Feel the Heat (Hot In the Kitchen)

chapter Eleven


They were supposed to be sharing a bowl of gelato, pressing thighs together, accidentally brushing fingers, while Jack wore her down and got her to agree to a date. That had been the plan, anyway.

So why was he now standing in her tiny living room, as skittish as a lobster within kissing distance of a stockpot? It was only a bloody photo. Shoots for magazines and show publicity never failed to bore him, but they didn’t make him nervous. The thought of Lili pointing her lens at him made him sweaty-palms, pulse-pounding nervous. As if she needed another weapon to get past his rickety defenses.

The weapon in question, a complicated-looking piece of equipment, lay on a scarred mahogany credenza, exuding menace. Reminding him that he was here because he made a promising subject for her art. An arrangement of facial features that conformed to someone’s standard of handsomeness.

He didn’t want to be a pretty face in her viewfinder; he needed her to see past his image and understand that putting up with a few nasty comments was worth it. That he was worth it.

While she puttered in the kitchen, he perched on the edge of the plush, well-worn sofa, his body taut as bamboo, and cracked his knuckles. The room was chockablock with funky art pieces. An industrialized bronze angel loomed in the corner with metal fan blades for wings. To its right, some weird shit that looked like carpet remainders and shellacked eggshells left Jack floundering for adjectives. On the opposite wall, a photo collage sprawled like a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. He recognized Lili’s cousins and servers from DeLuca’s, all beaming and at ease. Not a single photo of Lili, which didn’t bode well for their future in the public eye.

She appeared at his side and handed him a bowl of gelato, the spoon standing to attention in the center like a…Shit, he really needed to get laid.

“That’s cool,” he said, nodding at the collage. He suspected it was all cool, but he didn’t feel qualified to discuss the more abstract works. “Why aren’t there any pictures of you?”

“I prefer to stay behind the camera.”

His follow-up query died on his lips as her low moan transmitted right to the receiver in his boxer briefs.

“Sweet baby Jesus, is this goat cheese?” she asked.

He nodded. More specifically, goat cheese gelato with caramel. The result was tangy like cheesecake; it needed the sweetness of the caramel to even it out.

“I’ve never tasted anything like it.” She plunked down on the sofa as if her legs might buckle any second. Her thigh brushed his. Excellent.

Her eyes crinkled in a smile as she licked the spoon, and that made his heart flutter right there. Cooking was about crafting an experience, bringing pleasure, creating emotion. Cooking for Lili, cooking with Lili, had given him more joy than anything in recent memory. Jack rarely cooked in his restaurants anymore, and it had been a long time since he’d witnessed such genuine reactions to his food. Cooking show guests didn’t count.

I’m no longer a chef. I just play one on TV.

Her tongue skated a slow slide across her bottom lip and her shoulders danced a shiver before she put the bowl on the coffee table. She leaned over to the credenza behind her and picked up her camera.

“Ready for your close-up?” she asked, turning her sharp gaze on him. All business.

“Let’s do it.”

She started out slow with mid-distance shots like she was warming up the camera or maybe her artist’s eye. Jack watched in fascination as she stepped outside the woman he had been getting to know and transformed into another person. Focused, absorbed, all her concentration on the task.

“Should I be doing something special?” he asked after a couple of minutes of silence, punctuated by hushed clicks and her soft step as she moved around seeking out new angles.

“Just relax.”

Relax. He rubbed his damp hands against his jeans and flexed his fingers. After a few more torturous minutes, she slid in beside him and pressed some buttons on the screen, grimacing as she scrolled through the images.

“Am I a difficult subject?”

“No.” She squinted at him, then back at the screen. “You’re coming off as a bit tense. Is something wrong?”

“I’m just tired. Some harpy kept waking me up every five minutes last night and I didn’t get a wink of sleep.”

“Next time I’ll let you fall into that coma.”

He smiled. “Could we talk while you work or would that upset your focus?”

“Oh, sure.” With a quick breath, she raised her camera again and restarted the assault. “How’s your new restaurant coming along?”

“Good. Most of the basic construction is complete. I’m hoping to get started on design in a couple of weeks after I get back from London and the next shoot in New Orleans.” The excitement of launching a new venture sent a surge through his blood. It had been two years since he’d opened his place in Miami and he longed to bury himself under that weight again.

“The life of the jet-setting chef. Sounds glamorous,” she said with that same teasing disdain she used when talking about his sought-after sperm. An image of slowly throttling Cara flitted agreeably through his brain.

“It’s not so glamorous. There are media junkets and parties but it’s more business than pleasure. I spend most of my time traveling to a show shoot or checking up on my restaurants.”

“But it has its compensations, right? The places you go, the people you meet, all that hobnobbing with the rich and famous.”

