Burning Down the Spouse (6 page)

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Authors: Dakota Cassidy

Tags: #Separated Women, #Greek Americans, #Humorous, #Contemporary, #Women Cooks, #General, #Romance, #Humorous Fiction, #Fiction, #Cultural Heritage, #Love Stories

BOOK: Burning Down the Spouse
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Red and silver booths with jukeboxes at every table were the first thing she was able to focus on before being swept into the warm rush of air. The next was the smell—redolent with so many different varieties of rich spices and garlic, she couldn’t place one from the other.
Christmas lights were strung in winking bright white where the wall met the ceiling. Frankie winced. Christ. The last holiday she could clearly remember, and that was only due to the disrupting noise of it, was the Fourth of July. Was it already December? No, it was just two days after Thanksgiving. The distant recollection of her Aunt Gail and her friend Mona planning a Black Friday shop-a-palooza tickled her memory.
A small tree decorated with tinsel and multicolored blinking lights stood by the cash register. A young woman, her hair the color of black satin, in black hip-hugging pants and a white shirt with black vest smiled in Maxine’s direction. “Hey, Max! How are you?”
“Adara, it’s so good to see you! Home for Christmas break?”
Her sleek head bobbed up and down. “Yep. I’m working Papa over for some extra cash,” she said with a teasing grin.
Maxine pulled off her gloves, dropping them into the pockets of her jacket. “Connor’s coming home in three days. I’m so excited to see him, I could scream. Campbell even went out and bought an Xbox 360 so they could play video games together.”
Adara’s head cocked, her eyes, as black as her hair, lit up. “So he likes school then?”
Maxine’s light brown head nodded. “Loves it.” She glanced at her watch and pursed her lips. “I hate to rush, but I have dinner with Campbell in an hour. Adara, this is Frankie Bennett. She’s interviewing with Nikos today.”
Adara stuck out her hand and grinned again, her smile a thing of utter beauty. “Awesome to meet you. Welcome to the home of the World’s Best Meatloaf.”
Meatloaf.
At Greek Meets Eat Diner in Riverbend, New Jersey.
Hookay.
Frankie hesitated until Maxine nudged her with an arm.
Right
, she mentally reminded herself.
Be polite, cave dweller.
She took Adara’s hand and gave her a faint smile. “Nice to meet you, too.”
Coming around to the front of the cash register, Adara hitched her jaw in the direction of the doors Frankie assumed led to the kitchen. “You want me to go tell him you’re here? I think he’s in the back with Mama and Cosmos.”
“Please, Adara,” Maxine said with a smile. As Adara went off to find Frankie’s would-be employer, Maxine leaned into her and whispered, “Adara is Nikos’s sister, Cosmos is his brother. And in case you’re wondering, every last one of them is as good-looking as the next. I don’t know what they feed those kids, but they’re all like Rodin sculptures.”
No pressure, but seriously, no shit.
Frankie gave a self-conscious glance at her baggy jeans and faded T-shirt, tightening her sweater around her and pushing at the loose strands of her ponytail, windblown and askew. Then she gave up. What difference did it make what she looked like? There wasn’t a hooker’s chance at the debutantes’ ball she’d maneuver a job looking the way she did—especially with her dormant social skills at an alltime low. Retreating back to the recesses of her mind, Frankie decided to pretend this wasn’t happening. A sigh escaped her lips, drawn out and disinterested.
When the kitchen doors popped open, Frankie gave only a cursory glance upward before returning her eyes to her sneakers. Thankfully, she’d purchased them with her Bon Appetit salary just before she and Mitch had broken up or they’d have gone the way of the prenup, too.
“Max!” a throaty timbre greeted.
“Nikos, it’s great to see you!” Maxine responded, disgustingly cheerful. Hugs were apparently exchanged due to the rustle of material. Suddenly, Maxine’s arm was around her shoulder and her hip was nudging Frankie’s.
Another one of those signals to behave accordingly in a social setting.
“Nikos, this is Frankie Bennett. Frankie, Nikos Antonakas.”
