Page 13 of Wrath
“Well played, good sir, well played.” Maybe he wasn’t so uptight, after all. Or… maybe he was. For some reason, that made her even more excited. Excited and hot. She fanned her face and considered continuing the game, but decided watching him was more interesting. They were running out of time before the rest of the family turned up. She waited patiently until the song ended and then turned the music off completely.
He was in the middle of filleting the fish with an extremely sharp knife. Blood ran down his long, capable fingers. Obviously she’d picked the best time to shut the music down. He met her eyes with a steely gaze.
“I’m Misha,” she said, all playfulness gone. “Your boss’s daughter.”
In response, he pulled entrails out of the fish and slopped them into a waiting container.
She almost gagged. Gross.
“Tata asked that I go over a few ground rules with you regarding the menu.”
More entrails slopped.
“You’re causing quite the stir in the kitchen, and some customers aren’t happy with your menu changes.”
He stopped completely, made a cocky eyebrow arch and disparaging shake of his head. She could almost hear his thoughts,Nobody dares to be unhappy with my menu… I do what I want.In her thoughts he also sounded like a young Sean Connery.
But customers were complaining, and they were leaving. Their traditional, home-style Polish comfort food was becoming too upmarket… too posh, and the patrons were preferring to cook at home. She sighed and bit her lip, wondering how to approach this. She’d underestimated how difficult it would be to speak with someone who couldn’t speak back. At least with Alek, he could hand-sign.
“Can you use sign-language?” she asked. “I feel like there’s only one side to this conversation.”
He went back to his task.
“Guess that’s a no?”
She’d just have to show him by, well, showing him. Misha spotted the unopened packets of instant potato under the bench. To get there, she’d have to squeeze by him in the space barely wide enough for one person. Uncertain, her gaze landed on him again, but he completely ignored her. Should she squeeze past him, or take the long way around?
Biting the bullet, she headed toward the gap between him and the stove. Somehow, he predicted her intention and used his body to block her, slamming his fish-gut hand on the bench to cage her in. Suddenly she had a face full of pec muscles twitching in irritation. When she looked up, all she could see was the raw, angry scar running across his neck from ear to ear.Savage. One thing was for sure, he certainly wasn’t your normal chef. With that powerful physique and dangerous glint in his eyes, he was something else entirely.
Her mind urged her to caution. What if he was like Dimitri?
He lifted his hands to push her away from the instant potatoes, but caught sight of the blood on his fingers, as though he’d forgotten. He huffed and went to the wet area to wash. Misha took the opportunity to collect the big bag of instant potato and made room for herself on the far end of the bench to roll out dough.
“So,” she said, collecting the flour. “I’m just going to make the kopitka the way the family likes it made, then you can take a few pointers and—what? Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something in my teeth?”
He’d come to stand next to her, incredulous hands on hips.
She rubbed her teeth with a finger.
Nope. All clean.
So why was he, oh dear…he’s coming at me like a Mac truck.Misha tensed.
The chef grabbed the instant potato, perhaps intending to throw them out, but Misha still latched onto the plastic packet. Suddenly they were in a tug of war. He gave a flick of his wrist—that was all it took—and his powerful grip ripped the packet in two, spraying white powder-like flakes all over the countertop, down his front, down her front, onto the floor… everywhere.
Surprise plastered his handsome face.
She blinked as flakes landed on her lashes and then laughed. “And here I was thinking we were done with the snow months ago.”
A frustrated sound ripped from him and he thumped the stainless bench, hard. A fist-sized dent caved the metal surface.Whoa. For a minute, she froze. That dent was unnaturally big. Strong. He was strong. She should be scared, but… somehow she wasn’t. He wasn’t Dimitri. The chef had felt embarrassed over touching her with bloody hands whereas Dimitri reveled in it.
“Wow,” she breathed. “What have you been eating for breakfast?” That was one decent dent. She rubbed her hand over it. Her father won’t be happy.
A choked sound came from the chef and when she looked up to catch his eyes, something vulnerable and raw stared back at her. He breathed hard, nostrils flaring, chest lifting. It looked as though he was doing everything in his power not to lose his shit.
Just as she opened her mouth to speak, he shoved the impossibly heavy kitchen bench out of the way and made a break for the exit.
That was so not normal.The bench had needed five men to install, and he swatted it out of the way like a pesky insect.
