Kitabı oku: «A Beauty For The Billionaire», sayfa 2
A ham and cheese sandwich.
Hogan had suspected the dinner Chloe set in front of him before disappearing back into the kitchen without a word was a sandwich, because he was pretty sure there were two slices of bread under the crusty stuff on top that was probably more cheese. But his first bite had cinched it. She’d made him a ham and cheese sandwich. No, maybe the ham wasn’t the Oscar Mayer he’d always bought before he became filthy, stinking rich, and the cheese wasn’t the kind that came in plastic-wrapped individual slices, but croque monsieur was obviously French for ham and cheese sandwich.
Still, it was a damned good ham and cheese sandwich.
For side dishes, there was something that was kind of like French fries—but not really—and something else that was kind of like coleslaw—but not really. Even so, both were also damned good. Actually, they were better than damned good. The dinner Chloe made him was easily the best not-really ham and cheese sandwich, not-really French fries and not-really coleslaw he’d ever eaten. Ah, hell. They were better than all those spot-on things, too. Maybe hiring her would pay off in more ways than just winning back the love of his life. Or, at least, the love of his teens.
Chloe had paired his dinner with a beer that was also surprisingly good, even though he was pretty sure it hadn’t been brewed in Milwaukee. He would have thought her expertise in that area would be more in wine—and it probably was—but it was good to know she had a well-rounded concept of what constituted dinner. Then again, for what he was paying her, he wouldn’t be surprised if she had a well-rounded concept of astrophysics and existentialism, too. She’d even chosen music to go with his meal, and although he’d never really thought jazz was his thing, the mellow strains of sax and piano had been the perfect go-with.
It was a big difference from the way he’d enjoyed dinner before—food that came out of a bag or the microwave, beer that came out of a longneck and some sport on TV. If someone had told Hogan a month ago that he’d be having dinner in a massive dining room at a table for twelve with a view of trees and town houses out his window instead of the neon sign for Taco Taberna across the street, he would have told that person to see a doctor about their hallucinations. He still couldn’t believe this was his life now. He wasn’t sure he ever would.
The moment he laid his fork on his plate, Chloe appeared to remove both from the table and set a cup of coffee in their place. Before she could escape again—somehow it always seemed to Hogan like she was trying to run from him—he stopped her.
“That was delicious,” he said. “Thank you.”
When she turned to face him, she looked surprised by his admission. “Of course it was delicious. It’s my life’s work to make it delicious.” Seemingly as an afterthought, she added, “You’re welcome.”
When she started to turn away, Hogan stopped her again.
“So I realize now that croque monsieur is a ham and cheese sandwich, but what do you call those potatoes?”
When she turned around this time, her expression relayed nothing of what she might be thinking. She only gazed at him in silence for a minute—a minute where he was surprised to discover he was dying to know what she was thinking. Finally she said, “Pommes frites. The potatoes are called pommes frites.”
“And the green stuff? What was that?”
“Salade de chou.”
“Fancy,” he said. “But wasn’t it really just a ham and cheese sandwich, French fries and coleslaw?”
Her lips, freshly stained with her red lipstick, thinned a little. “To you? Yes. Now if you’ll excuse me, your dessert—”
“Can wait a minute,” he finished. “Sit down. We need to talk.”
She didn’t turn to leave again. But she didn’t sit down, either. Mostly, she just stared at him through slitted eyes over the top of her glasses before pushing them into place again with the back of her hand. He remembered her doing that a couple of times earlier in the day. Maybe with what he was paying her now, she could afford to buy a pair of glasses that fit. Or, you know, eight hundred pairs of glasses that fit. He was paying her an awful lot.
He tried to gentle his tone. “Come on. Sit down. Please,” he added.
“Was there a problem with your dinner?” she asked.
He shook his head. “It was a damned tasty ham and cheese sandwich.”
He thought she would be offended that he relegated her creation—three times now—to something normally bought in a corner deli and wrapped in wax paper. Instead, she replied, “I wanted to break you in slowly. Tomorrow I’m making you pot au feu.”
“Which is?”
“To you? Beef stew.”
“You don’t think much of me or my palate, do you?”
“I have no opinion of either, Mr. Dempsey.”
