3

“He’s here again. That makes it seven nights in a row, sweetie.” Gustav, Blair’s blatantly gay headwaiter smiled and raised one brow as he brought the new order to the kitchen.

Blair’s knife slipped and clattered on the chopping board, narrowly missing her fingertip. She drew in a leveling breath. Draco had turned up to take a single table each night since the memorial service. He was later than usual tonight, and the anticipation of waiting and wondering whether he’d arrive, or whether he’d returned to Tuscany, had tied her stomach in knots. Her scattered attention, combined with one of her kitchen hands being off sick, had put them uncharacteristically behind schedule.

Certainly not the behavior of an award-winning chef in an award-winning restaurant. Blair dragged her recalcitrant thoughts together. There was only one objective that could take priority in her mind, and Draco Sandrelli was not that objective.

“What did he order?”

She mentally crossed her fingers and hoped it was something she could get out quickly. Anything that would see him leave again. Soon.

“The Scaloppine alla Boscaiola, with sautéed mixed vegetables. For a big guy he sure eats light, maybe he saves his appetite for other things,” Gustav responded with a slightly salacious wink before collecting an order from under the heat lamps and swinging back through the doors to the restaurant.

Blair allowed herself a brief sigh of relief. The mushroom with pork escalopes dish was simple and easy to prepare, the sautéed vegetables equally so. They were among the many dishes she’d learned to prepare during her culinary tour of Tuscany, the tour that had taken an unexpected detour from the markets and kitchens and into Draco’s bed.

As Blair warmed the olive oil in a heavy pan on the stove top she tried not to think about that detour. About the overwhelming pull of attraction she’d felt the instant her eyes had met his across the courtyard, as she’d stepped off the tour bus at Palazzo Sandrelli. Nor did she want to remember the near painful urge to belong in a place like the palazzo, with its generation-worn steps leading to the front entrance and its permanence and longevity.

She and her father had lived a nomadic lifestyle after her mother had left them. Traveling from one city to another, usually following the tourist beat of traffic in holiday seasons, to find work. Carson’s had been the only thing in her life that had been a constant. It was her home, her base. And if she was to ensure its continued popularity she needed to pull her head out of the clouds and get to work, she reminded herself dourly as she added the pork slices to the pan and turned to attend to the sautéed vegetables.

It was only as she plated up the scaloppine that Blair allowed her thoughts to drift back to Draco. Each night he’d sent back compliments to the kitchen.

Normally, she would have gone out into the restaurant to speak personally with her diners, but she was afraid to face him again. Afraid of her own feelings.

What if he persisted, as he’d begun to at the memorial service? What if he wanted more? Just knowing he was here under the same roof had her nerve endings singing, her skin feeling too tight for her body. Every sense within her was attuned to him, to the knowledge that, just through the swinging doors, he dined alone. And she knew he was just biding his time. Men like Draco liked to win. She’d had firsthand experience of that.

Yet still, for some strange reason she remained on tenterhooks for Draco’s opinion of his meal. Like it even mattered, she scorned herself, as she carried on through the motions of completing the finishing touches on the desserts heading out to the late table of six that had just arrived.

“Blair?”

Gustav had come back through to the kitchen, mischief written all over his features.

“Please don’t tell me a busload of tourists have arrived and they’re all

demanding the Ossibuchi,” Blair countered, naming the dish that had sold out an hour ago.

“No, nothing so simple. It’s Mr. Handsome. He wants to speak to you

personally.”

Blair’s heart stuttered in her chest. “And you’ve given him my apologies, haven’t you.”

“No, actually. I said you’d be right out.” “Gustav!”

“Look, it’s eleven-thirty, the restaurant is nearly empty, bar the dessert and coffees on table ten. You know the kitchen is under control. There’s no reason why you can’t go and enjoy a port with him before we close up. Go on, live a little. It’s about time you had some fun.”

