Книга - A Beauty For The Billionaire

A Beauty For The Billionaire
Elizabeth Bevarly


Upstairs-downstairs fun is on the menu, only from New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Bevarly!When blue-collar garage owner Hogan Dempsey discovers he's the long-lost heir to a fortune, it's his chance to woo the Park Avenue princess who was out of his league growing up. To get her attention, he's hired society chef Chloe Merlin, hoping she'll tempt the socialite with her favourite treats. But Hogan's the one who's tempted – and not by the food. His craving for Chloe puts his plans for the princess on the back burner. Too bad Chloe's sworn off men for good. Or will Hogan's rough-and-tumble charm stir her appetite?







Upstairs-downstairs fun is on the menu, only from New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Bevarly!

When blue-collar garage owner Hogan Dempsey discovers he’s the long-lost heir to a fortune, it’s his chance to woo the Park Avenue princess who was out of his league growing up. To get her attention, he’s hired society chef Chloe Merlin, hoping she’ll tempt the socialite with her favorite treats. But Hogan’s the one who’s tempted—and not by the food. His craving for Chloe puts his plans for the princess on the back burner. Too bad Chloe’s sworn off men for good. Or will Hogan’s rough-and-tumble charm stir her appetite?


She had no idea how long they were entwined that way—it could have been moments, it could have been millennia.

Chloe drove her hands over every inch of him she could reach, finally pushing her hand under the hem of his sweater. The skin of his torso was hot and hard and smooth beneath her fingertips, like silk-covered steel. She had forgotten how a man’s body felt, so different from her own, and she took her time rediscovering. Hogan, too, went exploring. It had been so long since a man touched her that way, and she cried out.

He stilled his hand at her exclamation, looking at her with an unmistakable question in his eyes, as if waiting for her to make the next move. She told herself they should put a stop to things now. She even went so far as to say, “Hogan, we probably shouldn’t...” But she was unable—or maybe just unwilling—to say the rest. Instead, she told him, “We probably shouldn’t be doing this out here in the open.”

He hesitated. “So then...you think we should do this inside?”

Chloe hesitated a moment, too. But only a moment. “Yes.”

* * *

A Beauty for the Billionaire is part of the Accidental Heirs series: First they find their fortunes, then they find love.


A Beauty for the Billionaire

Elizabeth Bevarly






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


ELIZABETH BEVARLY is an award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of more than seventy books. Although she has made her home in exotic places like San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Haddonfield, New Jersey, she’s now happily settled back in her native Kentucky. When she’s not writing, she’s binge watching British TV shows on Netflix or making soup out of whatever she finds in the freezer. Visit her at www.elizabethbevarly.com (http://www.elizabethbevarly.com).


Contents

Cover (#ucb775704-8c94-57e0-9435-09bcea007651)

Back Cover Text (#u53207184-6868-5799-a4f9-9aaf5ab154d7)

Introduction (#u73428391-9eb4-5450-a263-7f6a05616057)

Title Page (#u627bb534-dda5-5345-a3ee-9ead3e0c62a0)

About the Author (#u3fea2170-1123-58f1-ab7b-6b9b4c15da95)

Prologue (#ulink_f77828d7-3a08-5402-92d3-78c009b53850)

One (#ulink_dd44811c-05a2-58fe-840c-b74553e649f6)

Two (#ulink_1fc948b2-66c9-5258-b6c4-ac302299f7d7)

Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


Prologue (#ulink_ea9df361-9a14-5f5e-949b-6c209e76d94a)

There was nothing Hogan Dempsey loved more than the metallic smell and clink-clank sounds of his father’s garage. Well, okay, his garage, as of the old man’s death three years ago, but he still thought of it as his father’s garage and probably would even after he passed it on to someone else. Not that he was planning on that happening anytime soon, since he was only thirty-three and had no one to leave the place to—his mother had been gone even longer than his father, and there hadn’t been a woman in his life he’d consider starting a family with since...ever. Dempsey’s Parts & Service was just a great garage, that was all. The best one in Queens, for sure, and probably the whole state of New York. People brought their cars here to be worked on from as far away as Buffalo.

It was under one of those Buffalo cars he was working at the moment, a sleek, black ’76 Trans Am—a gorgeous piece of American workmanship if ever there was one. If Hogan spent the rest of his life in his grease-stained coveralls, his hands and arms streaked with engine guts, lying under cars like this, he would die a happy man.

“Mr. Dempsey?” he heard from somewhere above the car.

It was a man’s voice, but not one he recognized. He looked to his right and saw a pair of legs to go with it, the kind that were covered in pinstripes and ended in a pair of dress shoes that probably cost more than Hogan made in a month.

“That’s me,” he said as he continued to work.

“My name is Gus Fiver,” the pinstripes said. “I’m an attorney with Tarrant, Fiver and Twigg. Is there someplace we could speak in private?”

Attorney? Hogan wondered. What did an attorney need with him? All of his affairs were in order, and he ran an honest shop. “We can talk here,” he said. “Pull up a creeper.”

To his surprise, Gus Fiver of Tarrant, Fiver and Twigg did just that. Most people wouldn’t even know what a creeper was, but the guy toed the one nearest him—a skateboard-type bit of genius that mechanics used to get under a car chassis—and lay down on it, pinstripes and all. Then he wheeled himself under the car beside Hogan. From the neck up, he didn’t look like the pinstripe type. He looked like a guy you’d grab a beer with on Astoria Boulevard after work. Blonder and better-looking than most, but he still had that working-class vibe about him that was impossible to hide completely.

And Hogan should know. He’d spent the better part of a year when he was a teenager trying to keep his blue collar under wraps, only to be reminded more than once that there was no way to escape his roots.

“Sweet ride,” Fiver said. “Four hundred and fifty-five CUs. V-8 engine. The seventy-six Trans Am was the best pony car Pontiac ever made.”

“Except for the sixty-four GTO,” Hogan said.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll give you that.”

The two men observed a moment of silence for the holy land of Detroit, then Fiver said, “Mr. Dempsey, are you familiar with the name Philip Amherst?”

Hogan went back to work on the car. “It’s Hogan. And nope. Should I be?”

“It’s the name of your grandfather,” Fiver said matter-of-factly.

Okay, obviously, Gus Fiver had the wrong Hogan Dempsey. He could barely remember any of his grandparents since cancer had been rampant on both sides of his family, but neither of his grandfathers had been named Philip Amherst. Fortunately for Hogan, he didn’t share his family’s medical histories because he’d been adopted as a newborn, and—

His brain halted there. Like any adopted kid, he’d been curious about the two people whose combined DNA had created him. But Bobby and Carol Dempsey had been the best parents he could have asked for, and the thought of someone else in that role had always felt wrong. He’d just never had a desire to locate any blood relations, even after losing what family he had. There wasn’t anyone else in the world who could ever be family to him like that.

He gazed at the attorney in silence. Philip Amherst must be one of his biological grandfathers. And if Gus Fiver was here looking for Hogan, it could only be because that grandfather wanted to find him. Hogan wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He needed a minute to—

“I’m afraid he passed away recently,” Fiver continued. “His wife, Irene, and his daughter, Susan, who was his only child and your biological mother, both preceded him in death. Susan never married or had any additional children, so he had no other direct heirs. After his daughter’s death in a boating accident last year, he changed his will so that his entire estate would pass to you.”