“Hogan,” he corrected her. Again.
She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I just happened to learn a few things about my new employer before starting work for him, and it’s helped me plan menus that would appeal to him. Which was handy since the questionnaire I asked this particular employer to fill out was, shall we say, a bit lean on helpful information in that regard.”
“Shouldn’t I be the one doing that?” he asked. “Researching my potential employee before even offering the position?”
“Did you?” she asked.
He probably should have. But Gus Fiver’s recommendation had been enough for him. Well, that and the fact that stealing her from Anabel would get the latter’s attention.
“Uh…” he said eloquently.
She exhaled a resigned sigh then approached the table and pulled out a chair to fold herself into it, setting his empty plate before her for the time being. “I know you grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Astoria,” she said, “and that you’re so new money, with so much of it, the Secret Service should be crawling into your shorts to make sure you’re not printing the bills yourself. I know you’ve never traveled farther north than New Bedford, Massachusetts, to visit your grandparents or farther south than Ocean City, New Jersey, where you and your parents spent a week every summer at the Coral Sands Motel. I know you excelled at both hockey and football in high school and that you missed out on scholarships for both by this much, so you never went to college. I also know your favorite food is—” at this, she bit back a grimace “—taco meatloaf and that the only alcohol you imbibe is domestic beer. News flash. I will not be making taco meatloaf for you at any time.”
The hell she wouldn’t. Taco meatloaf was awesome. All he said, though, was, “How do you know all that? I mean, yeah, some of that stuff is probably on the internet, but not the stuff about my grandparents and the Coral Sands Motel.”
“I would never pry into anyone’s personal information on the internet or anywhere else,” Chloe said, sounding genuinely stung that he would think otherwise.
“Then how—”
“Anabel told me all that about you after I gave her my two weeks’ notice. I didn’t ask,” she hastened to clarify. “But when she found out it was you who hired me, and when she realized she couldn’t afford to pay me more than you offered me, she became a little…perturbed.”
Hogan grinned. He remembered Anabel perturbed. She never liked it much when she didn’t get her way. “And she thought she could talk you out of coming to work for me by telling you what a mook I am, right?” he asked.
Chloe looked confused. “Mook?”
He chuckled. “Never mind.”
Instead of being offended by what Anabel had told Chloe, Hogan was actually heartened by it, because it meant she remembered him well. It didn’t surprise him she had said what she did. Anabel had never made a secret of her opinion that social divisions existed for a reason and should never be crossed—even if she had crossed them dozens of times to be with him when they were young. It was what she had been raised to believe and was as ingrained a part of her as Hogan’s love for muscle cars was ingrained in him. Her parents, especially her father, had been adamant she would marry a man who was her social and financial equal, to the point that they’d sworn to cut her off socially and financially if she didn’t. The Carlisle money was just that old and sacred. It was the only thing that could come between Hogan and Anabel. She’d made that clear, too. And when she went off to college and started dating a senator’s son, well… Hogan had known it was over between them without her even having to tell him.
Except that she never actually told him it was over between them, and they’d still enjoyed the occasional hookup when she was home from school, in spite of the senator’s son. Over the next few years, though, they finally did drift apart.
But Anabel never told him it was over.
That was why, even after she’d married the senator’s son, Hogan had never stopped hoping that someday things would be different for them. And now his hope had paid off. Literally. The senator’s son was gone, and there was no social or financial divide between him and Anabel anymore. The blood he was born with was just as blue as hers, and the money he’d inherited was just as old and moldy. Maybe he was still feeling his way in a world that was new to him, but he wasn’t on the outside looking in anymore. Hell, he’d just drunk beer from a glass instead of a longneck. That was a major development for him. It wouldn’t be long before he—
“Hang on,” he said. “How does Anabel know I only drink domestic beer? I wasn’t old enough to drink when I was with her.”
“That part I figured out myself,” Chloe said.
“There are some damned fine domestic beers being brewed these days, you know.”
“There are. But what you had tonight was Belgian. Nice, wasn’t it?”
Yeah, okay, it was. He would still be bringing home his Sam Adams on the weekends. So there, Chloe Merlin.
“Is everything you cook French?” he asked. He wasn’t sure why he was prolonging a conversation neither of them seemed to want to have.
