Feel the Heat (Hot In the Kitchen)

chapter Twenty-One


So the advice of your elders means nothing?” Cara traced the rim of her martini glass and tilted those accusatory sapphire blues up.

Lili hid her smile in the mouth of the microbrew bottle she’d never heard of and looked around the chic bar, another recent addition to the neighborhood. Scattered throughout were gamine pixie dream girls and bearded hipsters wearing bowling shirts and trilby hats because it met their weird definition of irony. Trendy watering holes usually left Lili cold, but Cara only frequented places where the bar staff had advanced degrees in mixology. And she was buying.

“I’m not seeing Jack to annoy you. I happen to like him.”

Cara’s expression became so inflexible it could rival Botox as a beauty regimen. “How much?”

She imagined stretching her arms out to their full span. This much. Clearly, the pause had gone on too long because Cara jumped in pout-first.

“Oh God.”

“This was all your idea, Cara.”

“A hot and sweaty one-night stand, I said.” She inclined her platinum crown and the muted light from the wall sconce caught it just right, giving her a halo. So freaking beautiful. “Hot. And. Sweaty. Not our-second-car’s-a-Volvo. Not don’t-forget-to-pick-up-little-Emily-from-violin-practice. You’ve gone and done exactly what I said you shouldn’t do.” She lowered her voice. “You’ve fallen for him.”

Duh. Of course she had fallen for him. She was crazy in love with the guy, but she was trying not to be a dumbass about it. He might say he wanted her in his glittering world, but she knew this relationship had an expiration date that was fast approaching.

“I’m not stupid. I went in with my eyes open, and while I like him more than is probably good for me, I won’t collapse in a heap when it’s over.”

“Wait a sec—over?” Cara’s smooth brow pinched as she tore her gaze away from the dregs of her adult beverage. “Is that shithead acting chilly toward you or something? You don’t still think you’re out of his league?”

Sexually, no. Emotionally was another thing altogether. “No, he never stops telling me how hot I am. He makes me feel more desired than any guy I’ve ever been with.”

“As he should.” Cara tilted her head. “So what’s the problem?”

Lili smiled thinly at her sister’s show of support. “It just doesn’t feel real. It’s like some fever dream that I haven’t woken up from yet.” But she would soon enough if Jack didn’t first, because if she’d learned one thing from her time with Marco, it’s that the axiom Hot guys got bored was self-evident. When it came to men, past performance was definitely indicative of future results. “We’ll go our separate ways and life will go on as before.”

There was no missing the concern that flashed over Cara’s face. “You spent the last couple of years running around after Dad, looking after Mom, making the rest of us look like pigeon crap—” At Lili’s mouth opening in dissent, she held up a calming hand. “For which I am eternally grateful, so isn’t it time you thought about yourself for a change? Grad school, all the hopes and dreams bit, and if that includes Jack, then you need to go for it. No one expects you to put your life on hold any longer, Lili. It’s your time.”

That’s what she had been telling herself since high school, but the chasm between telling and believing was as big as the gulf between old, insecure Lili and that brave, liberated version of herself that always seemed out of reach. When life remained as hopes and dreams, then there was still the chance they might turn out okay.

Unable to voice her fears, she fell back on what she knew. “Thought you didn’t approve. What did you say about him? All he cares about is cooking and fu—”

“Maybe I was overly critical,” Cara interrupted with a smirk. “I have to say that since you’ve been knocking boots with Jack, you seem more confident. More assured. And he’s definitely a lot less of a divo these last couple of tapings, which I suppose we should attribute to you. You’re good for each other.” Sighing, she tipped her empty glass by the stem between her thumb and forefinger. “I assume he lights up your hoo-hah like a Christmas tree.”

Lili bit down on her lip. “Not going there.”

“Damn, girl, I’d tell you.”

“Liar. You never tell me anything about the guys you date. All that prime man candy in the Big Apple and your conversation sorely lacks for filthy details.” For all Cara’s rules about men, she never shared her adventures in Big City Singledom. It occurred to Lili that all might not be as perfect in Cara’s glamorous world as she had wanted to believe. The mere fact that she had graced Chicago with two visits in a month was indicative of some sea change in her sister’s life, though Lili couldn’t say what.