Not even a minute. Not even a minute for Hogan to consider a second family he might have come to know, because they were all gone, too. How else was Gus Fiver going to blindside him today?

He had his answer immediately. “Mr. Amherst’s estate is quite large,” Fiver said. “Normally, this is where I tell an inheritor to sit down, but under the circumstances, you might want to stand up?”

Fiver didn’t have to ask him twice. Hogan’s blood was surging like a geyser. With a single heave, he pushed himself out from under the car and began to pace. Quite large. That was what Fiver had called his grandfather’s estate. But quite large was one of those phrases that could mean a lot of different things. Quite large could be a hundred thousand dollars. Or, holy crap, even a million dollars.

Fiver had risen, too, and was opening a briefcase to withdraw a handful of documents. “Your grandfather was a banker and financier who invested very wisely. He left the world with no debt and scores of assets. His main residence was here in New York on the Upper East Side, but he also owned homes in Santa Fe, Palm Beach and Paris.”

Hogan was reeling. Although Fiver’s words were making it into his brain, it was like they immediately got lost and went wandering off in different directions.

“Please tell me you mean Paris, Texas,” he said.

Fiver grinned. “No. Paris, France. The Trocadéro, to be precise, in the sixteenth arrondissement.”

“I don’t know what that means.” Hell, Hogan didn’t know what any of this meant.

“It means your grandfather was a very rich man, Mr. Dempsey. And now, by both bequest and bloodline, so are you.”

Then he quoted an amount of money so big, it actually made Hogan take a step backward, as if doing that might somehow ward it off. No one could have that much money. Especially not someone like Hogan Dempsey.

Except that Hogan did have that much money. Over the course of the next thirty minutes, Gus Fiver made that clear. And as they were winding down what the attorney told him was only the first of a number of meetings they would have over the next few weeks, he said, “Mr. Dempsey, I’m sure you’ve heard stories about people who won the lottery, only to have their lives fall apart because they didn’t know how to handle the responsibility that comes with having a lot of money. I’d advise you to take some time to think about all this before you make any major decisions and that you proceed slowly.”

“I will,” Hogan assured him. “Weird thing is I’ve already given a lot of thought to what I’d do if I ever won the lottery. Because I’ve been playing it religiously since I was in high school.”

Fiver looked surprised. “You don’t seem like the lottery type to me.”

“I have my reasons.”

“So what did you always say you’d buy if you won the lottery?”

“Three things, ever since I was eighteen.” Hogan held up his left hand, index finger extended. “Number one, a 1965 Shelby Daytona Cobra.” His middle finger joined the first. “Number two, a house in Ocean City, New Jersey.” He added his ring finger—damned significant, now that he thought about it—to the others. “And number three...” He smiled. “Number three, Anabel Carlisle. Of the Park Avenue Carlisles.”


One (#ulink_01cd96bb-ad51-50e4-8dc8-20b548aa5a81)

“You’re my new chef?”

Hogan eyed the young woman in his kitchen—his massive, white-enamel-and-blue-Italian-tile kitchen that would have taken up two full bays in his garage—with much suspicion. Chloe Merlin didn’t look like she was big enough to use blunt-tip scissors, let alone wield a butcher knife. She couldn’t be more than five-four in her plastic red clogs—Hogan knew this, because she stood nearly a foot shorter than him—and she was swallowed by her oversize white chef’s jacket and the baggy pants splattered with red chili peppers.

It was her gigantic glasses, he decided. Black-rimmed and obviously a men’s style, they overwhelmed her features, making her green eyes appear huge. Or maybe it was the way her white-blond hair was piled haphazardly on top of her head as if she’d just grabbed it in two fists and tied it there without even looking to see what she was doing. Or it could be the red lipstick. It was the only makeup she wore, as if she’d filched it from her mother’s purse to experiment with. She just looked so...so damned...

Ah, hell. Adorable. She looked adorable. And Hogan hated even thinking that word in his head.

Chloe Merlin was supposed to be his secret weapon in the winning of Anabel Carlisle of the Park Avenue Carlisles. But seeing her now, he wondered if she could even help him win bingo night at the Queensboro Elks Lodge. She had one hand wrapped around the handle of a duffel bag and the other steadying what looked like a battered leather bedroll under her arm—except it was too skinny to be a bedroll. Sitting beside her on the kitchen island was a gigantic wooden box filled with plants of varying shapes and sizes that he was going to go out on a limb and guess were herbs or something. All of the items in question were completely out of proportion to the rest of her. She just seemed...off. As if she’d been dragged here from another dimension and was still trying to adjust to some new laws of physics.

“How old are you?” he asked before he could stop himself.

“Why do you want to know?” she shot back. “It’s against the law for you to consider my age as a prerequisite of employment. I could report you to the EEOC. Not the best way to start my first day of work.”

He was about to tell her it could be her last day of work, too, if she was going to be like that, but she must have realized what he was thinking and intercepted.

“If you fire me now, after asking me a question like that, I could sue you. You wouldn’t have a legal leg to stand on.”

Wow. Big chip for such a little shoulder.

“I’m curious,” he said. Which he realized was true. There was just something about her that made a person feel curious.

Her enormous glasses had slipped down on her nose, so she pushed them up again with the back of her hand. “I’m twenty-eight,” she said. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

Chloe Merlin must be a hell of a cook. ’Cause there was no way she’d become the most sought-after personal chef on Park Avenue as a result of her charming personality. But to Hogan’s new social circle, she was its latest, and most exclusive, status symbol.

After he’d told Gus Fiver his reasons for wanting to “buy” Anabel that first day in his garage—man, had that been three weeks ago?—the attorney had given him some helpful information. Gus was acquainted with the Carlisles and knew Anabel was the current employer of one Chloe Merlin, personal chef to the rich and famous. In fact, she was such a great chef that, ever since her arrival on the New York scene five years ago, she’d been constantly hired away from one wealthy employer to another, always getting a substantial pay increase in the bargain. Poaching Chloe from whoever employed her was a favorite pastime of the Park Avenue crowd, Gus had said, and Anabel Carlisle was, as of five months prior, the most recent victor in the game. If Hogan was in the market for someone to cook for him—and hey, who wasn’t?—then hiring Chloe away from Anabel would get the latter’s attention and give him a legitimate reason to reenter her life.

Looking at the chef now, however, Hogan was beginning to wonder if maybe Park Avenue’s real favorite pastime was yanking the chain of the new guy, and Gus Fiver was the current victor in that game. It had cost him a fortune to hire Chloe, and some of her conditions of employment were ridiculous. Not to mention she looked a little...quirky. Hogan hated quirky.

“If you want to eat tonight, you should show me my room,” she told him in that same cool, shoulder-chip voice. “Your kitchen will be adequate for my needs, but I need to get to work. Croque monsieur won’t make itself, you know.”

Croque monsieur, Hogan repeated to himself. Though not with the flawless French accent she’d used. What the hell was croque monsieur? Was he going to be paying her a boatload of money to cook him things he didn’t even like? Because he’d be fine with a ham and cheese sandwich.

