Heat in the Kitchen (6 page)

'Ella, I said I'd help. How difficult can it be to play background music?'

'Difficult enough. You'd be playing for about an hour and a half and although the music is heard, no-one really listens to it. I don't think your ego could manage that.' Now she sounded cross.

Matt hooted with laughter. 'Oh boy, that's telling me! I think my ego can cope for a couple of hours. Do you want a hair dryer, or can it dry naturally for a bit?' Without waiting for an answer, he continued. 'Come on, I'll audition for you.' He grabbed her hand, led her out of the apartment and down the stairs.

Ella bristled with his annoying habit of asking questions and not letting her answer and was down the stairs before she knew it.

*

Matt led her across the hallway. Despite the speed at which they were walking, Ella took in her surroundings as she hadn't been able to last night. They'd come down a flight of stairs by the front entrance. To her left she noticed a few closed doors with a statue and a table in-between. At the far end of the spacious hallway she saw a wide sweeping staircase that split halfway and continued up left and right to the first floor balcony. Turning her head she realised that the balcony ran along all sides of the house in a square. Matt's apartment door stood open as he'd left it and there appeared to be other doors off too, which she presumed were the entrances for the other apartments.

At ground level three pillars at each side of the hall supported the weight of the balcony. At either side of the central stairway in front of her she noticed more closed doors. Matt led her through a set of glass doors on the right. The length of the hall on this side was entirely comprised of a glass wall which threw a lot of natural light across the hallway. The lounge into which they'd entered appeared to run the complete depth of the building.

Ella really should have been worried about letting Penny down but all she could do was gaze around her. The sheer size of the place and the quality of the finish was breathtaking. The lounge looked like a well lived in family space, albeit on a major scale. At the front end there was an enormous TV screen on the wall with three large sofas around it and some occasional tables. There was another set of sofas surrounding the large central fireplace on the opposite wall. Bookcases and glass cabinets lined the wall space.

Towards the back of the room, there was a large dining table and beyond that a grand piano. An electric upright piano, other musical instruments and a cabinet full of sheet music were displayed in the corner. Patio doors led outside and a door to the left was open to what looked like a kitchen.

'Wow! This is amazing. It's beautiful.' Ella stood and completed a circle around herself. 'You've got your apartment so who uses this?'

'We all have our own apartments. Everything down here is communal. When we first bought this place, it was crumbling. We did it up bit by bit and converted the top two floors into four two-storey apartments. The girls were just fifteen when Zander and I pooled enough money to buy it.'

'Gosh, you must have both been young yourselves to have that sort of money.'

'We were. Zander was a whizz with investments, still is, which is pretty much all we had then. We'd both dabbled for years, investing more and more as we made more and more. By that time, I'd had some overseas catering assignments which had paid exceptionally well and we used that money to start the renovations. The money we earned doing the part-time jobs we both had went on keeping us all fed and clothed. What little money was left over after we'd sold off our parents' properties and cleared our father's debts was mostly saved for the girls' school fees. We didn't see why their education should suffer just because of our parents' stupidity and selfishness.'

Ella heard bitterness creep into his tone. She didn't really know what had happened when their parents had died, other than the girls had stopped boarding and Mr Brown had let them live in a cottage in the school grounds. He spoke as if she should know. Maybe he thought Tess and Ronnie had told her. She didn't like the bitter sound - it went against the confident, positive person he'd mostly been since last night. She ignored it and focussed on the present.

'If you all have your own apartments, when do you use this room?'

'When more than one of us is here, we use it all the time. We like spending time together as a family. When one of us wants their own space they stay in their own apartment. As you can see, all our apartments open out onto the internal balcony and we generally leave the doors open, so we can feel part of the family but still have our privacy. We all know not to intrude in each other's apartment but to wait to be invited in. Although, because we'd all initially lived in the apartment that's now mine, it took a long time before I managed to get them all to stop traipsing in whenever they felt like it. This space down here is different though - no privacy allowed! This room was the first one we did up. The kitchen through there was just useable when we moved in.' Matt pointed through to where the kitchen was.

