“Are you single, Mr. Valens?” Sam asked as she moved forward to shake his hand as well.
Cale raised an eyebrow at the blunt question, but glanced to Bricker when he released a short, sharp laugh.
“I see your agreeing to turn hasn’t dampened your determination to see Alex settled with an immortal, Sam,” Bricker commented with amusement, then warned Cale, “Look out. She’ll be holding a dinner party and introducing the two of you by week’s end.”
“Well, why not?” Sam sounded a touch defensive. “You never know. They might suit each other.”
“Honey,” Mortimer said on a sigh, “the chances of Alex’s being a possible life mate for an immortal are pretty slim. It’s amazing that Jo turned out to be Nicholas’s life mate. It’s very rare to find three mortal sisters who suit—”
“Chances shmances,” Sam interrupted firmly. “Besides, there’s no harm in introducing them and seeing if they wouldn’t suit. Alex would make a good immortal. She’s smart, successful, and already works nights. I’ll just call her and see if she can come over for dinner.” Sam started to turn away, but Mortimer caught her arm.
“Why don’t we find out why Cale is here and see if he even has time to stay for dinner first?” he suggested quietly.
Sam hesitated, but then glanced to Cale. “Can you stay for dinner?”
When he nodded, she grinned and then whirled away again.
“Thank you for humoring her,” Mortimer said on a sigh, as they watched her cross the room.
Cale shrugged. “I am not humoring
her
so much as Marguerite.”
“Marguerite?” Sam stopped abruptly in the kitchen doorway and spun around, her already large eyes appearing even larger in her startled face.
Cale’s eyebrows lifted. The woman was almost vibrating with an emotion he couldn’t quite identify. He was about to read her mind when Mortimer captured his attention by echoing her exclamation in a deeper, though no less startled, voice.
“Marguerite?”
Cale glanced to the man, and then to Bricker, both of whom were now peering at him with intense interest. Grimacing, he admitted, “Marguerite seems to have a bee in her bonnet about me meeting Sam’s sister, Alex.”
“She does?” Sam breathed, taking several steps toward them.
Cale found himself shifting uncomfortably as he admitted, “Yes. She seems to think we might suit each other … I expect she’s wrong, but it can’t hurt to humor her and meet your sister to see one way or the other.”
“I’ll have Alex come over at once!” Sam spun away again, this time making it out of the room before anyone spoke.
A snort of amusement brought Cale’s glance to Bricker as the younger immortal asked, “You’re kidding right?”
“About what?” Cale asked, scowling. He didn’t like being laughed at, and the younger man was definitely laughing. He was also eyeing him with a combination of pity and, strangely, what appeared to be envy.
“About not expecting Marguerite to be right,” Bricker explained, and then slapped him on the back. “Buddy, if Marguerite is having one of her ‘feelings’ that you and Alex will suit, you’re as good as mated. It’s what Marguerite
does.
She finds life mates for anyone and everyone she can. She’s hooked up every single couple who have found each other the last few years.”
“Every
Argeneau
couple,” Mortimer corrected firmly. “She was not responsible for Sam and me.”
“Yeah, well I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Bricker said dryly. “She probably suggested Lucian send us to that job in cottage country in the hopes that one of us would suit one of the sisters.”
Mortimer rolled his eyes at the suggestion. “She couldn’t have known about Sam and her sisters. I don’t think she’s even been to Decker’s cottage.”
“Oh, he didn’t tell you?” Bricker asked with amusement.
“Tell me what?” Mortimer asked, suddenly wary.
“Marguerite helped him find the place. Since he was always so busy on the job, she vetted the available properties and suggested the one next to Sam and her sisters was the nicest.”
“Christ,” Mortimer muttered.
Bricker laughed, but Cale simply peered from one man to the other curiously. “Is she really that good at finding mates for immortals?”
“Oh yeah,” Bricker assured him. “So, if Marguerite thinks Alex is the one for you, it’s in the bag. It looks like your bachelor days are done, my friend. Bet you can’t wait.”
Cale found himself frowning at the suggestion, and said a bit stiffly, “Not all of us are lonely and in need of a life mate. Some of us manage to live relatively happy, busy lives without one.”
“Yeah right,” Bricker said with disbelief.
