At a few minutes before 5 p.m., Teddy ran toward the kitchen next to the grand ballroom. Passing a gilded hall mirror, she did a double take. Thanks to colored contacts, she now had blue eyes. Her long blond hair was tucked into a slouchy black beanie way cuter than the hairnets she’d seen in the kitchen. The black uniform blouse and skinny black pants looked chic paired with her strappy muted gold sandals. The pants zipped on the left side and had a slash pocket on the right, perfect to hold her iPhone. Red lipstick, black liquid eyeliner, diamond loop earrings and the little gold suitcase pendant and chain completed her look…er disguise.
On her way to the main kitchen, she heard raised voices and wondered why Chef Maurice and Jim were arguing. Head ducked, she kept on going, resisting the temptation to hear what was going on. The less interaction she had with the touchy chef, the better.
Teddy glanced at her watch as she arrived at the kitchen double doors. On time and ready to tackle the work, she squared her shoulders and prayed she would do well tonight. She really wanted Leo to see her as an intelligent, capable woman, not Teddy the Troublemaker, as The Amoeba loved to call her. Today would be different. She gave herself a private pep talk before she entered the gleaming, state of the art kitchen.
The room was spotlessly clean and oddly hushed, save for the whirring of industrial machines and the clicking of knives against cutting boards. Caught up in a frenetic pace, no one chatted or smiled. Like robots in assembly lines on either side of long prep tables, they worked silently, creating gazillions of tasty hors d’oeuvres.
Teddy’s iPhone rang, the jazzy salsa tune startling her and everyone in the room. A sea of glares met her arrival. Oops. With an apologetic shrug, she shut her phone off and shoved it into her pocket. The frenzied atmosphere in the tension-filled room unnerved her. The stakes were high and everyone was strung tight, especially the temps. From now until the end of the evening, everything had to go like clockwork, especially with Chef Maurice at the helm.
The pre-dinner cocktail hors d’oeuvres would feature bacon-wrapped Italian figs stuffed with goat cheese, Portobello mushroom puffs, foie gras and black truffle terrine, smoked duck crostini, grilled shrimp and mango skewers and mint-glazed lollipop lamb chops among other delicacies. The enticing food aromas wafting into Teddy’s nostrils caused her tummy to grumble loudly. She should have eaten something before coming, but she’d been too busy with her disguise.
Fernando, the sous chef, motioned for her to come to his station. Tall and rangy, the friendly guy had short-cropped black hair, a neatly trimmed beard and a deep suntan. His brown eyes glimmered with amusement as they flicked from the top of Teddy’s beanie to the tips of her French pedicure. “I barely recognized you. How am I going to concentrate when you look so hot, mami?” he said in a low voice.
Fernando was a natural born flirt and it was fun listening to his thick Cuban accent. She glanced at his skilled hands as they deftly minced a shallot. “Ha, looks like you’re managing just fine. What will I be doing?”
From what she’d observed, each person fulfilled a very basic task in his or her small workspace. That was fine with her. Just give her a task and she’d do her best.
“Grab an apron and a few towels from the storage closet over there,” Fernando said, pointing to the far corner of the room.
When Teddy returned, he showed her how to fold a small towel over the front of her apron, and then handed her a pair of long tweezers. “Your job is to use these tweezers to make cocoons out of marinated carrot strings. I’ll leave you with Jeremy here.” He gestured to the young guy next to her who sported a man bun and a full, neatly trimmed beard. “He’ll show you how,” Fernando said before heading to the other side of the room to confer with another chef.
That sounded easy enough. Jeremy, a junior sous chef, showed her how to make a cocoon with the slippery carrot strings and warned her that Chef Maurice had zero tolerance for mistakes. As if she didn’t know already.
They lapsed into silence, diligently working side by side. Who knew it could be so time intensive to make little cocoons out of carrot strings? And what possessed Chef Maurice to think they were special? He had spitefully cancelled the caviar, and she wished he hadn’t. The festive little orange roe eggs on toast points would have been a welcome snack at the moment.
