Two weeks later, Nic was getting ready to walk out of the pantry with more breadcrumbs when she heard voices. Not really whispered, but not a normal volume either. Trying to be sneaky, just not sneaky enough.
“Looks like Aiden is tasting more than food in the kitchen now.”
“What does that mean?” someone else asked. She couldn’t make out who the voices belonged to though. One female, one male.
“Come on. Have you seen the way Aiden is all over the new girl? What’s her name again?”
“The little one working in the pub kitchen?” the other voice said. “Nah. He’s not doing anything he hasn’t done with other new employees.”
There was a female laugh. “Really? You weren’t here the day Aiden watched her baking. She was teaching him how to make something. No one has ever done that in this kitchen.”
“That’s wrong,” the male voice said. “I’ve seen it before. You know how Aiden is. He always wants to taste everyone’s creations. If he likes it, he wants to know how it’s made. You’re nuts and looking for something that’s not there.”
“I’m telling you. Everyone is talking about her. It wasn’t just that. It was the way he was looking at her. Touching her. At one point he grabbed her shoulders to force her to look him in the eye. There’s all sorts of heat going on there, and not the cooking kind.”
Nic was feeling heat right now herself. Straight up shame. Talk about a difficult situation. The last thing she wanted was anyone thinking she was making time with Aiden. Or anyone for that matter. But the boss? No way.
Just because she was having little secret fantasies about him meant nothing. She’d kept that all to herself. She never even agreed when the other women in the kitchen talked about Aiden. When they said how hot he was, or how they’d like his hands on them. All those things women say in private. Nope, she turned away and went back to work.
She might have felt some jealousy over those comments, but she ignored them as if she were those three monkeys with her hands over her eyes, ears, and mouth, and just did her job.
It didn’t seem to matter though. She was being talked about as a result of nothing she could have controlled. Story of her life, it seemed.
Maybe she shouldn’t have brought in those cannoli for Ella. She didn’t do it for any reason other than as a thank you. She wasn’t trying to suck up or get extra attention from Aiden. If she’d known that would have happened, she wouldn’t have brought them in.
Was she thrilled her cannoli sold out before the dinner shift on Monday? Definitely! When she’d come into work the following Saturday, Aiden had asked her to make ten dozen of each type of shell, hoping to get them through the entire weekend and extras for the pub menu too.
She’d even watched Aiden replicate her filling after she’d shown him how she made the Moretti ricotta. His first attempt didn’t taste quite like hers, but she was afraid to say anything. He was her boss, after all.
But he knew it and said, “What am I missing?”
“It’s good,” she argued.
“But not as good as yours. What’s wrong?”
“More lemon. A little bit more salt and more heavy cream. It makes it richer. For the cannoli recipe we always wanted it as rich as we could get it. Decadent even. It’s a dessert. An indulgence. Italians like things rich, decadent, and a treat for the mouth as well as the eyes.”
He held her stare for several moments after she’d said that and she just wanted to die. It came out completely wrong and she was mortified he was drawing another meaning.
But then he’d pushed his bowl aside. “Make it for me again. Start to finish. I’m going to make it side by side with you, every step of the way. Are you okay with that?”
She’d dismissed all the eyes on them that day too. She’d been uneasy spending so much time with him one-on-one again but was told by Stacy that she wasn’t the first. He’d done it before with other people, and for her to relax and enjoy the individual attention that so many strive for and never achieve.
So she had…until now.
“I’m telling you,” the male voice said, “you’re looking for something for no reason. She’s a pub cook with little experience. She’s got the family name behind her right now and that’s it. I wouldn’t be surprised if she got the job for that reason alone. I’ve been to Moretti’s before. Half the time they were talking in Italian and you could barely understand a word they said. They are as authentic as it gets.”
Nic didn’t know what was worse. People thinking she had something going on with Aiden outside of work, or that she only got hired because of her name.
