Feel the Heat (Hot In the Kitchen)

chapter Two


Lili grasped her sweater so tight it was starting to resemble the Baby Jesus’ swaddling. Quietly, she pressed the office door shut, the hushed snick a marked contrast to her thunderous pulse.

“Hunk-shaped package? Please tell me that doesn’t mean what I think it does.”

“All that snarky back-and-forth, the sexual tension dripping in the air…” Cara fanned herself. “I’ve got goose bumps over here. I just knew you two would hit it off.”

Hit it off? Well, she certainly had the “hit” part right. Jack Kilroy was the most arrogant, superior, arrogant—wait, she’d already said that—guy Lili had ever met, and she worked in the restaurant business where that personality type was as common as tiramisu on an Italian dessert menu. He also happened to be the hottest streak of male she had ever clapped eyes on, and unfortunately her nipples and her other body parts agreed wholeheartedly.

Bad body.

Take away the glittering green eyes, the scimitar-curved cheekbones, and the accent that made her knock-kneed, and he’d be nothing. Nada. Just a slab of beefy charisma with a few well-appointed muscles and a so-so smile. Okay, a gorgeous smile that hinted at good humor behind the amateur dramatics. Oh, hell, there was something about Jack Kilroy that turned her crank. If her life wasn’t so complicated, if her family’s business wasn’t a breath away from collapse—if she wasn’t such a coward—she’d be tearing open the wrapping on that hunk-shaped package before you could say “Happy Birthday, Lili.”

Cara stood to lean against the desk, drawing Lili’s envious gaze. Her sister had great thighs, directly attributable to her diet of coffee, PowerBars, and a borderline manic devotion to the treadmill.

“The show tapes Monday night. Jack has to do a spot-check on the new place he’s opening in Chicago, and then he flies out to London on Tuesday for business. Now, I know you’re out of practice, but I reckon that should give you enough time to get the job done.” She added a conspiratorial wink.

Lili suppressed a compulsion to pop her one in the ovaries. “Cara, are you ill? On drugs?” She pressed her palm to her sister’s forehead. No obvious signs of fever, but her eyes were wide as saucers. Oh yeah, she was high on smugness.

Cara lowered her voice to a whisper. “Lili, in case you haven’t heard, Jack Kilroy is a complete man whore. He’s so freaking needy he’ll jump at any opportunity. Even you could manage to hit that.”

Even her? So she wasn’t the most adventurous sort when it came to men, but that one hit lower than she expected. “I’m not some charity case, you know. I have options.”

Cara gave a dramatic eye roll, which made her look much younger than her twenty-nine years. “Riiight, options. How long has it been since things finished with Marco?”

Lili shifted uneasily. Since Marco had called time on their fling several months ago, her sex life had been on life support. The battery-operated kind. A night with a hot guy might be just the ticket, but Jack Kilroy? No amount of advanced yoga could get her in shape for a guy like that.

“It’s been months, and Jack is more than up to the task,” Cara continued blithely.

“Cara, I’ve seen the type he hooks up with.” Ashley van Patten, soap diva, was enough to strike fear into the nether regions of any woman. Lili might have a voluptuous body type that a lot of guys went for, or claimed they did if she was to believe Cosmopolitan, but sex royalty like Jack Kilroy did not usually deign to slum among the little people.

“Lili, you’re real and gorgeous and ten times hotter than the likes of Ashley. Best thing he ever did was dump her, though she got him back good in those interviews.” Her sister chuckled. “‘Naughty Nights with Kilroy.’ He went into DEFCON Divo for that one.”

Other tawdry tabloid headlines popped into Lili’s head. Duracell Jack. Kinky Kilroy, and her favorite, Red Hot Kilroy Peppers. Headlines that summoned up wicked thoughts of Jack’s hard body wrapped around her like a luscious lick of fire. Quickly, she dowsed that illicit blaze with a sobering wet blanket from her memory bank. He had taken a paparazzo to task with his fists for daring to record Jack with his model-of-the-week.

“I’m sure beating the living daylights out of that poor photographer got him back on track. And the Victoria’s Secret angel he hooked up with the week after would have kissed it all better,” she said, feeling a mite ridiculous that she knew so much about a perfect stranger.