When she heard a loud clang, Teddy looked up and saw Maurice enter the room like a demon on speed. Wild-eyed and agitated, his skin was inordinately flushed. Teddy noted his lips looked purplish and she wondered if he had been drinking. Or was he high on something?
“Listen up, pussies.” Maurice clanged the wooden spoon he held in his hand against a pot again. His haughty voice rang out from the entrance of the room, and his sneer told the assembled employees he found them grossly beneath him. “I don’t give a crap if we’re understaffed and many of you are new. I will not tolerate slipshod work and stupid mistakes.”
A strained hush descended in the room as he made his way from station to station, clutching the long, wooden spoon. His piercing green eyes glistened with malice as he inspected the work, stopping to bark at whoever he thought had committed an infraction.
“Unacceptable!” he sneered, pointing the wooden spoon at Donny’s shrimp skewer. “Do it again and this time put the skewer through the middle, moron. Not the side.”
As Chef Maurice made his way down the line, Teddy came to the bleak realization she was in the kill zone. She didn’t dare budge or she’d incur the chef’s wrath. She bent over the table, determined to make the marinated carrot strings into a perfect little cocoon, one he wouldn’t disparage. Under the bright lights, her hands grew clammy and her fingers shook as Chef Maurice came closer.
“Is that what you call working, lard ass?” Maurice derided poor Liz, who was sensitive about her post pregnancy weight. “Fat fingers don’t help, do they? Get out. Tell Jim I said you’ll be serving tables tonight.”
Liz scuttled out of the kitchen, her face beet red and her eyes tearing up.
Teddy’s heart went out to her as she watched her leave. Chef Maurice’s nasty bullying turned her stomach. He might have an impressive pedigree and tons of experience manning the finest Michelin three-starred restaurant kitchens, but that didn’t give him the right to browbeat others. She couldn’t bring it up to Daddy, but she was sure going to tell Leo and Martha about it.
Holding her breath, Teddy watched Chef Maurice come to a stop between her and Jeremy. “You call this turd a mushroom puff?” he snarled at Jeremy. “If I see another like it, I’ll ram it down your throat.”
The crack of Chef Maurice’s wooden spoon slamming down on the prep table made Teddy jump, causing the little cocoon she had painstakingly built to collapse. Oh God. In a panic, she covered the misshapen cocoon with her hands and prayed.
The veins in Chef Maurice’s neck bulged as he glared at her. “Never wear heels in my kitchen.” Thwack, his wooden spoon smacked across the seat of Teddy’s pants. “And ditch the jewelry!” he bellowed, adding a second resounding stroke.
A collective gasp arose, but it was nothing compared to Teddy’s howl as searing pain swathed her buttocks. In a red haze of rage, she lunged at Maurice, simultaneously smearing the carrots on his face and kneeing him in the groin. “Take that, you monster,” she cried, relishing the sight of him bent forward, his face contorted with pain as he grabbed his privates.
“You’re fired,” a deep male voice thundered from behind her.
Teddy whirled around to find Leo glaring at Chef Maurice. High-octane fury radiated from him as he ordered, “Get out or I’ll toss you like garbage.”
Loud applause followed Leo’s command.
Chef Maurice hurled the wooden spoon and missed Leo’s head by a long shot. The splat sound as it landed on the floor made Teddy wince and relive the pain inflicted by that damned spoon on her poor, unsuspecting behind.
“You’ll hear from my lawyer. Bastard!” Chef Maurice spat out, his jaws juddering with rage as he stormed out.
“Good riddance,” Leo shot back, his eyes blazing as he slammed the door after Maurice. He drew in a heavy breath and said in a steady, strong voice, “Back to work, everyone. Fernando is in charge now.” He tossed the wooden spoon into a wastebasket and headed toward Teddy.
Teddy’s heart pounded fitfully as he took her elbow beneath his gentle hand. “Come with me,” he said and led her away.
Leo opened the catering office door and allowed Teddy to enter before him, harnessing his fury toward Chef Maurice so he could tend to Teddy.
“Are you OK?” He searched her face to see if she’d been crying, but she didn’t look close to tears, just steamed. Her gutsy reaction to Maurice impressed Leo. The girl had grit, he’d give her that much.
