Page 32 of BillionHeir
He is right, of course. I am banking on the hope that he will get bored and give me the space I need right now. “It will be worth every single minute. Just you wait.”
“Your Nan better know good lasagna,” Maxwell says, grumbling.
“Are you doubting her?”
He throws his hands up defensively. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Stir the meat,” I command when it starts to sizzle loudly, effectively ending the discussion. He may be on to me, but there is not much he can do about it.
He rises from his seat at the bar and walks around to the stove, his bicep brushing against my shoulder as he goes. The physical contact makes me blush, and I have to squeeze my lips together to avoid letting out a gasp. I force my feelings down, hoping he didn’t notice my reaction, and take my frustrations out on the pasta dough that is forming on the counter.
“Well, if I am going to help, I want to do more than stir the meats around in a skillet. Give me a real job,” Maxwell says after a few more minutes of silence between us.
Clearly, my attempt at driving him away isn’t working. No matter how much I try to think of something, anything, that doesn’t involve him in the same room as me, I come up empty. Maybe if I keep at it, he will get tired and let me work in peace.
I sigh, wiping my hands on my apron, satisfied with the ball of dough I just created, then turn toward the pantry while it rests. I grab the mixer and pasta roller attachment I will need for the noodles and bring it over to the counter. Then I go to the fridgeand pull out the mozzarella, parmesan, and ricotta cheeses, as well as the jar of red sauce.
My nan probably wouldn’t approve of a premade tomato sauce, but the chef has been stocking the fridge with his own, locally famous, red sauce. When I tasted it, I knew immediately that it was far better than anything I have ever made. I might have an Italian grandmother, but I know when to cut corners, and this sauce is worth it.
“Heat this,” I say, pointing to the sauce. “And mix these.” I gesture to the cheeses.
“Got it,” he says, nodding before reaching down to grab a saucepan. I am a little surprised that he even knows where the pots and pans are. He hasn’t expressed an interest in cooking the entire time we have been staying here. In fact, he has hardly seemed to have noticed the food he was eating.
I just assumed that he didn’t really care. And maybe he still doesn’t. Maybe he is just here to get under my skin. Whatever the reason, I am a little off my game.
But I am not going to let him see that.
As he tends to the meat, cheese, and sauce, I continue working on the pasta. This is the most intensive part of the recipe, and I really have to concentrate in order to get the tension just right so that the noodles come out perfectly. I get so focused on making sure that the pasta has the right thickness that I don’t notice when the long sheet of pasta begins to stretch and rip.
Just before it falls to the floor, Maxwell wraps his arms around me, scooping his arm underneath the falling dough from right behind me to catch it just in time and with the perfect technique. I gasp as I twist my head to look up at him and straight into his eyes. For the moment, it is just the two of us, wrapped in a bubble where nothing else exists.
Time seems to stand still. The look in his eyes is unlike any I have ever seen before. Closed off, yet open to whatever is growing between us. The contrast is stark.
But then I blink and look down, anything to break the connection that was pulsing between us, unprepared for how his body makes me feel. It does little to subdue the rising tension between us, but it is something at least.
“You were so into it, I didn’t want to startle you,” he says, looking down at me with a smile on his face.
“It takes some concentration,” I say, looking back down at the counter to avoid meeting his eyes again.
“No worries,” he says, gently folding the pasta over the drying rack and then going back to what he was doing.
“I am almost done here. How are you doing over there?” I ask as I squeeze another length of pasta through the machine.
“We are good to go. I am curious, though,” he says without elaborating.
“About what?” I have no idea where he is going with this.
“You make your own homemade pasta, but not sauce?”
“Chef Matthew brought some of his,” I say, trying to hide the blush of embarrassment at not making it on my own. My Nan would probably haunt me if she knew what I was doing, but all the chopping and dicing, sauteing and simmering is just a bit more than I care to get into.
“Chef Matthew, huh?” Maxwell says, incorrectly reading my embarrassment as desire.
Rather than trying to explain myself, I stay quiet. We fall into a silence that would be considered anything but companionable. Everything he does is charged with a subtle aggression. It is clear that he is in a sour mood that was directly caused by me. And my plan to make him leave me alone does not seem to be working.
I finish cutting the pasta at last. Dusting my hands on my apron, I examine the fruits of my labor. The noodles laid out all pretty over the rack gives me a feeling of accomplishment.
I smile to myself as I pull out my phone to take a picture. I quickly send it off to my mom and put my phone back in my pocket. I look up to see Maxwell watching me with a frustrated, almost pained look.