'The cloakroom over at the front by my staircase had an antiquated shower in it so we had a bathroom of sorts. And the space across the hall beyond the statue that is now a games room and gym was used as two bedrooms. We lived like that for eighteen months whilst we converted the upstairs.'

Ella pulled a face. 'It must have been like living on a building site.'

'Yeah, it was. It was unbearable at times, and the girls moaned constantly about the dirt and the noise - and the lack of privacy. It can't have been much fun for them I suppose. But looking back the four of us shared lots of good times.' Matt smiled at the memories. 'We all had input into the design of the main building and each of the apartments. We decided to move into the apartment I now use until the girls were eighteen. Once we were there we set to work to get the rest of the downstairs renovated. The girls eventually moved into their own apartments at the back and Zander moved into his which is next to mine at the front. It took six years of hard slog, of holding down multiple jobs, taking it in turns to study and bring up the girls, but at the grand old age of twenty four, Zander and I got a life!'

'Mmm, from what I've seen in the newspapers, you've made the most of every minute!'

Matt grinned at her. The big, wide grin Ella was beginning to like looking at. 'Yeah, I have haven't I? You shouldn't believe everything you read in the papers though. And how do you know what's written about me anyway?' Matt gave her a questioning stare.

Ella flushed and looked away. 'Don't you think it's time you showed me if you can play this piano? It's a beauty by the way.' Ella moved across to the piano and lifted the lid to expose the piano keys. 'My god Matt, it's a Boesendorfer. How did you get one of these? Do you realise how good a piano you've got here?'

Ella was in complete awe. Boesendorfer pianos were considered by some to be the best in the world. She had played on them many times during concerts and loved the sound that came out of them. All she had in her small home was a baby Steinway and she was a professional pianist.

Matt watched her, amused, as she reverently stroked the piano. He didn't know how she knew her pianos but he loved what she was doing with it - would love to have her do that to his body. He felt himself harden at the thought of her hands gently caressing his chest and gradually moving down his body until her long fingers captured his hard shaft. He gave himself a mental shake and walked to the curve of the piano to hide his body from her view.

'In answer to your question, yes, we do know how good the piano is. We all play, me the most I suppose. I like to have the best, and I consider Boesendorfer's to be the best. Once I could afford it, I bought it. I love the responsive touch and the tonal sound.' Matt lifted the main lid to its maximum height so the sound could be heard in all its glory.

'Right,' he said, sitting down, 'what pieces did you have in mind?'

Ella decided to test him. 'What about anything by Tchaikovsky? There's a lot to choose from for background romance.'

'Okay. What about Waltz of the Flowers?' Matt started playing, his fingers flying over the keyboard with consummate ease.

*

Ella leant against the piano and watched, transfixed, as Matt lost himself in the music. This wasn't just someone playing a piano, this was someone who had an affinity for the meaning of the music, who completely got the emotion of the piece. She closed her eyes as she gently swayed and moved her head with each beat. Matt delivered a lightness of touch with every phrase, the soft parts barely discernible. So lost was she in his playing and the sound coming from the piano it took her a few moments to realise Matt had seamlessly moved into another piece.

After another couple of minutes, Matt gently brought his playing to a close and looked up at Ella, amused.

'You can open your eyes now.'

Ella started at his voice and came to with a jolt.

'I hadn't realised you'd stopped. Matt, that was simply beautiful. Why didn't you pursue a musical career? You'd be a knockout.' Ella just gazed at him in complete wonder.

Matt shrugged his shoulders. 'I'm a better chef than I am a musician.'

'Then you must be an amazing chef Matt.'

Matt grinned at her. That big wide grin that bowled her over. 'I do have two Michelin stars. I was the youngest chef to ever be awarded a Michelin star.'

