"This looks amazing," Franchesca beams up at me and somehow, those three words make me feel a deeper sense of pride than years of cooking for heads of State, celebrities and some of the most critical palettes ever have.

"I hope it tastes as good as it looks," I say.

"I hope so, too. Nothing worse than a dish that looks better than it tastes," she says and takes the napkin I'm hold out to her. She drapes it over her lap and looks up at me expectantly.

"Where's your plate?"

"Oh," I shake my head and walk back to the stove and prepare myself a plate. "Old habits die hard," I apologize as I walk back with my plate of ginger and teriyaki glazed salmon, grilled endive and fingerling potatoes drenched in an herb butter I churned by hand.

"I have a feeling my no lunch habit will be very easy to break. I could get used to this," she responds and picks up her fork and knife.

I find myself unable to look away as she puts a little bit of everything onto her fork and then puts the food into her mouth. She's wearing a light pink lipstick that makes her lips glisten and as she chews, I forget about the food and wonder what it would feel like to kiss her.

When her lips part and that moan that I jerked off to in the shower floats out from between them, I feel my cock stir again. Her eyes drift closed as she chews and she sways a little like she's listening to music instead of eating. I can't take my eyes off her.

God, it's such a turn on to watch someone eating just for the joy of it. Not to critique the meal, not snapping a picture they'll put up on Instagram -- just because they're enjoying it. This is what was missing from my career, real people who were eating for the joy of it. This is why after the rest of my life imploded, I walked away from my television show, my restaurant and the very lucrative contract I had with the world's largest cookware manufacturer.

This is the first meal I've been inspired to make in over a year, and now, I'm itching to get back to it.

I watch her chew and only when she's done does she open her eyes. Their dark green depths are hazy with a pleasure that's contagious.

"It's amazing. How do you make the salmon so..." she searches the air as if the word is floating above her head.

"Perfect?" I offer with a shrug.

"Yes. It's perfect. It's cooked, but so moist," she says drawls happily, and I lean back with a smile. If it means she'll look at me like that, I'll cook for her every day. "I meant it when I said I didn't have any hard limits. I'm not picky about how my salmon is cooked, but I clearly had no clue what I was missing," she says and puts another forkful into that sexy as fuck mouth.

"Five hundred degrees, five minutes a pound," I tell her.

"Can I tell you a secret?" she asks between forkfuls, her eyes dancing as she watches me. I nod and then dig into my own meal. The salmon is amazing. I've made it several times in the last year, exactly like this. Just for myself. But it's never tasted better. The ginger zings, the teriyaki smoothes out its bite, and the fish melts in my mouth.

"I can't cook," she says and then pauses with her eyes wide, waiting for my reaction. I'm not surprised at all. I hear this all the time, and I’m glad for it. Restaurants depend on people just like her. They like to eat, don't have the desire or time to cook, and have enough disposable income to eat out regularly. I'm making assumptions about her income, but these beach houses are some of the most expensive real estate in on the Gulf of Mexico, so she's gotta have some money.

"That's okay. I can," I tell her in between my own bites.

"I wish I could, but when I was in medical school, there was no time. When I started my residency it was even worse. I sometimes wouldn't go home for days."

"You're a doctor?" I ask unable to hide my surprise.

"Yes," she says and takes another bite of food.

"What kind?" I ask when she doesn't say anything else.

"A neonatologist," she says with a shrug as if it's no big deal. I didn't even finish college. I can't imagine all of that school. I didn't know women like her really existed. Beauty, brains and she loves to eat.

This is the woman of my dreams.

I stand up and walk to my fridge and pull out one of the many bottles of Veuve Cliquot I keep chilled out of habit.

"Are we celebrating?" she asks, her eyes wide and her smile full of merriment.

"Yes, we are," I say vaguely as I pull two champagne flutes down from my cabinet and walk back to the table.

"I'm always down for that," she says gamely, and I like her even more.

"So, are you going to be working at the hospital?" I ask as I place a glass in front of her. I pull the foil from the cork and then slowly work it loose.

