Hot and Bothered

Book 3: Hot in the Kitchen

by Kate Meader

Genres: Family Life; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

A Fire They Can't Put Out . . .

Although her baby boy keeps her plate full, Jules Kilroy is ready to take her love life off the back burner. Despite a bevy of eligible bachelors, it's her best friend, Taddeo DeLuca, who is fueling her hormones with a generous serving of his mouth-watering Italian sexiness. But Jules learned her lesson once before when she went in for a kiss, only to have Tad reject her. She's vowed never to blur the lines again . . .

After a lifetime of excuses and false starts, Tad has finally opened a wine bar, a deal made even sweeter when Jules joins his staff. Lovers come and go, and he's had his share, but friendships like theirs last forever. Still, ever since he tasted her luscious lips, he can't stop fantasizing about what could be. Then she joins an online dating site-and the thought of his Jules with another man makes Tad's blood boil. Even if he gets burned, Tad can't stop himself from turning up the heat this time.

Release date: March 4, 2014

Publisher: Forever

Print pages: 401

Sample

Wine, women and tobacco reduces one to ashes.

—Italian proverb

Tad DeLuca ground his teeth so hard he risked bone dust shooting out of his ears.

“It needs a part,” came the latest utterance from under the hood of the pizza oven. Four little words that signaled a screwing over of the major variety was about to take place. Compounding the insult, the speaker, complete with abundant ass cleavage and just-for-show tool belt, crawled out from behind the oven, butt first, and adjusted his waistband.

Too late, dude; you’re already the clichéd repair guy who can’t seem to find a pair of jeans—or a belt—to fit him.

“That’s what you said last week,” Tad said patiently. Really patiently. “You installed the…”

“Temperature regulator.”

“Temperature regulator, and said that should be it.”

Over the oven guy’s head, the pizza oven loomed, mocking Tad’s foray into the world of business ownership. Flatbreads were one of the cornerstones of his new wine bar menu—or had been—and now he was thinking about his back-up plan. The non-existent one. The joys of being his own boss.

“It’s not the regulator this time. There’s a—” He said something incomprehensible and Tad tuned out. Three semesters of engineering coursework under his belt didn’t really qualify him to talk pizza oven repair shop, but maybe if he’d stuck around college longer, he’d be on more of a conversational footing here. Unfortunately, thinking about his college days inevitably led to thinking about how they’d ended, conjuring memories that scorched him fresh to this day.

“How long?”

Still in an ungainly squat, Oven Guy rubbed the back of his neck while he caught his serrated breath. “A week. More like two.”

God damn it. The man’s eyebrow shot up as if Tad had spoken that aloud. He hadn’t, but the pulverized bone dust blasting from his ears might have given anyone pause.

In less than a week, he was slated to open Vivi’s in trendier-by-the-second Wicker Park, just a stone’s throw from his family’s restaurant, DeLuca’s. Going from bartender to bar owner had seemed like a logical progression but fate hadn’t been on speaking terms with logic for a while. His first location choice had burned to the ground before he signed the lease. He had been outbid on the second. Not to mention his chef had up and quit, leaving Tad without someone capable of cooking the spectacular tasting menu he had planned. But he couldn’t dwell on the roadblocks; now it was all systems go.

It had taken him a while to get here. Years of dwelling on his mistakes and making excuses had held him back. Letting people down was second nature to him, but this—he looked around at the gleaming, polished surfaces of his new kitchen—would be his way back in. Making Vivi proud might get him there.

A menu of delicious snacks would definitely help.

“Penny for ’em, babe,” Tad heard softly in his ear. “Or should I just tell you what’s going on in that charming head of yours?”

Smiling away his irritation at how shitty the day had gone so far, Tad turned to greet the girl-next-door blonde who could make it all better. Hair in a topknot, dark circles under her green-gold eyes, her shirt shapeless and wrinkled over baggy desert camo pants rolled to just below her knees. If it were anyone else, he would guess she had just tumbled from a warm bed where she had been well and truly serviced. But this was Jules Kilroy, his best girl who, as far as he knew, had never been on a date—or anything more—in the two years he had known her.

The smart upturn of her lips couldn’t disguise how tired she looked. Neither did it detract from her pale, fragile beauty, which had him itching to wrap his body around her and gather her tight to his chest.

