Page 218 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

‘Yes,’ she stated firmly.

He smiled.

Her eyes narrowed before, half laughing, she shook her head. ‘I can’t cook!’

‘I will add an ever bigger bonus to your salary.’

‘I meant it literally. I can’t cook.’

‘How can you not cook?’

‘How canyounot cook?’

‘Because I employ people to do it for me.’

‘I don’t work for you.’

‘You do until you have given and worked your notice.’

‘I don’thaveto work my notice.’

‘And I don’thaveto sue you for breach of contract.’

Victoria couldn’t suppress a snigger. ‘Seriously, the only thing I can cook is toast. Oh, and instant noodles. Did you not learn your way around a kitchen before you become a spoilt billionaire?’ He hadn’t moved to Manhattan until he was twenty-six. His rise since his arrival had been stratospheric but she knew his background was modest and that he came from a family very similar to her own, but with fewer siblings and a less scary grandmother. She knew, too, from the grapevine, that he’d been married before his move to Manhattan, a short-lived marriage that’s ending had left him devastated and swearing to never marry again. She’d often wondered what his wife had been like. Had she been an entitled bitch like his succession of lovers or someone normal? What did she have that no other woman had? What had gone so wrong between them that Marcello would become such an avowed bachelor?

All questions she would never learn the answer to. Marcello’s marriage was the one subject that had never been discussed between them. As far as she was aware, he didn’t even know that she knew he’d been married.

‘I have managed to forget the few skills I learnt,’ he informed her blithely.

‘How convenient.’

‘Being a spoilt billionaire is a very convenient excuse,’ he agreed. ‘What is yours?’

She smiled sweetly. ‘Having a slave-driving, spoilt billionaire boss demanding my attention at all hours and leaving me reliant on take-out.’

CHAPTER THREE

VICTORIASTOODINMarcello’s pantry struggling to keep her jaw from dropping open. This was one part of his apartment she’d never been in before, andwow. She had never seen so much food. It was like stepping into a condensed supermarket. The pantry itself was twice the size of her parents’ kitchen.

‘You could feed the whole of Manhattan with what’s in here,’ she commented, awed.

‘Not quite,’ he murmured, standing beside her.

‘Close though. At least we won’t starve. Can you see the eggs?’

They’d found packets of bacon in the fridge and agreed any idiot could cook that, then agreed that if any idiot could cook bacon, they could cook eggs too. When she’d asked where in the fridge said eggs were, he’d looked at her as if she really was an idiot.

She’d grinned. ‘So you’re not fully Americanised then?’

‘I am afraid of my mother making a surprise visit,’ he’d quipped. ‘It is one of the few things of my childhood that has stuck with me. Coffee beans kept in the refrigerator, eggs kept at room temperature.’

Eggs and bread located, they went back into the kitchen. There was a lot of clattering and other noise as they searched the industrially equipped room equal in size to her full apartment for utensils and crockery.

Thirty minutes later and the immaculate kitchen looked like a chimpanzee’s party had been hosted in it.

Sitting at the sprawling kitchen island, both looked dubiously at their plates of burnt toast, blackened bacon and rubbery scrambled eggs.

Despite her stomach rumbling whilst they’d been cooking, Victoria’s appetite had disappeared and she could only manage half of hers. Marcello, though, ate every last scrap of his bar the pieces of cunningly hidden eggshell, then gazed longingly at her leftovers. She pushed her plate to him with a ‘be my guest’ gesture, and, feeling suddenly cold, rubbed her left arm for warmth. A mild pounding had formed in her head, and she drained her coffee hoping the caffeine would ease it.

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