Then the other part of her statement registered. The kitchen was adequate? Was she serious? She could feed Liechtenstein in this kitchen. Hell, Liechtenstein could eat off the floor of this kitchen. She could bake Liechtenstein a soufflé the size of Switzerland in one oven while she broiled them an entire swordfish in the other. Hogan had barely been able to find her in here after Mrs. Hennessey, his inherited housekeeper, told him his new chef was waiting for him.

Adequate. Right.

“Your room is, uh... It’s, um...”

He halted. His grandfather’s Lenox Hill town house was big enough to qualify for statehood, and he’d just moved himself into it yesterday. He barely knew where his own room was. Mrs. Hennessey went home at the end of the workday, but she’d assured him there were “suitable quarters” for an employee here. She’d even shown him the room, and he’d thought it was pretty damned suitable. But he couldn’t remember now if it was on the fourth floor or the fifth. Depended on whether his room was on the third floor or the fourth.

“Your room is upstairs,” he finally said, sidestepping the problem for a few minutes. He’d recognize the floor when he got there. Probably. “Follow me.”

Surprisingly, she did without hesitation, leaving behind her leather bedroll-looking thing and her gigantic box of plants—that last probably to arrange later under the trio of huge windows on the far side of the room. They strode out of the second-floor kitchen and into a gallery overflowing with photos and paintings of people Hogan figured must be blood relations. Beyond the gallery was the formal dining room, which he had yet to enter.

He led Chloe up a wide, semicircular staircase that landed on each floor—there was an elevator in the house, too, but the stairs were less trouble—until they reached the third level, then the fourth, where he was pretty sure his room was. Yep. Fourth floor was his. He recognized the massive, mahogany-paneled den. Then up another flight to the fifth, and top, floor, which housed a wide sitting area flanked by two more bedrooms that each had connecting bathrooms bigger than the living room of his old apartment over the garage.

Like he said, pretty damned suitable.

“This is your room,” he told Chloe. He gestured toward the one on the right after remembering that was the one Mrs. Hennessey had shown him, telling him it was the bigger of the two and had a fireplace.

He made his way in that direction, opened the door and entered far enough to give Chloe access. The room was decorated in dark blue and gold, with cherry furniture, some innocuous oil landscapes and few personal touches. Hogan supposed it was meant to be a gender-neutral guest room, but it weighed solidly on the masculine side in his opinion. Even so, it somehow suited Chloe Merlin. Small, adorable and quirky she might be, with clothes and glasses that consumed her, but there was still something about her that was sturdy, efficient and impersonal.

“There’s a bath en suite?” she asked from outside the door.

“If that means an adjoining bathroom, then yes,” Hogan said. He pointed at a door on the wall nearest him. “It’s through there.” I think, he added to himself. That might have actually been a closet.

“And the door locks with a dead bolt?” she added.

He guessed women had to be careful about these things, but it would have been nice if she hadn’t asked the question in the same tone of voice she might have used to accuse someone of a felony.

“Yes,” he said. “The locksmith just left, and the only key is in the top dresser drawer. You can bolt it from the inside. Just like you said you would need in your contract.”

Once that was settled, she walked into the room, barely noticing it, lifted her duffel onto the bed and began to unzip it. Without looking at Hogan, she said, “The room is acceptable. I’ll unpack and report to the kitchen to inventory, then I’ll shop this afternoon. Dinner tonight will be at seven thirty. Dinner every night will be at seven thirty. Breakfast will be at seven. If you’ll be home for lunch, I can prepare a light midday meal, as well, and leave it in the refrigerator for you, but I generally spend late morning and early afternoon planning menus and buying groceries. I shop every day to ensure I have the freshest ingredients I can find, all organic farm-to-table. I have Sundays and Mondays off unless you need me for a special occasion, in which case I’ll be paid double-time for those days and—”

“And have an additional day off the following week,” he finished for her. “I know. I read and signed your contract, remember? You have Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Thanksgiving off, with full pay, no exceptions,” he quoted from it. “Along with three weeks in August, also with full pay.”

“If I’m still here then,” she said. “That’s ten months away, after all.” She said it without a trace of smugness, too, to her credit. Obviously Chloe Merlin knew about the Park Avenue chef-poaching game.

“Oh, you’ll still be here,” he told her. Because, by August, if Hogan played his cards right—and he was great at cards—Anabel would be living here with him, and his wedding present to her would be a lifetime contract for her favorite chef, Chloe Merlin.

Chloe, however, didn’t look convinced.

Didn’t matter. Hogan was convinced. He didn’t care how many demands Chloe made—from the separate kitchen account into which he would deposit a specific amount of money each week and for which she alone would have a card, to her having complete dominion over the menus, thanks to his having no dietary restrictions. He was paying her a lot of money to cook whatever she wanted five days a week and letting her live rent-free in one of New York’s toniest neighborhoods. In exchange, he’d created a situation where Anabel Carlisle had no choice but to pay attention to him. Actually not a bad trade, since, if history repeated—and there was no reason to think it wouldn’t—once he had Anabel’s attention, they’d be an item in no time. Besides, he didn’t know what else he would do with all the money his grandfather had left him. It was enough to, well, feed Liechtenstein.

Hogan just hoped he liked...what had she called it? Croque monsieur. Whatever the hell that was.

* * *

Chloe Merlin studied her new employer in silence, wishing that, for once, she hadn’t been driven by her desire to make money. Hogan Dempsey was nothing like the people who normally employed her. They were all pleasant enough, but they were generally frivolous and shallow and easy to dismiss, something that made it possible for her to focus solely on the only thing that mattered—cooking. Even having just met him, she found Hogan Dempsey earthy and astute, and something told her he would never stand for being dismissed.

As if she could dismiss him. She’d never met anyone with a more commanding presence. Although he had to be standing at least five feet away from her, she felt as if he were right on top of her, breathing down her chef’s whites, leaving her skin hot to the touch. He was easily a foot taller than she was in her Super Birkis, and his shoulders had fairly filled the doorway when he entered the room. His hair was the color of good semolina, and his eyes were as dark as coffee beans. Chloe had always had a major thing for brown-eyed blonds, and this man could have been their king. Add that he was dressed in well-worn jeans, battered work boots and an oatmeal-colored sweater that had definitely seen better days—a far cry from the fresh-from-the-couturier cookie-cutter togs of other society denizens—and he was just way too gorgeous for his own good. Or hers.

She lifted her hand to the top button of her jacket and twisted it, a gesture that served to remind her of things she normally didn’t need reminding of. But it did no good. Hogan was still commanding. Still earthy. Still gorgeous. Her glasses had begun to droop again, so she pushed them up with the back of her hand. It was a nervous gesture she’d had since childhood, but it was worse these days. And not just because her big black frames were a size larger than they should be.

“So...how’s Anabel doing?” he asked.