“Listen, who cares about the details? All you need to worry about is crooking your finger and watching how fast he comes running. And you heard what Ashley said. Wizard in the sack,” Cara added, laying it on like a thick layer of cream cheese frosting.

Lili was sure he was the Voldemort of all things down and dirty, but he’d need several more blows to the head before he would take an interest in her. However, just before he dismissed her with that coal-dark look and cool put-down about Italian cuisine, there had been a moment when…

“Wait a second.” Bone-chilling panic sloshed over her. “Does he already know about this brand of crazy you’re selling?”

“Of course not. What do you think I am, some sort of pimp?”

“I think in your case, it would be a madam.”

Cara curled her cupid-bow lips into that saputa smile Lili knew so well, the one that said that she was privy to some great wisdom that a pleb like her younger sister could never hope to attain. “Lili, you’re only twenty-four. You should be out clubbing, hooking up with guys, and deleting their filthy text messages the next day.”

Tears stinging her eyelids, Lili twisted away and focused on the great cathedrals of Italy calendar on the bulletin board, pinned next to the clipboard detailing last night’s miserable numbers. Sometimes her sister displayed all the sensitivity of a grizzly on crack. Lili fought for neutral. Take deep breaths. Think of a calm place. Better yet, think of Mom’s shrimp linguine with lemon caper sauce followed by a slice—no, two slices—of ricotta cheesecake. Self-pity did not coordinate in any way with the amazing boots she was rocking.

“Maybe I’d spend more time clubbing if I didn’t have to look after Mom every day and then come here to work every night.”

Cara rested her chin on Lili’s shoulder and rubbed her arms, surprising Lili out of her ill humor. The DeLuca sisters weren’t touchy-feely Italians, no cheek-pinching or bosom-clasping for them. Six months of air-kissing with D-listers had turned Cara soft.

“I’m sorry. I know you’ve been a trouper, looking after Mom this last year and a half. But she’s been in remission for almost three months.”

True, but fear, Lili’s overriding emotion these days, still clenched her heart like a fist. If it wasn’t dread that her mother’s illness might return, it was needling anxiety at how rudderless Lili felt with her life stuck in a buffering pause. Neither did it help that her father disapproved of everything his youngest daughter did, from how she managed the restaurant to her impractical dream to make photography her life.

Cara carried on, oblivious. “I just think Jack might be good for you. A sexy rut to get you out of your sorry rut.”

Lili faced her sister, every fiber pissy because she might be right. Traces of pity were etched on Cara’s beautiful, fine-boned face.

“Now that Mom’s better, you can get your life on track. Come to New York, go to graduate school, quit being Il Duce’s lackey.” She brightened. “I can get you a job at my company. We always need talented photographers for our publicity materials.”

Lili managed a watery smile. Graduate school seemed as fuzzy as a Monet landscape now that all her savings had gone to her mother’s medical care, or that was what she had taken to telling herself lately. Of course, if she really wanted it to happen…Leave that rock alone. Turning it over would only reveal those creepy-crawlies of self-doubt she went to considerable lengths not to acknowledge.

Cara was making the effort, so Lili tried to front it out. “I don’t think I’m a good match for that kind of work. Shooting plates of coq au vin and crème brûlée…” She shuddered.

Her sister laughed, a naughty, girly giggle that sounded so good on her. “Well, maybe not. But I think you’re a good match for someone I know. Nothing serious, just a hot and sweaty one-night stand.” One eyelid dipped in a lascivious wink. “And I’m sure Jack would love if you snapped a photo of his coq—”

“Cara!” Lili had missed her sister’s filthy-minded take on everything. Truth be told, she had missed her sister.

The idea of a hot and sweaty one-night stand with Jack Kilroy made her…well, hot and sweaty. What would Wonder Woman do? She’d take charge and kick some ass, that’s what.

And given half a chance, she’d rip off Batman’s cape and ride him senseless.

