Chapter Twenty

ALEX RODE THE ELEVATOR back to his condo, unsure whether he should first thank Dina for her excellent work or give her a hard time for interrupting his moment with Rachel. Little by little, Rachel had begun to drop her guard around him, maybe even begun to trust him a little, but his sister’s terrible timing had only succeeded in making her more skittish than before.

When he reentered the unit, Dina had cleaned up the remainder of the mess in the kitchen and was busy sweeping the crumbs from beneath his dining table. So thanks would have to come first. She’d done an amazing job tonight, far better than even he had expected. Apparently the last two years in LA had matured her and given her the work ethic their parents had accused her of not having when she dropped out of college. They might not see her skill at waiting tables as a positive, but she’d really come through for him tonight.

“You did a great job, Dina,” Alex said, locking up behind him. “Thank you. This wouldn’t have gone nearly as smoothly if you hadn’t been here.”

“You’re welcome.” She swept the debris into a dustpan and carried it to his trash can. “Are we going to pretend what I saw didn’t happen?”

“If we were going to pretend, why couldn’t you have pretended you didn’t see us and gone back upstairs?”

“Just protecting your reputation, Brother. Or hers.” Dina gave him a mischievous grin. “You were looking pretty hot and heavy there for a minute.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Not the conversation I want to be having right now.”

“You started it. Not interested in each other, huh?”

“Knowing Rachel, that’s her story and she’ll still stick to it.” But try as she might to argue otherwise, she’d been all-in with that kiss. Had they had more time, he might have attempted to define what that meant for their relationship. But after they’d gotten interrupted, he knew full well that she was going to try to explain it away, tell him why it shouldn’t happen again. That was the last thing he wanted. He suspected that was the last thing she wanted, whether she admitted it or not. Rachel did nothing that wasn’t calculated, so that meant in some part of her mind, she’d already anticipated this possibility and considered her response.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to go take a shower and get ready for bed,” Dina said. “Despite how easy I made that seem, this evening was hard work.”

Alex grinned. She might have matured some, but his sister hadn’t lost her sass one bit. If anything, it had only intensified. “Don’t run out all the hot water.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dina’s voice drifted away as she shut the bathroom door behind her.

His sister would be a while, so Alex went to his bedroom and turned on his laptop, staring out onto the sparkling cityscape while it booted. This evening had been a success, not only because of the interest it had generated among their guests, but for the momentum Rachel seemed to be gaining online. The only advantage to the fickleness of the social media age was that it took very little time for disgrace to be forgotten if something newer and more interesting came along. The Saturday Night Supper Club was new and interesting.

He started with Instagram, where he’d posted each course as Dina put it down, which of course she had shared as well. The comments below the photo said it all:

Yum! How do I get in on this?

Why have I never heard of this supper club before? I need this in my life.

Recipe? Please?

Fortunately, he’d anticipated this response, though it was further-reaching than he or Dina had ever expected. He took out his phone and snapped a photo of the menu, then posted it with a comment: Tonight’s menu. What will it be next time? #SatNightSupperClub #Foodie #NomNom #Foodstagram #Yummy #Dinner. He rather hated #NomNom, but hey, it was about getting the word out regardless of what it did to his personal pride and sense of masculinity.

Then he responded to each of the tweets that were directed to him. Most of them weren’t serious about wanting to attend; the ones that held potential, he replied to with a direct message including his e-mail address. At some point they were going to need to add some regular paying guests, even though he was slightly weirded out by the idea of having complete strangers in his home. While influencers would fund Rachel’s restaurant, members of the regular dining public were the ones who would help with her reputation issues.

The shower turned off next door, but when the door didn’t immediately open, Alex shut down his web browser and instead opened the file containing his proposal. Two measly paragraphs. That’s all he’d done in the three weeks since the whole situation went down with Rachel and Paisley. His agent had even given up on her daily check-ins, evidently figuring out it was doing nothing to motivate him and only wasting her time.

Alex leaned back in his chair and stared at the blinking cursor. His first book had started with a guiding essay, and the essay started with the identification of a problem. A humorous way to shed light on the foibles of modern life, especially considering the place he lived and the people with whom he interacted. And yet, as he thought back through all of the things he’d done in the past several weeks, he couldn’t find it within him to complain.

He was enjoying himself.

