It's in His Kiss Holiday Romance Collection (3 page)

She stopped sweeping the floor and gazed over at him. They were the last two in the kitchen. The staff had already cleaned up, but nothing was ever clean enough for Rose. She liked her kitchen to sparkle and usually went over everything one more time before she left, polishing the stainless steel with a soft cloth, scrubbing the occasional pot or pan she thought needed extra care and re-sweeping the floors.

“You can’t be serious. I just gave you all my recipes and you won’t tell me one of yours?”

“I like to keep some things close to the chest. It makes me more valuable.”

“To whom?” She leaned on the broom.

“To anybody who wants to hire me to teach them something.”

“Is that how you pay for your adventures?”

“Partly.”

“Do I want to know what the other parts are?”

He threw her a naughty pirate smile, a slight dimple creasing his left cheek. She’d forgotten about that dimple. Damn if that just didn’t make him even more intoxicating.

“Let’s just say I know how to please a woman.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “Don’t tell me you’re a—”

“—a gigolo? Not exactly.”

She walked over to him. “If you have sex for money, you’re a prostitute, a hooker, a hoe”

“Wait a minute! I never said I take money for sex. What I take money for is teaching a woman how to ask for what she wants, and sometimes that means I have to demonstrate the process.”

Rose was both intrigued and slightly appalled. “Are we talking about sex therapy or what?” She felt flushed, her body involuntarily aching to be touched at the mere thought.

She stepped in closer.

He chuckled again. The deep trill of his voice went right down her spine and gave her a sexy little shiver.

“Seems I finally hit upon a subject you like.”

She tugged on one of her earrings, a nervous habit. “I simply want the facts, that’s all.”

He took a step in closer to her. She could feel his hot sweet breath on her face as she stared up into those smoldering dark eyes of his. His lips only a hush away from hers. She thought about the crystal’s red glow and decided to go with the moment … just to see if he’d finally notice her.

“So, can you give me an example of your method?”

A wide grin lit up his face. “Sure, but I would guess you already know how to ask for what you want.”

“You might have to demonstrate.”

She closed her eyes and waited to be swept away by the one man she’d always loved, but never even kissed. His lips brushed against hers. A hot rush of adrenalin made her knees buckle, and she gently leaned into him, ready to learn anything he wanted to teach her right there on the hand-polished prep table.

He grabbed her upper arms. She opened her eyes as he guided her backwards, then lifted her up and plopped her down on a tiny desk in the corner of the room.

“First, you’ll have to learn to speak clearly and get right to the point. A potential employer expects clarity and decisiveness. Say for instance, if you want to impress a master chef at the Ritz-Carlton in New York City or a … “

Rose began to giggle, then she broke out into a full on laugh.

“What? Is something funny?” he asked, trying to look serious.

The sexual tension had burned through her body and now that he was trying to teach her interpersonal skills instead of bedroom skills, she needed a release of some sort, and laughter seemed like the only way to let it go.

“Rosie Cupido, what kind of nasty were you thinking I taught?”

She brought her laughter under control. “You know exactly what I thought.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk.
We barely know each other.”

“Maybe we should find a way to remedy that,” she said. “Let’s go home.”

* * *

A half-hour later Max sat next to Rose in a comfy chair out on her patio. They sipped Kaleney Martinis he’d made using Kalamansi extract—which he happened to have with him from a recent trip to the Philippines—ginger juice, pepper vodka, honey, crushed white pepper and garnished with the cutest little Star Anise Rose had ever seen.

“This thing packs a wallop,” Rose told him after her first sip. It tasted both sweet and spicy with a kick of an after bite. “Where’d you learn this?”

“The ultra high-end Library Bar in The Leela Palace in Bangalore, India.”

A small heat lamp warmed the patio, while the lights of Coronado Island and the marina sparkled off in the distance. It was the first time since Rose had moved in that she’d had a man over for drinks, let alone a man who was spending the night. And what made it even more incredible, the man was Max Rosso.

“Is this before or after the Dalai Lama?”

