Barefoot by the Sea

“Sorry, you’re the interviewee, Chef.”

He ignored the warning, determined to turn the conversation back to playful banter and off his dark, dark past. “You can’t be much over thirty, if that.”

“Define much.” She settled against the counter again, giving him hope that he’d succeeded in chilling things out. “I’m thirty-four.”

“Ahh.”

“Ahh?” She laughed uncomfortably. “Which means…”

“It means…” Tick-tock goes the biological clock. “You look very young for your age.”

She narrowed her eyes in doubt.

“You do,” he insisted.

“So do you,” she countered. “Where were you born?”

The non sequitur threw him, almost more than the question. He’d answered “Esher, in Surrey” for the first thirty-three years of his life. He squeezed the lemon too hard and lied easily. “California.”

“Are your parents there still?”

They were in London…where he should be. “No, I’ve lost them both. What about you?”

She smiled at the smooth switch. “This is your interview, Mr. Brown.”

“Please call me…” He damn near stumbled over the name, but covered by looking right into her eyes and letting her think that was what threw him. “John. And can’t it be a conversation instead of a hostile examination?”

“I’m not hostile and, honestly, I promised Lacey I’d ask all the questions, sample your food, and call your references.”

Would she talk to Henry or one of his lackeys?

He turned to snag a plate from the rack. “Is Lacey your boss, too, then?”

“She’s my best friend,” she answered. “But I guess as the owner of the resort, she’s technically my boss. You’ll work for her, too.”

He grinned at her. “I like the sound of that.”

“Because you don’t want to work for me?”

“Because it sounds like I got the job.”

She smiled. “I haven’t tasted the soup. Did you go to college?”

He feigned interest in the avocado shell he’d be using as the bowl for his soup, but his mind reeled with the truthful answers to her questions. University of Cambridge to earn a degree in economics, followed by a rocket- ride career at Barclays Bank full of potential and promise.

All sliced into ribbons by the hands of the leader of one of London’s most notorious gangs.

“No,” he said, finally getting the shell to balance on a bed of lettuce. “Didn’t go to college.” The lie felt like grit in his mouth. “Just a few semesters at various culinary schools, never graduated.” But don’t go looking for a paper trail, my friend, because the UK’s version of your witness protection program might not have produced those yet.

“What’s your best recipe?”

Okay, easier question. “Whatever I’m making right this minute.” He checked the consistency of the soup, then grabbed a clean spoon for a taste. Closing his eyes, he blocked her out and let the buttery texture and subtle tang hit his tongue. “And this is definitely on track to be my best.”

“Can you tell me about your personal life?”

He popped his eyes open, about to tip over this balancing act. “Look, you want to do a job interview, do it. You want to drill me down because of what happened in that bar, you can stop right there. My personal life doesn’t have a damn thing to do with how I cook. Wanna taste?” He held the spoon out to her, not even bothering to clean it.

She refused the offer with a tiny shake of her head. “You’re awfully defensive.”

She hadn’t seen anything yet. “Just trying to make it on the basis of my food, not my life story.”

“I didn’t ask your life story. We need to know you’ll be focused on work, not leaving early or taking off for weeks at a time, so these are legitimate questions. You’re not married, right?”

A slow burn started in his belly as he stirred the soup one more time. Why was she insisting on this? Every time he lied it was like Kate died all over again.

He dropped the spoon on the counter with a clatter loud enough to drown out his answer. “Nope.”

“No kids?”

Damn it. He stilled his hands on the stainless steel and kept his gaze down long enough to let the silence go way past awkward. Only then did he pin her with a deadly gaze.

“Obviously you’re interviewing me for some other job, which I’ve made achingly clear I don’t want.”

She drew back, as though his words had smacked her. Well that was too bad, he thought furiously, refusing to give anything remotely resembling a shit about her feelings. Because even that felt disloyal to his dead wife.

“I wanted to—”

“You wanted to pry,” he shot at her. “Because these questions don’t have anything to do with my culinary skills, my ability to manage a kitchen, or the menu I might be able to create for this resort.”

She lifted her chin, hurt ravaging her expression. “John, I’m asking legitimate questions that can affect scheduling. Do you or do you not have kids?”

Of all the lies, he hated this one the most. He despised speaking the words, wiping away the existence of the two most precious people in the world to him. He was a father like any other father, as proud as he could be, despite the fact that he hadn’t held Shiloh or Sam for three long years. That didn’t change the power of his love. No, time and distance made him love them more.

But if he didn’t lie, he could be putting his children in harm’s way, and he was like any father in that regard, too. He’d die before he’d let them get hurt. He opened his mouth to say the words: I don’t have any kids.

But for some reason, that particular lie wouldn’t roll off his tongue. Instead, he looked into those earthy brown eyes and all he wanted to do was tell Tessa the truth.

If that wasn’t the stupidest fucking thing, he didn’t know what was. He couldn’t take chances like this. Not with his life, and definitely not with his kids.

He settled on something that wasn’t a lie. “I fail to see how that has anything to do with getting this job.”

“We’re a family here at Casa—”

“I don’t want to be a family,” he growled, the words harsh enough to make her flinch. “I don’t want you in my business. I just want a job as a chef. Yes or no?”

She studied him for a minute, scouring his face as if she could find answers there. She’d better not. “The last person left because she had huge personal demands and couldn’t work the hours we needed.”

“I can work twenty-four/seven. In fact, I’d like to.”

“Why?” she asked him.

Irritation skittered over him. “None of your fucking business.”

“Why are you so hostile about this? What aren’t you telling me?”

Goddamn it. He shoved the plate across the stainless steel to her, splashing some soup over the edge of the avocado shell. “We’re done here.” Before she could answer, he stepped away and went right out the door he came in.

No job and no woman was worth the risk of the truth.

Chapter Six

Of course it was the best flipping soup she’d ever tasted in her life.

But the creamy, dreamy liquid caught in Tessa’s bone-dry, tightly closed, very painful throat, making