He was enjoying the interaction with Rachel, the amazing food she cooked, the preparation for the supper club. He was enjoying the anticipation of the next one, and the challenge of helping her rebuild her career when he had always been mostly focused on his own.

He was starting to care for her. Not simply because he was attracted to her or because he felt guilty about what he had done to her career. But because she was smart and funny and determined. Because she only cared about what other people thought as far as it affected her ability to live up to her own expectations. Pretty much the exact opposite of every woman he’d dated.

He smiled when he thought of how nervous she’d been about the supper club and how she had completely taken control. He’d never thought he’d find extreme capability in a woman sexy, but she was blowing plenty of his preconceptions out of the water.

A tickle in the back of his mind made him open a new file. He put his fingers to the keyboard, not expecting anything to come, but to his surprise, words poured onto the screen. Not just a paragraph, but page after page. When he finally looked up at his clock, it was nearly one in the morning; he’d spent over two hours typing without pause.

Alex saved the file and shut his laptop down without reviewing the document. He would look it over tomorrow and see if there was anything usable there or merely sentimental ramblings after having indulged in an incredible meal made by an incredible woman.

He rose from the chair and poked his head out into the living room. The lights were already off, though the flickering screen of the television projected colors onto the sleeping form of his sister. She was curled on the sofa beneath a light blanket with Sunshine, who had apparently emerged from hiding. She’d be flying home early tomorrow morning, ready to get back to her real life. Bad timing or not, he liked having Dina here. He’d missed a good chunk of her life because he’d been busy with his own, and now that she could use a big brother on her side, she was a thousand miles away.

Nothing could be done about that now. She was living her dream in LA and he would support her in that, even if their parents wouldn’t. But if he paid her well enough, she might consent to returning in two weeks.

Two weeks. He had his work cut out for him if he was going to maintain the buzz and momentum until the second supper club. Tomorrow he would go over his list of potential guests and select the ones who were Rachel’s next best bet for spreading the word. Knowing her, she’d have a provisional menu established by the end of the day and be testing recipes first thing Monday morning, something for which he fully intended to be on hand.

*   *   *

Rachel couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned in her bed, the streetlight throwing a yellow glow across her bedroom. It was the excitement of the evening, of course, the impulse to relive every course and analyze what went right and what went wrong. To sift through the guests’ reactions, feedback they hadn’t known they were giving her. The vegetable, fish, and scallop were flawless, as was the savory ricotta cheesecake, but judging from the amount of gnocchi left on the plates, the wild boar ragù hadn’t quite gone over as well as she’d hoped. Probably not the taste, given that it was partially eaten, but rather that it was a bit heavy after the first three courses. She hadn’t wanted anyone to go away hungry, so she’d erred on the side of generosity. Next time she would go with typical tasting portions, enough to satisfy but not enough to weigh them down.

She might also be doing everything she could not to think about Alex, which was proving near impossible. For one thing, he’d presided over the night with admirable aplomb, a born entertainer. He’d known who to introduce to whom and how to steer the conversation when it strayed into dangerous territory. He’d guided their impressions of the dishes when they were still deciding what they thought about them. And he’d brought his sister in, who had arguably made as much of a contribution to the night’s success as Rachel and Alex had.

There was also his kissing prowess, which was not inconsequential. Even now, the memory of his lips on hers and his hands in her hair made her heart beat wildly. Sent her mind spinning off into the girlish fantasies she’d banished by necessity a long time ago.

“Forget it,” she whispered to herself. She needed Alex for his access to potential investors, not as a boyfriend. She hadn’t gotten this far in her career by letting herself be distracted by a pretty face and a knee-weakening kiss. There was only room in her life for one love, and that was cooking. She knew better than to succumb to whispered promises of a happily ever after that would likely never come.

No. Better to play it safe and keep things professional. The next time she saw him she would apologize for letting things get so out of hand. He would understand, given how excited she’d been about the evening’s success.

Anyway, it wasn’t like she had any time to think about getting personal. She had only two weeks to come up with a different seasonal theme and a new menu, and source all the food for the next supper club. She knew full well that Alex had intended this as a trial run to make sure she could pull off the concept and build her confidence. Next time the stakes would be higher. Her investor could very well be in that group. She needed to keep her head down and her mind focused, away from distractions.

And whatever else he might be, Alex was an enormous distraction.