Instead of focusing on all the reasons why he wanted to protect her, which inevitably led to the reasons why that was a terrible idea, he moved his gaze back to the safer territory of that smirk. When Jules wore that look, it was easy to remember why they had become friends in the first place. They had connected the moment she showed up in his family’s restaurant, knocked up, beat down, and in need of a pal.

Some pal he had been. He jerked his brain away from that thought and dialed up a friendly grin.

“You don’t want to know what’s going on in my head. It’s a whirling cesspit of debauchery that would make your hair curl.”

She gave a discreet nod to Oven Guy, who had once more descended to all-fours to poke around the appliance mechanics.

“You’re thinking there’s nothing more attractive than the sight of a generous arse peeking out of denim.”

He’d always liked that word. Arse. Or really he liked the way Jules’s lips shaped it. Her British singsong accent hadn’t diminished one iota in the time she had lived in the States. It wasn’t one of those regal voices that sounded like her mouth was filled with plums, either; it was a good-time girl voice. A little husky, the kind of rasp you might get from screaming above the boom-boom bass at a club the night before.

Up until her baby bump had made her self-conscious about shaking her booty on the boards, they had been quite the team on the dance floor. Now she had her hands full with her eighteen-month old, Evan. The kid was adorable but those circles under Jules’s eyes confirmed he was also a handful.

His phone buzzed and he checked it discreetly, unable to hide his frown at the number of the last person in the world he wanted to talk to. When he looked back at Jules, there was no missing the blatant curiosity on her face.

“How’s the washed-up ballerina?”

Usually there was a more engaging proposition on the other end of the line and Jules liked to tease him about his flavor of the month.

“Retired Olympic gymnast,” he corrected, referring to the gamine hottie he had been seeing the week before and who had now been relegated to Tad’s past tense.

“Still pulling out all the stops on the floor exercise?”

That drew a laugh from deep in his gut. Jules and her cheeky mouth.

“It didn’t work out,” he said sadly.

“Oh, the poor thing. Marked down by the Italian judge.” A slender finger touched her lips. “Or maybe not as flexible in her old age. What was she? Eighteen, fifteen?”

“Twenty-two. She just looked young.”

“Taddeo DeLuca, when are you going to settle down with a nice-ah plump girl and make-ah da bambinos?” she sang in a terrible stage Italian accent. For good measure, she pinched his cheek, an unapologetic nod to his Aunt Sylvia, who devoted her non-Mass time to matchmaking for her unattached nieces and nephews.

In his head, the answer to the rhetorical question rang clear as a bell. No one compared to the fair, green-eyed beauty standing before him. On his lips, something more flippant hovered. Maybe a joke about how his Facebook fan base would never stand for it, but she had already redirected her attention.

At Oven Guy, who had pulled himself to a lumbering stand and was writing up his chit of can’t-help-you-a-damn.

“Hi, there.” Her bright grin became impossibly wider.

Visibly startled, the repairman ran thick fingers through his untidy hair.

“Uh, hello,” he offered cautiously.

“Looks like hard work,” Jules said, her eyelashes fluttering. That’s right, fluttering.

Juliet Kilroy did not have a flirty bone in her body. Not once had he seen her even talk to a guy with any intention beyond ordering a Sprite in a bar. Of course, as long as he’d known her, she was either pregnant or mom to a rambunctious kid, so flirting was fairly low on her list.

But it sure looked like she was flirting now.

With Oven Guy.

“So two weeks to get that part?” She loosed a breathy sigh and chewed on her bottom lip. Oven Guy’s cheeks flushed and he stood up a little straighter, and damn if Tad didn’t blame him. That lip snag thing was very cute. And very sexy.

Defenseless in the face of Jules’s charm assault, the man’s hands fell into a distinct caress of his tool belt.

Jules looked down at the belt with wide-eyed innocence, as if the notion of belt-stroking and all it implied had only just occurred to her. Slowly, she returned her gaze with a slide up Oven Guy’s body.

“What are you doing?” Tad asked her and then wished he hadn’t because his voice registered more peevish than curious.

