“Nico is hyped up?” He was the general manager and he was a pretty no-nonsense kind of guy. I wouldn’t have described him as someone who got easily excited.
Martin was standing in the corner, talking to the bartender. I went over, unzipping my leather jacket. “Hey, does anyone know what is going on?” I fully expected Martin to mention his promotion or hint.
My co-workers both shrugged.
“No, I have no clue at all,” Martin said, actually looking seriously annoyed. “And if you don’t know what is going on either, you know what that means.”
My mouth dropped open. “You’re joking. Nico and Sid wouldn’t. Would they?”
The door to the kitchen flew open and the most junior staff server, Raul, came out with a tray with plates on it. Appetizers.
“Apparently, they would,” Martin said grimly.
The owner, Sid, had gone and hired someone from outside the restaurant to be the new executive chef.
Sid followed behind Raul, beaming and calling out a greeting. “Grab a seat, everyone. We have some exciting news.”
I swallowed hard, unprepared for the shift in fortune. I could work under Martin. I knew him, knew his quirks and demands and strengths. I did not want to work under a total stranger. That would be a complete pain in the ass, adjusting to a brand-new personality in our kitchen.
Yanking out a chair next to where Martin had just sat down, I dropped my ass onto the wood, eyeing the appetizers Raul was placing around. It wasn’t a dish currently on the menu. It appeared to be a pickle fry. I tasted the tip. Spicy.
Sid was going on and on about the appetizer, acting like it was the most creative thing since avocado toast.
It was a fried dill pickle. Nothing super innovative about that, though damn it, that spicy breading was really tasty.
I glanced over at Martin. He was fuming. I reached under the table and squeezed his thigh. If I was pissed, he had twice as much reason to be angry. It also sucked big-time that neither Sid nor Nico thought that maybe a heads-up for me and Martin would have been appropriate. Just take the two chefs aside and explain their decision-making process so that we weren’t both sitting there feeling like complete underappreciated losers.
“It’s just okay,” I murmured to Martin under my breath.
“My fourteen-year-old can make this,” was his response.
I didn’t doubt it. Martin had one of those amazingly talented and creative families. His wife was a professor of women’s studies at Fordham, his son was the state cello champion, and his eighteen-year-old daughter was a huge civil rights activist.
I shoved the pickle around on the plate, fighting the urge to stab it repeatedly with my fork. Martin had gotten a really raw deal.
Nico came out of the kitchen.
“So I’m asking all of you to give a huge welcome to our new executive chef, who comes to us by way of the Greenhouse Tavern, Sean Kincaid.”
My head snapped up.
Oh, no.
Oh, hell no.
It couldn’t be.
There had to be more than one Sean Kincaid, right?
If there was, it didn’t matter, because this was the same one.
The very same jerk-off I’d been stuck in an elevator with for eight minutes last December. My friend Felicia’s now brother-in-law since Felicia and Michael had eloped.
The man who had brought up every competitive bone in my body, and got me hot and bothered all at the same time. The man who had kissed me like we were going down with the ship and needed to spend our last moments on earth in carnal pleasure. The man who I had spent the next few nights in bed alone both fuming and fantasizing about.
There he was. In my restaurant. Standing in front of the kitchen door, Nico’s arm around him, smiling at everyone.
Sean looked the same as I remembered. Smoking hot, sexy as hell, arrogant as hell. His expression was friendly, but very confident.
“Hi, it’s a pleasure to meet all of you.”
My heart was pounding and the pickle was stuck in my throat. I tried to swallow but nothing happened. I reached for my water glass.
It was then, as his gaze swept down the table, that he saw me.
His eyes widened.
Mine narrowed.
Then he grinned.
Well, this was just fan-freaking-tastic. My new boss was possibly the most annoying man on the planet who could simultaneously piss me off and make my nipples hard all at the same time.
I gripped my fork tighter.
Well, fuck yeah. My day just got even better.
I’d been all prepared to come into Bone and reassure the existing staff that I was a decent guy who wasn’t going to go all Gordon Ramsey on their ass. What I had not expected was to see the one woman who could distract me from my paralyzing claustrophobia.
This was an unexpected pleasure and an added bonus to my new position. Because seated midway down the table was the woman who had made a hell of an impact on me. It was Isla the Sarcastic. Isla the Gorgeous. Isla the Intimidator.
That was how I’d started to think of her after our encounter in the elevator. Our meeting hadn’t ended well. After a kiss that had given me the world’s biggest hard-on, we had gone into Michael and Felicia’s engagement party, sallied a few parting shots, and promptly avoided each other for the rest of the night.
But I hadn’t been able to get her out of my head the whole damn party.
Or truthfully, in the months since.
She was rude and hated me, and I couldn’t even argue the why of it. I had been a dick to her. My only excuse was that being in a close space was a real challenge for me, and I had gotten on the elevator hoping to be alone so I wouldn’t embarrass myself. Then when the fucking thing had stopped moving, I barely remembered what I said after that until we were safely in the hallway. But I was sure none of it was good because she looked at me like I was a cockroach she wanted to smash with her boot.
Yet, she was gorgeous, there was no denying that.
She had both the look and the attitude of an eighties punk rocker.
She had shoulder-length hair that had been bleached almost white on top, with the bottom strands going darker the lower you looked. She had big expressive brown eyes, a cute little nose with a tiny silver stud in the side, and lush, full lips.
That I had kissed.
Kissed, sucked, bit, devoured…
Lips that I had tried to forget.
Now she was staring at me in both shock and anger, eyes snapping, mouth wide open.
It seemed I’d actually made her speechless, which was a hell of a feat from what I remembered of her.
“Thank you, everyone. I’m excited to be a part of the great team here at Bone,” I said, dragging my gaze off of her.
I was not there to eye fuck Isla.
Making sure to make eye contact with each person around the table, I used a reassuring tone. “I know you are running like a well-oiled machine here, so I promise not to come in and change everything up. I want to work with all of you to keep Bone the amazing establishment it is, while kicking it up a notch.”
It was the usual corporate talk. I’d been in the business long enough to know what was expected of me at a meeting like this. Reassure everyone. Make them feel like nothing is going to change.
All while knowing you were about to switch out half of the menu.
No executive chef came in and wanted to serve his predecessor’s food.
Nico and Sid had told me there were two staff chefs when they had come to me with the job offer. They hadn’t given names, but I was familiar with Martin because he’d been on the scene in Brooklyn for years, long before Brooklyn was trending, and I had known he worked at Bone. He was at least ten years older than me and I had thought it was going to be a challenge to win him over because I knew he would be pissed that he was being passed over.