“Still angling for that taco meatloaf, are we?” she asked.
“I like pizza, too.”
She flinched, but said nothing.
“And chicken pot pie,” he threw in for good measure.
She expelled another one of those impatient sighs. “Fine. I can alter my menus. Some,” she added meaningfully.
Hogan smiled. Upper hand. He had it. He wondered how long he could keep it.
“But yes, all of what I cook is French.” She looked like she would add more to the comment, but she didn’t.
So he tried a new tack. “Are you a native New Yorker?” Then he remembered she couldn’t be a native New Yorker. She didn’t know what a mook was.
“I was born and raised in New Albany, Indiana,” she told him. Then, because she must have realized he was going to press her for more, she added, with clear reluctance, “I was raised by my grandmother because my parents…um…weren’t able to raise me themselves. Mémée came here as a war bride after World War Two—her parents owned a bistro in Cherbourg—and she was the one who taught me to cook. I got my degree in Culinary Arts from Sullivan University in Louisville, which is a cool city, but the restaurant scene there is hugely competitive, and I wanted to open my own place.”
“So you came to New York, where there’s no competition for that kind of thing at all, huh?” He smiled, but Chloe didn’t smile back.
He waited for her to explain how she had ended up in New York cooking for the One Percent instead of opening her own restaurant, but she must have thought she had come to the end of her story, because she didn’t say anything else. For Hogan, though, her conclusion only jump-started a bunch of new questions in his brain. “So you wanted to open your own place, but you’ve been cooking for one person at a time for…how long?”
She met his gaze levelly. “For five years,” she said.
He wondered if that was why she charged so much for her services and insisted on living on-site. Because she was saving up to open her own restaurant.
“Why no restaurant of your own by now?” he asked.
She hesitated for a short, but telling, moment. “I changed my mind.” She stood and picked up his plate. “I need to see to your dessert.”
He wanted to ask her more about herself, but her posture made clear she was finished sharing. So instead, he asked, “What am I having?”
“Glissade.”
“Which is? To me?” he added before she could.
“Chocolate pudding.”
And then she was gone. He turned in his chair to watch her leave and saw her crossing the gallery to the kitchen, her red plastic shoes whispering over the marble floor. He waited to see if she would look back, or even to one side. But she kept her gaze trained on the kitchen door, her step never slowing or faltering.
She was a focused one, Chloe Merlin. He wondered why. And he found himself wondering, too, if there was anything else—or anyone else—in her life besides cooking.
Two
The day after she began working for Hogan Dempsey, Chloe returned from her early-afternoon grocery shopping to find him in the gallery between the kitchen and dining room. He was dressed in a different pair of battered jeans from the day before, and a different sweater, this one the color of a ripe avocado. He must not have heard her as she topped the last stair because he was gazing intently at one photograph in particular. It was possible that if she continued to not make a sound, he wouldn’t see her as she slipped into the kitchen. Because she’d really appreciate it if Hogan didn’t see her as she slipped into the kitchen.
In fact, she’d really appreciate it if Hogan never noticed her again.
She still didn’t know what had possessed her to reveal so much about herself last night. She never told anyone about being raised by a grandmother instead of by parents, and she certainly never talked about the desire she’d once had to open a restaurant. That was a dream she abandoned a long time ago, and she would never revisit it again. Never. Yet within hours of meeting Hogan, she was telling him those things and more. It was completely unprofessional, and Chloe was, if nothing else, utterly devoted to her profession.
She gripped the tote bags in her hands more fiercely and stole a few more steps toward the kitchen. She was confident she didn’t make a sound, but Hogan must have sensed her presence anyway and called out to her. Maybe she could pretend she didn’t hear him. It couldn’t be more than five or six more steps to the kitchen door. She might be able to make it.
“Chloe?” he said again.
Damn. Missed it by that much.
She turned to face him. “Yes, Mr. Dempsey?”
“Hogan,” he told her again. “I don’t like being called ‘Mr. Dempsey.’ It makes me uncomfortable. It’s Hogan, okay?”
“All right,” she agreed reluctantly. “What is it you need?”