“Practicing,” she said without taking her eyes off the non-repair guy. “You don’t know how much we’d appreciate it if you could get that part sooner. The pizza needs of the masses must be appeased.” Was it Tad’s imagination or did her accent sound a little posher than usual?

“Practicing what?” Tad asked, no longer caring how put out he sounded.

Ignoring him, she kept her green-gold gaze trained on her target.

“I could probably put in a special order,” Oven Guy said, his blush now saturating his hairline. “Have it in a couple days.”

“Lovely man,” she said with a fire-bright smile.

Lovely Man returned a shy grin and backed out of the kitchen, muttering something about calling with an update the next day.

“Sorted,” Jules said, rubbing her hands together in satisfaction.

“What in the hell was that?” Tad asked.

“It’s a well-known fact that honey gets the bee. Do you want your special part or not?”

If it meant he had to witness that display again, that would probably be a whopping great negative.

“Thanks,” he said, trying not to sound like a curmudgeon and failing.

“You’re welcome.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts, an action that molded the shapeless material to her figure in a way he should not be noticing. “Where’s Long Face?”

That was the nickname she had given to Jordie the chef, who usually wore the lugubrious expression of a man with the weight of the world on his reedy shoulders. The bastard hadn’t sounded all that sad when he called to quit this morning. Tad filled her in on his tale of woe, glad for the distraction and gratified when she made sympathetic noises in all the right places.

Moving her gaze around the room, she rocked that look where she wanted to say something, usually some criticism about how he was mistreating his latest woman or the fact that he drove too damn fast on his Harley. As well as being one of his closest friends, she was unafraid of playing annoying sister and nagging mother hen.

“Out with it,” he said, eager to hear what she had to say. Her smart-mouthed take on his occasionally imperfect decision-making was often the highlight of his day.

“No working pizza oven, no vittles, and a dining room about to be filled with the harshest critics known to man. You’re in deep doo doo, mate.”

Shit. In all the excitement, he had forgotten to cancel the trial tasting of his now non-existent small plates menu. Luckily, the impatient herd about to descend on his fledgling bar was his family and not Chicago’s rapacious food cognoscenti.

He had planned trendy accompaniments to go with the extensive wine list. Duck rillettes. Porcini and shallot flat bread. The expected selection of artisanal cheese and charcuterie. Items that didn’t require too much effort and absorbed healthy mark-ups. He might expand the menu later but he didn’t want to overextend himself starting out. For now, it was all about the wine—especially today when there was no hot food on offer.

At least there were cold cuts. He strode over to the prep station and uncovered a couple of platters.

“Here, make yourself useful, wench,” he said to Jules. “Take this out to the horde.”

* * *

“What do you mean he quit?”

Jules lifted her head at her brother’s sharp tone. Jack was going with the dark and disapproving thing he used to great effect, and laying it on even thicker because he also happened to be an investor in Tad’s business. She knew Tad would have preferred to go it alone but it was either bring Jack on board or wait another three years to accumulate enough seed money. Sometimes dreams involved compromises.

Her brother, Jack Kilroy, was one of those incredibly successful restaurateurs with a household name even Pygmy tribes in New Guinea had heard of. In the last couple of years, he’d scaled back his multinational food empire and eliminated his TV commitments to focus on his grand passions: his Chicago restaurant, Sarriette, the go-to foodie destination in the West Loop and his wife, Lili, who was Tad’s cousin.

“He was offered a job on a cruise ship,” Tad was saying about Longface, the AWOL chef. “The idiota wants to see the world. I hoped you could spare Derry for a few weeks while I work on getting someone else in.”

Jack’s forehead crimped. Lending Sarriette’s sous-chef to Tad for a month was not trivial. While Jules suspected her brother wouldn’t even cross the street to piss on her friend if he were on fire, she also knew Jack would do what he needed to make sure his investment succeeded. There had always been tension between them, most of it stemming from her brother’s disapproval of her closeness to Tad.

“We’ll sort something out,” Jack said after a long beat. “So we’re not eating, but what are we drinking?”

Tad twisted the bottle in his hand to face the rest of his audience—Lili, her sister Cara, and Cara’s Irish husband Shane Doyle, who was also Jack’s half-brother on their father’s side. Long story.