Of all the questions she might have expected, that one wasn’t even in the top ten. Although he didn’t strike her as a foodie, and although he’d already filled out a questionnaire she prepared for her employers about his culinary expectations and customs, she would have thought he would want to talk more about her position here. She’d already gathered from Anabel that her former employer and her new employer shared some kind of history—Anabel had tried to talk Chloe out of taking this position, citing Hogan’s past behavior as evidence of his unsophisticated palate. But Chloe neither cared nor was curious about what that history might be. She only wanted to cook. Cooking was what she did. Cooking was what she was. Cooking was all that mattered on any given day. On every given day. Chloe didn’t do well if she couldn’t keep every last scrap of her attention on cooking.

“Anabel is fine,” she said.

“I mean since her divorce,” Hogan clarified. “I understand you came to work for her about the same time her husband left her for one of her best friends.”

“That was none of my business,” Chloe told him. “It’s none of yours, either. I don’t engage in gossip, Mr. Dempsey.”

“Hogan,” he immediately corrected her. “And I’m not asking you to gossip. I just...”

He lifted one shoulder and let it drop in a way that was kind of endearing, then expelled his breath in a way that was almost poignant. Damn him. Chloe didn’t have time for endearing and poignant. Especially when it was coming from the king of the brown-eyed blonds.

“I just want to know she’s doing okay,” he said. “She and I used to be...friends. A long time ago. I haven’t seen her in a while. Divorce can be tough on a person. I just want to know she’s doing okay,” he repeated.

Oh, God. He was pining for her. It was the way he’d said the word friends. Pining for Anabel Carlisle, a woman who was a nice enough human being, and a decent enough employer, but who was about as deep as an onion skin.

“I suppose she’s doing well enough in light of her...change of circumstances,” Chloe said.

More to put Hogan out of his misery than anything else. Chloe actually didn’t know Anabel that well, in spite of having been in her employ for nearly six months, which was longer than she’d worked for anyone else. Now that she thought about it, though, Anabel was doing better than well enough. Chloe had never seen anyone happier to be divorced.

“Really?” Hogan asked with all the hopeful earnestness of a seventh-grader. Gah. Stop being so charming!

“Really,” she said.

“Is she seeing anyone?”

Next he would be asking her to pass Anabel a note during study hall. “I don’t know,” she said. But because she was certain he would ask anyway, she added, “I never cooked for anyone but her at her home.”

That seemed to hearten him. Yay.

“Now if you’ll excuse me...” She started to call him Mr. Dempsey again, remembered he’d told her to call him Hogan, so decided to call him nothing at all. Strange, since she’d never had trouble before addressing her employers by their first names, even if she didn’t prefer to. “I have a strict schedule I adhere to, and I need to get to work.”

She needed to get to work. Not wanted. Needed. Big difference. As much as Chloe liked to cook, and as much as she wanted to cook, she needed it even more. She hoped she conveyed that to Hogan Dempsey without putting too fine a point on it.

“Okay,” he said with clear reluctance. He probably wanted to pump her for more information about Anabel, but unless his questions were along the lines of how much Anabel liked Chloe’s pistachio financiers, she’d given him all she planned to give.

And, wow, she really wished she’d thought of another way to put that than He probably wanted to pump her.

“If you need anything else,” he said, “or have any questions or anything, I’ll be in my, uh...”

For the first time, he appeared to be unsure of himself. For just the merest of moments, he actually seemed kind of lost. And damned if Chloe didn’t have to stop herself from taking a step forward to physically reach out to him. She knew how it felt to be lost. She hated the thought of anyone feeling that way. But knowing it was Hogan Dempsey who did somehow seemed even worse.

Oh, this was not good.

“House,” he finally finished. “I’ll be in my house.”

She nodded, not trusting herself to say anything. Or do anything, for that matter. Not until he was gone, and she could reboot herself back into the cooking machine she was. The cooking machine she had to be. The one driven only by her senses of taste and smell. Because the ones that dealt with hearing and seeing and, worst of all, feeling—were simply not allowed.

* * *

A ham and cheese sandwich.

Hogan had suspected the dinner Chloe set in front of him before disappearing back into the kitchen without a word was a sandwich, because he was pretty sure there were two slices of bread under the crusty stuff on top that was probably more cheese. But his first bite had cinched it. She’d made him a ham and cheese sandwich. No, maybe the ham wasn’t the Oscar Mayer he’d always bought before he became filthy, stinking rich, and the cheese wasn’t the kind that came in plastic-wrapped individual slices, but croque monsieur was obviously French for ham and cheese sandwich.

Still, it was a damned good ham and cheese sandwich.

For side dishes, there was something that was kind of like French fries—but not really—and something else that was kind of like coleslaw—but not really. Even so, both were also damned good. Actually, they were better than damned good. The dinner Chloe made him was easily the best not-really ham and cheese sandwich, not-really French fries and not-really coleslaw he’d ever eaten. Ah, hell. They were better than all those spot-on things, too. Maybe hiring her would pay off in more ways than just winning back the love of his life. Or, at least, the love of his teens.

Chloe had paired his dinner with a beer that was also surprisingly good, even though he was pretty sure it hadn’t been brewed in Milwaukee. He would have thought her expertise in that area would be more in wine—and it probably was—but it was good to know she had a well-rounded concept of what constituted dinner. Then again, for what he was paying her, he wouldn’t be surprised if she had a well-rounded concept of astrophysics and existentialism, too. She’d even chosen music to go with his meal, and although he’d never really thought jazz was his thing, the mellow strains of sax and piano had been the perfect go-with.

It was a big difference from the way he’d enjoyed dinner before—food that came out of a bag or the microwave, beer that came out of a longneck and some sport on TV. If someone had told Hogan a month ago that he’d be having dinner in a massive dining room at a table for twelve with a view of trees and town houses out his window instead of the neon sign for Taco Taberna across the street, he would have told that person to see a doctor about their hallucinations. He still couldn’t believe this was his life now. He wasn’t sure he ever would.

The moment he laid his fork on his plate, Chloe appeared to remove both from the table and set a cup of coffee in their place. Before she could escape again—somehow it always seemed to Hogan like she was trying to run from him—he stopped her.

“That was delicious,” he said. “Thank you.”

When she turned to face him, she looked surprised by his admission. “Of course it was delicious. It’s my life’s work to make it delicious.” Seemingly as an afterthought, she added, “You’re welcome.”

When she started to turn away, Hogan stopped her again.

“So I realize now that croque monsieur is a ham and cheese sandwich, but what do you call those potatoes?”

When she turned around this time, her expression relayed nothing of what she might be thinking. She only gazed at him in silence for a minute—a minute where he was surprised to discover he was dying to know what she was thinking. Finally she said, “Pommes frites. The potatoes are called pommes frites.”

“And the green stuff? What was that?”

“Salade de chou.”

“Fancy,” he said. “But wasn’t it really just a ham and cheese sandwich, French fries and coleslaw?”

Her lips, freshly stained with her red lipstick, thinned a little. “To you? Yes. Now if you’ll excuse me, your dessert—”

“Can wait a minute,” he finished. “Sit down. We need to talk.”

She didn’t turn to leave again. But she didn’t sit down, either. Mostly, she just stared at him through slitted eyes over the top of her glasses before pushing them into place again with the back of her hand. He remembered her doing that a couple of times earlier in the day. Maybe with what he was paying her now, she could afford to buy a pair of glasses that fit. Or, you know, eight hundred pairs of glasses that fit. He was paying her an awful lot.