"No, I'm on sort of a hiatus," she says, her gaze drifts to her lap, and I know there's more to the story, but I can also tell that she doesn't want to talk about it. I totally understand. I've spent the last year avoiding my friends, family and basically everyone but my twin sister, Kingsley. Suddenly, I find I want to talk about it because I want to know what drove her to this remote part of the Gulf Shores by herself.

"Well, I'm figuring you know that I'm on one, too," I say.

"Uh, yeah. I mean, I wasn't going to mention it. Eat TV was my favorite channel. I watched you every night," she tells me and then she blushes. Yes. This woman. I am really feeling her.

"Did you?" I ask and fill her glass.

"Mmm-hmm," she affirms through a mouth full of food.

I fill my glass and hold it up.

She wiggles her shoulders excitedly. "This is fancy." She picks up her glass and holds it next to mine. "So, what are we toasting to?"

"New neighbors, good food, and even better company," I say, and she nods.

"Oh yeah, I'm all about that. What luck. I'm glad I left that note now." she says, and we clink glasses.

I take a sip and promptly choke on the cold bubbles as I watch her throw back the entire glass in one gulp.

"Can I have more?" she asks, picking up the bottle before I can nod. She pours another glass and throws that back, too.

"You know, it's meant to be savored?" I say after I recover my voice.

"Yeah, I am savoring it. Quickly. Life is short," she says and snaps her fingers for emphasis.

"I bet you know that better than most," I say with an assessing glance.

"Yup. I do." She pours herself another glass but only takes small sip before she puts it down on the table. She sits back in her chair, crosses her arms over her chest, forcing her ample breasts up and out over the already low neckline of her white tank top. I force my eyes back to her face ready to apologize for being a perv. She's looking at me, but her eyes are unfocused and distant.

"I wanted to be a doctor so badly," she says quietly. "So badly. Since I was six years old. It's all I wanted. After a rotation in the NICU at an amazing hospital in Boston, I decided I wanted to be part of a team that made miracles happen every day," she smiles wistfully. Her eyes cloud over with sadness as she focuses them on me.

"How naive I was," she says and takes another huge gulp of her champagne.

I finish mine and pour myself another.

"What do you mean?"

"I went to work for a county hospital where the preemies weren't born to parents who sat with them in the nursery. Most of the babies were delivered to women who were drug dependent. Some of them were even in jail. There weren't enough nurses to give them the attention they so desperately needed. There wasn't a day last year that I didn't lose at least one patient. I know it's part of the job..." she stares off again and the bleakness in her eyes makes me want to put her in my lap and hug her. She sighs, deep and long, and shakes her head. "Two months ago, we had a woman back in with her second preemie. She had been clean when her pregnancy started, but at her twenty-week appointment, she tested positive for narcotics. When that happens, in Maryland, anyway, they immediately refer to CPS and in her case, when the baby was born three months early, the state took custody,"

"Wow, that's so awful," I say feeling like more inadequate words had never been spoken. But it’s all I could offer.

"Yeah, for everyone, " she says. "Mom got out of rehab a month later and came back to the hospital. Armed." She says grimly.

My stomach drops.

"What happened?"

"She shot me, then herself," she murmurs, and my eyes nearly bug out of my head.

"She shot you?" I gawk at her.

"Yes," she says simply before she stands up. She pulls up her top and shows me a jagged, pink scar that mars the otherwise flawless skin across her ribs.

"Holy shit.” All I can do is stare at the scar.

"Yeah," she runs her fingers over the scar absently. "It wasn't a serious injury. I was lucky she didn't have better aim,” she says and then sits back down. “But after that, I couldn't go back into the hospital. I took a month off. I knew I couldn’t ever go back. I want to practice medicine, but it felt more like trying to stem a gushing artery. I felt like a failure, a quitter. But I needed to leave. I resigned. I started looking for a place where I could clear my head and hide from the world.” She glances around my kitchen. "So, here I am."

