Page 14 of Recipe for Romance

The necessary but unwelcome reminder that he wasn’t the type of guy women like Nicole went for had Aiden grumbling as he shuffled papers on the coffee table. He’d already emailed the photos to Eddie’s investor friends who replied that they would be in contact with the realtor. It turned out when someone had stupid money like Eddie and his friends did, things moved a lot faster.

It would only take a week for the building to be transferred to Aiden and then the real work would begin. In the meantime, he put together spreadsheets and notes for local contracting companies that would be not only reliable, but fast. Aiden wasn’t so delusional as to think that the restaurant would open any time this year, but if they hustled, theycouldopen in January.

Aiden removed his reading glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. Too little sleep and not enough to eat during the day was starting to wear on him. Shaking his head, Aiden went to stand to head to the kitchen when a plate and water glass appeared in front of him. His eyes tracked upward from the items to the slender arms holding them until he got to the slightly flushed face of his new roommate.

Nicole’s damp hair was on top of her head in a bun that resembled a pile of cooked spaghetti, and the expression on her face was concerned, kindness towards him shining in her eyes. Aiden couldn’t remember the last time anyone who didn’t share his last name looked at him like that, and the funny twinges that his heart had been feeling for the last twenty-four hours started up again. He should probably go for a run. A heart attack at thirty-four was not out of the realm of possibility for someone who enjoyed as rich a diet as he did.

Nicole wiggled the plate a little, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich she’d made sliding forward a little to reveal a pile of ibuprofen sitting there as well. “Aren’t you going to take it?” she asked, laughter in her voice. “I can put away a lot of food, but I don’t think I can eat more than one sandwich. Hot baths zap my appetite.”

Aiden took the plate and water glass, grunting as he did. After slamming the ibuprofen, he took a large bite of the sandwich, groaning as the salted peanut butter he favored mingled with the sweet strawberry preserves. Chewing thoughtfully, he noted that while her cooking skills might have a long way to go, the woman could make a decent PB and J.

Intrigued by her impeccable timing, he gazed at her. “How did you know I had a headache?”

“I could tell,” she said matter-of-factly.

Aiden stared at Nicole. No one could ever tell anything about him other than he was a grumpy bastard, but then again, maybe no one but her had really bothered looking. He continued to watch her as she sat next to him and made herself comfortable on the small two seater sofa that came with the house.

Almost all of the furniture came with the house, but Aiden had found that the neutral tones and soft yet sturdy fabrics suited his taste. It also looked a lot warmer than any apartment he’d had before. He spent so little time at home that his old places had little more than a mattress on the floor and a chair next to stacks and stacks of cookbooks.

Looking around the family room now, Aiden nodded happily at the fireplace, the painting over the mantle that was a picturesque view of the local orchards, and the wooden bookshelves filled with his books both about cooking and the occasional thriller he’d purchased on the recommendation of his dad but never made the time to read.

“When I came downstairs, you were staring at the computer screen, with your eyes crossed and your face all scrunched up.” Nicole mimicked the look she had apparently seen on his face and Aiden stifled a chuckle. She was beautiful and adorable, and he was having those not-so-professional thoughts again. “Then I remembered you didn’t really have anything to eat besides coffee and two bites of my omelet, so I figured you would start getting hangry soon and wanted to head that off.”

Aiden scowled. “I don’t get hangry.”

The withering look she shot his way spoke volumes about how annoyed he must have looked. “That’s exactly what someone who is on the cusp of getting hangry would say.” Nicole sat back and popped a bite of her own sandwich into her mouth.

Aiden’s gaze was stuck on her lips until he noticed that the movement had made the oversized shirt she wore slip down to expose more skin on her shoulder, skin that Aiden suddenly found far more appetizing than the sandwich in front of him. Licking his lips, his gaze moved lower over the leggings that were practically painted onto her body. They left little to the imagination, but Aiden had always been creative and would certainly come up with many ways to fantasize about those legs later on. Nicole would likely be staring in his dreams every night from now until she left, whenever that was.