Cale scowled, but didn’t argue the point further. Why bother? It wasn’t really true anyway.
“You have to be kidding me.” Alex Willan stared at the man standing on the other side of her desk. Peter Cunningham, or Pierre as he preferred to be called, was her head cook. He was also short, bearded, and had beady little eyes. She’d always thought he resembled aweasel, but never so much as she did at that moment. “You can’t quit just like that. The new restaurant opens in two weeks.”
“Yes I know.” He gave her a sad little moue. “But really Alexandra, he is offering a king’s ransom for me to—”
“Of course he is. He’s trying to ruin me,” she snapped.
Peter shrugged. “Well, if you were to beat their offer …”
Alex’s eyes narrowed. She couldn’t help noticing that he’d said “beat” rather than “match” or even “come close.” The little creep really was a weasel with no loyalty at all … but she needed him.
“How much?” she asked sharply, and barely managed to keep from hyperventilating at the amount he murmured. Dear God, that was three times what she was paying him and twice what she could afford … which he knew, of course.
It was a ridiculous sum. No chef earned that, and he wasn’t worth it. Peter was good, but not that good. It didn’t make any sense that Jacques Tournier, the owner of Chez Joie, would offer him that much. But then Alex could suddenly see what the plan was. Jacques was luring the man away in a deliberate attempt to leave her high and dry. He’d keep him on for two or three weeks, just long enough to cause scads of trouble for her, then he’d fire him under some pretext or other.
Alex opened her mouth, prepared to warn Pierre, but the smug expression on his face stopped her. Peter had always been an egotistical bastard. It was bad enough when he was only the
sous-chef,
but in the short timesince she’d promoted him to head chef, his ego had grown to ten times its previous bloated state. No, she thought with a sigh, he wouldn’t believe her. He’d think it just sour grapes.
“I know you can’t afford it,” Peter said pityingly. Then with something less than sympathy, he added, “Just admit it so I can stop wasting my time and get out of here.”
Alex’s mouth tightened. “Well, if you knew, why even bother suggesting it? ”
“I didn’t want you to think I was totally without loyalty,” he admitted with a shrug. “Were you to beat their offer, I would have stayed.”
“Thanks,” she said dryly.
“De rien,”
he said, and turned toward the door.
Alex almost let him walk out, but her conscience got the better of her. Whether he’d believe her or not, she had to at least try to warn him that he was setting himself up for a fall. Once Jacques fired him—and she didn’t doubt for a minute he would—Peter would be marked. The entire industry would know that he’d left her for them, and then lost that job. Even if people didn’t suspect the truth of what happened and label him a putrid little weasel, they would think he’d been fired for
something.
Alex had barely begun to speak her thoughts, however, before Peter was shaking his head. Still, she rushed on with it, warning him as her conscience dictated. The moment she fell silent, he sneered at her with derision.
“I knew you would be upset, Alexandra, but making up such a ridiculous story to get me to stay is just sad. The truth is, I have been selling myself cheap for some time now. I’ve built up a reputation as an amazing chef these last several weeks while cooking in your stead—” “
Two weeks,” Alex corrected impatiently. “It’s only been two weeks since I promoted you to head chef. And you’re cooking
my
recipes, not coming up with brilliant ones of your own. Surely you can see how ridiculous it is that someone would pay you that kind of money for—”
“No, I do not see it as ridiculous. I am brilliant. Jacques sees my potential and that I deserve to be paid my value. But you obviously don’t. You have been trying to keep me under. Now I will get paid what I deserve and enjoy some of the profits produced by my skills.” Mouth tightening, he added, “And you’re not going to trick me into staying here with such stupid stories.”
With a little sniff of disgust, Peter turned on his heel and sailed out of her office with his nose up and a self-righteous air that made her want to gag.
Alex closed her eyes. At the moment, she wanted nothing more than to yell a string of obscenities after the man, and suspected she would enjoy his fall when it came. Unfortunately, her own fall would come first.
Cursing, she pulled her Rolodex toward her and began to rifle through the numbers. Perhaps one of her old friends from culinary school could help for a night or two. Christ, she was ruined if she didn’t find someone and quickly.