Antonakas. She found she had trouble even considering rolling a name like that over her thick, underused tongue.
Frankie took her time looking up, letting her eyes scan the leather-worn work boots Nikos wore, following his length by way of his thighs. His hard, muscled thighs in black jeans.
Whether it was genuine curiosity to see if his bulky thighs matched the rest of him, or some of her social graces were thawing, Frankie glanced upward, letting the fringe of her unadorned lashes keep her eyes undercover.
Oh.
Shazam.
Rodin had nothing,
noth-ing
on this man.
Holy spanakopita.
Stunned by Nikos’s breathtakingly chiseled good looks, Frankie’s head swirled, and her legs trembled. He really was that beautiful. Even in her stupor of postdivorce lunacy, she could not deny the appeal of his hard, classic features. His hair was thick, the color of midnight in the height of a winter chill, falling just past his chin. A widow’s peak in the center of his forehead drew her attention to his eyebrows, raven and arched. His ruddily toned skin held two patches of color along the angular slant of his cheekbones. Eyes the color of black olives assessed her with a smile full of straight white teeth.
Oh, that smile. Disarming with a hint of playful.
He had a dimple in his chin, too, and catching sight of it made Frankie’s breath hitch.
Shit. Had they been introduced? Maxine gave her arm a discreet pinch. Frankie coughed to hide her embarrassment. “I’m Francis—Fran . . . kie. Uh, Bennett.”
The dark Adonis put out a hand for her to shake. “Nice to meet you, Frankie. Welcome to Greek Meets Eat. Home of the World’s Best—”
“Meatloaf,” she muttered to avoid his hand. Oh, no. If she shook that hand, long fingered and wide, she’d pass out.
Maxine coughed in Frankie’s ear, “Shake his hand,
princess
.”
Immediately, Frankie did as she was told, their fingers connecting for a moment before she tugged her hand away, shoving it into the pocket of her jeans. His skin was warm with just the right amount of callusedness, burning an imprint against her icy flesh.
Nikos’s expression said he wondered if she was deranged, but he hid it well when he called over his broad shoulder, “Let’s go back to the office and sit and talk. You want coffee, Max, Frankie?”
“No!” Frankie faltered behind the shelter of Maxine. “I mean, no, thank you.”
Maxine smiled over her shoulder with encouragement, following Nikos to the end of the wide diner. His fingers turned the brass doorknob on a broad, red enamel door, holding it open for them to enter with a sweep of his long muscled forearm.
Maxine found a chair, patting the one beside her as Nikos took his place behind the desk cluttered with papers and a computer. “I appreciate you coming to Trophy Jobs, Nikos.”
He grinned, alarmingly warm and charming, making Frankie’s already slow breathing hitch again. “Don’t thank me. You’re pretty impressive, lady. I know you didn’t expect a lot from Lacey, but she was one of the best damned short-order’s we’ve ever had.”
Maxine’s chuckle and the glance she exchanged with Nikos bordered on mysterious. Frankie fidgeted in her seat, uncomfortable with the fluorescent lights of Nikos’s office. “Who knew Lacey, of all people, would want to go off and study at Le Cordon Bleu?”
His laughter was hearty, his eyes warm with fondness. “We miss her, but she sends us postcards all the time. Anyway, with the kind of luck we had the first time around, you were the person who came to mind.”
Who was Lacey, and oh, my God. She was in a diner.
A diner
. A diner boasting the world’s best meatloaf.
Meatloaf
. Food for heathens who had no taste buds, if you listened to Mitch.
But she wasn’t listening to Mitch anymore. Bamby With A “Y” was.
Strangely, that made Frankie want to bust a grin.
But it hurt to consider moving her facial muscles. So she didn’t.
“So you have all the information on Frankie’s work history, right? I had Bettina fax it over this morning.”
Nikos slapped the papers on his desk with a loud hand. “I don’t need paperwork, Max, but yep, I got everything.”
Good. That was good, Frankie mused. She wondered if he had the DVD of famous chefs’ wives gone wild, too. Sliding down into her appointed chair, she pulled her sweater closer around her chin.