When he’d called out to her, he’d sounded like he genuinely had something to ask her. Now, though, he only gazed at her in silence, looking much the way he had yesterday when he’d seemed so lost. And just as she had yesterday, Chloe had to battle the urge to go to him, to touch him, and to tell him not to worry, that everything would be all right. Not that she would ever tell him that. There were some things that could never be all right again. No one knew that better than Chloe did.
Thankfully, he quickly regrouped, pointing at the photo he’d been studying. “It’s my mother,” he said. “My biological mother,” he quickly added. “I think I resemble her a little. What do you think?”
What Chloe thought was that she needed to start cooking. Immediately. Instead, she set her bags on the floor and made her way across the gallery toward him and the photo.
His mother didn’t resemble him a little, she saw. His mother resembled him a lot. In fact, looking at her was like looking at a female Hogan Dempsey.
“Her name was Susan Amherst,” he said. “She was barely sixteen when she had me.”
Even though Chloe truly didn’t engage in gossip, she hadn’t been able to avoid hearing the story of Susan Amherst over the last several weeks. It was all the Park Avenue crowd had talked about since the particulars of Philip Amherst’s estate were made public, from the tearooms where society matriarchs congregated to the kitchens where their staff toiled. How Susan Amherst, a prominent young society deb in the early ’80s, suddenly decided not to attend Wellesley after her graduation from high school a year early, and instead took a year off to “volunteer overseas.” There had been talk at the time that she was pregnant and that her ultra-conservative, extremely image-conscious parents wanted to hide her condition. Rumors swirled that they sent her to live with relatives upstate and had the baby adopted immediately after its birth. But the talk about young Susan died down as soon as another scandal came along, and life went on. Even for the Amhersts. Susan returned to her rightful place in her parents’ home the following spring and started college the next year. For all anyone knew, she really had spent months “volunteering overseas.”
Until Hogan showed up three decades later and stirred up the talk again.
“You and she resemble each other very much,” Chloe said. And because Susan’s parents were in the photograph, as well, she added, “You resemble your grandfather, too.” She stopped herself before adding that Philip Amherst had been a very handsome man.
“My grandfather’s attorney gave me a letter my grandfather wrote when he changed his will to leave his estate to me.” Hogan’s voice revealed nothing of what he might be feeling, even though there must be a tsunami of feeling in a statement like that. “The adoption was a private one at a time when sealed records stayed sealed, so he couldn’t find me before he died.
“Not that I got the impression from his letter that he actually wanted to find me before he died,” he hastened to add. Oh, yes. Definitely a tsunami of feeling. “It took a bunch of legal proceedings to get the records opened so the estate could pass to me. Anyway, in his letter, he said Susan didn’t want to put me up for adoption. That she wanted to raise me herself. She even named me. Travis. Travis Amherst.” He chuckled, but there wasn’t an ounce of humor in the sound. “I mean, can you see me as a Travis Amherst?”
Actually, Chloe could. Hogan Dempsey struck her as a man who could take any form and name he wanted. Travis Amherst of the Upper East Side would have been every bit as dynamic and compelling as Hogan Dempsey of Queens. He just would have been doing it in a different arena.
“Not that it matters,” he continued. “My grandparents talked Susan out of keeping me because she was so young—she was only fifteen when she got pregnant. They convinced her it was what was best for her and me both.”
He looked at the photo again. In it, Susan Amherst looked to be in her thirties. She was wearing a black cocktail dress and was flanked by her parents on one side and a former, famously colorful, mayor of New York on the other. In the background were scores of people on a dance floor and, behind them, an orchestra. Whatever the event was, it seemed to be festive. Susan, however, wasn’t smiling. She obviously didn’t feel very festive.
“My mother never told anyone who my father was,” Hogan continued. “But my grandfather said he thought he was one of the servants’ kids that Susan used to sneak out with. From some of the other stuff he said, I think he was more worried about that than he was my mother’s age.” He paused. “Not that that matters now, either.”
Chloe felt his gaze fall on her again. When she looked at him, his eyes were dark with a melancholy sort of longing.
“Of course it matters,” she said softly. “Your entire life would have been different if you had grown up Travis Amherst instead of Hogan Dempsey.” And because she couldn’t quite stop herself, she added, “It’s…difficult…when life throws something at you that you never could have seen coming. Especially when you realize it’s going to change everything. Whatever you’re feeling, Hogan, they’re legitimate feelings, and they deserve to be acknowledged. You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t matter. It matters,” she repeated adamantly. “It matters a lot.”
