Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [19]
Jess flinched a little, but stood his ground. “Nope,” he said. “Our parents died when I was a kid, so you don’t have to worry about them.”
Miranda held in a gasp with some effort. What was Jess thinking, offering up such a personal thing to a stranger?
Adam looked taken aback, the annoyance in his eyes morphing into the shocked pity Miranda’d seen and despised in the face of everyone who found out about her family.
Miranda braced herself for semisincere platitutes or stammering sympathies, but Adam said, “I’ll have to check with the restaurant manager. Grant’s taking care of hiring the wait staff. Hey, Grant, can you come out here for a sec?” That last bit was shouted through the pass.
The blond man Miranda had mistaken for the bartender appeared a moment later, and Adam introduced him as Grant Holloway. Adam filled him in, and Grant offered to take Jess down to the office for an interview. Miranda watched them go, trying to be grateful that Adam had allowed the awkward moment Jess created to pass without comment.
The gratitude evaporated when Adam turned on her, eyes snapping. “I’m not crazy about the idea of hiring your kid brother. Bad enough I’ve got you for a month—if we hire that kid, you’ll have an excuse to be around even longer.”
Miranda’s temper kicked into high gear. She snatched her reporter’s notebook from her purse, unscrewed the cap on her favorite tortoiseshell fountain pen, and flipped to a blank page.
Writing in the shorthand she’d developed over the years, she spoke the note aloud. “Makes hiring decisions based on personal and evidently volatile emotions, rather than fair, open-minded business practices.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Adam was practically snarling.
“My job,” she told him. She made another note. “Appears to hold a grudge. Unable to see the benefits of increased publicity for a new restaurant?”
“I’m not a moron,” he said, barely moving his lips. “Publicity is a good thing. I just don’t happen to think having a critic in my kitchen is worth it.”
“Journalist,” she corrected him. “I’m embedding myself in your kitchen like a war correspondent embedded with the troops. Although I’m hoping this assignment won’t be quite that bloody.”
Adam arched a brow. “Don’t count on it. Things get nasty in the kitchen; it’s inevitable. Tensions run hotter than boiling water and sometimes the testosterone overflows. I don’t need some pretty little scribbler getting her panties in a twist over bad tempers or rough language. I’m not censoring myself for you.”
“Excellent!” Miranda wanted to clap her hands. He was too perfect. She couldn’t wait to write about him.
He stared at her. “Shit. That was exactly what you wanted to hear, wasn’t it?”
She nodded. “I need to get an accurate impression of what it’s like in a professional kitchen.”
“So you can crap all over it in your magazine.”
And a best-selling book, if I’m lucky. “I’ve been given to understand that I’ll have unrestricted access to you and your staff for the next month. Whether you like it or not, Chef Temple, this is happening.” She gripped her pen and notebook a little harder, only noticing when the spiral rings cut into her palm painfully. “Look, this isn’t exactly how I imagined it would be, either, getting my big break. I should apologize for the way I behaved last night. It was unprofessional and insulting.”
Adam crossed his arms over his broad chest. Miranda tried not to notice how that made the corded muscles in his tanned forearms bulge.
“Yeah,” he said, not blinking.
“Yeah?” Miranda repeated. “That’s all you have to say?”
“I’m agreeing with you,” he said. “Unprofessional. Insulting. You should apologize. I can’t wait to hear it.”
Miranda clenched her jaw so hard she was afraid her teeth would snap. “You’re an ass,” she seethed.
Satisfaction glittered in his dark eyes, as though she’d confirmed something for him. “Maybe, sweetheart,” he said. “But for the next month, I’m also your god and king.”
He leaned down until she felt his hot breath brush her cheek. “When you’re in my kitchen, my word is fucking law. Be sure to write