Still with the attitude, but he couldn’t deny his enjoyment when he’d got his first taste of that scene. The parties, the people, the adulation. Hanging on the arm of a beautiful, successful woman. It had been quite the head rush, until his career started to overshadow Ashley’s and her tantrums increased in direct proportion to the interest of entertainment reporters in the Jack Kilroy brand. Thinking on it now filled him with embarrassment at his embrace of that phony world.

“Sure, but it gets old. To be honest, I’d prefer to be in my restaurant cooking.”

Lowering her camera, she regarded him speculatively. “Did you cook for Ashley?”

Promising, promising.

“Not when we were together.” As if that would have ever happened. “Ashley came into my place in New York once before I knew her. Someone told me she took two bites, said it was divine, and that she couldn’t possibly manage another morsel.”

“Oh, how dare she? So you got your revenge by dating her and pushing her into that swimming pool.”

“Don’t believe everything you read.”

“Hmm,” she hummed, back behind her camera. “That didn’t happen? Ashley was very vocal on the subject in all those interviews after you broke up. And then all the details about how insatiable you were in the bedroom. Don’t disappoint me and tell me that wasn’t true.”

He deep-sixed his irritation. “Ashley was bombed and standing too close to the edge. Do you really think I would do something like that?”

Her camera mask never moved and the futility of persuading her otherwise sat like a jagged boulder in his belly. So much for thinking the photographer-subject experience might be conducive to intimacy. Instead, he got this alien feeling of being invaded and probed and found wanting.

Minutes later, the siege ended. They checked the photos together, arm against arm, skin blistering skin. She had captured his variable moods—wariness at first, then reluctant acceptance, before the big finish with him taut as an arrow. Almost reverently, her fingers traced the images on the small playback screen. He knew better than to take it personally.

“But you definitely hit that photographer. It was all over the news,” she said, picking up where her internal checklist of his crimes had left off. Determination to prove he was a blot on society was etched in the grim set of her mouth. “I’m sure your date appreciated the macho defense, though.”

Every cell in his body ignited into rage, though he was unsure if it was because of what happened that night four months ago or because of the casual way she tossed out her conclusion. Anger clogged his throat, stifling any effort to speak.

He knew what she was doing. She wanted him. He’d seen it when they cooked together. He’d seen it in how her lust-stoked gaze raked him, lingering like a kiss on his mouth. How that body-made-for-pleasure beveled his way when she talked about her father’s disapproval. The DeLuca family rock needed to be touched and ravished and held, and she needed someone to tell her that she didn’t have to do it all on her own. And evidently, that someone wouldn’t be him.

She’d decided to create a wall for her own protection, a wall that bruised when he banged up against it. If she couldn’t fight him off with logic, she’d construct her own truth to push him away. He was a fame whore, a star f*cker, a juicy cut of tabloid meat. Placing him into these shallow categories was a hell of a lot easier than trying to see what lay beneath.

“You don’t think much of me, do you?” Draping it in the casual wrap she was so expert in weaving didn’t work; it still came out bitter. He picked up the bowls and marched into the kitchen, defeat and need cramping his chest.

Maybe she was right. Maybe Jack Kilroy, superstar chef, was as deep as it got.

* * *

“Jack,” she called out softly as she followed him into the kitchen. Mountain-strong, he stood, those broad shoulders she had longed to sink into an hour ago immobile with anger. Was this what she wanted? To poke him with her camera and harsh tongue until satisfied that he was less than the man she knew him to be?

“Not that it’s any of your business,” he said to the countertop, decked out with her nonna’s vibrant cookie jars, “but I was having dinner with my sister in London and this photographer prick got up in her face as we left the restaurant. I politely asked him to stop and he didn’t.”

Oh God, his sister? A vague memory of some shaky cell phone footage filtered through her haze of shame. A lissome blonde being pushed around while Jack shielded her from a vampire’s prying lens. Capturing his first date post-Ashley had been quite a tabloid coup, and Lili recalled that furtive, vicarious thrill she had felt because of Cara’s new connection to him. She even joked with Gina about Cara needing hazard insurance if she was ever seen in public with her hotheaded boss.

But the devil was in the details, and the details had been lost in the aftermath of yet another tawdry example of celebrity versus paparazzo. Just one more round in the ever-escalating appetite for intrusion into lives over which the public feels some measure of ownership. Here she was, as bad as those bloodsuckers. No, worse, because she had seen it from the other side. She had been called horrible names, insulted to the point of tears, and she still thought it fine and dandy to look down her nose at him. All because she was afraid of how off-kilter she felt around him.

“They never said it was your sister. I didn’t realize.” Every word felt like a mouthful of cement, dragging her under like a cement-weighted body.

