CHAPTER NINETEEN
Too Late to Back Out Now
36
Carpenter
Commandments Broken:
7 - He shalt not lie to me
9 - He shalt not cheat on me
“You dated him?” Tandy held out her smartphone to me, where I could see she’d pulled up Alejandro’s FaceBook profile. “How did that happen?”
“The usual way.” I mentally added, you witch, before continuing, “He saw me in a coffee shop and asked if I would keep him company if he bought my coffee.”
Olivia nodded. “Very romantic.”
Tandy made notes. “That will make a good opening to your story of Alejandro.”
I had planned to open that way, until Tandy inserted her pointy nose into my writing.
I went straight to see Tina after the meeting. “Who in this city can teach a slightly sexist man how to treat a modern woman?”
Tina pulled up her contact database. “Psychologist?”
“Too obvious.”
“Masseur?”
“Close.”
She pulled up Alejandro’s picture. She’d made it her screensaver. “Okay. What would I want this guy to do for me he isn’t already doing by just sitting there?”
I laughed. “Exactly.”
“What didn’t he do?”
“Clean. Cook. Grocery shop. Take out the garbage.”
“Check.” Tina stopped me with a raised hand and then her fingers flew over her keyboard. “Chef Wendy.” She pulled up the contact info and said, “I’ve got this. Her assistant owes me a big favor.”
“Great. But who is Chef Wendy?”
Tina pulled up a book ad with a petite blonde chef in an oversized chef hat next to a man in an apron — and nothing else. The man was holding a tray with an elegant breakfast omelette and three crispy strips of bacon. “She performs miracles on men who need to be brought out of Cro-Magnon times, or so I hear tell.
I leaned in. “Hmm. Sex and Food: What Women Really Want in a Man.”
Tina paused, her hand hovering over her phone. “Sound like a plan?”
I bowed to her expertise. “Sounds like the perfect plan.”
<<>>
The knock on my wall told me Nick was on his way. I grabbed my bag and took a deep breath before I opened the door to him. “Thanks for being on time. Chef Wendy doesn’t like to be kept waiting. If you’re not there fifteen minutes before time, she cancels your whole weekend.”
“Chef Wendy? The one with the naked man on her book cover?”
“She’s the one.”
“She’s cute.”
“And married.” Tina had given me Chef Wendy’s complete dossier, along with a handwritten note that read, Enjoy the food, the wine, and the pampering. Wish I could be there.
“Too bad. I guess I’ll have to just watch and learn so I’ll know what women really want.”
“You’re a quick learner. You’ll do fine.” I locked my door. “I called the car for us.”
He gave me an odd look. “We’re getting spoiled. Remember when we used to take the subway?”
I laughed. “I keep reminding myself this is all temporary. The series will be over in a few weeks and I’ll be back to editor trying to pitch another story.”
“Will you miss it?”
“Some things.” Like the expense account, Tina’s ability to score anything I could ask for, having Nick’s company for so much of the day. Not that I’d tell him that. “But I’ll survive. I like the subway.”
“When you don’t have a car at your disposal.”
We both laughed as we slid into the car and were whisked off to pick up Alejandro.
Emily called me, but I let it go to voicemail. I knew what she was going to say. I knew she was right. But it didn’t matter. Alejandro had always made me enjoy breaking the rules. While I was breaking them. It was only afterward that I had any regrets.
Nick answered his phone, but I put my hands to my ears and closed my eyes while I shook my head. Nothing was going to spoil this weekend for me.
I’d deal with any regrets or fallout on Monday.
<<>>
“Welcome to my kitchen,” Chef Wendy said with a butcher knife in one hand and two aprons dangling from the other. Alejandro and I stood in the kitchen, which was gleaming steel and butcher block countertops that looked cleaned to hospital standards.
Alejandro gestured toward the wall display of Chef Wendy’s book. “Do we need to undress before we put on our aprons?” His smile was utterly charming, reminding me of why I’d fallen for him.
Chef Wendy obviously agreed. Her eyes flicked over him like he was a tender but firm meringue. “If you wish. But we’ll be doing some work with hot food and I’d hate for you to get burned in any tender places.”
I joined into their laughter. I didn’t want to be a spoil sport.
“You should have told me you wanted me to cook you a romantic meal,” Alejandro said as we put on our aprons.
“And clean up,” I added, not wanting to look right into the chocolaty brown of his eyes. There had always been something mesmerizing there. Something that made me melt.
