Page 35 of Recipe for Romance

Aiden chuckled, opening the bag and popping a handful into his mouth. “So there’s a scale now?” He didn’t mind even the slightest that she was poking fun at him. He’d laughed more with her than he had in ages and if the light feeling in his chest was the result, he would let her tease him until the end of time with nothing but a smile on his face.

Nicole nodded, turning her attention to the linen book and running her fingers over the different fabric swatches. “Yup. When you’re at a two or below, it’s safe to question or tease you, but if you’re at a three or higher, it’s safer to hand you a snack and back away slowly.”

Aiden bumped her with his shoulder, just because he didn’t mind her teasing didn’t mean he couldn’t give a little back. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing your purse could double as a vending machine then.”

Nic beamed at him, apparently loving the ribbing as much as he did. “Exactly.”

They fell silent as she continued looking at the books, Aiden content to let the lack of conversation hang there while he watched her, enjoying the way her delicate fingers would smooth over fabric, how she would place silverware pictures on top of tablecloth swatches and bite her lip as she considered the pairing. She was more fascinating to watch than any of the random shows or movies recommended to him over the years.

Her lips moved slightly as she spoke to herself in a tone that couldn’t even register as a whisper, and he’d become so transfixed by those lips that he barely noticed she’d finished with the books and was staring at him. “All done,” she said brightly.

Aiden frowned, glancing at his watch. Apparently he’d stood there watching Nic for nearly an hour. Shaking his head to clear the stupor he’d stumbled into, he grabbed a pen and paper. “Tell me what you think.”

Nic pointed to dark wood tables and soft gray fabric as well as leather chairs. “I think you should go with these. The mixture of hardwood, muslin, and leather textures will give a nice varied feel to the space but will blend well together too. And no tablecloths. That’s just additional cleanup you aren’t going to want to deal with.” She flipped the linen book open and pointed at a creamy ivory napkin. “This will lighten up the tables, the colors contrasting nicely and if you feel it,” she took his hand and brushed it over the cloth. “It’s soft, but sturdy, so it will hold up to a lot of washes but not be scratchy against your fingers or mouth.” Nic beamed at him and looked around at the other books that were piled on the bar. “Is there more?”

Aiden nodded, passing her a magazine for aprons and other items for servers and kitchen staff. “Obviously we don’t have any employees yet, but we need to have something to show them when we start interviews next week.”

Nic bounced on her heels. “Oh, can I help interview them? I was so good at mock interviews in school that people even asked me for help outside of class. It was like, the one thing I could actually get right.” Ignoring the self-deprecating dig, Aiden focused on her other words. He loved seeing her so happy, so confident in what she was doing that saying yes was a no brainer.

“Of course.” It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that it was her restaurant as much as his, but he held it back. He had a lot of thinking to do and more decisions to make. As soon as Aiden had some things figured out, they would have the talk they’d been putting off, only this time, instead of negotiating the present, it would be more about planning the future they could create together.

Chapter Eighteen

~Nicole~

In the few days that followed her return to Applewood, Nicole found herself slipping back into her life with Aiden. The memory of more passive rejection from her father was the only reminder that she had ever left. Coming home to a crowded house for Thanksgiving hadn’t been entirely unexpected, but it still stung. What was worse was that she might as well not have been there at all. It seemed her father was more interested in entertaining his guests than anything else, including her.

Nicole felt like such a baby sometimes, whining about her father’s lack of attention, but she couldn’t help it. His behavior as well as knowing how things could have been different had her mother not passed on only served to make her miss the woman that much more. It helped that they’d spent a little more time with Aiden’s family, something she was certain they were doing for her benefit as much as his.

Just as Nicole knew how to gauge the level of his prickliness, Aiden also seemed to possess a keen awareness of how she was feeling at any given moment. Maybe she was just easy to read, but Nicole had the feeling it was more than that. When he didn’t think she was looking, she would sometimes catch Aiden staring at her, a serene expression on his face that was so incongruent with his mood most days that it would have looked out of place if not for the simple fact that it lit him up from the inside.

He looked happy, almost hopeful in a way. About what, she had no idea. Nicole liked to think it was about a future for the two of them. At the end of a long day after they’d made a thousand different decisions about his restaurant, and he’d taught her different techniques using plates from what would be his new menu, they would lie together in his bed, sweaty and spent from their lovemaking, and that’s where her mind would naturally drift to.

Before her little adventure into cooking with Aiden as her tour guide, Nicole always dreamed that her future would be in the kitchen at one of her father’s restaurants with him smiling on proudly. The image of that had held up in her mind over the last decade, crystal clear and completely in focus. Now, that image was distorted. A kitchen was still there, but not in the foreground. It was the backdrop of a painting where the only image that stood out amongst the smear of colors was Aiden. His dark hair and light eyes shining, a strong hand reaching for her, beckoning her to join him for whatever lay ahead. It was a picture she wanted to be more real than anything else in her life, even more than she wanted to be a chef.

The more time she and Aiden spent cooking together, the more she realized a number of things. The first was that,holy shit, Aiden Kemp was an incredibly talented chef. She’d known this already, but knowing it and witnessing it on a daily basis were very different. His movements in the kitchen were seamless, like he was performing a dance that only he knew the steps to and that were presented perfectly. Sometimes when she watched him go from smashing garlic, to searing a filet, to sautéing vegetables, Nicole would hear music in her head, different notes following him along as he completed various tasks.

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