“No, you didn’t.” He spun about to face her. “To people like you, I’m just a collection of sound bites and video grabs and prurient headlines, all grist to the celebrity industrial complex. Admit it, you assumed I’d sleep with you because apparently I’ll shag anything that’s not pinned down. You can’t even fathom the idea of dating me because I’m not a real person to you. I’m just a player on your fantasy-f*ck list.”

That’s exactly what she had thought. It was easier to label him a pretty boy charmer who had his uses but wouldn’t be around for the long haul. The luxury model you take for a test drive before you settle for the Honda Civic. Easier, but wrong.

“Jack, I’m so sorry. I did make an assumption about you.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said gruffly. Showing no surprise at her apology, his face descended to a blank slate. Usually he wore his emotions freely, and the new look didn’t suit him.

“It does matter,” she insisted, to probably unmovable ears. “I have this tendency to get smart when I’m nervous. I’m not used to this—”

“Used to what? Seeing beyond the surface?” He coughed out a caustic laugh. “I imagine that must be problematic for an artist.”

If he had slapped her, it wouldn’t have hurt as much. Since finding her home behind the camera, she had used it as both her sword and her shield. In the space between her lens and her subject, she was untouchable. Unbreakable. Ancient slights and cuts vanished into the ether with an open shutter and a definitive click. Framing people in her viewfinder allowed her to box them up, all neat and tidy.

But the flat, shiny planes and darkened contours of her work were two-dimensional, and not much else. Art was neither neat nor tidy; it was messy and deep and, most of all, human. Tonight there had been a brief moment when she held him captive in her lens and saw something beautifully honest in his fatigue. I have it, she thought, but a click of her Leica later, the moment was gone. Never good enough.

“I need to go,” he said, rough and deep.

Her throat had closed up, but she believed she nodded.

He stared at her with those unfathomable eyes, the exact color of which she could never accurately apprehend with her camera. “Lili, I have to leave.”

She gulped down her regret and curled her hands into fists at her sides to stop the imminent shake. “I know,” then when he still watched in harsh silence, she offered a more resolute, “Just go.”

He didn’t budge. He just stood in her cramped kitchen, eyes judging, taunting her with his vitality. Reminding her of everything she couldn’t have. Through his tee, she imagined she saw his heart as it pumped his life force to all the pulse points of his body.

“This is just too frustrating for me,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Her breath stopped, momentarily shutting down her lungs. She could not have heard that right. It was like he was continuing a conversation in his head and her words had made no impact. By now, he should have been halfway to his hotel, but he chose to stand in her kitchen telling her…

“Frustrating for you?”

“I’m in physical pain here,” he said, his voice strained.

“You’re in pain?”

This is what he had turned her into, a simpleton who parroted ridiculous male declarations. At what point in the history of gender relations had women decided that flipping a guy’s statements into questions was a valid argument strategy?

He looked to the ceiling and appeared to be marshaling his strength. “Lili…”

She had given him an out. She had treated him shabbily and had her apology grudgingly accepted. But he had started this thing between them with every hot look he blasted her way since stumbling out of her fridge. Last night, she had offered herself on a silver platter, and her reward was a one-way ticket to Foolsville and the public scorn of his fan club. Tonight he had shown up at her door with his goat cheese caramel gelato and his f*cking tractor-beam smile, continuing his mission to plow soul-deep ruts in her mind. And now he had the gall to tell her he was frustrated?

An anger bomb exploded in her chest, hurling bitter shrapnel to every nerve ending. “Jack Kilroy, you do not have a monopoly on frustration. I’m frustrated, too.”

More of the gimme-patience look. “Sweetheart, it’s different for a man.”

“Are you saying it’s worse for a man?” she demanded in a tone that said he’d better not be saying that.

The man smirked. Smirked! “Yes, I am. It’s much worse.”

“That’s bullshit. You’re prancing around, kissing me”—she jabbed him in the chest, gratified when his eyes flew wide and dark—“teasing me, and I’m not supposed to be affected by that. My whole body is aching.”

Oh, dear. Inside thoughts, Lili.

“Aching?” he asked, a bourbon-laced rasp.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to will away her admission, but she would have more success stopping her heart from beating. She couldn’t stand the thought of him leaving without a kind word or a soft touch. Just a whisper of his hand to ease the pain, a light abrading to return her to sanity. That’s all she needed; then he could go on his way.

“Tell me,” he urged. “Tell me where it hurts.”

In for a dime…Brazen hussy that she was, she opened her eyes and pulled his hand to her sensitive breast. Sexual awareness tinged then bloomed into full-scale knowledge as a branding heat rocked her. In that same moment, she realized her error.

One touch could never be enough.