Hungry for More

First Course





When working with a roux, liquids must be added very slowly or the mixture will be lumpy and not properly thickened. Like love, too fast or too cool, and all is ruined.

—JAMES LACHANCE, PROLOGUE, The Meal of a Lifetime


Chapter 1





Three months later

James stirred the melting butter counterclockwise, adding flour with a flick of his fingers, a snow flurry melting on the buttery sea. He watched the flour dissolve in the golden liquid, then handed the wooden spoon to Troy. He checked his watch. Three o’clock. Two hours to opening, three hours to rush, four hours to chaos. “Stir. No. The other direction. Counterclockwise.”

“Why’s it matter what direction I stir?” Troy asked. His question was laced with doubt and defiance.


James glanced at the boy. He was just a kid. Barely fifteen. James knew he shouldn’t be hard on him, but this was a roux, the classic combination of butter and flour that formed the base of French cooking—the base of life. You couldn’t go soft on essentials like this. “You wanna be a great chef, you honor the roux. Do not question the roux. I’m gonna check out front for the wine delivery.”

Troy changed the direction of the spoon with a scowl that made James proud. A great student asked, but a great teacher never answered, because anyone worth his or her balls in the kitchen didn’t give a shit what anyone else said. If Troy was going to be a great chef one day, he’d stir clockwise just to see what happened.

Besides, if James told the kid he stirred counterclockwise for luck, he’d lose face. And you never lost face in your own kitchen. Worse than death.

James passed through his restaurant’s gleaming chrome kitchen, grunting in admiration for Raul’s perfectly seasoned stock, for John-John’s exquisite mise en place, for Craig’s perfectly minced garlic. Each of his cooks told him to f*ck off, a chorus in his wake. He loved these guys.

He grabbed a wooden spoon and stuck it into Pablo’s soup of the day. “More salt,” he muttered. Pablo gave him the finger but added the salt. James passed the Guatemalan boys husking corn on overturned milk crates. The corn was shit. He could tell at a glance, feel it in the tips of his fingers as surely as if he’d grown and harvested and detasseled each ear himself. “Throw that garbage to the rats,” he commanded. “Then go across the street to Alma and beg. Roges! Ahora!”

Damn. Lousy corn plus his floor manager, Elliot, just told him that his best server, Roni, had gone AWOL. The night was shaping up to be a nuclear meltdown. A thrill of excitement raced through him. All good chefs were adrenaline freaks; it was in the job description. A meltdown was a test of manhood, of ability. It was all in a night’s work.

James pushed through the swinging doors into the deserted, darkened dining room, thinking about the menu for the night. He was short a first-course special. A delivery of lust-inducing shiitakes had arrived that morning, but they’d keep. Better to use the broccoli rabe that was dying in the walk-in fridge downstairs.

His restaurant, Les Fleurs, was the only two-star French restaurant in Philly (besides Le Bec Fin, the bastards), as rated by Le Guide des Restaurants. That is to say, as rated by God. Two stars meant a six-month wait for reservations and a constant panic headache at the base of James’s skull at the thought of losing even a fraction of one of his precious celestial bodies. Les Fleurs was going to be the death of him. And what a way to go. Bury me in foie gras, white truffles, and red wine. He loved the place like a woman.

No, more than a woman. He hadn’t slept more than four hours a night since he’d opened his doors to rave reviews two years ago. No woman had ever been able to keep him up that long.

The windowless dining room was dark except for a single stream of snow-reflected daylight coming through the front door’s glass panes, a reminder that, to the normal world, dinner was still a long-off event. He flicked on the bar lights, grabbed the seltzer siphon, and shot a stream of ice-cold liquid into his mouth.

“Can’t a person get a bite to eat in this joint?”

He peered into the dimness. A woman stood in the darkness. He could just discern her outline in the shadows. How had she gotten in here? James reached behind the bar and flicked on the overhead work lights, throwing the room into garish display.

Hello.

Her face was a valentine heart, her eyes as black and slanted as a doe’s, her lips a perfect bow. Sparkling snowflakes dotted her tangled hair, blinking in and out like tiny SOS warning beacons. A surge of lust rose within him.

“I’m here for Roni.” Her voice was sandpaper rough.

Right. She must be the temp server to replace Roni. James had overheard Elliot sweet-talking into his cell, trying to steal a server from La Fondue across town to replace Roni tonight. It was standard restaurant practice to pilfer help. No hard feelings. Three weeks ago, the scum at La Fondue had picked Louis, James’s garde-manger, right out from under him in the middle of a Saturday-night rush. All was fair in love, war, and high-priced food.

James watched the woman closely. “Elliot told you the drill? We do a four-table split, under the table for tonight, on the books if this turns into a regular gig, and whatever bonus Elliot promised for jumping ship.” He wasn’t usually involved in front-of-house affairs, but he wanted to keep talking to this woman. Wanted to keep looking at her. In the sedate perfection of the tasteful white-on-beige dining room, she looked like a rosebush in the desert. A mirage.

