Page 32 of Feel the Heat

“Food, Lili. Food cures all.”

Fifteen

If the heady aromas hadn’t tipped her off that Jack was making himself at home in the DeLuca’s kitchen, the bass guitar riff of Iggy Popp and the Stooges might have done the trick. Walking in, Lili was instantly transported to happier times. Meals at her nonna’s in Fiesole.

Family dinners before her mother’s illness turned their lives upside down. Her father teaching her to cook when she was a kid. Cara had never been interested, and learning to love food with Tony was one of Lili’s earliest and fondest memories. So much had changed in the last year.

Now the smell of her father’s cooking conjured up disquiet and anxiety. She had always felt the equal tug of love and duty at DeLuca’s, but since taking over as manager from her mother, duty was winning out. Not just winning, but morphing into an ugly bitterness. She didn’t want to be the girl who whined about her lot but refused to throw off the shackles of her insecurity. She wanted to be liberated Lili, the girl who proudly stepped out in figure-hugging superhero outfits, told a gorgeous guy she wanted him in the clearest terms, and grabbed her future by the coglioni.

Look where liberation had got her.

She had only shared half the story of her sudden infamy with Jack. Some of the nastier comments about her size on Facebook were too embarrassing to mention, as were the hateful barbs about the audacity of someone like her hooking up with a god like Jack. ‘Fat chick’ was about as nice as it got; the anonymity afforded by the web brought every troll and hater out of their caves. Those defenses she’d carefully constructed in high school couldn’t possibly stand a new onslaught. Worse, who would ever have thought she’d need them again?

Tamping down on her emotions, she surveyed the kitchen, hungering for escape if only for an hour or two. Every burner held a pot of promise merrily bubbling away in direct contrast to her foul mood. The counters looked like a futuristic garden out of a sci-fi movie, metal and glassware vying with vegetables and herbs for breathing room.

“When did all this happen?”

Jack leaned hip-shot against the far counter and folded his arms, causing those unreasonable biceps to push up the sleeve hems of his chef’s jacket.

“Cara took me to see some of your father’s suppliers. We also hit that big farmers’ market in the park yesterday morning.”

“The Green City Market? I love that place.” The largest farmers’ market in Chicago, it was one of her favorite stops when she was in Lincoln Park. That he had shared it with Cara sparked a surge of jealousy so powerful she almost grabbed a bunch of carrots and dashed them to the ground. But Lili had no right to that feeling because she had no right to him. Instead of taking out her frustration on innocent vegetables, she completed a calming circuit of the kitchen, pausing at the stovetops to check out the sources of the delicious smells. Jack’s tracking eyes made her itchy.

“What’s this?” Holding her hair back, she bent over a pot of something stew-like and inhaled the generous scent. Her knees almost jack-knifed with hunger.

“Braised rabbit with white wine and thyme. It should go well with pasta.”

“Coniglio,” she murmured appreciatively. Warmth flooded her body at the idea that Jack had cooked something that connected with her on such a basic level. Meanwhile, Jack’s dizzying nearness was connecting with her on an even more basic level.

“But I thought you didn’t get to choose your primi or secondi?” The wooden spoon on the adjoining counter called to her softly. She needed that stew in her mouth now.

“Yeah, I know. Your father’s calling the shots there. But I could always turn it into an appetizer, too. Serve it over rustic bread.”

“Hmm,” she said, doubly distracted by the potted glory before her and the hard-bodied banquet at her side. The expression ‘food porn’ came to mind.

“Want some?”

The rabbit? Yes, let’s pretend they were talking about the rabbit. Mouth watering, she dipped the spoon and pulled out a couple of chunks of meat with the thick sauce. She allowed the morsels to lie on her tongue for a few wonderful, anticipatory seconds, the liquid coating the inside of her cheeks. A single swallow. A satisfied moan. It tasted like the best Tuscan food should—rich, gamey, comforting. Life-affirming.

“You approve?”

“Not bad,” she said evenly, then threw a light jab, “Although it’s more of a winter dish.”

She caught him smiling at the feeble attempt to dampen her enthusiasm and inwardly kicked herself for not doing a better job. Minimizing the mouthgasms would be a good start.

From the oven, he extracted a tray of what looked like mini-pizzas and moved them to a cooling rack. Mini-pizzas? Really? Any self-respecting Italian would be all over that, but she’d lost all self-respect last night when she goaded him in that bar and woke up to find herself clogging the Twittersphere. Besides, they looked oniony and cheesy, two of her favorite flavors.

He poured her a glass of wine, a Chianti she didn’t recognize from their list. Hmph. So DeLuca’s cellar wasn’t good enough for Lord Kilroy. There was something a little decadent about drinking wine at eleven a.m. on a Sunday, a twisted take on morning Mass without the sermons and smoky incense.

“What should we toast to?” he asked.

“The supremacy of Italian cuisine over all others?”

His lips parted on a sigh. “Must you be so competitive? I was thinking something more pleasant... like new friendships.”

Ah, the friend speech. The final breadstick in the basket. After all the drama of the past twenty-four hours, she knew it was for the best. But she couldn’t help feeling that she had missed out on something special, and not just the potential of hold-onto-the-light-fixtures sex.

Suppressing a sigh of her own, she clinked her glass against his. “To new friends... and may the best chef win tomorrow night.” She sipped her wine and let it roll around her mouth like her father had taught her. It tasted thick and fruity.

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