She should be happy for her grandparents. That she was a Moretti. Two people who came over from Italy in their twenties, barely speaking a lick of English, and opened up their shop. But instead she was embarrassed she was being talked about.
After the voices died off, she left the pantry with her head down and went right to work. When Aiden came in to check on her, her third day after starting full time, she gave him brief answers and continued to work, all but ignoring his utterly dominant male presence in front of her.
***
“How’s it going today, Abby?” Aiden asked his food plater early on Friday afternoon. Food had been flying out the door, but there was a slow spot, giving him a chance to chat.
“Everything is good. I’ve only had to send back two orders today.”
He rotated his head cooks to the plating area often. He wanted to see if they could determine when food was prepared properly if they weren’t the ones actually cooking it. It also gave them a break. He looked at every aspect of the kitchen when promoting staff to managers.
“That’s good. Glad to know everything is running smoothly.”
“It always does, Aiden,” Abby said. “You run everything so well here. You always have. Best day of my life being hired here.”
Aiden watched Abby’s eyes sparkle a little but pushed it aside. He was a master at deflecting advances. It happened all the time in the kitchen, but he’d never let anything develop before.
“Any questions before I go over to the brewery?” he asked, getting ready to leave.
A beautifully cooked salmon was slid onto the counter. “Actually, if you could show me how to plate this special again. It’s the third one ordered and I can’t seem to get it to look exactly the way you did when you showed us the other day.”
He walked behind the counter next to her and quickly and efficiently spread the cauliflower puree, placed three asparagus stems across it, then laid the perfectly grilled salmon over the asparagus. He grabbed the bottle of sauce that was a secret blend of spices and a touch of Mason’s citrus IPA, and swirled it around the outer edge of the plate in almost a lace pattern. Most people didn’t notice it was a cursive “F” at the north, south, east, and west of the plate, connected together.
“There you go,” he said pushing it toward her.
“It looks awesome. Thanks, Aiden,” Abby said, smiling at him.
“You’re welcome.” He walked away and out the back door to his car. He had time yet before he started cooking and needed to have a quick meeting with Mason.
“You’re late,” Mason said when Aiden walked into the brewery.
“Sorry. I got held up having to show someone how to plate a special that she should be doing in her sleep by this point in her career.”
“Bet you did it all with your teacher’s voice and a smile on your face though,” Mason said.
“Of course. Didn’t Mom ever tell you you’ll get more with honey than vinegar?”
“Whatever,” Mason said. “I leave the food to you.”
Aiden shook his head. “You’re so cynical. You’re not any shorter with your staff than I am.”
“I don’t know about that,” Mason said. “Anyway, what are your thoughts for next week’s specials?”
“What does your stock look like?” Aiden asked.
“Stock is always fine.”
Mason ran a tight ship, Aiden knew that. “Anything not selling as fast as you’d wish, or left over?”
“With the end of summer, there’s some of that cherry sour left I wouldn’t mind moving out. Glad I didn’t decide to bottle it. I might bring it back next summer, but for now I’d like to make room for my fall brews.”
“I can work with that,” Aiden said. “I’ll come up with a few different specials using it for the week. Something each day in both the pub and restaurant. That should help sell it.”
“Perfect,” Mason said. “Hey, sorry about your new staff.”
“What? Which one?” Aiden asked. Was he going to lose someone else?
“The one you hired three weeks ago. I’m sure the talk will die down.”
“What are you talking about?” Aiden asked. His skin was starting to tingle.
“Never mind.”
“No. You brought it up, so tell me what’s going on.”
Mason sighed. “You know how rumors start. I’m sure it’s nothing more than that.” Aiden started to grind his teeth and Mason rushed out. “There’s some talk that you’re sampling something other than food in the kitchen. With Nic.”
Aiden stood up prepared to make a fast exit and start knocking some heads together. Maybe he had been thinking along those lines, but he’d given no indication of it to anyone.
Besides, Nic had been nothing but cold to him all week. If she even made eye contact with him, it was brief, and her words even shorter.