Ella laughed. 'Your ego knows no bounds!' She stopped and looked thoughtful. 'And yet, you're not like that over your music.'

He shrugged again. 'Having been forced to work instead of going to the Royal Academy, I discovered a flair and love of cooking. I worked restaurants while Zander studied for his degree and in the holidays when Zander was around more for the girls, I took off abroad and worked for any decent kitchen that would take me. I learnt from some of the best and most passionate people in the industry. I discovered I liked cooking more than I liked music.'

Ella was beginning to realise there were many different facets to Matt. He wasn't just the overly confident chef. He'd worked in partnership with Zander to bring up the girls, genuinely loved his family and was modest about his other talents. Ella hadn't known it was possible to be any more in love with him than she already was but she was wrong.

'I wish the circumstances that forced it could have been different, but my life couldn't have worked out better. I'm in a job I love, it's given me a privileged life and music is a gift I can enjoy as a hobby. One of the things we love doing as a family when we're all home is jamming around with our various instruments. I've done intimate performances for friends over the years but I much prefer the spotlight being on my cooking.'

Ella felt a stab of jealousy. She had no-one to mess about with musically, and even though it was her career she still loved playing in private. She forced down her emotion and cleared her throat.

'Well, I think you're definitely up to the task of standing in for me.'

'Hah! Now who's got the ego?'

Ella winced. He couldn't be further from the truth. She was almost embarrassed by her talent and the success it had brought her. She'd graduated top of her year and been snapped up by an orchestra. It hadn't taken long before she'd been performing solo engagements and her career had taken off in a way she had never thought possible.

'Sorry, that didn't come out right. I just meant that I don't feel I'd be letting Penny down if you play instead of me.'

Ella looked at her scalded hand and then longingly at the piano. 'I'd love to have a go on this piano. You've got a concert hall model and yet you controlled the sound for this size of room so beautifully.' She reverently touched the piano.

'Come and have a go. Play something using one hand.' He patted the seat beside him.

Ella sat and stroked the keys while she thought about what she could play that would flow using the right hand.

She started playing and Matt listened for a moment. 'Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata if I'm not mistaken?'

Ella looked round at him, stunned that he recognised it. 'You really know your music don't you?'

Matt added in the left hand. 'I've played since I was five. As well as messing around creating new dishes, playing the piano also helps me relax. I still play it a lot and as I like challenges I'm constantly learning new pieces.'

For the next few minutes they both lost themselves in the piece.

Matt couldn't deny he enjoyed jamming on the piano with Ella. Intuitively they kept pace with each other. He'd only ever played this harmoniously with his siblings and always thought that was because they were so close.

Interesting.

He felt the stirrings of something more than sexual desire and tamped it down as their playing came to an end.

'I'm so in awe of it.' She turned sideways to Matt with a look of sheer joy on her face. 'I haven't played a Boesendorfer since my last recording. The studio has one. I love the feel of the keys. Playing seems so effortless. You're so….'

The air between them was charged. Ella suddenly became aware of how close their faces were just moments before Matt kissed her. A sensual kiss that glided across her soft lips.

Matt couldn't have stopped that kiss any more than he could have stopped breathing. He didn't know whether it was unfulfilled lust, the way her eyes sparkled with genuine happiness, or her obvious pleasure and talent in playing the instrument he loved, but at that moment he felt joined to her in a way he never had with anyone else outside his family.

The moment affected Ella too as she sighed and parted her lips, inviting him in. Matt put his arm round her waist and pulled her closer to him. His tongue slipped between her lips and mated seductively with hers. Passion embraced them but rather than give in to the heavy desire, Matt kept it light and slow. As his tongue caressed her mouth, learning the taste of her, he entangled his fingers in her hair, loving the luxuriant silky feel of it.

For the first time since he'd become sexually active Matt wanted to take the time to just feel and not plunder for sexual release. That thought didn't scare him as it should have done but it was enough to weaken the connection between them.