Bringing Home a Bachelor (12 page)

16

“S
O
,” P
ETE
SAID
, still ignoring his conscience as he moved inside Melinda again later as they lay on her bed. “I think you should come and work for Playa Bella.”

“Mmm,” was her immediate response, as she arched to meet his next thrust. Then, “What about your current pastry chef?”

“He’s gone,” Pete assured her, knowing that Reynaldo would make that true as soon as they’d secured Mel’s services. He felt bad for the guy, but it wasn’t his decision and it couldn’t be helped in the face of Reynaldo’s resolve.

“I thought you agreed not to do a sell job on me if I had a drink with you.”

Pete grinned. “I didn’t mention it at all while we were at The Blue Martini, did I?”

“You play dirty,” she complained.

“I’m about to play dirtier,” he promised, pulling out and then sliding down her body.

For the next few minutes, she had no more complaints—only accolades.

Afterward, he levered himself over her, putting his weight on his elbows, and smoothed the dark hair back from her forehead. He kissed her, long and tenderly. “So will you think about it? About coming to work at Playa Bella?”

She shook her head. “I like being independent, Pete. Having my own business. Calling the shots. I don’t want to answer to anyone.”

“You’d have a great salary, benefits, 401k…”

“Yeah, no. I just got out from under my overbearing parents four years ago. The last thing I need is an overbearing boss—especially one as chauvinist as that Reynaldo guy. Sorry.”

Pete mulled over her answer. So she wanted independence. She didn’t want a boss. How could he meet her terms and still get her on board for Reynaldo? How could he make everyone happy?

It was his area of expertise.

He could find a way to do it.

He knew he could. He always did.

He lay back down beside Melinda and took her hand as they lay together in the dark, with just a shimmer of moonlight sliding in through a gap in her bedroom curtains.

“What did you mean when you said the Green Machine was your escape chute?” she asked.

The question took him by surprise. “Why?”

“I don’t know—your voice got funny when you said it.”

He stayed silent.

“What did you want to escape from?”

Pete shifted uncomfortably. “My brother,” he said after a pause. “My dad.”

She waited expectantly.

“They didn’t get along. My dad used to beat the crap out of my brother—he’d mouth off to him—and when it first started, I’d hide.”

“Oh. That’s awful.”

“I was a lot younger,” Pete said, hearing the defensiveness in his own voice. “I was scared.”

Mel squeezed his hand.

“It would usually start with my dad yelling at my mom. He never hit her. He would hit the wall next to her head, or the door. But my mom would start to cry, and that would make my brother mad and so he’d say something, and then my dad would yell at him, but then go right back to yelling at my mom.

“So then my brother would get in his face and tell him to stop. And then my mom would scream at him to leave it alone, but it would be too late…my dad wouldn’t let himself hit a woman, but he’d unload on Brent.”

“Oh, Pete,” Mel said. “I’m sorry. Everyone thought your dad was a nice guy. We had no idea.”

He shrugged. “Of course you didn’t. Nobody did. Brent was years older than us. Brent would go get in fights at school, too, so that he didn’t get asked by teachers about the bruises. I thought he was just crazy, but he sort of knew what he was doing, in a sick way. He didn’t want child protective services on our doorstep.”

Mel put a hand up to his cheek.

“I used to crawl under the bed,” Pete continued. “Then came the day when my brother pulled me out by the ankle and started punching me, you know, afterward. He had a split lip and this nasty expression on his face and he told me to shut up and stop crying. That he wasn’t going to cry, and that I couldn’t, either.”

“My parents heard us fighting and then my dad came in and it was even worse for Brent. They were crashing around the room. The window was open, so I pushed out the screen and dropped to the ground outside and ran.

“The pattern was kind of set that day. It went on like that for years, but I was home as little as possible. I went to friends’ houses, I worked my paper route, I played sports, I worked on my car. I wasn’t your typical rebel second child. I was the good kid. Brent smoked pot, called me a pussy, dropped out of high school and worked in a restaurant. He ended up joining the army at age nineteen. I kept my mouth shut, avoided conflict, got good grades and went to college.”