“Doggie!” Evan struggled in Jules’s arms, reaching for the bottle with a picture of a friendly overgrown terrier on the label. Her precious boy, the center of her world, was a touch obsessed with dogs lately. The label’s letters leapfrogged over each other, making little sense to Jules’s literacy-challenged brain. Dyslexia could be a real pain in the arse.

Tad launched into his wine spiel. “This is a Chilean Pinot. Plummy, lashings of fruit, full-bodied. Goes well with zin-braised short rib flatbread.” He met Jack’s pointed stare. “Or it will when we have someone to cook it.”

Tad poured tasting samples of the purple-red wine into stemware and passed them around. A small smile shaded his lips as he took a seat on the plush, chocolate velvet sofa, just one of three sofas ringing a low-to-the-ground stone table near the entrance. He had been planning this place for so long that Jules knew he couldn’t help himself. His pride at how the bar had turned out was clear. It was beautiful.

The flickering votive lights sitting on the window ledges bathed the room in an ethereal glow, casting a shine over the cherrywood furniture. On the exposed brick walls, Lili’s beautifully tasteful nude photos with nods to wine culture—models holding bunches of grapes in provocative poses, others with slashes of terracotta mud on their skin—were like a love letter from Mother Nature. Sun, earth, life. The kicker was the glass-walled wine cellar, which brooded behind the bar, a window onto the world of wine. Or at least that was the sales shtick the guy who built it had given Tad when trying to convince him to go with that design. Jules was glad he had. The shock of floor-to-ceiling glass staved off that air of pretension that often shrouded these types of places. There was an accessibility about being able to see right into the cellar from out here.

He caught her looking around and shared the secret smile with her. It was his dream, but he had talked about it for so long that she felt a small measure of ownership over it as well. He was unafraid of seeking her opinion and she was unafraid of giving it. Usually about the skank supermodel he was dating and how she didn’t much like that (lilac) shirt he was wearing and damn it, Tad, could you not walk into every room like a herd of African elephants? I’ve got a kid trying to sleep here!

Underneath the sarcastic quips and snarky comments, the deep affection was unmistakable. Simpatico, that’s what they were. It had been like that from the beginning.

Cara leaned in and sniffed Shane’s glass, her hand falling naturally to her swollen belly. Five months gone with twins and already big as a house. She should have looked tired and worn, but this was Cara, who always managed to project disgustingly radiant.

“God, I miss this,” Cara said, burying her nose below the lip of the glass.

Shane snatched it away and took a healthy slurp before pulling his wife close for a hearty kiss.

“Don’t say I never do anything for you, Mrs. DeLuca-Doyle,” he murmured against his wife’s lips, the pleasure in his voice at being able to claim her as wife impossible to disguise. Jules turned Evan in her arms and lay his fussy head against her shoulder so she could take a sip of the wine. Yes, she was a terrible mother.

“What do you think, Jules?” Tad asked as the aroma of berries filled her nostrils.

“Warm, a bit spicy.” Like your lips.

No, no, no. Where the hell had that come from? She had been getting along just dandy, planting her head in her life as a busy mom, and trying not to dwell on that horrible night a year ago when she had almost destroyed her friendship with Tad. One kiss, three seconds of horror, a year of regret. She had harbored illicit hopes fueled by a lack of sleep and new mom hormones, but he shot her down. The right decision, she acknowledged now. Thankfully, they had recovered and got back on the friendship track, but every now and then a stray, wanton thought popped in to say “hello” courtesy of her inner bad girl trying to front a saucy charge.

Now, now, Good Girl Jules admonished.

Bad Girl Jules giggled naughtily.

Within seconds, she felt the telltale signs of baby drool on her shoulder. Excellent. There was nothing like a cut to the reality of motherhood to remind her of her obvious unsexiness.

She had left the house in a hurry. Nothing new there. People had told her that once she had a child, getting out the door would be the biggest challenge, between the need to remember everything and the last-minute tantrums of your kidlet. There was no time to take a shower or put on any make-up. People had told her that, too. Forget about running a comb through your hair. All that is secondary to the needs of your child.