* * *

It didn’t escape Jack’s notice that, at 9:00 p.m. DeLuca’s Ristorante, in the usually hipster-sodden Wicker Park, wasn’t exactly packed to the gills. More like a third full, if even. So far, the clientele had consisted of an older Italian crowd, most of whom looked like they’d caught a group ride in from central casting. Special-occasion diners or once-a-monthers, judging by how they were all dressed up in their Sunday best on a Saturday, complete with heirloom bling. That customer base might be good enough to keep things ticking over in a smaller place, but it couldn’t possibly sustain an establishment this size in an area where overhead was high and competition was higher. Hard to fathom the night ending with seventy-five covers, never mind the one hundred fifty Cara’s sister had boasted.

Still, the nostalgia he felt earlier about the well-worn countertops and equipment had stayed with him now that he was front of house. A snob to the toes of her designer shoes, Cara had implied her family’s business was some sort of down-market, red-sauce emporium with plastic checkered tablecloths, but nothing could be further from the truth. It was a fairly stereotypical design as far as neighborhood eateries went—two dining rooms separated by a large arch, cherrywood tables covered with pristine white linens, chocolate leather banquettes, a fifty-foot bar, and the ubiquitous frescoed ceiling. A touch stodgy, reminiscent of a bygone era. Or maybe it was Dean Martin crooning in the background that left Jack feeling like he was stuck in a Rat Pack movie. Music for Italian Americans to conceive by.

The artsy photos dotting the walls might have kicked the old-world ambiance into modern if the subject matter had been a tad less run-of-the-mill. There was something arresting about the picture compositions, though. Off-kilter with strange angles of Italian types doing Italian things. Overhead shots of old men playing something like boules. Children having fun with wooden hoops and roller skates, with only glimpses of legs and arms showing. Jack didn’t know much about art except what he liked, and while the portraits whispered of comfort and familiarity, he recognized a quantum of quirky yearning to break free of the frames. Cara had told him her sister was an amateur photographer, but this work didn’t really fit the image he had formed. Following that fiery display this morning, he would have expected something with more edge.

Speaking of edge, he looked up at the fidgeting server with the big eyes and even bigger hair who appeared to be perched on it. Either she was pleased to see him or she needed to pee.

“All right, sweetheart?”

Jack’s drawl sent Italian Smurfette into a frenzy of hair twirling. A quick scan of the room confirmed half of the other servers went to the same salon. And they all looked alike. It was as if he’d been drop-shipped into the nickel slots aisle at Caesar’s in Atlantic City.

“I just wanted to say how excited we are you’re here, doing the show and everything,” she gushed. “We’re all big fans. Everyone’s dying to meet you.”

Jack found it hard to believe there was anyone left he hadn’t already met. For the last twenty minutes, his table had been inundated with DeLuca cousins who were dying to meet him. Looking into the lively face of the girl before him, he doled out one of his dazzling smiles, the ones he’d been told made his female fans horny. “I’m thrilled to be here. Really, I am.”

Laurent shook his head and mouthed, Score.

Jack grinned and turned back to his fan girl. “What was your name again?”

“Gina. Gina DeLuca. I’m Cara’s cousin.” She motioned to Cara, who stood at the bar talking to her sister. The lovely Lili had covered up her shapely legs and stellar behind in black trousers, but the trade-off was a fitted shirt hugging that figure he’d been fantasizing about all afternoon. Jack would never have considered himself a hair man—was that even a thing?—but there was something about those riotous waves that heated his body like a furnace. She’d made an attempt to tame its nuttiness. While it was still on the big side, it appeared to have gone through some sort of anger management regimen since this morning.

Before the night was out, he would apologize to her about diminishing her father’s cooking and all Italian cuisine. Yes, she had goaded him, but his response had been rude. And off-base. Eighteen months in Umbria had taught him plenty about the beautiful complexities of la cucina Italiana. Nevertheless, there was something both touching and exhilarating about her loyalty to her family. A hundred fifty covers, his arse. That little braggart.

“Did you want to hear about the specials?” the cousin asked, vying for his wandering attention. Without waiting for a response, she launched into a recitation of the additions to that night’s menu. “We have two special appetizers tonight—funghi arrosto, which are wood-roasted mushrooms with pancetta, and polpettine arrabbiate. That’s veal meatballs in a spicy sauce.” She leaned in and pushed her hair back behind her ear, a gesture that reminded him of Lili. Christ, now he was being reminded of her? “The meatballs are spectacular.”