“I’m sorry,” Mel said again.

“If my parents got into a fight,” Pete mused, “I just told myself that he never actually hit her, and so it was okay. I ignored it. I didn’t want to be his stand-in punching bag, you know?

“He grabbed me once and shook me like a terrier shakes a rat. He was screaming, ‘Take a shot at me! Take a punch! Go ahead, you little shit! I know you want to!’” And I couldn’t. I just closed my eyes and basically played dead until he dropped me to the ground. I was a pussy—to him, anyway. But not on the football field.”

“You were not,” Melinda said. “And that’s an ugly word, anyway. You were smart, Pete. You refused to engage with a crazy person, an abusive jerk.”

He rolled away from her to face the wall. “Smart? I don’t know about that. I just followed old habit. I didn’t want my teeth on the floor in a pool of blood, like my brother’s.”

“You did the right thing,” Mel said. After a pause, she asked, “What happened with your parents? I heard they moved to Birmingham, but…is your mom okay?”

Pete nodded and rolled back to face her. “My mom is great. You know what happened? Brent was gone and I was in college when my dad finally really hurt himself—he punched a stud, broke his hand, and she had to take him to the hospital. She left his ass in the waiting room and told him to get counseling for his temper. That the marriage was over.”

“So did he?”

“Yep. When he got home with his hand in a cast there was a cold casserole waiting with a note that said she’d gone to her mother’s. She’d be back home again when he’d gone to see a therapist for six months and had the bills to prove it. So I guess after a couple of months of relying on ESPN and sit-coms for company and being utterly domestically challenged, he did. Then he went through an anger management class and now he waits patiently while she yells at him on occasion.”

Mel laughed. “You’re kidding.”

Pete shook his head. “Nope. I’m not. I almost fell over in shock the day I saw it for myself.”

“Well, good for her!”

“She tried to make him apologize to my brother, too. But that didn’t fly—my brother can antagonize the old man with a glance.”

“I didn’t know Brent well,” Melinda said thoughtfully, “but he always seemed angry about something. He always had an attitude.”

“Born that way,” Pete said. “Chipped his shoulder coming out of the womb, had colic as a baby and never got over the bellyaching. Then again, I don’t think either of my parents was ready to have kids when they did. They were too young. My dad didn’t want to share my mom with ‘the brat.’ Nice, huh?”

“Then it’s actually amazing that they’re still together.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“Do you wish they weren’t?”

Pete didn’t know how to answer that. “I used to wish my mom would leave him,” he said. “I was terrified of him. Now he just seems like a fat, middle-aged grocery sack that I don’t relate to, much. But I guess she’d be lonely without him.”

* * *

I
T
WAS
LATER
, after they’d been asleep for hours, that Pete woke up feeling horribly guilty. He’d accepted Jocelyn Edgeworth’s business, asked out her daughter as required, had made love to her and was even now plotting to manipulate her into his boss’s web at Playa Bella. He was the shit in a Machiavellian sandwich.

Unfortunately, he’d also woken up with the perfect idea: the one that would make everyone, including himself, happy.

Reynaldo had told him to find a solution for the boutique’s retail space. Reynaldo had told him to hire Mel. But Mel wanted independence; her own shop.

So why not open a boutique bakery, right there in Playa Bella’s retail space? The more he thought about the idea, the more he liked it. Mel would get increased traffic from the hotel, and could raise her prices because of the elegant surroundings. The hotel made money from leasing the space, and could benefit even more from Mel being there if they somehow showcased her.

“A holiday baking open house,” he said aloud, not even realizing it. “A gingerbread house competition, with the elaborate entries auctioned off for charity at a big ball. Better yet, she offers baking and cake-decorating classes. Or…she has her own televised show!”

“Whah?” Mel murmured sleepily.

“Yes!” Pete shouted, smacking his hand down on the mattress and forgetting all about guilt and Machiavelli.

“Aaaaagh!” Melinda bolted upright, her hair wildly askew and her naked breasts bouncing. “What? What’s wrong?”

