Donna Kauffman - Walk On The Wild Side

Sunny blushed, feeling foolish for her earlier airs. “I won’t let you down, Mama Bennie.”

“I believe you’ll try, and that’s the best I can hope for. Now, there is one more thing before we fill out the paperwork. A minor bit of business, really.”

She had the job! Sunny was so relieved, nothing else mattered at this point. “I’m sure whatever it is, I—”

“Not whatever, whoever.” Mama Bennie pushed her chair back and stood. “Follow me.”

Sunny followed the older woman toward the back of the restaurant. They passed the double doors leading to the kitchen. There was a sudden burst of violent Italian, followed by the clash and clang of several pots and pans, followed once more with voices raised in a heated argument.

She paused a moment before Mama Bennie took her arm and continued down the hallway.

“Come, come. Don’t mind Carlo. He’s a hothead, but a pussycat on the inside. Really.”

Sunny wasn’t so sure about that. Another crash made her wince and look over her shoulder in the direction of the swinging doors. Just what had she gotten herself into?

She barely had time to finish that thought when Mama Bennie knocked once on a large wooden door then pushed it open without waiting for a response.

“Niccolo, I have our new kitchen help here. I wish her to begin immediately. I just need the papers.” Before Sunny could gather her wits, Mama Bennie thrust her in front of her ample bosom.

The man she faced could only be called imposing. And that was only partly due to his height. They were in a stockroom, and he’d been surveying the contents stacked on the crowded shelving units, a clipboard in his hand. Now he was staring at her. Unlike Mama Bennie, he didn’t welcome her with a warm smile. Not even close.

He wore black pants and a white button-down shirt with the collar undone. The sleeves were rolled up haphazardly over healthy-size forearms. She could see his white undershirt through the cotton. It was the old-fashioned tank style. She didn’t think they made those anymore. Something about the way it defined his chest and shoulders caught her attention. She jerked her gaze to his face, only to feel another little shock of awareness.

His eyes were a bottomless brown with thick lashes that should have been illegal on a man. And his hair all but begged a woman to sink her fingers into it. It was thick and dark and a bit wild, as if he’d just recently left the steam-soaked kitchen. She could easily imagine him all hot and passionate, shouting in Italian. That thought had her looking at his mouth. Big mistake. It was full, generous, even compressed in a hard line as it was now. Suddenly all thoughts of steamy rooms and heated emotions had her normally well-ordered mind racing in directions it never had before. It was like he’d found her hormonal On button and flipped it. Hard.

Then he shifted his focus away from her, and the switch flipped abruptly to Off.

“We’re not hiring anyone who looks like her to work in my kitchen.”

Mama Bennie snapped out something in Italian, which Sunny only partly caught, but the smoldering man before her curbed his tongue. His expression, however, remained heated. She didn’t think it was about hormones, though. Just as well. Sexist jerk. Probably the head chef or something. They were all temperamental. She’d figured that out at fourteen. So what if he was the embodiment of every red-blooded woman’s Italian stud fantasies?

Just because she looked like the stereotypical blue-eyed blond WASP she was didn’t mean she couldn’t make her way here in this swarthy, testosterone-laden little world of his. She’d won over Jean Marc, who could give lessons to this guy in testosterone spewing. She’d even won over Mama Bennie. She’d win over this guy, too. After all, winning was what Chandlers did best. She wondered briefly how her grandfather would react when she told him she owed her new job to his formative training.

So there she was, all primed and ready to do battle for blond, blue-eyed princesses everywhere, when Mama Bennie promptly took the wind out of her sails.

“Sunny Chandler, this narrow-minded young man is my grandson Nick D’Angelo. Despite his more obvious flaws, he’s good at what he does. He’s the third-generation D’Angelo to run this whole operation.” She beamed at them both. “He’s your new boss.”

“WOULD YOU MIND waiting out in the hall?” Nick didn’t give the young woman a chance to say no. He took her arm and steered her toward the door.

He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised when she yanked her arm free, resisting his assistance. When Mama Bennie stuck her nose in the family business, trouble always seemed to follow.

“Thank you,” she said in that oh-so-polite tone. “But I really think, if we’re going to be working together, that we reach an understanding right off.”

Nick scowled at Bennie’s approving smile.

“I’ll leave you two to work out the details,” she said, slipping out before Nick could stop her. She was seventy-six and shaped like a ravioli, but she could move with amazing speed when necessary.

Nick forced his fingers to relax on the clipboard and turned once again to face his latest entrant in the Marry Off Niccolo Sweepstakes. Mama Bennie must be getting desperate. This one wasn’t even Italian.

“I’m sorry, but you’ve wasted your time.”

Ms. Chandler planted her hands on her slender hips. “Do you, or do you not, wish to hire kitchen help?”

Nick sighed heavily. “I do. But I also do the hiring. And the firing,” he added with a pointed look. “Mama Bennie means well, but I’ll be frank with you. She only gave you the job because you’re young and beautiful.”

“Really,” she said, polished smile intact. “I promise you, I didn’t come in here expecting to get this job based on my good looks.”

Nick folded his arms, clipboard and all. “Oh? And just what qualifications do you have? We only seat seventy-five, but we offer a full menu. I need someone with experience working a kitchen under those kinds of demands. Do you have experience with Italian cuisine? Southern? Northern?”

His barrage of questions had been designed to make her understand in no uncertain terms exactly why he wasn’t hiring her.

She looked deflated and defeated. He tried to ignore the twinge of guilt he felt. So what if he was a soft touch for the occasional sob story? He still wasn’t hiring her. He supposed he could let her down easy, though. He blew out a long sigh and tried on his kinder, gentler voice.

“Listen, I have two weddings and a communion to cater in the next ten days, along with an annual street festival to prepare for. If I don’t get this order called in by three this afternoon, I’m going to have an angry mother of the bride on my hands, as well. I simply don’t have time to train anyone right now. I’m sure you’ll find something somewhere else. There are plenty of people hiring these days.”

He thought he’d done pretty well under the circumstances, but one look at her told him she didn’t appreciate his kind and gentle routine. So much for the easy letdown.

Somewhere between the angry mother-in-law and the no-time-to-train-you part, her chin had come up, showing off the rope of matched pearls adorning her neck, and her slender shoulders had squared beneath the designer blouse she wore. He should have gone with his original instinct and hauled her out bodily. But she was talking, and he found himself listening. Her teeth were white and straight, her lips exactly the right width and curved just so. He should have been turned completely off, as perfection rarely called to him.

He was drawn more toward the slightly offbeat, the woman with that one crooked tooth or a smile that was a bit too wide, eyebrows a bit uneven. A woman with a bit of the Windy City or the old country in her voice. With hips a bit too wide, breasts on the luxurious side and hair…lots of hair. Thick, wavy hair made to sink his fingers into. That was the kind of woman who got his attention without even trying.