“I’m sure they are,” Jack murmured, indulging in a dutiful gander at her cleavage before diverting his gaze around her to eye Lili.

“Next up for primi are two special pastas. First we have ricotta gnocchi with sage and butter sauce.” She pulled a card from her apron and consulted it while Jack tried to silence his inner critic. It was only a neighborhood joint; the staff couldn’t be expected to memorize the specials in their entirety. “We also have penne strascicate—that means ‘mixed up.’ It’s fresh penne pasta with sausage, tomatoes, onion, and thyme. It’s a very old recipe from Tuscany. Uncle Tony says his mother used to make it for the family every Friday night back in Fiesole.”

Jack itched to meet Uncle Tony—he especially wanted to see the man’s kitchen at full tilt—but Cara had said her father preferred to wait until they’d been served their entrées. Sounded like some power thing. He was used to games like that when he dined in restaurants at the topmost echelon. It was unexpected in a midscale establishment, miles from Chicago’s Restaurant Row.

The munchkin was gearing up for the homestretch. “Now for the secondi. Bistecca fiorentina, made with Chianina beef. That’s for two people. And branzino al forno—whole sea bass, wood roasted.” She edged closer to the table, bending over to give them another flash. At this rate, he was confident he’d be able to pick her breasts out of a lineup.

She lowered her voice to bedroom level. “Between you and me, I hate fish. And calling it by its Italian name doesn’t make it taste any better.” She chuckled and Laurent joined in, probably thinking he was onto a good thing. Clearly he hadn’t noticed the Jupiter-sized rock weighing down her left hand. Jack kept his testiness in check. It irked him to no end when servers inserted their unsolicited opinions into the proceedings.

Although, given the size of the menu—the pages upon pages of every Italian specialty prepared since the fall of Rome that just screamed “waste” and “where the hell do I start?”—he supposed an opinion or two wasn’t such a bad thing. Rather than wade through the tome before him, he made an executive decision. “Just bring us one each of the specials and a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino. And make the steak medium rare.”

Once the server had bounced off, Laurent cleared his throat. “I thought after Ashley you had sworn off women.”

Sworn off? Nah, he’d just encased his dick in concrete, that’s all. Ashley had left Jack feeling contaminated and in need of a full-scale mind and body bleach. He had thought they had a connection, but in reality, he was just another tool in her quest for celebrity dominance. And once Jack became better known for his sex life than his kitchen expertise, he realized he had a problem. Casual hookups were no longer on the menu.

“You mean the busty munchkin? No chance.” His traitorous eyes sought out Lili, who was busy showing a statuesque redhead and her plainly undeserving oaf of a date to a table. Finally, some diners under the age of forty.

“I’m talking about ma chérie, Lili.”

Jack snapped his head back so sharply he winced. “Oh, she’s your chérie now? She’s far too young. She must be the same age as my sister.”

“But she’s not your sister,” Laurent countered quickly, because no one wanted to dwell on a friend’s sister when the potential of a mind-blowing lay was on the table. Jack silently agreed, not wanting to think about his sister either. Where Jules, ten years his junior, was scatter-brained and likely to lose her job at the drop of a hat, Lili projected a calm responsibility beyond her years. He had been watching her closely ever since he arrived, enjoying the ease with which she managed everyone, customers and staff alike.

Laurent coughed again. It was really annoying. “So if you are truly not interested, you won’t mind if I take a shot?”

“You’re asking permission? You never ask permission.” A muscle clenched in Jack’s midsection, but he chose to ignore it. Not trusting his instincts seemed to be the safest option these days.

Laurent smiled and, not for the first time in their fifteen-year friendship, Jack wanted to pummel him. “You saw her first.”

Jack laughed off his discomfort, forcing his fists to cooperate. “That’s awfully gallant of you. Have at it. Maybe you can bag the chatty cousin too.”

A few minutes later, Cara was back and Gina was struggling with the bottle of Brunello as if it were an enemy combatant. Following a quick sniff, Jack put the glass down on the table. The smell was akin to wet dog, indicating that the cork, and by extension, the wine, had been contaminated by a chemical compound.

