Something in the Heir (It's Reigning Men, #1) (26 page)

But now he had the family sandbag weighing down his shoulders, the knowledge that it was up to him to ensure the family name and tradition continue on, to upkeep the property and holdings of his fathers financial empire to last long past even his own heirs.

Heirs. Now there’s a funny one. Darcy hadn’t given a fair thought to a serious relationship in, well, ever. He didn’t need to. He wasn’t in charge of a country, or even really anything. He was Adrian’s best friend and thus evolved into being his equerry after a shared boyhood at boarding school and years together at university. He was Adrian’s right hand man, he knew him as if a brother, and he loved being there for his friend. Until now, Adrian’s priorities took precedence over his own. Who knew what twist this relationship would take now that Adrian was settling down.

Of course Adrian would still be traveling, though likely less so, but now, more often than not, Emma would join him. Emma would, undoubtedly, take over many of the roles that Darcy had played. Which was fine. It made sense. Adrian was moving on. And, like it or not, Darcy would have to move on, to adopt a more serious role running the family estate. Which would leave little time for travel with Adrian, anyhow, and less still for personal indulgences like flings with feisty American firecrackers named Caroline.

~*~

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I am not a glutton. I am an explorer of food.

~Erma Bombeck

A Teaspoon of Sugar

I
miss my Spanx. I outgrew them about fifty pounds ago. Somewhere between the decadent foie gras at La Grenouille and the joyfully simple pigs-in-a-blanket at Payard Patisserie. It was like a seasonal transition: it happened so gradually I didn’t even notice it, until one day my
control-top-pantyline-avoiding-God-Bless-America-for-inventing-these-things
Spanx refused to oblige me by fitting comfortably.

No longer gently hugging my curves, respectfully holding all of me in, they’d become a boa constrictor and I their victim. Evidently Spanx are made for
far
thinner women than me. And so I graduated up to Flexees. But now, as I ready myself for yet another meal out by attempting to contain my expanding girth in my latest girdle of choice, it’s become abundantly clear that I’ve fallen into Flexee disfavor as well. I heave a sigh of resignation. What’s a girl to do when her life revolves around having to eat for a living?

* * *

"J
esus, this is a mess," my best friend Jess says as she trails small heaps of greasy lupini beans across her plate with a fork, forming them into a smiley face with what appears to be tears streaming down its cheeks but is probably just excess oil. Jessie mocks the bean face with her own broad smile. Her blond hair, the color of farm-churned butter, softly frames her face in the flickering light of our table’s blazing torch. Jess’ truffle-brown eyes twinkle with mischief: my tasting assistant caught playing with her food.

I nod in agreement. So far what we’ve seen at
Puka
, the new pan Italian-Hawaiian-Greek restaurant in midtown Manhattan, doesn’t look too promising. I’d held out hope, what with the luau décor, tiki lamps aglow, and the bouzouki player plinking out a half-decent version of
That’s Amore
. How often can you get a taste of Hawaii, Greece and Italy in one sitting? I dip my pita bread into the complementary poi served in a dugout coconut bowl in the center of the table, hoping for a miracle. Instead, I choke on the soupy gray paste and reach for my water glass, which is still empty.

"Jess, gimme a swig of that!" I point to her glass of water, my hand around my throat for emphasis. I can’t wait for a reply and instead grab the drink and throw it back, like Zorba tossing down a flaming shot glass of ouzo.

"Appetizers suck, they can’t even keep our water glasses filled, the signature tiki drinks haven’t materialized
despite
waiting over half an hour, and the freebie poi appears to be the key ingredient in the fixative that holds up the wallpaper," I mumble as I jot down notes surreptitiously in my iPhone, mindful to be sure that no one is paying attention to my musings.

"Sure, it’s not exactly Le Bernadin, but seriously, Abbie, it’s all relative," Jess says. "At least it’s better than the donor kebab I’d have been eating had you not called me at the last minute to come along tonight. But for you, yeah, I’d imagine this pretty much bites the big one."