Unable to help himself, Pete tweaked a nipple. “Playa Bella will have our very own Ace of Cakes!”

Mel yelped, smacking his hand in the dark. “What are you talking about? Why would your hotel feature a TV show about baking?” She almost knocked her bedside lamp over as she reached for the switch.

“I’m brilliant,” Pete announced, as the room became illuminated.

“That’s nice. Why aren’t you asleep and brilliant?” she asked, a little acidly.

“No, really! We showcase you, feature you, make you a star!”

“Pete, do you have a fever? Have you been drinking?”

“Listen,” he ordered, and told her of his vision. “We have to do something different with that retail space anyway—it can’t stay in business trying to sell three-hundred dollar ties the color of a flamingo’s butt—”

“You’re crazy,” Mel said.

“No! This can work, I promise you.”

“I have an existing lease,” she protested. “I built out the space. I bought commercial ovens and equipment—”

“All of which can be moved,” he pointed out. “And I bet I can sweet-talk you out of the lease or offer the owner something in return…I’m really good at that.”

“I’m sure you are, but what makes you think I want to move onto the premises of Playa Bella? It will change the whole nature of my business.”

“Your business will explode,” Pete told her. “Just think about it.”

“I am thinking about it,” Mel said in dubious tones. “And I’m not sure I want to teach classes—”

“Why not, if it will bring you more customers?”

“—not to mention that there’s no way you can guarantee me a TV show, Pete. You’re not God!”

“No, that’s true, but Reynaldo just happens to be a big stockholder in the WMIA affiliate’s parent corporation, and it would only be a good thing for him and Playa Bella if we wrote a pilot and pitched it. Or we can start with a small local cable show. You don’t understand, sweetheart—this could be a huge moneymaker for everyone involved, and bring an enormous customer base right to our doorstep. Then you could come out with a line of cookie cutters and bake pans in the shapes you mentioned at Mark’s wedding—starfish, sand dollars, boats, fish, suns…”

Mel muttered something that sounded like “that’d show Gutierrez.” She began to look thoughtful, and Pete knew he had her.

Then her expression changed. “But I’d have to work for that creep, Reynaldo.”

“No, no, no. You’d be your own boss.”

“But within his hotel, which means that he ultimately calls the shots,” she said, balking.

“Nope. You’d just be leasing the space, like you do right now at your current shop. You build it out the way you want to and bring in the equipment. Easy. You don’t answer to Reynaldo. You’d barely see the man. And,” Pete added, unable to resist, “you could still get those free massages at the Playa Bella spa.” He grinned.

She squinted at him in the lamplight, chewing on her bottom lip.

“Hey, stop that. You’ll eat it right off. Only I’m allowed to chew on your lip,” he teased.

“Getting awfully bossy and proprietary, aren’t you?”

“Why? Are there other men you allow to chew it?” Pete asked, getting unexpectedly cranky about the idea.

“Maybe not exactly…”

He rolled onto her naked body and mock glowered down at her. “Not exactly? What do you let other men do to you?”

“I don’t know. Things I like them to do,” she bluffed.

“Things like this?” He took one of her breasts into his mouth and pleasured it.

Mel moaned. “Huh-uh.”

“Then how about this?” He did similar things to her other breast.

“No,” she said, gasping a little.

Pete slid down south, way south, and did something wicked.

“Oh, Pete,” she sighed. “No other guy does that either, so please don’t stop…”

17

“A
ND
SO
,” P
ETE
FINISHED
, his arms spread wide, “this is a fantastic solution for us all, don’t you agree, sir?” He aimed a toothy grin at his boss.

They sat in Reynaldo’s office with its sweeping views of the bay and downtown Miami. A life-size portrait of the man in polo garb, standing next to a massive bay thoroughbred, loomed from the opposite wall. A bronze bust of Reynaldo crowned its own mahogany pedestal. And Reynaldo’s latest tousled-haired trophy wife, dripping with diamonds, gazed triumphantly at visitors from an eight-by-ten-inch, gilt-framed photo on a desk so large it rated its own zip code.