His beguiling smile appeared. The one that said he heard me. I had never been sure if his English was really good enough, or if he’d perfected that smile to convince me — and other women — that he was different from American men. That he was a listener. Sensitive.
The kind of thing we women believe until it becomes obvious that we’re fooling ourselves. Some of us fool ourselves longer. With Alejandro, I had a sudden fear that I’d slip back without even realizing I’d done so. He did look awfully sexy in an apron, even with his clothes still on.
In the two years since we’d dated, his English had improved considerably, too. “Here,” he came around behind me and grabbed the ties of the apron. “Let me.”
I stood still, letting him stand close and tie my apron tightly at my back. I saw Nick from the corner of my eye. Taking pictures. I closed my eyes, thinking to hide what I was feeling.
I opened them when Alejandro spun me to face him and held me at arms length. “Perfect. You look ready to prepare a feast.”
I returned the favor, tying his apron, glad he couldn’t see that my hands were shaking. Hoping that the camera wouldn’t capture my silly case of nerves. “The idea is for you to prepare the feast.” Certainly I wouldn’t trust myself with a knife.
“Indeed,” Chef Wendy said. “The man is the one to control things in my kitchen.”
Somehow she made it sound very sexy, and not at all modern.
“Consider me your most apt pupil, then.” Alejandro focused on her as if she were the only woman in the room. “I adore being in control.”
Chef Wendy returned the favor as she described every kitchen implement in intimate detail.
Feeling a little left out — and wondering how I would write about this and not make myself look like a fool — I picked up a random knife. It was small, and had a curved hook to the blade. “What is this knife used for?”
Chef Wendy and Alejandro stopped making eyes at each other long enough to stare at me as if they’d never seen me before. And then Chef Wendy smiled the wide bright smile from her book jacket. “Goodness. You’re the pamperee. You don’t need to do anything but enjoy the food Alejandro here prepares for you.”
“I’m just supposed to sit here and watch you?” I asked, just to make sure that was what she had meant.
“Goodness, no.” Her smile was book jacket bright again. “Alejandro — please bring me that bottle of Pinot Noir. We must give the lovely—” She paused, waiting for me to supply my name.
I didn’t.
Finally, Nick said. “Diana. Goddess of love. Queen of lists.”
I think he meant it as a joke, but none of us laughed.
Chef Wendy’s smile dimmed a little. “Diana. Of course. Alejandro, you must pour the wine for your Diana. Let me show you how.” She stood close to him, guiding him through opening a wine bottle and pouring out a glass of wine.
Nick crouched to get a low shot and whispered for my ears only, “You’d think he’d never done that before.”
I swallowed my laughter because Chef Wendy was leading Alejandro over to me with the glass of wine and I didn’t want to be rude. Chef Wendy watched him hand me the wine. Waited for me to take the first sip. Nodded her head in satisfaction, as if we’d all accomplished a very difficult task.
“Now, sit here, at the counter. She pointed to a stool pulled up to the wide counter. If I sat there, I would be very far away from them. But, I noticed belatedly, there were no other stools. I could sit as she directed. Or I could stand as I pleased.
I sat.
Chef Wendy smiled and tightened her apron strings. “There. Now you sit and watch while we make you a meal made for love.”
I watched and Nick snapped, as Chef Wendy made love to my ex through food and cooking instructions. “Knead the dough gently, like it was a woman’s breast.” And “Sauté the shrimp with quick little flicks of your wooden spoon. Like when you kiss with your tongue.”
Every so often a dish would slide across the wide marble expanse of countertop and I would sample something very delicious. It would almost make up for feeling like a third wheel.
I started to think it may have been a mistake to use a female chef. I should have used someone gruff and well into the major jerk range, like most of the reality show chefs. None of them would be seducing my ex in front of my eyes by licking chocolate from his fingertips and play scolding him for dusting her with powdered sugar instead of dusting the tray of fresh strawberries she’d had him take out of the refrigerator.
By the time she was showing him how to roll strawberries in warm melted chocolate and he was hand feeding her instead of me, I knew two things: Emily was so going to tell me “I told you so.” And Alejandro was always going to be the kind of man who took what was offered with a rather charming sense of entitlement.
Nick came up beside me. His voice was low. “I thought you said she was married.”
“She is. With two kids.”
“Want me to stop shooting?”
“Get the food, at least. It looks good.”
“No anti-wingman needed on this job, I guess.”
Sadly, he was right.