“It’s corked.”

Her eyes grew wide in clear confusion.

“Bad. Appalling. Wretched.” He tried not to sound too irritated, but come on.

Gina stole a peek at the bar before turning back to face them. “Are you sure you don’t want to taste it first?”

Now it was Jack’s turn for the wide eyes. If a guest—an expert—said the wine was undrinkable, then his word should be accepted without question. Laurent smirked, probably anticipating the reaming that inevitably followed when some sassy piece challenged the boss’s authority, but before Jack could reply, Cara chimed in.

“Gina, you know that saying ‘the customer is always right’? Well, it’s a load of crap. But you know who is right? The chef with several fine dining establishments in three countries and six Michelin stars.”

“Seven,” Jack corrected instinctively. It should have been eight; that two-star rating for New York still rankled. And no matter how many times he told Cara that the restaurants received the ratings, not the chef, she always got it wrong.

Cara continued her defense of his superior nose. “And if Jack says the wine is corked, then it’s corked. So toddle off and bring us another one.” With a mutinous glare, Gina stormed to the bar.

Jack’s fingers instinctively went to the throbbing bump on his head. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

“You need to do something,” Lili’s cousin Tad murmured from behind the bar. He nodded at the estrogen flock near the water station.

Yeah, yeah, didn’t she know it. She hauled in a fortifying breath and strode over to the ringleader. Her second cousin, Angela, was fronting the charge, licking her lips and bombarding Jack’s table with lustful gazes.

“If I have to tell you one more time to get back to work, tonight’s tips will be dropped in St. Jude’s collection plate at eight o’clock Mass tomorrow.” Not that she’d be stepping across the church threshold herself—she might turn to ash—but her pious aunt Sylvia would be happy to make a donation on behalf of the servers at DeLuca’s. Angela scowled while the rest of the girls separated in a flurry of giggles, throwing longing glances in Jack’s direction.

Lili seated Mr. and Mrs. Castillo, here for their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, and returned to gossip with Tad.

“So, Wonder Woman, huh?” her cousin said, giving the bar a quick swipe with a damp cloth while he shot a glittering smile at a bouncy redhead on her way to the restroom. Ever the multitasker, her cousin. The poor girl’s perk faltered as she wobbled on her heels, helpless in the face of Tad’s blue-eyed, square-jawed, hint-of-scruff charm.

“Hey, I didn’t look half bad in that costume,” Lili protested.

“Yeah, I heard Kilroy thought so, too,” Tad said. “And judging by the heat he’s packing tonight, I’d lay good odds he spent his day thinking about peeling you out of that costume.”

“Oh, hush.”

But Tad was right. The air was thick with sex pheromones, and while ninety-five percent of it was one-way traffic from every female in the room to Jack’s table, the remaining five percent was swimming upstream from the man himself to her spot at the hostess podium. With the scorching looks he was sending her way, she half expected the smoke alarms to go off any minute.

“What are you going to do about it?” Tad asked.

“What? Kilroy?”

Tad threw her a well-duh look. “Cara seems to think you’ve got an in. I thought she was talking out of her bony ass as usual, but now that I’ve witnessed the man in action, I’m inclined to agree.”

“I’m not his type. You’ve seen the women he dates.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t throw that Ashley out of bed for eating breadsticks. And then there was that lingerie model and one of those bikini babes from Survivor.” Her cousin had clearly found a kindred penis in Jack Kilroy. “Yeah, you’re probably right. How could you possibly stack up against those chicks?”

She knew he was being his usual sarcastic self, but it didn’t stop a sigh escaping her lips.

“Babe, I jest,” he added, his expression resolving to sympathy. “Trust me. All men like ’em curvy. It’s like, programmed into our DNA.”

Maybe, but Lili’s DNA still screamed, Danger! An afternoon of Google-Fu had thrown up all she needed to know about the lives and lusts of Cara’s star. Last summer, he’d been a minor-league TV chef on a fledgling network with fewer viewers than DeLuca’s Tuesday night covers. Then along came Ashley van Patten, star of struggling soap opera Tomorrow’s Hope. His people must have lunched with her people, angling to manufacture the next celebrity couple juggernaut. Jashley. Or Ashlack. Not as catchy as Brangelina, but it did the trick to reverse the slide of their respective ratings. Hers doubled. His tripled.