Sighing heavily at the thought of being tortured nightly by her presence, Aiden pushed the sandwich away and started shuffling his papers again. “Oh my god,” Nicole cut in. “Please don’t tell me I can’t even make a sandwich right!”

Aiden glanced over at her and she looked genuinely distressed, so he made a big show of taking another large bite. “It’s fine,” he mumbled. A few crumbs sprayed towards her, but Nicole was too busy wincing to notice. “It tastes great actually.”

She peeked one eye open and stared at him. “You’re not lying to spare my feelings, are you?”

Aiden swallowed the ball of doughy sandwich, the roof of his mouth a little sticky from the remnants of the peanut butter. “Do I strike you as someone who cares about someone else’s feelings?” He grabbed his glass of water to clear his throat as she considered his question.

Aidendidcare about other people’s feelings, usually his relatives’. Other than his family, no one else’s feelings had mattered more than his own before, but something about Nicole was different, special. That alone should have him putting more distance between the two of them, taking her back to the motel and letting her go out with Mrs. What’s-Her-Name’s son, but he couldn’t find it in himself to do it.

Nicole studied him for a moment and he tried not to squirm under the scrutiny. Aiden had been stared down by some of the meanest, most intimidating chefs in the business and he’d faced demanding customers and harsh critics, but never once had he felt as worried about what someone thought of him as he did in that moment. He had admitted to being an asshole, to not caring, but for whatever reason, Aiden wanted her to see past that, even though he wasn’t completely sure there was anything for her to see.

Finally, she smiled slyly as she tore another piece off her sandwich. “I think you want me to think that you’re the type of person who doesn’t care about someone else’s feelings, and I’m certain there are situations where you truly couldn’t care less, but I don’t think that happens as often as you want me to believe it does.”

Aiden blinked at the confusing words that had just tumbled from her mouth and shook his head. “I have no idea what you just said, but I can assure you that your sandwich was perfectly adequate.”

Nicole snorted next to him. “Perfectly adequate. It’s like you’ve read every report card I’ve ever gotten.”

Aiden frowned. She’d said it so casually, but when he looked at her, he could see that the light in her eyes had dimmed. He wanted to ask her why the words had bothered her, but he held his tongue. Getting to know Nicole better would only deepen his feelings for her, and that couldn’t happen. He wouldn’t allow it.

Dusting her hands off on her leggings, leaving light streaks of peanut butter in their wake, Nicole shook herself and turned to face him. “So, how do we take my cooking skills from perfectly adequate to out-of-this-world amazing?”

Aiden tried to not let the sight of her now dirtied leggings bother him, and he also bit back a remark about her skills in the kitchen actually being less than adequate, but if he was going to help her, he would have to be completely honest. “First of all, I said the sandwich was adequate. Your cooking this morning was less so.” He waited for Nicole to look affronted, for the inevitable push back he got from a lot of potential chefs, but it never came. Instead, she simply took in what he had to say and nodded.

“What else?” she asked. Her expression was eager, the sight pleasing him more than it probably should have done. What else could he teach her? What could she teach him? Bedroom fantasies started to play in his mind, but he shut them down quickly.

Aiden turned away for a moment, needing a break from his own wandering thoughts as well as the intensity in her eyes. “The way you work also needs to change,” he told her. Flicking his gaze back to her, he tried not to smile when she produced her little notebook from earlier, her pen scratching against the page. “You’re disorganized, sloppy. You moved from one task to another in such a frenzied manner that I genuinely worried you would injure yourself. I waited for a pattern to emerge, to see if there was some sort of method to your madness, but if there was one, I certainly couldn’t decipher it.”

Nicole gnawed on her lower lip, reddening the delicate skin there. The sight of her worrying had Aiden wanting to haul her into his lap and take the words back, to make it better so that she would smile and relax again. The urge was so protective and nurturing that it unnerved him a little. The woman next to him had shaken something loose in him that Aiden worried he might not ever be able to put back.

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