“Dating’s impossible in New York. Everyone’s too busy and they all think they can do better.” A brief flicker of discomfort passed over Cara’s face before she dialed up the sun in an instant. “Of course, with the new show, I’ll be working eighteen-hour days and wrangling a staff the size of the DeLuca clan. No time for men, so I need to live vicariously. Throw your old maid of a sis a bone and tell me about the lady boners.”

Lili leaned in and licked her lips. “I will say he talks a lot.”

Cara rolled her eyes. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me? The guy never shuts up on the set. Of course, he’s going to be a chatty Cathy during sex.”

“French, sometimes. It’s so sexy. And then he does this thing with his—” She took a long pull of her fancy beer, trying to regulate her hot and bothered temperature. “Oh, you wouldn’t be interested in that.”

Her sister’s mouth fell open. “Yes, I would. I’d be very interested.”

Lili burst into a laugh, Cara joined in, and for a moment, everything was A-okay. Her family’s business was on the brink of failure, Jack Kilroy’s fan club was probably taking bids from hit men, but otherwise, her life was not too shabby.

“Another round?” Lili raised her bottle to finish the last couple of fingers of her beer, but before Cara could respond, a shadow fell across the booth. She lifted her eyes to the smoking hot face of her dirty-talking boyfriend. A swig of beer spurted from her nose. Elegance personified.

A move that classy should have earned her a smile. All she got was Jack looking tall, dark, and pissed.

“Hey,” she said, to which he delivered a short nod. Still pissed.

Warm, itchy panic sloshed over her as she wiped the beer from her nostrils with the back of her hand. He took a seat in the booth, his body emitting dangerous, wavy vibes she could practically see.

“I didn’t expect you until tomorrow,” she said cautiously. “How did you know where to find us?”

“I stopped by the house to see Jules. Francesca told me you were here.”

“Is Jules okay?”

“I suppose,” he said, resigned, and her heart scrunched on seeing his pain.

“Are you okay?”

He picked up her beer and studied the label. “I’m fine.”

The last time he said that, he collapsed on the sidewalk outside her apartment. It felt like something similarly ominous loomed on the horizon. A voice at the next table whispered Jack’s name and a smidgen of anxiety flared in her stomach. Lili sensed rather than saw the wave of nudges as news of Jack’s arrival spread like a rash across the bar.

“You don’t seem fine.”

“Is it the contract?” Cara asked.

He glared at her. “Contract’s fine.” Okay, so banter Jack was all boxed up.

“I’ll get the next round in,” Cara whispered loudly, raising a dramatically arched brow at Lili that said she was doing them a huge favor and giving them some alone time. Lili cut a nervous glance around the bar. Alone time. Like that was possible.

“Did something happen?” Lili asked once Cara had left.

He answered with a kiss. A hot, demanding tongue sweep that made her thankful she was sitting. When he released her, they were both out of breath.

“I needed to see you. Just you.” The rigid set of his jaw paralleled the tightness of his hard torso, now encroaching on her body space. “How soon can we leave?”

Over his shoulder, she watched Cara’s tottering approach with an appletini, its contents flirting dangerously with the rim of the glass.

“Twenty minutes?”

“Ten. Then we go home and f*ck each other stupid.”

That eased a smile from her, but it vanished immediately under his insistent gaze. A gaze filled with intent and need and all the things she wasn’t brave enough to say.

Cara had barely sat before she started peppering Jack with questions about the new show. The size of the studio, crew members she had in mind, foreign broadcast rights. Jack’s monosyllabic answers kept Lili on edge, and as the conversation slackened, she tried to will a similar looseness into his body. Her hand found his under the table and he grasped it tight in return. None of that dead fish grip, either. This was a fully paid up registration to the handholding convention.

It worked. He relaxed, and she relaxed enough to get lost in the normality of it. The nearness of Jack, the weight of his body practically curled around her in the booth. Again, she marveled at how big he was—physically, intellectually, emotionally—and how right she felt in his powerful presence. She’d heard of this, how being with that special someone could make you feel as though you were the only two people in the world. That’s how Jack made her feel when he was with her. Like she was the only girl in his world.

Cara was babbling about convection ovens when Jack cut her off. “Cara, you think Lili should apply to graduate school, don’t you?”

Lili almost choked on her beer. They were doing this now? “Jack.”

