“That’s why I went into private security,” Chase said blandly. “No actual shooting ever comes up, and the pay is much better.” He smiled at them, full wattage. “You girls hungry? When’s the last time you ate, hon—Ms. Lenoir?”
“Yesterday,” Célie said when Vi didn’t answer. “Come on, we all know that. That’s why we’re here.”
Chase reached into the basket of brown eggs Vi had on her counter and started cracking them into a bowl.
“Being a top chef is all about reputation,” Vi said, still trying to get the degree of damage done to her through his thick head. “You build your reputation on your abilities, but if people can get hold of anything to destroy that reputation—something like this—then it’s gone. This would knock even a top male chef all the way back down the ladder, but as a woman, people have been looking for me to fail from the start.” Since she was born, in fact.
Célie folded her arms across her belly, protecting her guts in visceral sympathy for the blow Vi had taken to hers, nodding. Lina looked grim. As pastry chef, the blame didn’t stop with her the same way it did with Vi—her name didn’t front the restaurant—but she still felt the responsibility, and it could even quite easily turn out to come from the pastry side of the kitchen. The eggs, the custards, the sauces.
Chase nodded, too, matter-of-factly. And held Vi’s eyes. “So you’re going to quit?”
Vi stared back at him. Her lips pressed. “Do you have a death wish or something?” Quit!
“Why is he still alive?” Lina asked Vi curiously. She shook her head in some wonder. “Either this whole food poisoning thing is slowing your reflexes, or you must really like him.”
Hey! Shut up, Lina.
Chase perked up, giving Lina a hopeful look and then eyeing Vi again, like a puppy starved for affection.
“I feel sorry for him,” Vi said. “He’s a civilian. Easily scared by a few thrown pots.”
A little crease showed in Chase’s left cheek. He smoothed it out. “I should have tucked my tail between my legs and run right then.” He met Vi’s eyes. “But I didn’t have it in me.”
Vi’s teeth snapped. “If you don’t quit implying that I might have it in me if you don’t give me this little pep talk, I might have to kill you.”
“Seriously, you hooked up with this guy?” Lina said.
Vi flushed. She hadn’t realized it was quite that obvious that she’d actually hooked up with him.
“He’s worse than Joss!” Célie said. “About deciding he knows all about your life and what’s good for you. How is that even possible?”
“Do you have some kind of radar that pings the most arrogant guy in the city for you, every time?” Lina said. “How do you even find these guys? Now you know why I like geeky, shy guys.”
A tiny flicker of Chase’s blue eyes toward Lina, just this hint of a narrowing of his eyes as if he was filing away information. But it was over so quickly Vi might have imagined it.
“I’m shy,” he said to Vi.
Oh, for God’s sake.
Chase tried to look bashful.
Vi clapped her hand to her forehead, and, once again forgetting her splint, bonked herself in her own eye. A?e.
“Have you ever thought about opening a restaurant in Texas?” Chase asked hopefully.
“Texas?” Vi recoiled. “Nobody can catch stars in Texas.”
“Okay, you know what? I’m going to take you out on my grandparents’ ranch in the middle of the night, and then you try to tell me that again.”
Vi rolled her eyes. She’d seen real stars once in a while. Weak things in a gray sky. They weren’t that impressive. “What do they eat there, rattlesnake?”
Actually, what if she did a dish with rattlesnake and—
“We eat good beef,” Chase told her, eyes narrowing. “And I don’t think someone who thinks snails and frogs are food has room to cast aspersions.”
“Do they eat cactus?” Vi’s head tilted. “What does that taste like? You could do something kind of fun with cactus and—” She broke off.
Chase grinned, looking very pleased with himself. “And if these idiots in Paris don’t know how to appreciate you, people in Texas would find it hilarious that you food poisoned the President.”
“I did not—damn it, he hadn’t even arrived yet!”
Chase continued as if she hadn’t spoken. Kind of like the Internet. “Don’t chefs of your standing usually start opening second and third restaurants about now? No, seriously, this is a good idea, Vi. You could spin this in your favor. In fact, if you named the restaurant something like Potus’ Last Meal, you’d probably draw a crowd just because they’d respect your balls.” He paused, and his eyes lit with fervor. “Actually, you need to open it with that name in Washington. Oh, hell, that would be hilarious. People would love you. Plus, it’s a lot shorter commute to where I’m stati—where my house is, in the U.S.”