She leveled her black eyes at him, watching him like a cat. Then, all at once, she swept her knee-length shearling coat behind her, a swish of her tail, and came straight toward him, smoky, dark, full-bodied, and confident. A silver-dollar-sized gold pendant swung between her breasts with pleasing effect. This woman was cayenne in a blush sauce. Hot and smooth.

She dumped her gloves and coat into his arms as she glided past him to the deserted bar. The heat of her body rose off her discarded clothes.

“ Do I look like the coat-check girl?” he asked, intrigued by her boldness. He raised her coat and inhaled her scent. Cinnamon and clove.

She ducked under the bar, looked him up and down, then tossed him a wicked smile. “You look like the coat-check girl’s fantasy lay, Cheffie.”

Her sexy, f*ck-me smile almost knocked him off his feet. He put her coat onto the bar and slid onto a stool, watching her inspect his stock. He had dated the coat-check girl once. Maria. He had made a soup inspired by her, a tomato bisque. Spicy, with an acid undertone. But Maria was nothing next to this woman. A soup.

The woman continued to ransack his bar—an act no floor staff would ever dare. For a server from the Fondy, she sure didn’t seem to know much about restaurants.

But he wasn’t sure he cared. She wore a black fitted corset-type thing that cinched her waist, swelling to a stop just below her remarkable breasts. A white, off-the-shoulder peasant shirt spilled out from under the corset, covering her in a thin layer of fabric that did little to hide her black lace bra. Layers of long cotton skirts, some hanging low, some bunched at the hems, cascaded out from below the corset. She could have just exited stage right after the first scene of Carmen. She was shabby but gorgeous.

Wait, she was really shabby. Threads were loose on her shirt, hems undone on her skirts. Dangerously sexy, but no way was she from La Fondue. That was a classy operation, despite its asinine name. Where had Elliot found this woman?

She pulled out two glasses, then plucked the fifty-bucks-a-pour single malt off the shelf. “Drink?”

He shook off her offer. The pendant around her neck fell forward as she poured. It was a gold cross inside a red circle, surrounded by some sort of engraved writing. It seemed to glow, but that was most likely his overheated imagination. It had been a while since he’d been near a woman this sensuous.

Had he ever?

The woman poured two shots despite his refusal. “So where’s Roni?”

“Why do you care?”

She threw back her shot. Considered a moment. Threw back his, too. Then repoured. “She’s not here?” Her voice was flat.

“Why would I be hiring a temp server if she’s here?” He struggled to follow the odd turn the conversation had just taken.


A pause. Something dark clouded her eyes. She licked her lips. “Oh. Yeah. Right. I get it now. That’s what you were yakking about—books and tables. Right. I’m the temp server. To replace Roni.” She dared him with her obvious lie.

A surge of energy spread through him. Okay, more than energy. Lust. This woman had nothing to lose, and she knew it. Down, boy. This was business. They needed a server tonight, and here was at least a warm body.

A hot body.

The sexiest woman he’d ever laid eyes on. Plus something else he couldn’t put his finger on. The contrast between her bravado and her shabby clothes threw him. In the split second after the overhead lights had hit her, he had glimpsed something in her eyes that he recognized. But it was gone before he could place it. Or, more honestly, it was still there, but his interest had strayed elsewhere. He tried to keep his eyes off her chest. “Ever wait tables?”

She downed her drink. “For a few weeks. Mexican joint. Got fired for stealing from the register.” She cocked her head and blinked her doe eyes, daring him.

“Did you?” He already knew the answer.

“Of course. Shit job.” She licked her lips, the tip of her tongue a promise.

James checked his cell for a call from Elliot. If he hadn’t looted a replacement server for Roni by now, he wasn’t going to. James’s other servers could handle an extra table each. But an extra set of hands—not to mention an extra set of what was so magnificently spilling over her black corset—would help with Dr. Trudeau, who came every Tuesday night for his one-night stand—consommé, bib salad, and roasted duck served wordlessly by Roni and only by Roni, the beautiful Gypsy with the big black eyes.

Wordless seemed unlikely with this woman, but at least Dr. Trudeau would have these cauldron-deep eyes to stare into as he slurped his broth.

I’ll just have to keep an eye on her . The thought made his crotch jump. An eye; only an eye. “Do you have a name?” he asked.

She seemed to consider. “Amy,” she said finally.

“Hi, Amy. I’m James.” He wondered what her real name was. Well, if she stuck around, he’d find out eventually.

Maybe.





Salade de Tres Fleurs

Lobster salad with ginger and tamarind reduction

—JAMES LACHANCE, The Meal of a Lifetime