Too late, she realized she had called him Hogan. Too late, she realized she had spilled something out of herself onto him again and made an even bigger mess than she had last night. Too late, she realized she couldn’t take any of it back.
But Hogan didn’t seem to think she’d made a mess. He seemed to be grateful for what she’d said. “Thanks,” he told her.
And because she couldn’t think of anything else to say, she replied automatically, “You’re welcome.”
She was about to return to the kitchen—she really, really, really did need to get cooking—but he started talking again, his voice wistful, his expression sober.
“I can’t imagine what my life would have been like growing up as Travis Amherst. I would have had to go to some private school where I probably would have played soccer and lacrosse instead of football and hockey. I would have gone to college. I probably would have majored in business or finance and done one of those study-abroads in Europe. By now Travis Amherst would be saddled with some office job, wearing pinstripes by a designer whose name Hogan Dempsey wouldn’t even recognize.” He shook his head, clearly baffled by what might have been. “The thought of having to work at a job like that instead of working at the garage is…” He inhaled deeply and released the breath slowly. “It’s just… A job like that would suffocate me. But Travis Amherst probably would have loved it.”
“Possibly,” Chloe said. “But maybe not. Travis might have liked working with his hands, too. It’s impossible to know for sure.”
“And pointless to play ‘what if,’ I know,” Hogan agreed. “What’s done is done. And the idea that I would have never known my mom and dad or have the friends I’ve had all my life… The thought of all the memories that live in my head being completely different…”
Chloe winced inwardly at the irony of their situation. They both grieved for the unknown. But with him, it was a past that hadn’t happened, and for her, it was a future that would never be.
“I need to cook,” she told him. She pushed her glasses into place with the back of her hand and took a step backward. “I’m sorry, but…” She took another step back. “I need to cook. If you’ll excuse me…”
“Sure,” he said. “No problem.” He didn’t sound like there wasn’t a problem, though. He sounded really confused.
That made two of them.
When Chloe turned to head back to the kitchen, she saw Mrs. Hennessey topping the last stair. Hogan’s housekeeper reminded her of her grandmother in a lot of ways. She wore the same boxy house dresses in the same muted colors and always kept her fine white hair twisted into a flawless chignon at her nape. She was no-nonsense and professional, the way Chloe was. At least, the way Chloe was before she came to work for Hogan. The way she knew she had to be again if she wanted to keep working here.
And she did want to keep working here. For some reason. A reason she wasn’t ready to explore. It was sure to be good, whatever it was.
Mrs. Hennessey announced to the room at large, “There’s an Anabel Carlisle downstairs to see you. I showed her to the salon.”
That seemed to snap Hogan out of his preoccupation with what might have been and pull him firmly into the here and now. “Anabel is here? Tell her I’ll be right down.”
“No, Mr. Dempsey, she’s here to see Ms. Merlin.”
Hogan’s jaw dropped a little at that. But all he said was, “Hogan, Mrs. Hennessey. Please call me Hogan.” Then he looked at Chloe. “Guess she refigured her budget and wants to hire you back.”
Chloe should have been delighted by the idea. Not only did it mean more money coming in, but it also meant she would be free of Hogan Dempsey and his damnable heartache-filled eyes. She should be flying down the stairs to tell Anabel that she’d love to come back to work for her and would pack her bags this instant. Instead, for some reason, she couldn’t move. “Tell Anabel we’ll be right down,” Hogan told Mrs. Hennessey.
The housekeeper nodded and went back down the stairs. Chloe stood still. Hogan gazed at her curiously.
“Don’t you want to hear what she has to say?”
Chloe nodded. She did. She did want to hear what Anabel had to say. But she really needed to cook. Cooking was something she could control. Cooking filled her head with flavors and fragrances, with methods and measurements. Cooking restored balance to the universe. And Chloe could really use some balance right now.
“Well then, let’s go find out,” Hogan said.