“Not to mention that the Have a Heart Foundation has scheduled their ball here at Playa Bella in mid-October, and the Charity League Holiday Bazaar will be here in December. Projected revenues are up by…drumroll…twenty-two percent.”

And if those projected figures turned into solid ones by year’s end, Pete’s future at Reynaldo hotels was assured.

“Hmm,” Reynaldo said, rolling a Cuban cigar between his palms. “A boutique bakery?” He frowned. “You’ll have to check with the health department—I think she will have to do her baking in the existing kitchens, though she could sell the goods in the storefront.”

Pete thought about this. Melinda wouldn’t like it. She preferred having her own small, private domain.

“And we would receive a percentage of sales under the arrangement, eh, Pedro?”

Pete had no idea if this was okay with Mel, but he nodded. He’d take it up with her—and his annoying conscience—later.

Reynaldo was now flipping the cigar from end to end between his index fingers and thumbs. “If she is using the Playa Bella kitchens, however, then I see no reason to have a separate pastry chef. She should do our commercial baking here, as well.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa…” Pete held up a hand, but in the face of Reynaldo’s raised, supercilious eyebrows, he dropped it. “I doubt she’ll agree, sir.”

“I see no reason to underwrite her expenses and publicity if she is not contributing to our bottom line.” Reynaldo clamped the Cuban between his teeth and folded his arms across his chest.

“I think she’ll contribute a great deal to our bottom line, sir. Especially if she brings in the kind of traffic I’ve projected, and puts Playa Bella in the spotlight as a culinary destination. I’m envisioning a multi-week gourmet baking course with a dessert-wine tasting, eventually. And it could be international, especially with your great contacts in Columbia, Venezuela and Argentina. If you can get some of those jet-setters down there to come up and play golf while their wives—”

“Please.” Reynaldo waved a hand. “Those people have paid chefs on staff,” he said dismissively. “Their wives don’t cook.”

“We appeal to their artistic sensibilities,” Pete said. “This isn’t cooking. It’s high art that only the most sophisticated and elegant can appreciate…much less achieve.”

Reynaldo cast his eyes heavenward.

“Besides, there’s also the spa for these ladies, as you have so astutely pointed out. And high-end shopping nearby at Bal Harbour, Merrick Park Mall, Miracle Mile.”

His boss pursed his thick lips around the Cuban.

“There are very fine gentlemen’s establishments for the men,” Pete continued, “not to mention exclusive private gambling a mere limo’s ride away. We make it a couples’ destination vacation, with plenty of options.”

Reynaldo grunted. “I still say the girl takes over as pastry chef as well, or there is too much expense with too much risk.”

Pete looked at him in dismay. Mel would never agree…unless?

“I don’t think we ultimately want her focus there, sir. But maybe she could have a sous-chef under her direction who handles that aspect? You could pay the sous-chef less than half what you’d have to pay Melinda. And this way, if she comes on board, she pays you for the retail space and you don’t pay her a dime. She brings in notoriety plus revenue, and you get an added percentage of that. Where’s the downside?”

His boss chomped on the cigar thoughtfully.

“So you end up saving—” Pete figured out the number and told him.

“I like it,” Reynaldo said finally. “Okay. Make it happen, Pedro. Start low, though, with a basic job offer. Can’t hurt. I give you full authority to negotiate for me. Get a contract together. See it through.”

And just like that, they were off and running.

Pete couldn’t wait to tell Melinda.

Then he remembered the Machiavellian sandwich. What the hell was he doing?

Nothing wrong, he told himself. He was truly doing only what was best for everybody. He was keeping Reynaldo and Jocelyn and himself and Melinda all happy. It was a win-win-win-win situation.

* * *

T
HINGS
BEGAN
BADLY
for Pete when he started, as per the Big R’s instructions, with a general job offer, not so generous salary and bare-bones benefits.

“No,” Melinda said simply. “Not interested.”

Pete upped the salary, keeping everything else the same.

“Nope. I told you, I don’t want to work for anyone but myself.”

He nodded. “Okay, then. I’m authorized to offer you the boutique on a lease…” He made her an offer that he found fair but was still very favorable to Playa Bella.