Blair groaned inwardly. Ever since she’d broken her engagement to Rhys and summarily dismissed him and Alicia from their duties at Carson’s—a dismissal that had cost her dearly afterwards when their employment lawyer had pointed out she hadn’t followed due process—Gustav had been after her to lighten up and socialize.

If only he knew, she thought. She’d already had about all the fun she could handle. It was why she had thrown herself back into work as soon as she’d stepped off the plane a few weeks ago.

Gustav yanked on her apron strings and snatched the heavy linen swathe from her narrow hips, then handed her the lipstick she kept in a drawer near the swinging doors for those moments she went out to circulate amongst diners.

“Go on. It won’t kill you. Look, honey, if I thought I stood a chance I’d be at that table pronto, but he’s made it clear he wants you.”

Reluctantly, Blair took the lipstick and swiped it across her lips. “There, satisfied?” she said, challenging him.

“Not hardly, sweetie.” He reached up and swiped the net she wore over her hair off her head and tousled her hair into a fluffy mess. “Now I’m satisfied.”

Gustav took her by the shoulders, spun her around and pushed her in the direction of the restaurant.

“Don’t worry about the kitchen. We’ll take care of everything. You just enjoy yourself.”

As the door swung closed behind her, Blair could swear she heard the faint sound of applause from her staff. A swift glance over her shoulder through the porthole-shaped window showed Gustav taking a bow. Blair fought back a smile as she turned her attention back to the man waiting on the secluded table set in the deep bay window of the old villa.

Draco rose as Blair walked toward him. For a while, he’d wondered if his waiter had been leading him on, saying that Blair would join him for an after- dinner drink, but here she was. Finally.

He raked his gaze over her, taking in the weariness that tightened the lines of her angular face. Not classically beautiful, certainly, but the sweeping arc of her slender, dark brows over eyes the color of dark chocolate, and the long straight line of her nose, lent character to a face that might otherwise be ordinary.

She walked with the grace of the naturally slender, the bulky chef’s jacket over baggy checkered pants—the standard kitchen uniform here in New Zealand— hiding the long, lean strength of her body and the perfectly shaped breasts he’d bet even now were tipped with rose peaks. A sudden flush spread across her high cheekbones and her eyes glowed with the flame of heat that he knew answered his own.

Deep inside him he felt the thrum of anticipation begin to build. By the end of the night she’d be in his bed. He knew it as well as he knew the contours of her body. And he could barely wait to feel her beneath him again. They had unfinished business to resolve between them. Blair Carson would learn she couldn’t run away from him and not expect him to follow.

His feral instincts wanted nothing more than to take her by the hand and lead

her straight out the front door to his waiting car. To whisk her away to his Viaduct Basin apartment in the city and bare her to his gaze, to his hunger. And then to sate them both.

A fine tremor ran through his body as he fought back the urge to do just that. As she neared his table she displayed all the characteristics of a gazelle poised for flight. The last thing he wanted to do right now was scare her off. She’d run from him once before; it was up to him to ensure she wouldn’t do so again.

She lifted her hand to him as she drew to a halt beside the table. “I trust you enjoyed your meal, Mr. Sandrelli.”

Draco let his lips relax into a smile, watching her pupils dilate in reaction, and her lips firm, as she read his humor at her attempt to keep things between them strictly on a business footing.

He took her hand and pulled her toward him, kissing her briefly on each cheek in traditional European style before releasing her hand and gesturing for her to take the seat adjacent to his.

“I always enjoy the fruits of your toil, Blair. Your cleverness in the kitchen is only surpassed by your—”

“Perhaps I can get you a drink. Gustav mentioned port. Is that your preference?” She wheeled away from the table but he reached out and snagged her hand.

“Stay, Gustav will bring us our drinks shortly. I wanted a little time with you first, just to talk.”

“If that’s what you want,” Blair answered begrudgingly.

“You learned well during your time in Tuscany. The dish you served tonight, that was from your stay in Lucca, si?”

“Yes, I’ve incorporated a few of the recipes from the region into our menu.

They’ve been popular.”