“Way after. I returned to India to study Hindi, had a short affair with a way-too-wild Bollywood actress, and instead found myself working at the Library Bar. But what about you, Rosie-Rose? What have you been up to for the past ten years?”

She chuckled at his new pet name for her. “Attended San Diego Culinary Institute, as you may have guessed. After graduation I went to southern Italy, to a little town called Matera, and studied under a superb chef who thought preparing a meal was an art form. Absolutely loved every minute I was there. I did that for about a year, then came back here and worked in various Italian restaurants, but none of them had a menu with the kind of foods I wanted to prepare.”

She took another sip of her delicious martini and wondered just how much she should tell him about the gypsy, if giving too much away might jeopardize her chances at true love.

“About a year ago, Jasmine, Daisy and I decided to open our own place. We’d been talking about it for awhile, then something weird happened to make us actually do it. We met a gypsy who knew everything about it, including the name,
With a Twist,
which we had to use.”

“Some gypsy.”

“Do you believe in that kind of magic?”

He picked up his martini glass from the small table between them and took a long pull, then put it back down, crossed his hands over his chest, elbows resting on the arms of the chair, slid down and straightened out his long legs in front of him. Rose liked that he was beginning to feel comfortable in her home.

“It’s hard for me to talk to someone about what I do and don’t believe in. Just as it’s hard for me to talk about everything I’ve learned, and mastered. People usually react in one of two ways. Either they think I’m bragging, which I’m not, or they think I’m giving them a line of bullshit. But you’re different.”

He turned to her, his face catching the light and she could still see a little of the young teenager he once was. Maybe it was his excitement about being able to finally tell someone about his adventures and his beliefs or maybe he genuinely liked her this time. Whatever it was, she wanted to kiss him in the worst way.

“What makes you think that?”

“A feeling I had as soon as I saw you standing behind the bar. I didn’t recognize you at first, but I remember feeling as though I knew you. As though I could talk to you and you’d understand. Most people don’t get it. They think I’m some sort of drifter with no purpose. But I think you know what’s in my soul, Rosie-Rose. And I think I know what’s in yours.”

She turned to him. “What’s in my soul, Max? Tell me what you see.”

A warm smile lit on his face. “I see a woman who adores making people happy through her food. Who is loyal to her two best friends. Who enjoys a good martini, good conversation and a breathtaking view. I also see a woman who’s a bit of a mystic and who wants to believe in gypsy’s and the power of the universe, but she’s also logical and neat to a fault which prevents her from letting herself go.”

Rose bristled. “I let myself go just fine.”

He grimaced. “I’m not trying to offend you. You asked what I saw and I’m being honest.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“Aside from Daisy and Jasmine, I think not many people do. You never once mentioned a man or men in your life in the last ten years.”

Emotion welled up inside her. This wasn’t fun anymore. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” She stood to leave.

He stood, blocking her path. “Rosie, I’m sorry if I hurt you. I’ll leave if you want me to. I have this damn habit of shooting straight from the hip. I really didn’t mean to offend you.”

She stood straighter, refusing to let him see her cry. “You don’t have that much power. I’m fine. You don’t have to leave. I’m just tired.”

“Let it out, Rosie. Get mad Get crazy. Throw something at me, but don’t hold your emotions inside.”

Her stomach began to quiver. She felt sick. “My
damn
name is Rose. Please don’t call me anything else. Thanks for the martini.”

She turned away from him, walked back inside and headed up the white carpeted stairs to her bedroom. As tears streamed down her face, she felt certain she was going to ruin everything for Jasmine and Daisy. He would never love her.

Not now.

Not ever.

Chapter Three

The next morning, Rose awoke with eyes still red and swollen from crying most of the night. She planned on leaving before Max could see her. She needed a break to regroup and was not about to invite him back into her kitchen no matter how good his Béchamel sauce tasted.