He turned his I’m-not-messing-around-here gaze on her.

Cara divided an astute look between them. “I think it’s up to Lili.”

Jack scoffed. “If we were to leave it up to Lili, it would never happen.”

“This isn’t your call, Jack. I’ve already told you I can’t think about that.” She extracted her hand from his controlling grip.

Fast as a cat, he stood and held out his hand to her. “We’ll talk about it at home. Come on.”

Hesitant at first, she only got up because she didn’t want to make a scene, but she made a stand for the sisterhood by ignoring his proffered hand. Take that, bossypants.

Then she heard it. The titter.

It could have been from anyone about anything but she knew better. The hip-looking couple at the next table, the ones who had mentioned Jack’s name earlier, was all agog. The girl, a streaky blonde with an eyebrow ring, made no effort to hide her phone with the camera lens facing them.

Jack placed a hand at the small of Lili’s back, an intimate gesture that she might have read as just another assertion of Jack’s control if she wasn’t so concerned with getting out of Dodge tout de suite. She took a quick step forward, her worried gaze trained on the exit.

Walk past them. Avoid eye contact. Don’t acknowledge it.

“Fat cow.”

It was muted, a tossed away statement that struck hard in her breast and registered stranger still because it was said in a male voice. Online hate against women was usually fueled by other women, and Lili had always assumed the people who cared about this kind of thing were female and middle-aged and likely to be found dead after a week of no contact, welded to their La-Z-Boys while cats nibbled on their extremities.

Jack halted and spun around. So close. “What did you say?”

“Jack, let’s go.” She snagged his wrist but he held his ground, an immovable object. Mules had nothing on him.

The guy, a shaggy-haired surfer type, sneered. “Nothing, man, it’s all good.” His fingers nudged his phone provocatively on the table, while the girl plastered on a brittle smile. All for Jack.

“Did you take a photo of us?” Jack asked, his tone even to normal observers, but Lili detected the underlying turbulence. What had started out as cloudy with a chance of hot caveman sex was now turning into a cat-five hurricane about to make landfall in some idiot’s face.

“No,” the blonde said at the same time Surfer Dude said, “What if I did?”

Lili tugged again, but Jack twisted out of her grip and stepped forward and sideways to block her. Protecting her. She tried to shrink her body behind his but peeked around his arm, keeping a line of sight open on the couple.

“Whatever you’ve taken, I’ll need you to erase it. And apologize for what you said.” Jack’s voice dripped polite menace, like a gangster in one of those British Quentin Tarantino rip-offs. His smooth accent might fool someone into thinking he was weak. It was the perfect disguise.

“I don’t think so,” Surfer Dude said, taking a sip of his imported beer. CLYDE was embroidered on his two-tone shirt, but Lili doubted that was his name. Blondie’s face slipped into panic. Maybe she was able to read Jack’s body language better than her friend. Women knew these things.

“I’ll ask one more time. Delete whatever you took and say sorry.”

That edge in his voice jangled Lili’s nerves. “Jack, it’s okay. Let’s just go.”

“It’s not okay,” he said, his eyes still zeroed in on the guy.

“It’s a free country,” Clyde said.

“No, it’s not.” Jack moved so fast Lili felt her skirt rustle as if a rush of air had blown through it. With one quick thunder crack of violence, he grabbed the phone and slammed it against the edge of the table, then threw it down, shattered screen up. There were probably ways to retrieve stuff off phones with broken screens, but the message was crystal.

“Man, what the f*ck’s your problem?” the guy yelled, his voice pitched high enough to attract the rubbernecking attention of bar patrons in a three-table-deep radius. Lili slid a furtive glance to Cara, whose expression screamed, Leave! Leave before Jack beats the tar out of some bigmouthed moron in front of an avid audience with twitchy fingers hovering over their Send buttons.

Jack turned his imperious gaze on the blonde, who fidgeted with her phone and held it up, screen forward. “Deleted, I promise.” She looked at Lili and bit her lip. That was her apology, Lili supposed.

He jammed his hand into his pocket, peeled a couple of hundreds from his billfold, and threw them down with the same vehemence as the phone. His eyes, as murky as impenetrable night, sliced through Lili. That was a whole other level of scary.

“Now we can go.” With his hand grasping her arm tightly, he steered her toward the door.