Sarah Mayberry - Island Heat

“Tory.”

A small muscle flickered in her jaw as he used the shortened version of her name. She’d invited him to call her Tory on their one and only date, and he waited for her to revoke the privilege and instruct him to call her Victoria. He knew the exact moment she decided that there were bigger battles to fight—she broke eye contact with him and her face smoothed into an unreadable mask.

“You’re early,” she said, reaching for the white chef’s jacket lying on the counter nearby.

“Yep,” he said.

He was aware of her gaze darting up and down his body once, very briefly, as she shrugged into her coat and buttoned the quick-release closures with dexterous hands.

“Probably just as well. We’ve got our first demonstration before lunch. I wasn’t sure what you were planning on cooking, but I’ve prepared a general talk on spices and jerk mixes.”

“I’ll be demonstrating some local recipes,” he said unhelpfully. He wasn’t going to make it easy for her. She didn’t deserve it.

She crossed her arms over her chest and cocked a hip against the counter. “That’s it? You’re not going to tell me any more than that?”

“I’ll jot down the ingredients for you, if that’s what you’re after,” he said, shrugging.

He slung his toolbox up onto the bench and started to unpack his knives. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her straighten.

“If you have a problem working with me, you shouldn’t have said yes,” she said crisply.

Trust her to get straight to the heart of the matter. She never had been one to back away from confrontation.

“I said yes because a friend was in a bind. But beyond that, I don’t have a problem working with you, Tory. In fact, the way I see it, I owe you a debt of gratitude.” He began opening drawers and inspecting their contents.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked, clearly suspicious.

As well she might be.

“If you hadn’t sent me on that wild-goose chase to New York, I would never have met Signor D’Sarro. And I wouldn’t be where I am today,” he said.

That got her. She opened her mouth to ask who Signor D’Sarro was, but she shut it again without saying a word. She hated being behind the eight ball. He remembered that about her very clearly. It was one thing that obviously hadn’t changed.

Spotting the rolling pin, he pulled it out of the bottom drawer and transferred it to the top drawer, along with some wooden spoons, the citrus zester and the garlic crusher.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m setting the kitchen up so I can work.”

She huffed out a breath. “I already had it set up the way I like it,” she said stiffly.

“Tough,” he said, shrugging again.

She reached out and snatched the rolling pin from the top drawer before he could close it. “A little common courtesy wouldn’t go astray,” she said. “I have been working in this kitchen for two days, you know.”

“Who’s the guest chef here, you or me?” he asked, turning to face her.

God, he wanted her to fight back, he suddenly realized. He wanted her to say something so incendiary, so provocative that he’d have every excuse in the world to tap into the bellyful of anger that had been growing inside him ever since Danique dropped her bomb.

“We’re supposed to work together, share this kitchen,” she said, sidestepping his question.

“I repeat, who is the guest chef?” he asked.

She glared at him. He waited for her to pick up the gauntlet that he’d thrown down.

“You always were an arrogant jerk,” she said.

He felt a fierce surge of satisfaction. At last, something he could sink his teeth into.

“I’m arrogant? That’s pretty rich, coming from the Ice Queen,” he said.

The hot retort he’d been expecting from her never came. Instead she paled, and he saw that she clenched her hands into fists.

“Don’t call me that,” she said with quiet intensity, her voice wavering.

It threw him utterly. He wanted to fight, but she’d just thrown him a curveball. He’d been called a lot of things in his time—insensitive, irresponsible, childish—but no one had ever accused him of being deliberately cruel. He had the sudden sense that if he pushed any harder, Tory might burst into tears.

It was so removed from his memories of the self-contained, coolly poised young woman he’d trained with that he was forced to look away.

But it didn’t mean he was going to concede the battle. Tory hadn’t changed that much; if he gave her an inch, she’d take charge and start throwing her weight around as though she owned the place. Working methodically, he began to rearrange the drawers once again. After a few seconds, Tory made a small disgusted sound in the back of her throat, then she elbowed her way past him and pulled open the bottom drawer, dumping the rolling pin back in it. Shoving the drawer shut with her foot, she crossed her arms over her chest and challenged him with her eyes.

“I’ll just move it later,” he said.

“Try it.”

“Oh, I will,” he assured her.

Her eyes narrowed, and her cheeks puffed out as if she were holding in a few choice words of four letters.

He found himself fixating on her mouth, on the full rosebud of her lips. For a long second he couldn’t take his eyes off them.

“If I could have, I would have said no to this—you know that,” she finally said.

“Then I guess we’re both going to have to suck it up.”

She turned away without another word, and he stared at her back for a long beat. It hadn’t been anything like the first meeting he’d anticipated. He’d expected the conflict but not her vulnerability, and he didn’t quite know what to do with it. Frowning, he got down to work.

THE TERMBUTT-HEADHAD been expressly invented for Ben Cooper, Tory decided as she forced another smile onto her stiff lips. They’d nearly finished their afternoon cooking demonstration, and if she had a voodoo doll made in his image, she’d twist its head off and throw it in the rubbish disposal.

She bristled all over again as she remembered the way he’d walked in as though he owned the place and started rearranging the kitchen. He was exactly the way she’d remembered him, only more so. More confident. More cocky. More charismatic.

God, how she hated admitting that to herself, especially after what he’d said to her. But it was the truth. Age had not wearied him. Age had in fact been damned kind to him. His body was stronger, more muscular, his face more attractive with its laugh lines and the hint of roguish crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes.

The thing that really got her goat—apart from his born-to-rule mentality in their shared kitchen—was that he patently thought he was God’s gift to womankind. It was no wonder, of course, given the way the women in the audience responded to him. It almost made her ashamed of her sex. Word had clearly spread since their morning session, and the number of women seated in the theater had doubled for this afternoon’s lecture. And it wasn’t because they wanted to hear more from Tory. She had no illusions there. They had come to ogle and flirt with Ben—and, worse, he was encouraging it.

For starters, there was his chef’s uniform. Every chef she knew wore a white or black jacket with checked pants. It was traditional, professional. Ben, however, wore a pair of dark indigo wrinkled linen trousers paired with a navy singlet worn beneath his open white chef’s coat, the ensemble casually revealing his well-sculpted chest and long, strong legs to all comers. She’d stared outright when he’d come back into the cuisine center after changing.

“You’re not going to do up your jacket?” she’d asked him incredulously when he’d started preparing food for their demonstration.