On the Steamy Side - Louisa Edwards [3]
He was finally on his own for real.
Devon told himself it was nothing new, he’d been alone in every way that mattered for years—but it felt different, somehow.
Well. He’d get used to it.
CHAPTER ONE
Lower East Side, Manhattan
September 2010
“I’ve got fantastic news! Prepare to congratulate yourself, yet again, on having the intelligence, and the money, to hire me.”
Devon Sparks squinted through the dark miasma of illegal cigarette smoke and the humid press of sweaty, raucous bar patrons to see his publicist, Simon Woolf, wrinkle his nose and give the stool beside Devon’s a swipe with a cocktail napkin before perching on it.
“You look uncomfortable, Si,” Devon drawled, amused. “You disapprove of my taste in dive bars?”
Devon caught Simon’s derisive sneer as he looked around Chapel and the dingy, smoke-filled underground room they were in. Propping his elbows on the scarred oak bar, Devon cocked his head and watched his personal publicity shark move his ever-present PDA fussily out of the way of a few crumbs scattered around the bowls of bar mix, popcorn, and wasabi peas.
Simon ought to see the place when the real after-hours crowd came out—kitchen crews coming off service, off-duty cops, and ER docs mixed with punk musicians and the avant-garde theater crowd.
Holding himself rigid to keep from brushing elbows with any of his fellow bar patrons, many of them pierced and tattooed and leathered up, Simon didn’t appear to appreciate the democratic nature of the scene.
“I don’t see why we couldn’t have met at your place.” Simon’s aggrieved tone had Devon rolling his eyes and holding up a hand to the bartender. Christian was an old friend; ex-employee, actually. He’d know what to fix Simon.
“Order something,” Devon told him. “You look like you could use it. And you know exactly why we’re meeting here.” Devon had just finished a grueling season of the show, culminating in a week-long shoot at a chain fondue restaurant where no fewer than seven idiot servers had spilled molten cheese or chocolate on him. “I’m fucking exhausted, and I wanted a drink.”
A silky note of malicious amusement threaded through Devon’s tone as he continued, “And you agreed because it’s your job to do whatever the hell I say.”
After the week he’d had, it was a balm to Devon’s soul to be back in the position of dealing with underlings who could be relied upon to twist themselves into pretzels to avoid pissing him off.
The premise of Devon’s show was that he went into unfamiliar professional kitchens for a single night and cooked any type of food, for any size restaurant, with tools and a staff he’d never worked with before. The tag line of the show was Anything you can do, I can do better.
The producers had sent him all over the place, from banquet halls serving shrimp cocktail to hundreds of guests, to tiny, hole-in-the-wall corner joints. It was the Cooking Channel’s top-rated program, watched by millions across the country. It was big enough to have spawned a series of spoof sketches on Saturday Night Live.
The fact that Devon was sick to death of it was his dirty little secret.
“No, it’s my job to keep you in the superstar stratosphere to which you’ve become accustomed,” Simon corrected, peering suspiciously at the martini glass Christian set before him. “What is this?” he asked, taking a tiny sip. Which turned into a longer guzzle. “Hey, it’s actually not bad.”
“Not bad,” Devon snorted. “Hey, Chris, you hear that?”
The bartender cut his dark gaze to Devon, straight, hippie-length brown hair swinging against his shoulders.
“I sure did, and boy, do I ever thank him for the kind words,” Christian drawled, tipping an imaginary cowboy hat to Simon. Devon wasn’t sure his publicist caught the sardonic edge Chris gave to the gesture.
Simon took another sip, brows drawn in concentration. “It’s clear like a martini, but it has a more complicated flavor, something I can’t place.”
Devon sat back on his barstool. This ought to be good.
“White peppercorn-infused