Free Menu for Romance by Kaye Dacus Page A

Delacroix once again disarmed him. No woman had the right to be so distractingly beautiful. She held the door while the burly guy with her muscled out a large duffel bag and a couple of equipment cases.
    Major jogged over. “Can I help with any of that?”
    The guy looked up at him, apparently offended. “Naw, man. I can get it.”
    “Chef O’Hara, it’s good to see you again.” Alaine extended her hand.
    Heat rushed into Major’s face when he took her hand in his enormous paw and tried not to hurt her. “Ms. Delacroix. Welcome to Vue de Ceil.” He swept his arm toward the room.
    Alaine strolled past him. “It looks so different. I’ve only been here at night—and with five or six hundred other people, like at New Year’s.”
    More like eight or nine hundred, but who was counting? He followed her. Alaine Delacroix was the kind of woman who could be admired from afar but not someone Major had any interest in getting to know better on a personal level.
    Not like Meredith. He didn’t have to worry about hurting Meredith on the rare occasion that called for him taking her hand in his—which he wished happened more often. He also didn’t feel like a prepubescent boy at his first school dance around Meredith the way he did right now. And to put final nails in the coffin in which he would bury his reaction to Alaine, he decided he much preferred strawberry blonds with nutmeg-colored eyes to brunettes with eyes so dark he couldn’t distinguish the pupil from the iris.
    “...your office?” Alaine stopped in the middle of the room and turned to face him, those dark brown eyes gazing at him askance.
    What about his office? Oh, the interview. “Right through here.”
    He led her down the service corridor and pushed open the Enter Only door into the kitchen, motioning for her to pass through ahead of him—and for the overloaded cameraman to do the same.
    “Wow. I’ve seen some professional kitchens on TV before, but this one takes the cake.” Alaine ran her hand along the stainless-steel countertops. “Nelson, we’ll want to get some footage of this kitchen. In fact—” She whirled around to look at both men. “I know we discussed filming the cooking segments in the executive kitchen downstairs, but I wonder now if maybe we should do it up here.”
    Nelson thunked the equipment cases down on the floor and crossed his arms. “I’d have to see the other space to find out which one’ll be easier to light.”
    Alaine returned to her perusal of the kitchen. “Mrs. Guidry said they’ll help us out with getting some new lights installed if our portables won’t be sufficient.”
    Major felt as if he’d walked into the middle of a movie. “Cooking segments? I wasn’t supposed to have prepared a cooking exhibition for today, was I?”
    “No, no. Your weekly guest spot for my show.”
    “Oh.” Now he really needed to talk to Meredith. It wasn’t like her not to tell him when she made decisions that impacted his work. And even if the decision had come from farther up the food chain, the least Meredith could have done was to give him a heads-up. She was his boss after all.
    “After we finish the interview, can you show us the other kitchen?”
    “Sure.” That would give him a good excuse to see if Meredith was back yet and talk to her. He had to talk through this restaurant thing with someone. He couldn’t talk to Forbes—Forbes was representing his parents in the business deal. Meredith was the only other person he trusted.
    Then why can’t I bring myself to tell her about Ma?
    He pushed the wayward thoughts aside and led Alaine and Nelson into his office. He’d think about his relationship issues with Meredith later. Much, much later.
    ***
    “Hey, kiddo. Good meeting this afternoon?”
    Meredith looked up from her computer at her dad’s voice. “Yeah. I think we’ve got that wedding reception in the bag.”
    “How much are they wanting to spend?”
    “At least six figures.”
    “That’s my