Summer Desserts: the classic story from the queen of romance that you won’t be able to put down. Нора Робертс
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at her elbow. At her firm instructions, Chopin drifted through the kitchen speakers. The first course was already being enjoyed in the dining room. She could ignore the confusion reigning around her. She could shrug off the pressure of having her part of the meal complete and perfect at precisely the right moment. That was all routine. But as she stood there, prepared to begin the next step, her concentration was scattered.
LaPointe, she thought with gritted teeth. Naturally it was anger that had kept her attention from being fully focused all day, the idea of having Louis LaPointe tossed in her face. It hadn’t taken Summer long to realize that Blake Cocharan had used the name on purpose. Knowing it, however, didn’t make the least bit of difference to her reaction…except perhaps that her venom was spread over two men rather than one.
Oh, he thinks he’s very clever, Summer decided, thinking of Blake—as she had too often that week. She took three cleansing breaths as she studied the golden dome in front of her. Asking me, me, to give LaPointe a reference. Despicable French swine, she muttered silently, referring to LaPointe. As she scooped up the first berries she decided that Blake must be an equal swine even to be considering dealing with the Frenchman.
She could remember every frustrating, annoying contact she’d had with the beady-eyed, undersized LaPointe. As she carefully coated the outside of the cake with crushed berries, Summer considered giving him a glowing recommendation. It would teach that sneaky American a lesson to find himself stuck with a pompous ass like LaPointe. While her thoughts raged, her hands were delicately smoothing the berries, rounding out and firming the shape.
Behind her one of the assistants dropped a pan with a clatter and a bang and suffered a torrent of abuse. Neither Summer’s thoughts nor her hands faltered.
Smug, self-assured jerk, she thought grimly of Blake. In a steady flow, she began layering rich French cream over the berries. Her face, though set in concentration, betrayed anger in the flash in her eyes. A man like him delighted in maneuvering and outmaneuvering. It showed, she thought, in that oh-so-smooth delivery, in that gloss of sophistication. She gave a disdainful little snort as she began to smooth out the cream.
She’d rather have a man with a few rough edges than one so polished that he gleamed. She’d rather have a man who knew how to sweat and bend his back than one with manicured nails and five-hundred-dollar suits. She’d rather have a man who…
Summer stopped smoothing the cream while her thoughts caught up with her consciousness. Since when had she considered having any man, and why, for God’s sake, was she using Blake for comparisons? Ridiculous.
The bombe was now a smooth white dome waiting for its coating of rich chocolate. Summer frowned at it as an assistant whisked empty bowls out of her way. She began to blend the frosting in a large mixer as two cooks argued over the thickness of the sauce for the entree.
For that matter, her thoughts ran on, it was ridiculous how often she’d thought of him the past few days, remembering foolish details…. His eyes were almost precisely the shade of the water in the lake on her grandfather’s estate in Devon. How pleasant his voice was, deep, with that faint but unmistakable inflection of the American Northeast. How his mouth curved in one fashion when he was amused, and another when he smiled politely.
It was difficult to explain why she’d noticed those things, much less why she’d continued to think of them days afterward. As a rule, she didn’t think of a man unless she was with him—and even then she only allowed him a carefully regulated portion of her concentration.
Now, Summer reminded herself as she began to layer on frosting, wasn’t the time to think of anything but the bombe. She’d think of Blake when her job was finished, and she’d deal with him over the late supper she’d agreed to. Oh, yes—her mouth set—she’d deal with him.
Blake arrived early deliberately. He wanted to see her work. That was reasonable, even logical. After all, if he were to contract Summer to Cocharan House for a year, he should see firsthand what she was capable of, and how she went about it. It wasn’t at all unusual for him to check out potential employees or associates on their own turf. If anything, it was characteristic of him. Good business sense.
He continued to tell himself so, over and over, because there was a lingering doubt as to his own motivations. Perhaps he had left her apartment in high good spirits knowing he’d outmaneuvered her in the first round. Her face, at the mention of her rival LaPointe, had been priceless. And it was her face that he hadn’t been able to push out of his mind for nearly a week.
Uncomfortable, he decided as he stepped into the huge, echoing kitchen. The woman made him uncomfortable. He’d like to know the reason why. Knowing the reasons and motivations was essential to him. With them neatly listed, the answer to any problem would eventually follow.
He appreciated beauty—in art, in architecture and certainly in the female form. Summer Lyndon was beautiful. That shouldn’t have made him uncomfortable. Intelligence was something he not only appreciated but invariably demanded in anyone he associated with. She was undoubtedly intelligent. No reason for discomfort there. Style was something else he looked for—he’d certainly found it in her.
What was it about her…the eyes? he wondered as he passed two cooks in a heated argument over pressed duck. That odd hazel that wasn’t precisely a definable color—those gold flecks that deepended or lightened according to her mood. Very direct, very frank eyes, he mused. Blake respected that. Yet the contrast of moody color that wasn’t really a color intrigued him. Perhaps too much.
Sexuality? It was a foolish man who was wary because of a natural feminine sexuality and he’d never considered himself a foolish man. Nor a particularly susceptible one. Yet the first time he’d seen her he’d felt that instant curl of desire, that immediate pull of man for woman. Unusual, he thought dispassionately. Something he’d have to consider carefully—then dispose of. There wasn’t room for desire between business associates.
And they would be that, he thought as his lips curved. Blake counted on his own powers of persuasion, and his casual mention of LaPointe to turn Summer Lyndon his way. She was already turning that way, and after tonight, he reflected, then stopped dead. For a moment it felt as though someone had delivered him a very quick, very stunning blow to the base of the spine. He’d only had to look at her.
She was half-hidden by the dessert she worked on. Her face was set, intent. He saw the faint line that might’ve been temper or concentration run down between her brows. Her eyes were narrowed, the lashes swept down so that the expression was unreadable. Her mouth, that soft, molded mouth that she seemed never to paint, was forming a pout. It was utterly kissable.
She should have looked plain and efficient, all in white. The chef’s hat over her neatly bound hair could have given an almost comic touch. Instead she looked outrageously beautiful. Standing there, Blake could hear the Chopin that was her trademark, smell the exotic pungent scents of cooking, feel the tension in the air as temperamental cooks fussed and labored over their creations. All he could think, and think quite clearly, was how she would look naked, in his bed, with only candles to vie with the dark.
Catching himself, Blake shook his head. Stop it, he thought with grim amusement. When you mix business and pleasure, one or both suffers. That was something Blake invariably avoided without effort. He held the position he did because he could recognize, weigh and dismiss errors before they were ever made. And he could do so with a cold-blooded ruthlessness that was as clean as his looks.
The woman might be as delectable as the concoction she was creating, but that wasn’t what he wanted—correction, what he could afford to want—from her. He needed her skill, her name and her brain. That was all. For now, he comforted himself with that thought as he fought back waves of a more insistent and much more basic need.
As he stood, as far outside of the melee as possible, Blake watched her patiently, methodically apply and smooth on layer after layer. There was no hesitation in her hands—something he noticed with approval even as he noted the fine-boned elegant shape of them. There was no lack of confidence in her stance. Looking on, Blake realized that she might have been alone for all the noise and confusion around her mattered.
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