Page 21 of Take My Breath Away
That’s a matter of debate…Instead, I say, “I think you should stop working for Elliot and stay here as my full-time live-in housekeeper and cook. What do you reckon?”
His eyes open wide, almost as though he’s considering it, before he throws back his head, and laughs. I could always coax laughter out of him whenever I breezed into Elliot’s office. It was all part of the fun, making him smile, making him blush, making him laugh. It’s a light, almost sing-song sound, and it weaves its way around me, and I know without any doubt that I want to hear it over and over again.
* * *
The food’s delicious and even though I’m not much of a cook I recognise his skill. It’s every bit as good as food I’ve eaten in high-class restaurants.
“Where did you learn to cook?”
Perry smiles, but there’s a tinge of sadness. “My granddad got me interested.”
“The one who used to read to you?”
He nods. “He was a chef before he retired, in a big London hotel. He believed being able to cook well was an essential life skill — like knowing how to swim, or drive. Or the Heimlich Manoeuvre, just in case anybody choked on a poorly filleted piece of fish, as he always put it. His speciality was cake making, more specifically cake decorating. He made quite a name for himself, and even after he retired he used to undertake commissions, for weddings and such like.”
The books on sugarcraft suddenly make sense. I open my mouth to ask him about them, but there’s a faraway look in his eyes, as his much loved grandfather fills his thoughts. I snap my jaw closed.
“Anyway,” he says, coming back to the present, “the cooking gene bypassed my mum, who’s terrible, and from a young age I cooked most of the family meals. Granddad gave me the basic training, which I added to by reading cookbooks and watching all the cookery shows on the telly, but when I was eighteen I took an intensive course to really up my skills. I wanted to work the ski season when I took a gap year before university, so if I was going to cater for a chalet in one of the top resorts, I had to have the credentials.”
“Where did you work?”
“Verbier. In Switzerland.”
Verbier… I’ve been going there for just about every season for years. We may have walked past each other on the street, stood in the same queue for the ski lift, drunk in the same bars. Our paths could so easily have crossed but I know they never did, because I’d have remembered.
With a thought that’s so hard it’s a thump in the chest, I can only thank God we didn’t because I know exactly what I’d have done: sweet talked him with the sole purpose of getting him into bed, before walking away without a second thought, the way I have with just about every other man in my life. A bitter taste coats the back of my throat, my tongue, my teeth, my lips, and I drag my hand across my mouth as though to wipe it away.
“…a friend of my parents own an upmarket travel agency. It was her who got me the job.”
He’s looking at me, waiting for a response, and I scramble to catch up.
“Did you enjoy it? Being a chalet hand’s hard work.”
Perry’s face flushes an alarming shade of red.
Oh, I see.
A teenage Perry, away from home for probably the first time. Young, innocent, clueless and fresh faced, and very, very pretty. It’s easy to see where this story’s going.
“It was hard work, but, erm, warding off the drink induced advances of the guests was the really tough part. Chalet hands are often seen as one of the perks, as I soon found out.”
I’m just about winning the fight not to cringe. It could be me he’s talking about, and something that feels very much like shame fizzes in the pit of my stomach.
“Anyway,” he says quickly, “when the season was over, I transferred to a small cruise ship and spent the next few months working in the kitchens assisting the pastry chefs. Again courtesy of the family friend. There wasn’t a guest under the age of seventy, I reckon, so I wasn’t having to fight off wandering hands.”
“So much easier if those hands are gnarled and arthritic.”
Perry’s eyes widen for the briefest of moments before he bursts out laughing.
“Yeah, plus at least they couldn’t chase me around the kitchen — not easy with a Zimmer frame.” He goes red again.
Chased around the kitchen, brandishing a wooden spoon to protect his honour…
“Why didn’t you go to catering college? Becoming a professional chef would seem the natural step.”
He shakes his head. “I love cooking, and baking in particular, but working in a restaurant or hotel kitchen as a career isn’t what I wanted, and still don’t. Cake making and sugarcrafting is my thing, just like it was for granddad.”
He hesitates for a moment, running his top teeth along his full lower lip as though he’s considering what to say next. From one side to the other, all I can do is follow the movement of teeth scraping across lip, completely transfixed.