Usually she didn’t mind, but since she had moved to her own place the burdens of motherhood had started to weigh more heavily. For the last two years, she had been living a blessed existence in her brother’s town house, with all the human and financial support she needed. Early on, Jack had shared the childcare duties, getting up in the middle of the night no matter how late he trailed in from the restaurant, and feeding Evan from the milk supply she had pumped earlier. When the blues came to visit, her sister-in-law Lili was there for her, listening to her griping and moaning. She had the best extended family in the DeLucas that any girl could ask for. She knew she was lucky.

She also knew she was lonely.

It sounded so ridiculous, this need to have a man’s arms to hold her. Hairy, tanned, muscle-corded arms…

She was ensorcelled by Tad’s forearms again. Her friend’s forearms.

Could she help it if they were the model for the forearms she imagined cradling her as she slept? That when she thought of a line of ropy muscle and brawny sinew banded beneath her breasts while she stood at the sink washing out Evan’s milk bottles, these were the ones that shot to the top of the list? Maybe it wasn’t the sexiest fantasy—a man taking you while you tried to scrub that tough stain off the pot—but boy, a nice set of forearms could spice up the dreariest of tasks. But did they have to be her friend’s arms?

So what if her circle in Chicago was small; it was large where it mattered. Her family had no problem jumping in to babysit when she headed to the gym (for a smoothie) or picked up pin money while catering for one of Cara and Shane’s special events, but meeting people—meeting men—was nowhere near as easy as it had been in London. Back then, she had been single, child-free, and up for most anything after a couple of G and Ts. She didn’t miss those days, but she did long for the chance to feel sexy, desired, wanted. Frankly, she didn’t know a lot of unattached men, except for Tad.

And unattached was how he liked it.

Tad made a living out of blowing through women like he was in a race. Some of the stories he told her made her hair stand on end. Other body parts, too. She encouraged his sexy confidences, partly because they turned her on, and partly because Tad fascinated her. He was the kindest, funniest guy she knew—and he treated women like conveniences until they became inconveniences. She shuddered to think what it would be like to have Tad’s special kind of inattention.

But she’d never met anyone who cared so much about his family and friends. After all she’d been through, family like Tad and the DeLucas were worth their weight in gelato, and no way did she want to risk screwing that up. Again.

In the kitchen, they had joked around and it was good to be back to the easy vibe between them. Their friendship was precious, and that she felt comfortable teasing him about his vigorous love life again was a good sign. They were firmly ensconced in the F-zone—the friend zone—once more, and all was right with the world. And the occasional hormonal brain fart where she started fantasizing about his forearms, of all things, was just that. Occasional and hormonal.

He crinkled his eyes in a “You okay?” kind of way, and she battled to lose whatever frowny/befuddled/horny look she wore. Really, she needed to get a shot of Botox so her expressions around Tad could become unreadable.

Her efforts to blank her features failed miserably. Tad stood and held out his arms, concern bracketing his mouth.

“Let me take him, honey. You relax and have a drink.” He scooped Evan up and settled him into those strong, fantasy-inducing forearms. Thick as oak branches, they held her son safe and summoned up different, yet just as dangerous, fantasies.

“What’s that?” Tad was saying to Evan, listening intently as if his baby babble was as important as a State of the Union speech. “Wine? Cheese? Oh, a cracker. I hear you, buddy.”

Tad sent a questioning look Jules’s way. When she nodded her approval, he picked up one of the crackers from the cheese platter and placed it in Evan’s chubby little fist. Sigh. The sight of the two of them together busted her heart wide open.

Coming back to earth, she plastered on a smile for her family. Less than ten minutes in, and Jack and Shane were ribbing each other about who had the better palate. You could set a clock by the rhythm of their playful teasing.

“Your taste buds are ruined from all that sugar,” Jack said. “You probably can’t even detect salt anymore.”

“Taste buds deteriorate with age,” Shane shot back, instantly defensive of his pastry chef credentials. Jack was nine years older than Shane and they had only recently connected, but the bond between them had been instantaneous. It was as though they understood the meaning of family on some cellular level. Each passing day only strengthened the brothers’ relationship and while Jules was crazy about Shane, she couldn’t help a pinch of envy at how natural it was between them. Especially when she and Jack always seemed to be teetering on the edge of a sibling meltdown.

“Jealousy is so unattractive, little bruv. Don’t forget whose name is in bigger letters on the book cover,” Jack said, referring to their joint collaboration on a cookbook that had shot straight to number one on the New York Times bestseller list when it was released last year.