“Sit down, Aiden,” Mason said, sharply. “If you go marching over there looking like that right now you’re only going to cause more issues.”
“Says who?”
“Come on, Aiden. You rarely get mad. Ever. And if you do now, if you show it, it will raise more eyebrows and cause more speculation.”
“I get mad,” Aiden said. His staff knew not to cross him.
“But you don’t show it. I remember the two times you did. Both had bad results. Let’s see…first time, Candy Sue Lane had been flirting with you for weeks. Come to find out she was only using you to get Tyler Snell jealous.”
Aiden laughed. “But that week of in-school suspension was so worth shoving Tyler in the locker and sending Candy Sue to let him out only to find he was in his tighty whities.”
Mason grinned. “Be honest. Brody and Cade helped you, didn’t they? No way you could have done that alone.”
“It was all me,” Aiden said proudly.
“Fine. The only other time you lost your temper was when Cade ate half the ingredients for the Mother’s Day brunch you were planning. You’d rammed him into the wall in the kitchen, leaving two body imprints.”
That still burned Aiden’s ass now that he thought about it. He’d planned that meal for weeks for his mother. “He got punished too.”
“Yep. You and Cade spent the day cleaning Dad’s boat. Cade spent more time puking after Dad took you guys both out fishing, then you had to clean up after him too.”
“He had it coming,” Aiden said. He was a neat freak and cleaning up after any of his siblings always annoyed him. Having to clean up puke was even worse. His mother was evil when handing out punishments.
Mason laughed. “My point is, nothing good ever comes out of you losing your temper. So tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing, as far as I know. You’re the one who brought it up. What have you heard?”
“Just what I told you. Actually I overheard two of my staff talking. When I walked in they stopped.”
“Did you defend me?” Aiden asked.
“How can I defend something when I know nothing about it? I just heard it yesterday. I lifted my eyebrow and they both scurried away like buckshot exploded around their feet.”
Mason always had a way of getting his point across without saying much at all. “Tell me everything,” Aiden demanded.
“I just did. All I heard was that there was talk you were sampling more than food. That you’ve been spending a lot of time working one-on-one with Nic. End of story.”
Aiden sighed. “Great. Just what I need. Talk about a setback.”
“So you are,” Mason said, looking more than slightly shocked over that.
“No, I’m not,” Aiden said, fighting a flush from his face.
“But you want to,” Mason said back, grinning, settling back in his chair.
“No. I don’t know.”
“Which means yes,” Mason said. He got up and shut the door to his office. “You start talking now.”
“Not much to say. Less now that you’re telling me this. She’s been cold to me for a week. She wasn’t before.”
“My guess is this is why. She probably knows what’s being said. You know how fast things spread.”
“She hasn’t said anything to me about it,” Aiden said.
“Did you really think she would?”
“No,” Aiden said. Nic had her pride, he knew that. He’d seen all sorts of signs leading him to believe she’d just work through it with her head down.
“What are you going to do then?” Mason asked.
“I don’t know. I guess I better think about it. It’s probably not smart to even consider anything with a staff member. We’ve always stayed away from that. It never works out.” He couldn’t believe he was even having this conversation with Mason at all.
“It did for Brody,” Mason pointed out.
“Luck. It was nothing more than that. It’s more likely to be a huge disaster. We both know that.”
Mason paused, looked around the room at nothing, but was most likely just gathering his thoughts. He always took more time than the rest of them to say what he wanted to. “Do you ever wonder why he found love and we haven’t?”
“He dates more than us. He’s bound to find it,” Aiden said, pointing out what seemed reasonable in his mind.
“No. He was less likely to.” Mason was probably right, with the type of women Brody had dated.
“Are you looking for it?” Mason asked him, the brother he felt the most connection to. They were the most alike. Maybe it’d be nice to know he wasn’t alone.
“Maybe.” And that was the most Aiden was willing to say.