Mel’s eyes flashed blue fire. She raised her chin and shook her head. “That’s a high rent to begin with, Pete, and there’s no way I’m giving away fifteen percent of my sales to that little Latin Caesar.”

Pete spread his hands wide, palms up. “The rent is incredibly reasonable for the luxury space and high-end amenities you get in return. Plus the new, up-market clientele. And free parking.”

“I have free parking now. The space isn’t any larger than what I have here, and the only true ‘amenity’ I can think of is carpet, which I don’t want. And what’s wrong with my middle-class clientele? They keep my doors open just as well as snooty ladies with Dior doggie-carriers.” No need to tell Pete that she was worried about how to pay expenses after losing the Java Joe’s account. She’d just keep that to herself.

“So what would you find more reasonable?” Pete asked. “Name your figure.”

First player to throw out a number loses. “Name yours.” Mel gave him a lipless social smile straight out of her mother’s repertoire and enjoyed watching him squirm.

Pete dragged a hand down his face. “Listen, I’d love to give it to you for free, darlin’, I hope you know that—”

“Of course.” She brightened her smile and didn’t give him an inch. She had a business to run.

“—but I negotiate on behalf of Reynaldo.”

“Exactly.”

Pete sighed. “Okay, how about the monthly lease and twelve percent of profits? Remember, he’ll pay for the build-out—”

“Big of him, since he can keep it the same and throw a coffee shop into the space later.”

“—and get you on your own cable show—”

“Which is time-consuming, takes my attention away from work, and has a small, limited, local audience.”

“—as well as provide a sous-chef to handle your responsibilities here at Playa Bella—”

“Responsibilities which I don’t want, not to mention the fact that he’ll save money by hiring a sous-chef and just putting my name on the menu.”

Pete’s pleasant smile was fraying at the edges. “But you’re getting a phenomenal opportunity with us.”

Mel sat back, increasing the distance between them, while Pete still leaned forward. “You came to me,” she pointed out.

He gave a slight nod to acknowledge this.

“So make it worth my while. Just because I’m a girl—” here she got in a jab at Reynaldo “—does not mean that I’m naïve or that all I think about is my nails.”

“Of course not. You’re a very astute businesswoman.” Pete tossed out his true offer, the one he was not prepared to go below. “All right. The monthly lease money and ten percent of the profits. Your name on the menu but no actual responsibility besides designing the dessert menu and providing the recipes to the sous-chef. The cable show, seasonal baking contests sponsored and promoted by Playa Bella. That’s an unbelievable deal.”

“An offer I can’t refuse?”

Pete nodded, expecting to wrap this up.

Melinda pursed her lips. “Take five hundred bucks off the monthly rent and Playa Bella gets two percent of the profits.”

Pete’s jaw dropped open. “You’re smoking crack,” he said as pleasantly as it was possible to say such a thing. “A hundred bucks off the rent and eight percent.”

By the time she’d finished with him, he looked downtrodden, rumpled and frustrated. But Mel was exultant. She’d shaved three hundred bucks off the monthly lease amount and chiseled him down to three and a half percent of her sales.

Pete glared at her, shoved his hands into his pockets and headed for the door. “I’ll have our attorneys draw up the papers.”

“Don’t I get a kiss?” Mel asked, innocently.

“I don’t kiss sharks,” he growled.

“Aw. I’m just a furry wittle bunny wabbit, I swear.” Melinda batted her eyelashes at him.

He glowered at her. “Pickpocket bunny with fangs.”

Melinda laughed.

He didn’t.

“It was your idea, you know,” she called after him as he pushed open the door of her shop.

“Don’t remind me.”

“Hey! You forgot your free cookie!”

Slam.

“Poor thing,” Melinda said to Mami as she skipped into her office. “He must have a headache.”

Mami wagged her tail. Then she yawned, entirely unconcerned.

* * *

P
ETE
’
S
WEEK
DIDN
’
T
get much better.

