Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1)(50)

Something stirred inside him. It was the feeling of being faced with his own stupidity.

You’re a chef? she was saying. And I have to explain these things to you?

“The chicken first, because saffron is a lazier flavor in terms of how long it takes to surface and register. Then the roti, because truffle oil and fennel both can overwhelm, unless tempered by a palate already coated with a softer spice.”

Her eyes were huge, slightly upturned at the corners, and soft—completely at odds with her personality. She blinked and looked away from him and back at his food. Then she did exactly as he had asked.

Her neck was the first thing he’d noticed about her. She had the longest neck he’d ever seen, with delicate tendons bracketing the hollow that dipped at the base of her throat where all the luminescence of her skin seemed to gather. Sitting at the kitchen island on those tall, elegant stools that seemed like an extension of her body, her neck stretched as though she were reaching into his flavors with her entire being. He stood over her unable to look away as she chewed and swallowed and closed her eyes on a sigh.

“Oh my God,” she said, her eyes fluttering open. Her pupils were dilated, that finely boned jaw moving in slow savoring beats, those long, sensible surgeon’s fingers dancing in front of her lips as though she wanted to lick the taste of his food off them. “You cannot possibly feed this to people.”

He swallowed.

“What about it bothers you?” he asked, knowing full well that he was fishing. Like a pathetic little boy trying to please his mother. All the bloody time.

“The fact that you made me only one.” She was an entirely different person in her moment of wonder. “Won’t we bankrupt ourselves if people ate this, because how would they stop?” Her lush mouth parted in the center.

“I can always try to make it less delicious.” He bit his lip, because he would not smile.

“You have to at least try,” she said breathlessly as he put another one together and she ate it exactly the way he loved his food to be eaten. With reverence. Slowly. As though every bit meant something. Sparkles of warmth started in his chest, rippled across his skin, and traveled down his arms to the tips of his fingers.

She ate like that for a while. No words for his stuffed peppers. None for his mint cucumber relish. None for his smoked pomfret rolls. Just eyes suffused with pleasure, the brown melting into amber with each swallow. The disdain in them smoked out of their depths, gone without a trace.

Gone temporarily, he reminded himself, rubbing the warming sensation off his arms.

“What do you think?” Nisha shouted from the bedroom after the silence had wrapped around them too long.

It took a beat for either of them to register Nisha’s voice. A beat in which their gazes caught and held and then acknowledged the breaking of a spell. A spell he had woven with his food.

He imagined himself dusting off his hands, and blowing on them, his job done.

Hired help, my arse.

“I think I’ll help you with Yash’s fund-raiser,” she shouted in response. Then she went back to eating.





Chapter Fourteen


Do not change your mind about her. Do not change your mind about her just because of how she ate your food. DJ was fully aware that letting his guard down because Trisha Raje finally seemed impressed with him made him a complete and utter knobhead.

“Nice car,” she said when she walked him to Emma’s hot-pink Beetle after the food he had brought with him had been thoroughly sampled and approved. And by approved he meant cleaned out, every last morsel of it. The woman could eat. Who would have guessed it?

The delighted amusement that flashed across her face at the sight of the car was enough that he got a fleeting glimpse of why her family seemed to like her so much. Maybe Nisha was right and she was only insufferable when she was hungry.

“I’ve dreamed of a hot-pink Beetle since I was a little boy.” He inserted the key in the door lock—yes, the car was that old—and unlocked it, causing Trisha Raje to smile as though he were the quaintest thing since the Queen’s shoes.

“It does look like every little boy’s dream.”

He was about to smile at that but she seemed to realize that she was being nice and her smile faltered. “Thank you for being flexible today. But I have to warn you that I know absolutely nothing about food or feeding people.”

Shocker that. “Maybe you can ask someone else to do it. Mrs. Raje or Ashna perhaps?”

Her smile fell off her face so fast it was like a magic trick. “Listen, we weren’t kidding about not letting anyone find out that Nisha isn’t feeling well. It’s absolutely crucial that no one finds out. Most certainly not our mother. But not even Ashna. If you can’t keep this to yourself, we’re going to have to find someone else to do it.”

Did she just threaten to fire him? For trying to be helpful? “I didn’t say I was going to tell anyone. You seemed uncomfortable with having to step in. I was trying to help.” He had to work hard to keep his voice even, to not tell her to stuff her job. Maybe it wasn’t a threat.

“I am uncomfortable, but Nisha assured me that you were competent enough for the both of us. Keeping this under wraps is not negotiable. If you would rather not help us keep this secret, tell me now and we can find someone who can.”

There it was again. Definitely a bloody threat. He opened the boot of Emma’s Beetle and placed his hot bag in there. His jaw was so tight it was going to snap out of its joint if he didn’t calm down.