Too Hot to Handle (Romancing the Clarksons #1)(2)

Or failures, more like. There had been way more of those.

Tonight’s dinner-service plans had been ambitious. After a three-week absence from the restaurant, during which she’d participated in the reality television cooking show In the Heat of the Bite—and been booted off—Rita had been determined to swing for the fences her first night back. An attempt to overcompensate? Sure. When you’ve flamed out in spectacular fashion in front of a national TV audience over a fucking cheese soufflé, redemption is a must.

She could still see her own rapturous expression reflecting back from the stainless steel as she’d carefully lowered the oven door, hot television camera lights making her neck perspire, the boom mic dangling above. It was the kind of soufflé a chef dreamed about, or admired in the glossy pages of Bon Appétit magazine. Puffed up, tantalizing. Edible sex. With only three contestants left in the competition, she’d secured her place in the finals. Weeks of “fast-fire challenges” and bunking with neurotic chefs who slept with knives—all worth it, just to be the owner of this soufflé. A veritable feat of culinary strength.

And then her bastard fellow contestant had hip-bumped her oven, causing the center of her divine, worthy-of-Jesus’s-last-supper soufflé to sag into ruin.

What came next had gotten nine hundred forty-eight thousand views on YouTube. Last time she’d checked, at least.

So, yes. Pride in shambles, Rita had overcompensated a little with tonight’s menu. Duo of lamb, accompanied by goat-cheese potato puree. Duck confit on a bed of vegetable risotto. Red snapper crudo with spicy chorizo strips. Nothing that had existed on the previous menu. The one created by French chef and flavor mastermind Miriam Clarkson. Had the fire been her mother’s way of saying, Nice try, kiddo? No, that had never been Miriam’s style. If customers had sent back food with complaints to Miriam’s kitchen, she would have poured bourbon shots for the crew, shut down service, and said, Fuck it…you can’t win ’em all.

For the first time since the fire started, Rita felt pressure behind her eyes. Twenty-eight years old and already a colossal failure. Not fit to compete on a reality show. Not fit to carry on her mother’s legacy. Not fit, period.

In Rita’s back pocket, Miriam’s notebook burned hot, like a glowing coal. As if to say, And what exactly are you going to do about me?

A hose-toting fireman passed, sending Rita a harried but sympathetic look. Realizing an actual tear had escaped and was rolling down her cheek, she lifted the whisk-clutching hand to swipe away the offender, splattering literal egg on her face.

“Oh, come on.”

Denial, fatigue, and humiliation ganged up on her, starting in the shoulder region and spreading to her wrist. Secure in the fact that no one could hear her strangled sob, she hauled back and hurled the whisk, watching it bounce along the cobblestones leading to Wayfare’s entrance.

No more.

She felt Belmont before she saw him. It was always that way with her oldest brother. For all she knew, he’d been standing in the shadows, watching the flames for the past hour, but hadn’t felt like making his presence known. Everything on his terms, his time, his pace. God, she envied that. Envied the solitary life he’d carved out for himself, the lucrative marine salvage business that allowed him to accept only jobs that interested him, spending the rest of his time hiding away on his boat. When Belmont sidled up beside her, she didn’t look over. His level expression never changed and it wouldn’t now. But she couldn’t stand to see her own self-disgust reflected back in his steady eyes.

“They won’t save it,” came Belmont’s rumble.

Her oldest brother never failed to state the obvious.

“I know.”

He shifted closer, brushing their shoulders together. Accidental? Maybe. He wasn’t exactly huge on showing affection. None of the Clarksons were, but at least she and Belmont had quiet understanding. “Would you want them to save it, if they could?”

They were silent for a full minute. “That’s a million-dollar question.”

“I don’t have that much cash on me.”

His deadpan statement surprised a laugh out of Rita. It felt good for two-point-eight seconds before her chest began to fill with lead, her legs starting to wobble. The laugh turned into big, gulping breaths. “Oh, motherfucking Christ, Belmont. I burned down Mom’s restaurant.”

“Yeah.” Another brush of his burly shoulder steadied her, just a little. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

Exasperated, Rita shoved him, but he didn’t budge. “And they call me the morbid one.”

Belmont’s sigh managed to drown out the sirens and emergency personnel shouts. “She might be dead. But her sense of humor isn’t.”

Rita once again thought of the journal in her jeans pocket. “You’re right. She’d be roasting marshmallows over there. Starting a hot, new upscale s’more trend.”

“You could start it yourself.”

No, I can’t, Rita thought, staring out at the orange, licking flames. She’d already started quite enough for one night.

*



Rita and Belmont were sitting silently on the sidewalk, staring at the decimated restaurant, when a sleek white Mercedes with the license plate VOTE4AC pulled up along the curb, eliciting a sigh from them both. Rita shoved a hand through her dyed black hair and straightened her weary spine. Preparing. Bolstering. While Belmont’s modus operandi was to hang back, take a situation’s measure, and then approach with caution, her younger brother, Aaron, liked to make a damn entrance, right down to the way he exited the driver’s side. Like a Broadway actor entering from stage left into a dramatic scene, aware that eyes would swing in his direction. His gray suit boasted not a single wrinkle, black shoes polished to a shine. His golden-boy smile had made him a media sensation, but for once it was nowhere to be seen as he approached Rita and Belmont.