He tried to gentle his tone. “Come on. Sit down. Please,” he added.

“Was there a problem with your dinner?” she asked.

He shook his head. “It was a damned tasty ham and cheese sandwich.”

He thought she would be offended that he relegated her creation—three times now—to something normally bought in a corner deli and wrapped in wax paper. Instead, she replied, “I wanted to break you in slowly. Tomorrow I’m making you pot au feu.”

“Which is?”

“To you? Beef stew.”

“You don’t think much of me or my palate, do you?”

“I have no opinion of either, Mr. Dempsey.”

“Hogan,” he corrected her. Again.

She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I just happened to learn a few things about my new employer before starting work for him, and it’s helped me plan menus that would appeal to him. Which was handy since the questionnaire I asked this particular employer to fill out was, shall we say, a bit lean on helpful information in that regard.”

“Shouldn’t I be the one doing that?” he asked. “Researching my potential employee before even offering the position?”

“Did you?” she asked.

He probably should have. But Gus Fiver’s recommendation had been enough for him. Well, that and the fact that stealing her from Anabel would get the latter’s attention.

“Uh...” he said eloquently.

She exhaled a resigned sigh then approached the table and pulled out a chair to fold herself into it, setting his empty plate before her for the time being. “I know you grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Astoria,” she said, “and that you’re so new money, with so much of it, the Secret Service should be crawling into your shorts to make sure you’re not printing the bills yourself. I know you’ve never traveled farther north than New Bedford, Massachusetts, to visit your grandparents or farther south than Ocean City, New Jersey, where you and your parents spent a week every summer at the Coral Sands Motel. I know you excelled at both hockey and football in high school and that you missed out on scholarships for both by this much, so you never went to college. I also know your favorite food is—” at this, she bit back a grimace “—taco meatloaf and that the only alcohol you imbibe is domestic beer. News flash. I will not be making taco meatloaf for you at any time.”

The hell she wouldn’t. Taco meatloaf was awesome. All he said, though, was, “How do you know all that? I mean, yeah, some of that stuff is probably on the internet, but not the stuff about my grandparents and the Coral Sands Motel.”

“I would never pry into anyone’s personal information on the internet or anywhere else,” Chloe said, sounding genuinely stung that he would think otherwise.

“Then how—”

“Anabel told me all that about you after I gave her my two weeks’ notice. I didn’t ask,” she hastened to clarify. “But when she found out it was you who hired me, and when she realized she couldn’t afford to pay me more than you offered me, she became a little...perturbed.”

Hogan grinned. He remembered Anabel perturbed. She never liked it much when she didn’t get her way. “And she thought she could talk you out of coming to work for me by telling you what a mook I am, right?” he asked.

Chloe looked confused. “Mook?”

He chuckled. “Never mind.”

Instead of being offended by what Anabel had told Chloe, Hogan was actually heartened by it, because it meant she remembered him well. It didn’t surprise him she had said what she did. Anabel had never made a secret of her opinion that social divisions existed for a reason and should never be crossed—even if she had crossed them dozens of times to be with him when they were young. It was what she had been raised to believe and was as ingrained a part of her as Hogan’s love for muscle cars was ingrained in him. Her parents, especially her father, had been adamant she would marry a man who was her social and financial equal, to the point that they’d sworn to cut her off socially and financially if she didn’t. The Carlisle money was just that old and sacred. It was the only thing that could come between Hogan and Anabel. She’d made that clear, too. And when she went off to college and started dating a senator’s son, well... Hogan had known it was over between them without her even having to tell him.

Except that she never actually told him it was over between them, and they’d still enjoyed the occasional hookup when she was home from school, in spite of the senator’s son. Over the next few years, though, they finally did drift apart.

But Anabel never told him it was over.

That was why, even after she’d married the senator’s son, Hogan had never stopped hoping that someday things would be different for them. And now his hope had paid off. Literally. The senator’s son was gone, and there was no social or financial divide between him and Anabel anymore. The blood he was born with was just as blue as hers, and the money he’d inherited was just as old and moldy. Maybe he was still feeling his way in a world that was new to him, but he wasn’t on the outside looking in anymore. Hell, he’d just drunk beer from a glass instead of a longneck. That was a major development for him. It wouldn’t be long before he—

“Hang on,” he said. “How does Anabel know I only drink domestic beer? I wasn’t old enough to drink when I was with her.”

“That part I figured out myself,” Chloe said.

“There are some damned fine domestic beers being brewed these days, you know.”

“There are. But what you had tonight was Belgian. Nice, wasn’t it?”

Yeah, okay, it was. He would still be bringing home his Sam Adams on the weekends. So there, Chloe Merlin.

“Is everything you cook French?” he asked. He wasn’t sure why he was prolonging a conversation neither of them seemed to want to have.

“Still angling for that taco meatloaf, are we?” she asked.

“I like pizza, too.”

She flinched, but said nothing.

“And chicken pot pie,” he threw in for good measure.

She expelled another one of those impatient sighs. “Fine. I can alter my menus. Some,” she added meaningfully.

Hogan smiled. Upper hand. He had it. He wondered how long he could keep it.

“But yes, all of what I cook is French.” She looked like she would add more to the comment, but she didn’t.

So he tried a new tack. “Are you a native New Yorker?” Then he remembered she couldn’t be a native New Yorker. She didn’t know what a mook was.

“I was born and raised in New Albany, Indiana,” she told him. Then, because she must have realized he was going to press her for more, she added, with clear reluctance, “I was raised by my grandmother because my parents...um...weren’t able to raise me themselves. Mémée came here as a war bride after World War Two—her parents owned a bistro in Cherbourg—and she was the one who taught me to cook. I got my degree in Culinary Arts from Sullivan University in Louisville, which is a cool city, but the restaurant scene there is hugely competitive, and I wanted to open my own place.”

“So you came to New York, where there’s no competition for that kind of thing at all, huh?” He smiled, but Chloe didn’t smile back.

He waited for her to explain how she had ended up in New York cooking for the One Percent instead of opening her own restaurant, but she must have thought she had come to the end of her story, because she didn’t say anything else. For Hogan, though, her conclusion only jump-started a bunch of new questions in his brain. “So you wanted to open your own place, but you’ve been cooking for one person at a time for...how long?”

She met his gaze levelly. “For five years,” she said.

He wondered if that was why she charged so much for her services and insisted on living on-site. Because she was saving up to open her own restaurant.

“Why no restaurant of your own by now?” he asked.

She hesitated for a short, but telling, moment. “I changed my mind.” She stood and picked up his plate. “I need to see to your dessert.”

He wanted to ask her more about herself, but her posture made clear she was finished sharing. So instead, he asked, “What am I having?”

“Glissade.”

“Which is? To me?” he added before she could.

“Chocolate pudding.”

And then she was gone. He turned in his chair to watch her leave and saw her crossing the gallery to the kitchen, her red plastic shoes whispering over the marble floor. He waited to see if she would look back, or even to one side. But she kept her gaze trained on the kitchen door, her step never slowing or faltering.

She was a focused one, Chloe Merlin. He wondered why. And he found himself wondering, too, if there was anything else—or anyone else—in her life besides cooking.