“Big-headed limey prick,” Shane muttered affectionately as he threw a thumbnail-sized wedge of gouda at Jack. Her brother caught it easily and popped it in his mouth with a grin.

“Now, now, you’re both pretty,” Lili said, snagging Jules’s eye with a men headshake. Like a magpie distracted by something shiny, Jack ran a hand through his wife’s hair, a look of boundless love for her softening his rugged features.

Jules checked her sigh. Her brothers—and their wives—were such talented buggers that it was bloody difficult to feel anything less than a complete loser around them. Coming from a family of rock stars sharpened her feelings of inadequacy to barbed points.

There had been a moment back in the kitchen as Tad recounted Long Face’s departure story when she thought: I can do that!

Common sense had punched it back down where it belonged. She was an amateur among gilded professionals. Her small-time efforts making pizzas, preserving lemons, and futzing about in her organic vegetable garden were hardly the stellar credits needed to work in a real restaurant kitchen. Shane and Jack had been cooking since before they could walk. They had years of training under their belts. With her dyslexia, she could barely read the recipes, and then there was the hassle of finding childcare for Evan.

No, she was lucky. Filled with needs and desires, but incredibly lucky.

“So, we have some good news,” Cara said, all efficiency. She wasn’t one for lazy afternoons of shooting the shit with the clan, preferring to keep everyone on task. “Shane and I got the Daniels wedding in May next year.”

Everyone made noises of congratulations and raised their glasses. DeLuca Doyle Special Events had become the hottest party planning company in Chicago since its inception just over eight months ago. Getting the wedding of the mayor’s son was huge, but then Cara never did anything by half.

“By that time, the babies should be a few months old,” Jules said, unable to keep the awe out of her voice at the idea of Cara as Supermom. She’d always had a bit of a girl crush on the slender blonde who exuded sophistication and frightening competence. “How are you going to manage?”

Cara gave one of her knowing smiles. “This event will be big enough that we won’t need to take on as many clients for the next year, but we’ll probably hire someone to help with the business.”

“Yeah, we will.” Shane’s expression was filled with loving concern. Cara was a whirling dervish when it came to work and pregnancy hadn’t slowed her down, much to Shane’s chagrin.

Jules adored how they complimented each other. Having a partner like that at her side, who loved her despite her many faults and adored her son as his own, was a dream Jules could barely fathom in her current situation.

Her son had no shortage of strong male role models, but she had to admit a small part of her longed for the dream of co-parenting. Discussing how your child was doing in school, whether he had an aptitude for footie or baseball, does he have a crush on that girl in eighth-grade English. The idea of having to do this alone had been the one thing that terrified her from the beginning. It was why she had sought out Jack after her ratfink ex, Simon, left her low and dry.

Her gaze slid to Tad and Evan, deep in serious conversation about the color differences between gouda and cheddar. They had a special bond, those two. Pity the man never once looked at her with a fraction of that adoration.

All this talent and go-getting and love… Tears pricked at the backs of her eyelids. The good-natured poking ebbed and flowed around her, threatening to pull her under if she stayed here one more second. Quietly, she slipped away to the restroom.

No one noticed.

The evidence in the mirror was as plain as the pimply skin on her face. She had stopped breastfeeding a couple of months ago, so her skin was starting to clear up, but there was no doubt why she would be kryptonite to any healthy man’s libido. No wonder Tad had recoiled in horror when she made a move on him. Hells bells, she looked like a teenage nightmare.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Muscling in on her reflection was her gorgeous, curvy sister-in-law Lili, who with her unblemished olive skin and mane of dark hair looked like a young Sophia Loren. Fortunately, she was as beautiful inside as she was out, so Jules couldn’t find a single reason to hate her.

“Yeah, just taking a break.”

“We can be a bit much,” Lili acknowledged with a sympathetic smile. “Must be great to have some peace and quiet at your own place. Though I’m not sure I’ve forgiven you for leaving me alone to absorb all your brother’s attention.”

“You love it,” Jules said, knowing that her sister-in-law was being nice but that she craved privacy with Jack while they tried for a baby. Ten months married, her brother was antsy about Lili not being pregnant yet and especially competitive bec. . .