Free Chase Me (Paris Nights Book 2) by Laura Florand

would you care to comment?” a perfectly coiffed brown-haired man asked, posing beside her before the camera and extending his microphone.
    “How could I care to comment? I just found out about it! How do you know about it already?” She tried to see which news station they were from.
    “Twitter,” the journalist said.
    Bordel de merde. “It’s on Twitter already?” Vi said, her stomach sinking as if she’d swallowed a bucket of rock.
    The journalist nodded with an appearance of sympathy. “As I’m sure you’re aware, taking you on as chef here created some controversy, and your changes to the menu have been…splashy. Do you think a salmonella outbreak at Au-dessus supports those who have always claimed you were too young and too…flamboyant…to handle the job?”
    Fuck, fuck, fuck. Oh, shit, any minute they were going to bring out the “woman chef” thing. And she might have to hit somebody. “I think you’ll find there’s some other source to this salmonella outbreak.” She looked at the health inspector grimly. “Let’s see those tests.”
    “I’m afraid we’ll have to ask you and your staff to remain off the premises while we conduct the investigation,” the military-like inspector said stiffly.
    “Oh, no, you damn well will not.” Vi forgot all about the television camera. “Mess around in my kitchens without me there? Over my dead body.”
    ***
    “ Salmonella ?” Chase demanded between his teeth. “Out of all the possible excuses for shutting that restaurant down, they went with the only one that would do someone actual harm?”
    Mark propped his butt against the table behind him and folded his arms. “They said it was the perfect cover. It stirs up doubt. Al-Mofti might have to make calls to find out what was going on, and maybe we can get a location. Was there a ricin attack attempt? Did one of his men carry it out? Did they get caught and this is our cover up? He’ll want to know. And the more of his men he tries to communicate with, the more chance we have of tracking him down.”
    “I said a kitchen fire! Plumbing!”
    “You’ve got to admit it’s better,” Mark said.
    Maybe. If Chase turned off all thought of individual consequences and went into his cold place. Kind of a lousy, crappy place to go when it came to a gorgeous, vivid, life-filled blonde in leather.
    “Better only if you consider destroying a chef’s career a minor side effect,” Elias said, his voice very even and cold. “ Putain , but you people have no idea of culture. Maybe later you can build a McDonald’s where her restaurant stood.”
    Ice entered Chase’s soul. “I thought you said she can handle anything.”
    “I suspect she can,” Elias said. “But that doesn’t mean her restaurant can. Or her current career can. Food poisoning. At a restaurant already at the center of every critic’s eye this year, as they love her or hate her or swear she’ll never make it. Merde , it’s a top chef’s worst nightmare.”
    “At least she’s alive,” Mark said. “Which she wouldn’t be, if she were exposed to ricin. She probably has friends who aren’t alive, from the last Paris attacks.”
    A grim look settled over Elias’s face. He didn’t have to tell them that he also had friends who were no longer alive. They all had friends who were no longer alive, these days. “Who the hell made this call? Were my people involved or was it the damn CIA?”
    “It’s a coordinated initiative,” Mark said wearily. Within their team, that was working fine, but on a larger scale…it had already been a nightmare coordinating operations between the CIA and the military when they only had one country involved. “That’s all I’ve got.”
    One of those visions of Violette Lenoir dying of ricin again. Not rippling under him in a glorious orgasm, shining with life, but wrenching in death, convulsions going weaker and weaker, until all of her was gone.
    Sometimes he really wished he had gone into ranching or