Two (#ulink_696967e7-4480-556a-bd7f-e4ccd3d46b96)

The day after she began working for Hogan Dempsey, Chloe returned from her early-afternoon grocery shopping to find him in the gallery between the kitchen and dining room. He was dressed in a different pair of battered jeans from the day before, and a different sweater, this one the color of a ripe avocado. He must not have heard her as she topped the last stair because he was gazing intently at one photograph in particular. It was possible that if she continued to not make a sound, he wouldn’t see her as she slipped into the kitchen. Because she’d really appreciate it if Hogan didn’t see her as she slipped into the kitchen.

In fact, she’d really appreciate it if Hogan never noticed her again.

She still didn’t know what had possessed her to reveal so much about herself last night. She never told anyone about being raised by a grandmother instead of by parents, and she certainly never talked about the desire she’d once had to open a restaurant. That was a dream she abandoned a long time ago, and she would never revisit it again. Never. Yet within hours of meeting Hogan, she was telling him those things and more. It was completely unprofessional, and Chloe was, if nothing else, utterly devoted to her profession.

She gripped the tote bags in her hands more fiercely and stole a few more steps toward the kitchen. She was confident she didn’t make a sound, but Hogan must have sensed her presence anyway and called out to her. Maybe she could pretend she didn’t hear him. It couldn’t be more than five or six more steps to the kitchen door. She might be able to make it.

“Chloe?” he said again.

Damn. Missed it by that much.

She turned to face him. “Yes, Mr. Dempsey?”

“Hogan,” he told her again. “I don’t like being called ‘Mr. Dempsey.’ It makes me uncomfortable. It’s Hogan, okay?”

“All right,” she agreed reluctantly. “What is it you need?”

When he’d called out to her, he’d sounded like he genuinely had something to ask her. Now, though, he only gazed at her in silence, looking much the way he had yesterday when he’d seemed so lost. And just as she had yesterday, Chloe had to battle the urge to go to him, to touch him, and to tell him not to worry, that everything would be all right. Not that she would ever tell him that. There were some things that could never be all right again. No one knew that better than Chloe did.

Thankfully, he quickly regrouped, pointing at the photo he’d been studying. “It’s my mother,” he said. “My biological mother,” he quickly added. “I think I resemble her a little. What do you think?”

What Chloe thought was that she needed to start cooking. Immediately. Instead, she set her bags on the floor and made her way across the gallery toward him and the photo.

His mother didn’t resemble him a little, she saw. His mother resembled him a lot. In fact, looking at her was like looking at a female Hogan Dempsey.

“Her name was Susan Amherst,” he said. “She was barely sixteen when she had me.”

Even though Chloe truly didn’t engage in gossip, she hadn’t been able to avoid hearing the story of Susan Amherst over the last several weeks. It was all the Park Avenue crowd had talked about since the particulars of Philip Amherst’s estate were made public, from the tearooms where society matriarchs congregated to the kitchens where their staff toiled. How Susan Amherst, a prominent young society deb in the early ’80s, suddenly decided not to attend Wellesley after her graduation from high school a year early, and instead took a year off to “volunteer overseas.” There had been talk at the time that she was pregnant and that her ultra-conservative, extremely image-conscious parents wanted to hide her condition. Rumors swirled that they sent her to live with relatives upstate and had the baby adopted immediately after its birth. But the talk about young Susan died down as soon as another scandal came along, and life went on. Even for the Amhersts. Susan returned to her rightful place in her parents’ home the following spring and started college the next year. For all anyone knew, she really had spent months “volunteering overseas.”

Until Hogan showed up three decades later and stirred up the talk again.

“You and she resemble each other very much,” Chloe said. And because Susan’s parents were in the photograph, as well, she added, “You resemble your grandfather, too.” She stopped herself before adding that Philip Amherst had been a very handsome man.

“My grandfather’s attorney gave me a letter my grandfather wrote when he changed his will to leave his estate to me.” Hogan’s voice revealed nothing of what he might be feeling, even though there must be a tsunami of feeling in a statement like that. “The adoption was a private one at a time when sealed records stayed sealed, so he couldn’t find me before he died.

“Not that I got the impression from his letter that he actually wanted to find me before he died,” he hastened to add. Oh, yes. Definitely a tsunami of feeling. “It took a bunch of legal proceedings to get the records opened so the estate could pass to me. Anyway, in his letter, he said Susan didn’t want to put me up for adoption. That she wanted to raise me herself. She even named me. Travis. Travis Amherst.” He chuckled, but there wasn’t an ounce of humor in the sound. “I mean, can you see me as a Travis Amherst?”

Actually, Chloe could. Hogan Dempsey struck her as a man who could take any form and name he wanted. Travis Amherst of the Upper East Side would have been every bit as dynamic and compelling as Hogan Dempsey of Queens. He just would have been doing it in a different arena.

“Not that it matters,” he continued. “My grandparents talked Susan out of keeping me because she was so young—she was only fifteen when she got pregnant. They convinced her it was what was best for her and me both.”

He looked at the photo again. In it, Susan Amherst looked to be in her thirties. She was wearing a black cocktail dress and was flanked by her parents on one side and a former, famously colorful, mayor of New York on the other. In the background were scores of people on a dance floor and, behind them, an orchestra. Whatever the event was, it seemed to be festive. Susan, however, wasn’t smiling. She obviously didn’t feel very festive.

“My mother never told anyone who my father was,” Hogan continued. “But my grandfather said he thought he was one of the servants’ kids that Susan used to sneak out with. From some of the other stuff he said, I think he was more worried about that than he was my mother’s age.” He paused. “Not that that matters now, either.”

Chloe felt his gaze fall on her again. When she looked at him, his eyes were dark with a melancholy sort of longing.

“Of course it matters,” she said softly. “Your entire life would have been different if you had grown up Travis Amherst instead of Hogan Dempsey.” And because she couldn’t quite stop herself, she added, “It’s...difficult...when life throws something at you that you never could have seen coming. Especially when you realize it’s going to change everything. Whatever you’re feeling, Hogan, they’re legitimate feelings, and they deserve to be acknowledged. You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t matter. It matters,” she repeated adamantly. “It matters a lot.”

Too late, she realized she had called him Hogan. Too late, she realized she had spilled something out of herself onto him again and made an even bigger mess than she had last night. Too late, she realized she couldn’t take any of it back.

But Hogan didn’t seem to think she’d made a mess. He seemed to be grateful for what she’d said. “Thanks,” he told her.

And because she couldn’t think of anything else to say, she replied automatically, “You’re welcome.”

She was about to return to the kitchen—she really, really, really did need to get cooking—but he started talking again, his voice wistful, his expression sober.

“I can’t imagine what my life would have been like growing up as Travis Amherst. I would have had to go to some private school where I probably would have played soccer and lacrosse instead of football and hockey. I would have gone to college. I probably would have majored in business or finance and done one of those study-abroads in Europe. By now Travis Amherst would be saddled with some office job, wearing pinstripes by a designer whose name Hogan Dempsey wouldn’t even recognize.” He shook his head, clearly baffled by what might have been. “The thought of having to work at a job like that instead of working at the garage is...” He inhaled deeply and released the breath slowly. “It’s just... A job like that would suffocate me. But Travis Amherst probably would have loved it.”