Even though he invented a piranha of an attorney, a six-foot-five ex-boxer, to blame for the lousy deal with Melinda, Reynaldo wasn’t pleased that he’d been bested by a girl and insinuated that he’d lost both his mind and his shriveled gringo balls during the encounter. As a reward, Pete had to fire the existing pastry chef in person, on the slimmest of pretexts.

He felt horrible, as the man first exhibited shock, then pleaded abjectly for his job and finally went into a violent frenzy, knocking pans and baking supplies off the shelves as he exited.

Pete spent a moment standing in the silent, aghast kitchen, head bent forward, the bridge of his nose pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Then he got a broom and cleaned up the mess.

He’d brushed the flour off his pant legs and the ground hazelnuts out of his wing tips. He’d gone upstairs and was running numbers in his office when the concierge desk buzzed him to say that Mrs. Jocelyn Edgeworth was downstairs to see him.

“Oh, farg me,” Pete said aloud.

“
Perdón
?” Tomas, the concierge, was from Ecuador.

“Nothing. Send her up. Thank you.”

“Farging” Pete turned out to be precisely what Jocelyn had in mind, though not literally.

“Darling Peter,” she said as she swept into his office in a pale pink checked pantsuit and pink patent-leather Mary Janes, “don’t be ridiculous.”

Pete raised his weary gaze to meet her expertly made up, vicious baby-blues. “Excuse me?”

She removed two fat manila envelopes from her Gucci tote and shook them at him. “There must be some mistake.”

Pete stretched his lips into the semblance of a smile. “I don’t think so. I went over the agreements myself. The date for the Have a Heart Foundation ball is October 23, the Charity League Holiday Bazaar is on December 2, and we’ve cleared January 17 for the Every Breath You Take lung cancer fundraiser.”

“I’m not concerned with the dates, Peter. I’m talking about the charges. Where are my discounts?”

“Discounts, Mrs. Edgeworth?”

“Pee-ter. I’ve brought you not one, not two, but three big charity events and I expect some serious consideration for such.”

He gave it consideration. He considered making her eat the bronze Longhorn on his desk, slowly, with her pinkies elevated. Then he considered forcing her to sit on it, instead.

“Mrs. Edgeworth, I really don’t have the authority to discount—”

“That’s just nonsense. You know it and I know it.”

Pete gritted his teeth. It was nonsense, but most people had the courtesy to play the game with him and then fawn all over him when he made a “special exception” for them, one that he “really shouldn’t” make.

“Take thirty percent of the ballroom rentals right off the top, for starters,” she demanded.

Pete’s throat swelled in outrage. “That’s impossible. I can’t do that, Mrs. Edgeworth.”

“Why not?” Her eyes held all the warmth of titanium bores, and were just as deadly.

“Because your events are on Saturdays during the high season! I’ve already given you a good rate. The best I can do on top of that is give you five percent off the rentals.”

“Pee-ter. These events are for char-i-ty. You don’t pillage the coffers of charities. You contribute to them. You act with goodwill.”

“I’m not pillaging your charities, Mrs. E. We have a business to run, here at Playa Bella. I’m sorry, but five-percent off is the best I can do. Your guests purchase expensive tickets and tables, big booths at the bazaar. And you run a silent auction. That’s how you raise the funds.”

“Fine. Then donate the liquor,” she said.

“I can’t do that—you know it would amount to thousands of dollars!”

“The food, then.”

“Not going to hap—”

“The desserts!”

“Why don’t you ask your daughter to donate the desserts? She’ll be opening a bakery boutique in our retail space.”

Silence shrieked between them for a few moments.

Tension.

Then Jocelyn’s aristocratic nostrils flared.

“Why don’t I ask my daughter about her new beau?” she suggested, smacking the manila envelopes down loudly in the middle of his desk. She shot him that lipless cobra smile of hers.

He met her gaze evenly. “Are you threatening me, Mrs. Edgeworth?”

“Peter, darling.” She waved a languid hand. “I’d never do something so inelegant.”

Pete’s head was going to explode, it really was. He could feel the rocket fuel gathering at the back of his neck, turning into a tight ball of rage. It was spreading across his shoulders, too.