"Where's your family?" I ask her in awe of how calm she is.

"My parents live in Newport News, Virginia. They were thrilled when I quit. They never wanted me to practice medicine. It's not what the daughter of socialites does. I couldn't go home. No one understood. My boyfriend said I was being dramatic," she says and a wave of disappointment rushes over me.

"Where's he?" I ask even though I don't really want to know.

"In Maryland. We broke up. Or at least I broke up with him. He thinks I'm going to come to my senses and come home."

"Are you?" I ask a little kernel of hope lodges itself into my chest.

"Nope. We were together for six years and walking away from him was easier than walking away from my job. I suppose I'll always love him, but..."

"But..." I prompt, desperate to know what she's going to add.

"He's not the one. At least not for me." Relief replaces my worry, and I nod in very false sympathy.

"That's too bad," I say.

"No. He cheated on me constantly," she shrugs.

"Well, he's a fool," I state the obvious.

"I guess," she says as if she's not sure. "I didn't find out until a few months before the...incident. He asked me to work it out. He told me the women didn't mean anything to him. It meant something to me. I don't know why I stayed as long as I did, but after everything happened and he called me dramatic, walking away wasn't hard at all."

"I'm sure he's kicking himself," I say.

"Maybe. But it doesn't matter. It shouldn't take losing someone to know you want to be with them. I think he'd do it all over again. He didn't want to be my man. He just wanted me to be his girl."

"I know a lot of men like that. Want to possess a woman, but don't want to give her as good as they get," I say thinking about all of the guys I'd met since I started being a celebrity chef.

"What about you?" she asks, her eyes narrowing slightly in suspicion.

"What about me?" I ask purposely, evading her question. My dating record was nothing to write home about.

"You single?"

"Yeah, I was kind of married to my job. I worked a lot. I didn't have more than the casual fling. At least not since culinary school. I just..." I try to think of how to be honest without sounding like a total douche. "I was holding out for something special. Someone who loves life. Someone who wants more than just money and fame. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. But it's not why I became a chef. I didn't handle things the right way when I left, but I felt like I was drowning. I hated the way I made those young chefs feel," I admit. I've never said this to anyone, but every time I think about the show, I cringe.

"Why? Were you harder on them than they deserved?" she asks with genuine interest.

"No. Culinary school was brutal, but it wasn't televised. No one saw me get reamed for my mistakes. One of the guys I kicked out of the kitchen gave up cooking. I was sick to my stomach when I heard. I just couldn't do it anymore. I hated cooking. The people who ate my food only seemed interested in finding fault with it or bragging about eating at my restaurant. I've enjoyed this meal more than any other I've cooked in over three years. I loved watching you eat it."

She flushes.

"Really? Well I loved that you watched me eat it. In fact, I'm loving this whole afternoon," she says with a smile that is just bordering on seductive.

"Me, too. I think we should make this a standing date. Lunch, with champagne. Every day."

"I like the sound of that," she says and leans forward.

I lean across the table and grab her hand. Her eyes fly to mine wide with surprise and then.

"I want to kiss you, Franchesca. In the worst way. Like I've never wanted to kiss anyone. I know this sounds totally insane seeing how we met this morning."

She squeezes my hand back. "I've been watching you for a week," she confesses. My mouth goes dry, and it takes herculean effort not to hurdle across the table and kiss her right then. Her eyes are locked on mine. There's no blushing, no coy glances. I fucking love it. "My attraction might be a little more advanced than yours. I didn't expect you to be so damn nice. And easy to talk to. I want you..."

"I want you, too. But...are you sure this isn't the champagne talking?" I ask and glance pointedly at the nearly empty bottle.

"Maybe," she says her gaze never leaving mine, the heat in her eyes never dimming."But it's only saying what I've been thinking since the first time I saw your running up your walk way."

"Fuck," I groan. "Really?"

"Yes, really." She nods and then she lifts out of her chair, leans over the table so that we're nearly nose to nose.

And then she says, "Let's add fucking to our list of lunch time activities, shall we?"