“Possibly,” Chloe said. “But maybe not. Travis might have liked working with his hands, too. It’s impossible to know for sure.”

“And pointless to play ‘what if,’ I know,” Hogan agreed. “What’s done is done. And the idea that I would have never known my mom and dad or have the friends I’ve had all my life... The thought of all the memories that live in my head being completely different...”

Chloe winced inwardly at the irony of their situation. They both grieved for the unknown. But with him, it was a past that hadn’t happened, and for her, it was a future that would never be.

“I need to cook,” she told him. She pushed her glasses into place with the back of her hand and took a step backward. “I’m sorry, but...” She took another step back. “I need to cook. If you’ll excuse me...”

“Sure,” he said. “No problem.” He didn’t sound like there wasn’t a problem, though. He sounded really confused.

That made two of them.

When Chloe turned to head back to the kitchen, she saw Mrs. Hennessey topping the last stair. Hogan’s housekeeper reminded her of her grandmother in a lot of ways. She wore the same boxy house dresses in the same muted colors and always kept her fine white hair twisted into a flawless chignon at her nape. She was no-nonsense and professional, the way Chloe was. At least, the way Chloe was before she came to work for Hogan. The way she knew she had to be again if she wanted to keep working here.

And she did want to keep working here. For some reason. A reason she wasn’t ready to explore. It was sure to be good, whatever it was.

Mrs. Hennessey announced to the room at large, “There’s an Anabel Carlisle downstairs to see you. I showed her to the salon.”

That seemed to snap Hogan out of his preoccupation with what might have been and pull him firmly into the here and now. “Anabel is here? Tell her I’ll be right down.”

“No, Mr. Dempsey, she’s here to see Ms. Merlin.”

Hogan’s jaw dropped a little at that. But all he said was, “Hogan, Mrs. Hennessey. Please call me Hogan.” Then he looked at Chloe. “Guess she refigured her budget and wants to hire you back.”

Chloe should have been delighted by the idea. Not only did it mean more money coming in, but it also meant she would be free of Hogan Dempsey and his damnable heartache-filled eyes. She should be flying down the stairs to tell Anabel that she’d love to come back to work for her and would pack her bags this instant. Instead, for some reason, she couldn’t move. “Tell Anabel we’ll be right down,” Hogan told Mrs. Hennessey.

The housekeeper nodded and went back down the stairs. Chloe stood still. Hogan gazed at her curiously.

“Don’t you want to hear what she has to say?”

Chloe nodded. She did. She did want to hear what Anabel had to say. But she really needed to cook. Cooking was something she could control. Cooking filled her head with flavors and fragrances, with methods and measurements. Cooking restored balance to the universe. And Chloe could really use some balance right now.

“Well then, let’s go find out,” Hogan said.

Chloe looked at him again. And was immediately sorry. Because now he looked happy and eager and excited. And a happy Hogan was far more overwhelming, and far more troubling, than a conflicted one. A happy Hogan reminded her of times and places—and people—that had made her happy, too. And those thoughts, more than anything, were the very reason she needed to cook.

* * *

Hogan couldn’t understand why Chloe looked so unhappy at the thought of seeing Anabel. Then again, Chloe hadn’t really looked happy about anything since he met her. He’d never encountered anyone so serious. Even cooking, which she constantly said she wanted to do, didn’t really seem to bring her any joy.

Then he remembered she’d never actually said she wanted to cook. She always said she needed to. For most people, that was probably a minor distinction. He was beginning to suspect that, for Chloe, there was nothing minor about it at all.

“C’mon,” he told her. “Let’s go see what Anabel wants.” And then, because she was standing close enough for him to do it, he leaned over and nudged her shoulder gently with his.

He might as well have jabbed her with a red-hot poker, the way she lurched away from him at the contact. She even let out a soft cry of protest and lifted a hand to her shoulder, as if he’d struck her there.

“I’m sorry,” he immediately apologized, even though he had no idea what he needed to apologize for. “I didn’t mean to...”

What? Touch her? Of course he meant to touch her. The same way he would have touched any one of his friends, male or female, in an effort to coax them out of their funk. People always nudged each other’s shoulders. Most people wouldn’t have even noticed the gesture. Chloe looked as if she’d been shot.

“It’s okay,” she said, still rubbing her shoulder, not looking like it was okay at all.

Not knowing what else he could say, he extended his arm toward the stairs to indicate she should precede him down. With one last, distressed look at him, she did. He kept his distance as he followed her because she seemed to need it, but also because it gave him a few more seconds to prepare for Anabel. He’d known he would run into her at some point—hell, he’d planned on it—but he’d figured it would be at some social function where there would be a lot of people around, and he’d have plenty of time to plan. He hadn’t thought she would come to his house, even if it was to see someone other than him.

What Mrs. Hennessey called a “salon,” Hogan thought of as a big-ass living room. The walls were paneled in maple, and a massive Oriental rug covered most of the green marble floor. A fireplace on one wall had a mantel that was dotted with wooden model ships, and it was flanked by brown leather chairs—a matching sofa was pushed against the wall opposite.

Three floor-to-ceiling arched windows looked out onto a courtyard in back of the house, and it was through one of those that Anabel Carlisle stood looking, with her back to them. Either she hadn’t heard them come in, or she, too, was giving herself a few extra seconds to prepare. All Hogan could tell was that the black hair that used to hang in straight shafts to the middle of her back was short now, cut nearly to her chin.

And her wardrobe choices were a lot different, too. He remembered her trying to look like a secondhand gypsy, even though she’d probably spent hundreds of dollars in Fifth Avenue boutiques on everything she wore. Today’s outfit had likely set her back even more, despite merely consisting of sedate gray pants and sweater. But both showcased lush curves she hadn’t had as a teenager, so maybe they were worth the extra expense.

As if he’d spoken his appraisal out loud, Anabel suddenly spun around. Although she looked first at Chloe, she didn’t seem to be surprised by Hogan’s presence. But whether the smile on her face was for him or his chef, he couldn’t have said. “Hogan,” she said in the same throaty voice he remembered. God, he’d always loved her voice. “Good to see you.”

“You, too, Anabel. How have you been?”

She began to walk toward where he and Chloe stood in the doorway. She still moved the way she used to, all grace and elegance and style. He’d always loved watching her move. She was just as gorgeous now as she’d been when they were kids. Even more, really, because she’d ditched the heavy eye makeup and dark lipstick she used to wear, so her natural beauty shone through. Strangely, the lack of makeup only made her blue eyes seem even bluer than he remembered them and her mouth even fuller and lusher.

He waited for the splash of heat that had always rocked his midsection whenever he saw her, and for the hitch of breath that had always gotten caught in his chest. But neither materialized. He guessed he’d outgrown reactions like that.

“I imagine you’ve already heard most of the highlights about how I’ve been,” she said as she drew nearer. “My divorce was the talk of the town until you showed up.” She smiled again, but there was only good humor and maybe a little nostalgia in the gesture. “I should actually probably thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, smiling back.