An hour later, Alex reached the W’s in her Rolodex with no prospects when the phone rang. Irritated withthe interruption when she was having a crisis, Alex snapped it up. She barked “hello,” the fingers of her free hand still flipping through the cards one after the other in quick succession.
“I have someone I want you to meet.”
Alex frowned at the strange greeting, slow to recognize her sister’s voice. Once she did, a deep sigh slid from her lips, and she shook her head wearily. She really didn’t need this right now. She was heartily sick of the parade of men Sam had been presenting her with over the last eight months.
It had been bad enough when she and their younger sister, Jo, had both been single and available, but now that Jo had Nicholas, Sam was focusing all of her attention on finding Alex a man. She supposed it wouldn’t be so bad if even one of the men Sam had insisted on introducing her to had shown some mild interest in her, but after barely more than a moment, and sometimes as little as a few seconds, every single one had simply ignored her, or in some cases, even walked away.
It was giving her a complex. She’d even started dieting, something she’d sworn she’d never do, and exercising, a pastime she detested, as well as trying different makeup and fashion choices in an effort to boost her now-flagging ego.
This really was the last thing she needed, but Alex knew Sam’s heart was in the right place and forced herself to hang on to her patience and even managed to keep her tone to only mildly exasperated.
“Sam, honey, my head chef just quit, and I have onehour to replace him before the dinner set start to arrive. I don’t have time for your matchmaking right now.”
“Oh, but, Alex, I’m pretty sure this is the one,” she protested.
“Right, well, maybe he is, but if he isn’t a world-class chef, I’m not interested,” Alex said grimly. “I’m hanging up now.”
“He is!”
Alex paused with the phone halfway back to its cradle and pulled it back to her ear. “What? He is what?”
“A chef?” Sam said, but it sounded like a question rather than an announcement. It was enough to make Alex narrow her eyes.
“For real?” she asked suspiciously.
“Yes.” Sam sounded more certain this time.
“Where did he last work?” she asked cautiously.
“I—I’m not sure,” Sam hedged. “He’s from Europe.”
“Europe?” Alex asked, her interest growing. They had some fine culinary schools in Europe. She’d attended one of them.
“Yes,” Sam assured her. “Actually, that’s why I was sure he would be the one. He’s into cooking and fine cuisine like you.”
Alex drummed her fingers thoughtfully on the desk. It seemed like just too much good fortune that her sister wanted to introduce her to a chef the very day she was in desperate need of one. On the other hand, she’d suffered enough bad luck the last few months that a bit of good luck was surely in order. Finally, she asked, “What’s his name?”
“Valens.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” Alex murmured, and then realized how stupid it was to say that. She didn’t know every single chef in Europe. In fact, she only knew a few from her days in culinary school … and the names of the famous ones of course.
“Look, he’s a chef, and you need one. What can it hurt to meet him?” Sam asked. “I swear you won’t be sorry. I really think this will work out. Marguerite is never wrong. You have to meet him.”
“Marguerite?” Alex asked with confusion, recognizing the name. She was the aunt of one of Mortimer’s band mates, Decker Argeneau. Alex had never met her, but Sam mentioned her a lot. However, she had no idea what the woman had to do with any of this.
“Just meet him,” Sam pleaded.
Alex sighed, her fingers tapping a rapid tattoo. She could sense that Sam was lying about something in her determination to get her to meet the man, and really, she didn’t have time to waste at the moment. On the other hand, Sam hadn’t hesitated to say he could cook and had even said it was why she’d thought they might hit it off, so Alex suspected that part of it was at least true. At least she hoped it was. The fact was, she was desperate. And, frankly, beggars couldn’t be choosers. If the man could cook even half decently, she was definitely interested in him though not the way Sam was obviously hoping she would be.
“Send him over,” she barked, and then slammed the phone back in its cradle before she could change her mind.
* * *
Cale was telling Bricker and Mortimer about the wedding he’d attended in New York for several of his family members and their life mates when Sam came hurrying back into the room. “It’s all set,” she announced excitedly. “You have to go to her restaurant right away.”
Cale frowned. “You said you would have her come here.”
“Yes, well, there was a change of plans. Alex has a small crisis at the restaurant and can’t leave,” Sam announced, catching his arm and urging him toward the door to the kitchen. “Actually that reminds me. Can you cook?”