"At this place, I’m afraid to bite anything here, big or small. But seriously, I’m just looking at the silver lining in this stormy cloud. Without the bad restaurants, imagine how much
fatter
I’d be. At least here I have no desire to eat even the smallest of portions. So it’s a little diet in disguise."

Jess laughs but just barely, and instead squirms in her seat, clearly hating my fat reference. She’s lodge pine-thin and could probably go on a week-long eating bender and
still
lose weight. That is if food really even mattered to her that much, which it doesn’t.  I, on the other hand, seem to have assumed the uncanny silhouette of a beluga whale, while cursed with the sluggish metabolism of a three-toed sloth and blessed with the culinary palate of a Michelin reviewer. Not always a good combination if you savor your size-tens. Oh, wait, I’m in Manhattan. Make that size-twos. And I, Abbie Jennings, am most definitely
not
a size two. Maybe size
twenty
-two, perhaps, but I’ve lost count, so who knows?

"You can’t help it, Abs," she says. "It’s not like you go around stuffing your face with donuts."

"Yeah. Instead I ingest a steady diet of the world’s richest food."  I shrug. "Ah, well, occupational hazard, I suppose. As are restaurants like this. People are expecting me to rate this place, so I’ll review it. Sure, I always hope for good things from a restaurant, but I’m totally prepared to call them on it if it’s lousy."

Our waiter arrives, his vision evidently obscured by the pile of leis stacked along his neck, and sloshes two martini glasses filled with something resembling transmission fluid before us. They’re on fire. How adventuresome. Jessie dips her napkin in what’s left of her water and blots the splash of alcoholic neon that has landed uninvited across the front of her white silk shirt. It looks like someone smashed a firefly on her boob. Lei-Boy returns moments later with our entrees: cold, congealed grouper for me and seared mahi-mahi for Jess that looks as if the chef used a blow-torch on it. A hardened heap of Minute Rice accompanies the entrees, with beans that in an ideal world would be green, but are instead a sickly shade of cadaverous ash.

"Bon appetit, I suppose," I say, not at all looking forward to that first bite. I hate to be disingenuous, but at thirty bucks a plate, the kitchen could’ve at least
tried
.

Jess scoops a bite of fish with her fork and pops it in her mouth, just as Lei-Boy rushes over and wordlessly grabs her plate away. Fast on his heels is an angry-looking bald man in clogs, checkered pants, and a chef’s toque, hurling what must be obscenities in Greek, maybe Italian, but definitely nothing gently Polynesian sounding. He smacks Lei-Boy up the back of his head, dislodging a few leis onto my grouper.

An
A-plus
for presentation, I jot down in my phone.

"What is up with
them
?" Jessie asks.

"Hell if I know." I reach for my transmission fluid to quell the drought in my mouth. As it reluctantly washes down my throat I can’t help but elicit a hairball noise.

A swarm of hula dancers closes in on our table as the bouzouki music gives way to a pulsing luau thunk. If I am seeing properly beyond the blur of grass skirts—my God, how do they
do
that?—there appears to be an extra from
South Pacific
pounding a drum back there.

"Aloha, wahini," the Greek chef intones through a volcanic crater-sized smile. His accent is deceptively French-sounding. "E komo mai. Welcome. Buona sera. Good evening."

I expect him to throw in a
Phi Beta Kappa
just to incorporate all of the restaurant’s themes. "Ladies, zere has been a slight mistake in zee kitchen." No thanks to Lei-boy, I’m thinking. "Pleeze, allow me to present you vees more better food." Our Greek chef sounds like he must’ve apprenticed for a hell of a long time in Paris.

With this, our drinks are rounded up, and in their stead are placed two smoldering cocktails that appear to contain dry ice. I peer into the void of my thermally-reinforced cup (artfully disguised as a small volcano) and see through the rising steam something somewhat thick and orange-ish red. I look at the chef—the spitting image of Telly Savalas without the lollypop—for the go-ahead from him, wondering if one can actually ingest dry ice. I always thought it was toxic.