While their relationship ups-and-downs were entertaining, their train wreck breakup had been even more so: a public fight at one of those Hollywood mogul’s shindigs that ended with Jack wearing a martini and Ashley coughing up a gallon of chlorinated water after she fell into the kidney-shaped pool. Not long after, he had punched a photographer who got all up in his grill on a London street. Lili obviously didn’t have the dramatic flair to go toe-to-toe with Jack Kilroy.

“Ah, but still he stares.” Tad grinned, interpreting her apprehensive expression correctly. “Worried your lady bits might go into shock, babe? I know it’s been a looong while.”

“Maybe he’s not my type,” she said, shooting for haughty.

“Liar,” he said, then more casually, “We could make it interesting.”

“How interesting?”

“Fifty bucks says you can’t close the deal before he leaves town.”

She shot him an impatient look. “How about twenty minutes on your hog?”

Tad answered with the family stare-down, a skill learned by all DeLucas while still in the cradle. “I’ve told you before, Lili. I don’t think you can handle that much power.” Her cousin had a Harley but refused to let her ride it. It was much more fun to take potshots at what he called her “tin cup runabout.”

“Forget it,” she said, turning away.

“Okay, ten minutes. But it doesn’t matter because you’re such a chicken. You won’t go for it even if it’s offered up on a platter.” He sloped off to attend to a couple of cougars who had just stalked up and dug their claws into the bar.

Chicken. More like Little Miss Do Nothing, and though she knew Tad was only teasing, it still stung. Now that her mom was better, Lili should have been back on the life train, next stop grad school. Two years ago, she had plans to blow this Popsicle stand and finally transform into the person she had dreamed of as a tortured fat girl. Future Lili would be poised, self-assured, successful. Achieving an acceptable comfort level with her body should have instilled a similar confidence in her mind, but there were always those lingering doubts—about her artistic talent, her self-worth, her place in the world.

Until she got her restaurant back in the black, her place was at DeLuca’s, doing everything in her power to ensure the family’s future. Even if that meant enduring her father’s viselike grip on the business and her dreams. She sighed. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was a new life.

Minutes later, Lili spotted a teed-off Gina approaching the bar with a bottle of wine in one hand, a corkscrew in the other, and a face that even her extremely patient fiancé might have reservations about. While her cousin shook and gesticulated her way through an explanation to her brother, Tad, Lili ambled over to see how her meddling services might be best employed.

She placed a protective arm around Gina’s shoulders as the girl spluttered, “They…they shouldn’t talk like that to people. I know he’s a freaking genius chef, but that wine costs a lot of money. Telling me to toddle off. There’s no need to be rude, you know?”

Lili’s hackles rose as she contemplated tearing Jack Kilroy a new one. If that big shot big mouth with his behemoth restaurants and über-sensitive wine palate thought he could waltz in here and look down his British nose at everyone, he had chosen the wrong night to do it—and the wrong family to mess with. She pivoted quickly, only to bump chest-first into the object of her next tongue-lashing, who was doing a wonderful impersonation of a Stonehenge monolith.

He stepped back just as she placed a hand on his chest to…well, to stop him, she supposed. Mercy, if he wasn’t incredibly solid and warm and undeniably male. He was definitely going to hear it. Once her brain unwarped and she could think straight.

She raised her eyes using his shirt buttons as her road map and blinked when she reached his face. He really was the most handsome man she had ever seen in person—movie-star gorgeous—and briefly her resolve wavered. But that shit-eating grin was enough to straighten her spine and snap her back to mountain pose. Yay, yoga.

“The next time you want to act like a card-carrying jackass with one of my staff, you should ask to see the manager.” Her cheeks burned. He opened his mouth—that crooked, sexy mouth—and she put up a hand to stop him.

“You had better be a good tipper, Kilroy, because money’s the only way you’re getting out of this intact.”

“Lili—” Gina tried to cut in.

