could avoid him as much as she possibly could for the duration, but even Scarlett could admit that wasn’t very practical when he was her assistant, and the most pivotal employee of Rosa.

‘I don’t want to usurp your authority here, but, yes, I do feel we need to work together.’ His expression told her he wanted co-operation between them. ‘I believe your likelihood of success will be better if we combine our efforts.’

He held out one hand, palm up. ‘We would present a united front to the rest of the staff, if nothing else.’

‘It would make for smoother sailing, provided you can accept my—’ Authority? Her being further up the employment ladder than him? Scarlett didn’t quite know how to put it, and she’d never worried about that kind of thing before!

‘Provided I can accept your leadership in this workplace.’ He turned, just a little turn towards her, but it made the difference between two people talking from their safe distances as they faced forwards and walked, and something just that little bit more intimate.

Scarlett doubted he was even aware he’d done it, and she could have taken one step away from him in any direction to put an end to that feeling, but instead she continued to walk exactly as close as she was to him.

Scarlett shoved her ribbon into the pocket of her dress and told herself to get over it.

Whatever it was, exactly.

Well, she supposed ‘it’ was this strange feeling she had that felt like a combination of history and remembering and becoming conscious of Lorenzo all over again in ways she hadn’t anticipated and didn’t welcome.

Except that no matter how much you tell yourself you’re not, there’s a part of you that is aware of him.

‘I’m prepared to discuss things with you, but my decisions about the finances here are still final, no matter whether you agree with them or not.’ Even so saying, she felt the need to temper her statement. ‘I can see that two heads might be better than one with some of this. I suppose we can at least try.’

She had to do what was best for Rosa. If she felt this was best, such a decision didn’t have to feel dangerous to Scarlett, dangerous to her emotional well-being. She wasn’t about to fall in love with Lorenzo again, for crying out loud. They could work side by side for the betterment of Rosa. In fact, doing so would be really good for her because it would prove to her that she could remain completely emotionally distanced from him.

And physical attraction, Scarlett?

These few moments this evening of feeling a little too conscious of him, well, they were probably just a couple of old memories surfacing. They didn’t mean anything and would be long gone and forgotten by tomorrow morning when she met him again at work.

Scarlett drew a breath that filled her lungs with the blunted scent of his aftershave lotion and realised they were somehow walking even closer than they had been. Their shoulders were leaning towards each other. He smelled familiar and…she was far too tired for this right now. Her defences were not as strong as they should be.

‘Thank you. I want to help you, Scarlett, not get in the way of what you’re trying to do here.’ Lorenzo drew a deep breath.

They arrived at her bedsit and stepped into the lee of the door lintel.