Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [35]
Starting to feel the pressure of time ticking away, Miranda tucked her towel more tightly under her arms and said, “Does that bother you?”
“No. You?”
“Of course not,” Miranda said, surprised. “It certainly doesn’t change the way I felt about him before. As long as he treats you with respect and consideration, I don’t care what he does with his private life.”
Jess was making such a business out of turning on the shower and getting the water to the perfect temperature that his face was flushed when he straightened and glanced over at her. “You’d better hurry and get dressed. Adam wants staff there by three. Big day, can’t be late.”
Miranda studied him for a moment, feeling that she was missing something. But when Jess hooked his fingers in the waistband of his boxers and looked at her expectantly, Miranda held up her hands and scurried out of the bathroom.
Jess was right. She couldn’t afford to be late, today of all days.
Whatever sense of calm Miranda had managed to cobble together disappeared the moment she stepped into Market’s earth-toned interior. The place was packed with people, all in a frenetic race to get ready for the big night. An army of young men and women, dressed like Jess in matching forest-green organic cotton button-downs and black pants, swarmed around the coat-check station, bar, and two dining rooms in a coordinated frenzy.
Jess peeled off when he spotted Grant Holloway holding a clipboard and directing his troops like a slender, blond Napoleon.
Feeling a tad abandoned and trying not to show it, Miranda made for the swinging door at the back of the main dining room.
Three in the afternoon, Market wouldn’t be open for another two hours, and the kitchen was bustling as though every table in the restaurant were occupied by an impatiently waiting customer.
At first glance, it looked like sheer pandemonium. White-jacketed cooks stood in long rows up and down the bright steel countertops, chopping and pounding and stirring and measuring. The narrow walkways behind the counters were crammed with people, too, spinning and whirling past each other in a parody of a dance. Every second, it looked as if someone were going to run into someone else, but no one ever did.
At the center of the whirlwind was Adam. His dark hair stuck out in spikes, as if he’d been running his fingers through it, and his powerful torso strained at the seams of his pristine white jacket as he hefted a large tray of what looked like chicken carcasses onto the counter beside the range.
A skinny younger man with sharp, bladelike features and a prematurely receding hairline stood by, watching every move Adam made with intense concentration.
As Adam picked through the bones and held one up to the light, his gaze landed on Miranda.
Here we go, she thought, mentally hitching up her pants.
Raised eyebrows were her only greeting as Miranda threaded between a prep cook dicing cucumbers and the round-faced pastry chef, Violet Porter, castigating a trembling assistant for letting the bread dough overproof. Adam looked Miranda up and down, taking in everything from her tightly controlled hair to her unadorned brown leather flats.
“Going to need a jacket,” was the first thing out of his mouth. He looked down at her feet and smirked. The glance he shot her from beneath his lashes brimmed with cheerful malice. “By the end of the night, you’re really going to wish you’d worn sneakers.”
Miranda stiffened. “I’m sure I’ll be fine. In any case, no one informed me of a dress code.”
“Oh, there’s not really a code,” Adam said. “Just common sense. But . . .” He held up a hand to stall her sputtering. “You couldn’t know. After tonight, you will. Eh, Robbie?”
The thin-faced man hovering at Adam’s side shot back, “Yes, Chef!” Miranda almost expected him to salute.
Cocking a head in his direction, Adam’s eyes never left Miranda’s. “This is Robin Meeks, our extern.”
Miranda went through the polite rituals, holding out her hand with a question. “Extern? How does that work?”