Chloe looked at him again. And was immediately sorry. Because now he looked happy and eager and excited. And a happy Hogan was far more overwhelming, and far more troubling, than a conflicted one. A happy Hogan reminded her of times and places—and people—that had made her happy, too. And those thoughts, more than anything, were the very reason she needed to cook.
Hogan couldn’t understand why Chloe looked so unhappy at the thought of seeing Anabel. Then again, Chloe hadn’t really looked happy about anything since he met her. He’d never encountered anyone so serious. Even cooking, which she constantly said she wanted to do, didn’t really seem to bring her any joy.
Then he remembered she’d never actually said she wanted to cook. She always said she needed to. For most people, that was probably a minor distinction. He was beginning to suspect that, for Chloe, there was nothing minor about it at all.
“C’mon,” he told her. “Let’s go see what Anabel wants.” And then, because she was standing close enough for him to do it, he leaned over and nudged her shoulder gently with his.
He might as well have jabbed her with a red-hot poker, the way she lurched away from him at the contact. She even let out a soft cry of protest and lifted a hand to her shoulder, as if he’d struck her there.
“I’m sorry,” he immediately apologized, even though he had no idea what he needed to apologize for. “I didn’t mean to…”
What? Touch her? Of course he meant to touch her. The same way he would have touched any one of his friends, male or female, in an effort to coax them out of their funk. People always nudged each other’s shoulders. Most people wouldn’t have even noticed the gesture. Chloe looked as if she’d been shot.
“It’s okay,” she said, still rubbing her shoulder, not looking like it was okay at all.
Not knowing what else he could say, he extended his arm toward the stairs to indicate she should precede him down. With one last, distressed look at him, she did. He kept his distance as he followed her because she seemed to need it, but also because it gave him a few more seconds to prepare for Anabel. He’d known he would run into her at some point—hell, he’d planned on it—but he’d figured it would be at some social function where there would be a lot of people around, and he’d have plenty of time to plan. He hadn’t thought she would come to his house, even if it was to see someone other than him.
What Mrs. Hennessey called a “salon,” Hogan thought of as a big-ass living room. The walls were paneled in maple, and a massive Oriental rug covered most of the green marble floor. A fireplace on one wall had a mantel that was dotted with wooden model ships, and it was flanked by brown leather chairs—a matching sofa was pushed against the wall opposite.
Three floor-to-ceiling arched windows looked out onto a courtyard in back of the house, and it was through one of those that Anabel Carlisle stood looking, with her back to them. Either she hadn’t heard them come in, or she, too, was giving herself a few extra seconds to prepare. All Hogan could tell was that the black hair that used to hang in straight shafts to the middle of her back was short now, cut nearly to her chin.
And her wardrobe choices were a lot different, too. He remembered her trying to look like a secondhand gypsy, even though she’d probably spent hundreds of dollars in Fifth Avenue boutiques on everything she wore. Today’s outfit had likely set her back even more, despite merely consisting of sedate gray pants and sweater. But both showcased lush curves she hadn’t had as a teenager, so maybe they were worth the extra expense.
As if he’d spoken his appraisal out loud, Anabel suddenly spun around. Although she looked first at Chloe, she didn’t seem to be surprised by Hogan’s presence. But whether the smile on her face was for him or his chef, he couldn’t have said. “Hogan,” she said in the same throaty voice he remembered. God, he’d always loved her voice. “Good to see you.”
“You, too, Anabel. How have you been?”
She began to walk toward where he and Chloe stood in the doorway. She still moved the way she used to, all grace and elegance and style. He’d always loved watching her move. She was just as gorgeous now as she’d been when they were kids. Even more, really, because she’d ditched the heavy eye makeup and dark lipstick she used to wear, so her natural beauty shone through. Strangely, the lack of makeup only made her blue eyes seem even bluer than he remembered them and her mouth even fuller and lusher.
He waited for the splash of heat that had always rocked his midsection whenever he saw her, and for the hitch of breath that had always gotten caught in his chest. But neither materialized. He guessed he’d outgrown reactions like that.
“I imagine you’ve already heard most of the highlights about how I’ve been,” she said as she drew nearer. “My divorce was the talk of the town until you showed up.” She smiled again, but there was only good humor and maybe a little nostalgia in the gesture. “I should actually probably thank you for that.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, smiling back.
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