Lili waved a hand. She had this.

His feet didn’t move, but his upper body leaned in so close she caught the scent of his skin, woodsy and citrus, reminiscent of a Sorrentine lemon grove. New man smell, nothing like it. He combed his fingers through his thick—and more lustrous than it had a right to be—hair.

“I actually came to apologize to Gina. Cara was bang out of order and shouldn’t have said what she did.”

Gulp.

So maybe she didn’t have it after all.

She shot a death glare at her cousin, who offered a wobbly smile in return.

“I’m sorry. I misunderstood the situation,” Lili muttered before snapping in Italian, “Gina, take another bottle of Brunello to Mr. Kilroy’s table. Then it’s your turn to check the restrooms.” Her cousin slunk off.

Lili turned back to the Duke of Hunk, who had crossed his arms over that barrel chest and appeared to be waiting for a more groveling apology than the one she’d just given.

“You’re still here,” she said.

“I am.” He smiled.

She scowled because it was the opposite of smiling, and if she gave him the slightest opening, he would take it as some sort of encouragement.

“You seem tense,” he said, his brazen grin widening.

“I have a lot to do and you’re very distracting.”

“You find me distracting, Lili?”

It was the first time he had said her name—correctly—and it sounded like a devil’s whisper. Her heart pounded like a trip-hammer. She choked out a laugh because it was ridiculous to be affected by something so silly as a man saying her name, even when the way he said it was calculated to make pulse rates soar and panties plummet.

“Oh, I don’t, but your siren call seems to have cast a spell on my girls. Maybe you should try to rein in your”—she flapped a hand and accidentally brushed against his chest, still solid, and warm, and male—“tendencies, so the rest of us can do our jobs.”

“If you can’t control your staff, that’s not my problem. I feel like a tourist attraction over there with all the visits from your girls. Perhaps you should train them better.”

Irritation simmered in her chest. She took great pride in how she ran DeLuca’s and in how her employees behaved, but she reluctantly admitted that the excitement of Jack’s visit might have led to a drop in everyone’s game, including her own. She was such a girl.

“There is nothing wrong with how my staff is trained.”

“So, trashing the fish special, arguing about the wine, and practically sitting in customers’ laps is all part of the training program? I’ve suffered through enough cleavage Italiana to last a lifetime.” His eyes gave an indolent dip. “Well, almost enough.”

He was doing it again, that thing where he spoke and he looked and her body ignited, setting the women’s movement back fifty years. His voice took a shivery road trip down her spine and back again. She tried to think of something to say, but her usual sass was out on a smoke break in the alley.

He tilted his head. “I understand this is a family business, but you may want to consider casting a wider net. Nepotism usually results in an inferior product.”

At last, her voice returned from its sabbatical. “We don’t hire people because they’re family.” Well, except for Angela. And, um, maybe Gina. Both were unemployable. Dammit. “We hire people because they’re good at their job. If you’d stop flirting with them and let them do that job, things might go a lot smoother.”

He moved in, taking up a stance a hairsbreadth from her body. “Don’t worry, I’m not interested in any of your waitresses,” he said, his voice a silky caress. “I’m more than willing to aim higher. Maybe even as high as the hostess.”

I’m the manager, you clod. Heart still slamming, she plastered on a bored smile. “Oh, please don’t raise your standards for me, Kilroy. Just like I won’t be lowering my standards to a fame-hungry megawhore like you.”

Bingo. A flash of something flared in his eyes. Nothing so mundane as disappointment, more likely the annoyance that accompanies a bruised ego. Men like Jack Kilroy weren’t used to being told they weren’t good enough, especially by a member of the hoi polloi.

“So you believe everything you read online? Pity, you might have enjoyed a visit to the lower depths.” With a theatrical turn, he strode to the end of the bar and took a seat.

Well, she sure showed him, but why didn’t she feel better about it? Instead of the rush of empowerment she expected, she was left feeling like a nitwit. A turned-on nitwit. Who needed contraception when they had a mouth as big as hers?

Tad held up the keys to his Harley and jiggled them. “Poor Lili. Looks like you won’t be feeling anything hot and hard between your legs anytime soon.”