It really was good to see her. She really did look great. So what if his heart wasn’t pumping like the V-8 in a Challenger Hellcat, the way he would have thought it would be. People grew up. Hormones settled down.

With one last look at Hogan she turned her attention to Chloe.

“I want you to come back to work for me,” she said, straight to the point. “I can pay you three percent more than Hogan offered you.”

Hogan looked at Chloe. She still seemed shell-shocked from whatever the hell had happened between them in the gallery. She glanced at Hogan, then back at Anabel, but said nothing.

Cagey, he thought. She was probably thinking if Anabel was offering three percent, she could get more from Hogan. Fine. Whatever it took to keep Chloe on, Hogan would pay it. Especially if it meant Anabel might come around again.

“I’ll raise your salary five percent,” he told her.

Anabel looked at him, her lips parted in surprise. Or something. Then she looked back at Chloe. “I can go six percent,” she said coolly. “And you can have the entire month of August off, with pay.”

Again, Chloe looked at Hogan, then back at Anabel. Again, she remained silent.

“Eight percent,” Hogan countered.

Now Anabel narrowed her eyes at him in a way he remembered well. It was her I’ll-get-what-I-want-or-else look. She always wore it right before he agreed to spring for tickets for whatever band happened to be her favorite at the time, or whatever restaurant was her favorite, or whatever whatever was her favorite. Then again, she’d always thanked him with hours and hours of hot I-love-you-so-much sex. Well, okay, maybe not hours and hours. He hadn’t been the most controlled lover back in the day. But it had for sure been hot.

Anabel didn’t up her salary offer this time, but she told Chloe, “And I’ll give you the suite of rooms that face the park.”

Chloe opened her mouth to reply, but Hogan stopped her with another counteroffer. “I’ll raise your pay ten percent,” he said. He didn’t add anything about a better room or more time off. Not just because she already had a damned suitable room and more time off than the average person could ever hope to have, but because something told him money was way more important to Chloe than anything else.

What she needed the money for, Hogan couldn’t imagine. But it was her salary that had been the most important part of her contract, her salary that lured her from one employer to another. Chloe Merlin wanted money. Lots of it.

For a third time she looked at Hogan, then at Anabel. “I’m sorry, Anabel,” she said. “Unless you can offer to pay me more than Mr....” She threw another glance Hogan’s way, this one looking even more edgy than the others. Then she turned so that her entire body was facing Anabel. “Unless you can offer me more than...that...I’m afraid I’ll have to remain here.”

There was a brief expectant pause, and when Anabel only shook her head, Chloe made her way to the doorway. “I’ll draw up a rider for my contract and have it for you this evening,” she said to Hogan as she started back up the stairs.

And then she was gone, without saying goodbye to either of them.

“She is such an odd duck,” Anabel said when Chloe was safely out of earshot.

There was nothing derogatory in her tone, just a matter-of-factness that had been there even when they were teenagers. She wasn’t condemning Chloe, just stating the truth. His chef was pretty unique.

“But worth every penny,” she added with a sigh. She smiled again. “More pennies than I can afford to pay her. Obviously, she’s working for someone who’s out of my league.”

Hogan shook his head. “Other way around, Anabel. You were always out of my league. You said so yourself. More than once, if I remember.”

She winced at the comment, even though he hadn’t meant it maliciously. He’d learned to be matter-of-fact from her. “I was a dumb kid when we dated, Hogan,” she told him. “I was so full of myself back then. I said a lot of things I shouldn’t have.”

“Nah,” he told her. “You never said anything I wasn’t thinking myself. You were right. We came from two different worlds.”

“Even so, that didn’t give me the right to be such an elitist. My parents just taught me their philosophy well. It took me years to figure out I was wrong.”

Now there was a loaded statement. Wrong about what? Wrong about the prejudice her parents taught her? Wrong about some of the comments she’d made? Wrong about their social circles never mixing? Wrong about leaving him for the senator’s son?

Probably better not to ask for clarification. Not yet anyway. He and Anabel had rushed headlong into their relationship when they were kids. The first time they’d had sex was within days of meeting, and they’d almost never met without having sex. He’d sometimes wondered if maybe they’d gone slower, things would have worked out differently. This time he wasn’t going to hurry it. This time he wanted to do it right.

“So how have you been?” she asked him. “How are your folks? I still think about your mom’s Toll House cookies from time to time.”

“My folks are gone,” he told her. “Mom passed five years ago. Dad went two years later. Cancer. Both of them.”

She looked stricken by the news. She lifted a hand to his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Oh, Hogan, I am so sorry. I had no idea.”

He covered her hand with his. “You couldn’t have known. And thanks.”

For a moment neither of them said anything, then Anabel dropped her hand. She crossed her arms over her midsection and looked at the door. Hogan told himself to ask her something about herself, but he didn’t want to bring up her divorce, even if she didn’t seem to be any the worse for wear from it. Her folks, he figured, were probably the same as always. Maybe a little more likely to invite him into their home than they were fifteen years ago, but then again, maybe not.

But for the life of him, he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“I should probably get going,” she said. “I have a thing tonight. My aunt and uncle are in town. We’re meeting at the Rainbow Room.” She expelled a sound that was a mixture of affection and irritation. “They always want to meet at the Rainbow Room. Which is great, but really, I wish they’d expand their repertoire a bit. Try Per Se or Morimoto sometime. Or Le Turtle. I love that place.”

Okay, she’d just given Hogan the perfect opening. Three different restaurants she obviously loved. All he had to do was say, What a coincidence, Anabel, I’ve been wanting to expand my repertoire, too. Why don’t you and I have dinner at one of those places? You pick. And they’d be off. For some reason, though, he just couldn’t get the words to move out of his brain and into his mouth.

Not that Anabel had seemed to be angling for an invitation, because she didn’t miss a beat when she continued, “Ah, well. Old habits die hard, I guess.”

Which was another statement that could have been interpreted in more ways than one. Was she talking about her aunt and uncle now, and their dining habits? Or was she talking about her and Hogan, and how she still maybe had a thing for him? It didn’t used to be this hard to read her. And why the hell didn’t he just ask her out to see how she responded?

“It was good to see you again, Hogan,” she said as she took a step in retreat. “I’m glad Philip Amherst’s attorneys found you,” she continued as she took another. “Maybe our paths will cross again before long.”

“Maybe so,” he said, finding his voice.

She lifted a hand in farewell then turned and made her way toward the exit. Just as she was about to disappear into the hallway, Hogan thought of something to ask her.

“Hey, Anabel.”

She halted and turned back around, but said nothing.

“If I’d grown up an Amherst...” Hogan began. “I mean, if you’d met me as, say, a guy named Travis Amherst from the Upper East Side who went to some private school and played lacrosse and was planning to go to Harvard after graduation, instead of meeting me as Hogan Dempsey, grease monkey...”

She smiled again, this one definitely nostalgic. “Travis Amherst wouldn’t have been you, Hogan. He would have been like a million other guys I knew. If I’d met you as Travis Amherst, I never would have bothered with you.”

“You bothered with the senator’s son,” he reminded her. “And he had to have been like those million other guys.”

“Yeah, he was. And look how that turned out.”





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