“Okay, good then,” Maxine said, rising.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where was the divorce guru going? Surely Maxine wouldn’t leave her here all by herself with the reinvention of gorgeously glorious. Not when she was as fragile as eggshells and liable to crack at any given moment.
Oh, but she would. Maxine gave Frankie’s shoulder a reassuring pat. “I’ll just wait outside and let you two talk. I think I’ll have some of that coffee while I do.” And then she was gone.
And they were left staring at each other.
His glance was openly curious, but cheerful.
Hers was petrified, and well, petrified.
Nikos cleared his throat, rustling the papers Bettina had sent. “So, Frankie. Do you have any experience working in a diner—maybe a restaurant?”
I was a crappy waitress. But I can work a Slap Chop like a breast implant salesman works an A-cup convention.
She shifted in her chair, pulling the sleeves of her sweater over the palms of her hands. “No.”
“Any food experience in general?”
“I’ve been known to eat it.” Oh. Jesus.
His chuckle was thick and sexy. Just like him. “Right.” He patted his hard abdomen. “Me, too. What I mean is, Max says you have experience as a chef.”
Right. Max would say that. “Define ‘chef.’”
Nikos rolled his tongue around the inside of his cheek. “Well, aren’t they usually people who cook? You know, like that food thing we talked about.”
“Yes, they are, and no, I’m not a chef. I hate to cook.” That said, she waited while he processed her response and shipped her back off to Maxine. Screw her car. The repo man could come and take it. She didn’t need to drive if she never planned to leave the house again.
He nodded his sleek black head, all agreeable. “Well, that’s a good thing. We don’t need a chef.”
Damn. Foiled again.
This was ridiculous, and she was doing nothing but wasting his time. So if she frigged up the interview, she could go back home to her aunt’s dark guest bedroom and get back into her nice warm bed. Let the frigging begin. “Can we be frank with one another?”
He sat back in his chair, running a hand over the dark stubble on his chin. “I want you to be whoever you want to be.”
Frankie ignored the joke in favor of her purpose, a warm bed and nothingness. “You can’t possibly expect me to believe you don’t know who I am.”
“Should I know who you are, Frankie?” When he said her name, slow and easy, a chill of unadulterated pleasure swept along her arms.
Her laughter was filled with bitter irony. “Maxine told you to pretend you didn’t know, right? So I wouldn’t be humiliated on my first official public outing.”
His face remained placid, his smoldering black eyes perfectly blank. “Have you been in jail?”
“Jail?” If she had any gumption, she’d be affronted. But she didn’t. So no affronting from her side of the desk.
“You said this was your first ‘official public outing.’”
“It is. And, no. No jail.” Though, she’d come precariously close after the judge viewed the tapes of her outburst. Destruction of property, blah, blah, blah.
“Hospitalized?”
Frankie’s return gaze was filled with cynicism. “What you really mean is institutionalized, don’t you?”
Nikos waggled a finger in admonishment and gave her a playful grin as a chaser. “Uh-uh-uh.
You
went there. I didn’t.”
“No. I haven’t been institutionalized. Though, after my display, I’m pretty sure some would say I should be.” In fact, Mitch had. On
Hollywood Scoop
. With his best sad-sympathetic face. Oscar statues had wept from near and far at his performance.
“Display? I have no idea what you mean.”
Who on the planet, and probably twelve other alternate dimensions, didn’t know who she was? She’d been on every rag mag and television gossip show for months, speculation about her mental well-being the primary focus as they’d replayed in every speed imaginable her infamous symphonic wooden spoon debut.
Quite frankly, on that night, she admittedly had looked like someone who’d escaped a full-body butterfly net and gone off her prescription pharmaceuticals. Hair wild, eyes wide and glazed, spittle forming at the corner of her mouth—all in perfect focus thanks to close-up genius, cameraman number two, Andy Jeffers. Add in the spoon she’d wielded like a sledgehammer, and she made one scarylooking lunatic.
Mitch and his PR crew had put some spin on her outburst, too, making him look like the poor, suffering husband of a woman whose mental state was challenged by the voices in her head.

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