After she showered and squeegeed the glass doors, she applied a bit of makeup and dressed in black jeans, and a red sweater. Then she quickly dusted every surface that might need it, washed the glasses and shaker that were still out on the patio, put them all away, scoured the kitchen sink, her bathroom sink, swept the bathroom floor, made her bed, hung up a sweater in order of color, lined up her boots on the shelf after she pulled on a pair of black leather knee-high’s, slipped on the biggest silver earrings she could find and snuck out like smoke in the wind.

While Jasmine was busy in La Jolla with Jake, pretending that her condo was being painted, Rose was stuck with Max as a house guest, which was not working out at all. Clearly, her friends’ secret plan to nudge him into falling in love with her was most definitely a total failure.

Problem was she didn’t want to go home to him after she closed up the kitchen, especially on a Saturday night when the restaurant was almost empty by eight o’clock. What he’d said about her not letting go and not mentioning a man during the last ten years really hit home and, worst of all, had affected her cooking tonight, she was sure. She figured it was probably the reason why the restaurant was so empty. The disappointed patrons were already on Yelp or Facebook giving
With a Twist
bad reviews.

Granted, she hadn’t dated much in the last ten years. Of the guys she had dated, most didn’t want to get serious, and the rest were simply jerks. Okay, so she’d only dated a handful of men, if that, but none of them had been worth mentioning.

Not like his Bollywood actress who most likely gave him hot kinky sex every night and a deep-muscle massage every day or perhaps they never left the bed, and had more sex during the day and food was brought in to them by fifty dancing girls with silk scarves and … who knew what kind of deviant parties Max was into.

Rose was spinning out of control with wild stories and self-doubt when Daisy came to her rescue asking if Max might want to help out behind the bar. “We’d be idiots not to let him work his magic here if he wants to. I’d be thrilled to learn some of his specialty drinks.”

Rose couldn’t agree fast enough. “I’m sure he’d love to teach you.”

“Great! When can he start? Is tonight too soon?”

Rose laughed and gave her a hug. She could always depend on her friends to help her through a rough time even when they didn’t know they were doing it. “I’ll give him a call and let you know.”

As soon as Rose heard his voice she wanted to cry all over again, but she sucked in her disappointment and tried to speak with a normal, unemotional tone. “Hey Max. Daisy wanted to know if you’d like to work some of your magic behind the bar tonight?”

“Love to,” he said without hesitation.

“Perfect. Come on in whenever you can.”

“I’m on my way,” he answered and clicked off.

Rose tried not to let his short, clipped answers bother her, but her mind started spinning again, this time on some hidden meaning of his answers and for the rest of the night, she could barely concentrate.

For the next two days, Rose was able to avoid Max both at home and at work. Whenever they were both at her condo, she would pretend to be either sleeping or that she was on her way out. At work, she simply didn’t have time for him.

Then on Monday night, after business in the restaurant had dropped off significantly, and all three girls noticed the crystal had turned a pathetic shade of light pink, when it came time for Rose to re-clean the kitchen, she didn’t have the energy. Instead, she locked up early and went home, not even sneaking a peek in the bar like she normally did to see how Max was doing. She assumed he was loving it. Despite the low turnout, she felt certain the single women were ecstatic about the individual attention.

A perfectly symbiotic relationship.

Once home, Rose sat on the sofa for a moment trying to relax while she gazed out at the twinkling lights. She hated that Max had done so many things, and traveled to so many places while she had been singularly focused on her cooking. How had that happened? And how had she allowed herself get so rigid?

She gazed around at her perfect environment and wanted to scream. She’d never given much thought to her increasing intensity over the past few years. Sure, Daisy or Jas would mention how she needed to chill, but she’d always taken those comments lightly, never thinking they actually meant she needed to “chill.”

How uptight am I?

It seemed the only time she let loose was in the kitchen. There, she could be free to experiment with new flavors, new ways of making tried-and-true recipes sparkle with a fresh ingredient. She came alive while she was cooking. She felt liberated.

Never did she think about anything but the preparation of the meal. She had fallen in love with her ability to make the ordinary “dance on the tongue,” as one critic had written about her cooking. And other critics had used words such as exuberant, spunky, passionate, delicious, blistering … or her favorite way someone had described their meal: it unfurled over several hours.