Teddy’s narrowed eyes blazed and her chest heaved as she inhaled a sharp breath. “I am beyond furious and shocked. No one has ever attacked me like that. I’m glad he got a taste of his own medicine,” she said through gritted teeth. “And the way he treated Liz. Disgusting!”
“I should have fired him a long time ago. He’s lucky I didn’t tear him apart just now.”
Teddy eyed him dubiously. “Because of what he did to me?”
“Damn right. Maurice had no right to hit you.” Puzzled by her doubtful look, Leo studied Teddy’s flushed face. Did she really think he would not come to her rescue?
“Agreed,” she muttered. “Who knows what Maurice would have done next? From the moment he entered, I sensed something was off. He’s always foul and rude, but today he was totally out of control. His breath reeked of alcohol too.”
Leo’s jaw clamped down. Maurice was a liability to the Riviera and he regretted hiring him. “I’m going to press charges against him.”
Teddy blinked rapidly, looking more agitated by the minute. “No, please don’t. The Riviera doesn’t need negative press, and I don’t want to be the cause of it.”
“I would think you’d be out for revenge.”
Her hands balled into tight fists and her eyes glittered angrily. “I am. Someone should turn that damn wooden spoon on Maurice and let him see how it feels.”
Leo gestured to her bottom. “Does it hurt much?”
A pink stain crept across her pretty cheeks. “I’ll survive,” she mumbled.
The irony wasn’t lost on Leo as he studied the beautiful culprit of his own vexation. From the moment he had locked horns with La Princesa, he had thought a good spanking was in order for the careless party girl who had destroyed his Venetian palazzo. But Maurice’s public chastisement had been unjustified and grossly inexcusable. Leo wouldn’t rest until the bully was adequately penalized.
Teddy’s pink tongue darted out to lick her lower lip—a habit Leo noticed she did when she got flustered. His gut contracted with a surge of lust. All week long, she had gotten under his skin. She was maddening and naïve in some things, but there was a sweetness in her that unleashed powerful stirrings so intense he fought them like the plague.
Staring at her lush mouth now, Leo craved a thorough taste of her. Deep, penetrating kisses that would make her buckle and leave her clinging to him, primed for sex. He wanted her naked, soft and pliant in his arms, not combative.
Leo’s thumb slid under Teddy’s chin and raised her face to meet his gaze. “Why are you in that disguise? I much prefer your topaz eyes to those blue contacts.” He missed her gleaming cascade of golden hair too, though having it tucked under the black beanie bared her features in a striking way. Her arched brows and straight nose gave her face character and that rosy pout just begged to be ravished.
Teddy blinked. “I don’t want to be recognized tonight.” She hitched a shoulder in a gesture so vulnerable; it made him realize how difficult and challenging things had been for her leading up to this moment. She had gone from a privileged little rich girl to a common worker in her own hotel.
Leo rubbed the back of his neck. “I get it, but why the high heels? Didn’t Ashley tell you to wear sensible, non-skid shoes?”
“Nope.” The corners of Teddy’s mouth turned upward impishly. “It wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. I don’t own a pair of sensible shoes.”
Of course she didn’t, he thought with a wry shake of his head. La Princesa looked too damned tantalizing in the snug black pants and top, and the dainty gold sandals with the ankle straps made her slim legs appear endless. He needed to detach, but every time Teddy was around, his body heated and all he could think about was having her sweet surrender.
“Your feet are going to be sore,” he warned.
She waved an indifferent hand. “Don’t worry about my feet. I’m used to dancing all night on even higher heels.”
Leo raised his eyes to the ceiling and then back to her. “You won’t be dancing tonight, Princesa,” he said bluntly. “Do you own athletic shoes?”
“Are you kidding, Guerra?” Her sassy attitude was back. Good, he liked her that way. “Of course. I have several pairs.”
He glanced at his watch. “Change into them and see Patricia in the dining hall. I’m sure she can find something you can do standing up.”
Teddy raised a brow. “Teasing, Señor Guerra? And here I was beginning to think you were humane.”
With her chin held high and her back straight as an arrow, La Princesa glided out of the room and damned if the sway of her shapely little ass in those tight pants didn’t turn him on.