He motions with his hands to drink up. "Ladeees, ees gud. Ees a Lava Flow. Really, really good. You drink, no?" He rolls his "
r
" with such authority I feel this is an order, and I comply, placing the drink to my lips with apprehension and taking a tiny
no-thank you
sip, trying not to make a face, in case it’s disgusting.

I taste a slight dribble, licking my lips to catch the overflow. Not bad, actually. Sort of cool and warm at the same time, like Ben Gay on the rocks. I’ll give them credit: it’s certainly
different
.

Telly is on to the next order of business already, seeing that our new entrees are properly plated. Lei-boy and his assistant, Hula-girl bring out two heaping dishes of food, much of it unidentifiable but at least it’s piping hot. Telly Savalas leans forward, so close to me I can smell the garlic on his breath, and wipes a smudge of sauce from the edge of my dish with his towel. He adjusts the plate a quarter-turn and bows while wishing us buon appetito (why he didn’t say this in Greek is Greek to me).

"Whoa!" Jess stares at me as if she’d just witnessed the shocking conclusion to a weird movie. She takes a bite of something in front of her. "I don’t know what that was all about, but bring it on, baby. If we’ve gotta go through
that
to get some of this, I’ll volunteer to be the sacrificial lamb."

I don’t know where to begin on my plate. Everything looks so unfamiliar, yet appetizing. I decide to aim for the starch first, and settle my fork into a generous portion of what turns out to be risotto with bite-sized pieces of suckling pig. I’ll take creamy risotto over that vile poi any day. The pork, so tender and juicy, has me humming
Mele Kalikimaka
, cause it feels like a Hawaiian merry Christmas gift.

I next try the entrée, a tender, flaky and surprisingly un-oily mackerel sprinkled with feta cheese and olives and cloaked in taro leaves. I have to give Telly some credit, I didn’t know how this place could pull off merging three such divergent flavors, but somehow it works despite itself.

"I can’t believe how fantastic this food is," Jess mumbles through a bite of her pineapple-balsamic glazed wild boar spare ribs with tzatziki sauce. "Who’d have thought you could actually assemble a menu with Italian, Hawaiian and Greek food? I honestly thought it was a joke."

"Joke’s on us, cause this stuff is amazing."

After dinner ends, Telly returns with a selection of desserts (including a baklava made with mascarpone cheese, coconut and pine nuts), a tray with sample shots of
grappa
,
ouzo
and
okolehao
, and a somewhat excessive appreciation for his customers.

"You like, no?" Telly asks me as he hands me a leftovers bag with more in it than we had on our plates, I’m sure, then straightens out my napkin in my lap. I really don’t like people fondling my linens in restaurants.

"It was
wonderful
," I tell him, shooing his hands from my lap (after all, I don’t need old Telly to get an up-close look at my too-tight Flexee-induced bulges.)  Despite the culinary false start. I might even have to give the place three stars.

"Meesees Jennings, on behalf of zee entire staff of
Puka
,
I sank you for dining vees us zees evening," Telly says as he bows repeatedly while backing away from me and disappearing into the kitchen. "Zee meal is on zee house, vees my undying gratitude."

I look at Jessie and blanch.
Meessees Jennings
, he called me. Missus fucking Jennings. How
stupid
could I have been? I should’ve known! There was no
mistake
. The only mistake is that my look has become
unmistakable
. For the third time this month, I’ve been recognized in a restaurant.

"Son of a bitch," I groan under my breath. "Mortie’s gonna kill me. He’s going to absolutely
kill
me."

* * *

S
haken by the revelation that my food critic cover has been effectively blown, I leave Jessie to pay the bill and slip out a side door to hail a cab, handing my bag of leftovers to a homeless man on a nearby grate. Well,
slip
might be a gross understatement, considering at my size, I’m probably beyond the point of
slipping
out of anyplace with much facility.