When Colby St. James dresses like a man to prove she can succeed in the male-dominated world of professional cooking, she never expects to fall for the handsome chef who will decide her fate. They agree that nothing that happens after hours will affect Colby’s chances in the competition and begin a secret affair.

It’s been years since Dominic Fevre felt a sexual attraction toward another man. He thought he’d put that stage of his life behind him when he focused everything on his career. But something about Colby St. James makes him want to break all his own rules...

Contemporary, sexy stories for sassy women

Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Mills & Boon

www.millsandboon.co.uk/cosmo

About the Author

Louisa Edwards worked as a restaurant reviewer, a waitress and behind the counter at a bakery before she decided to unite her lifelong passions for romance novels and food by writing contemporary romances full of smokin’ hot chefs, independent women and original recipes. She currently lives in Austin with her husband and two terriers. She is also the author of the Sanctuary Island series under the pseudonym Lily Everett. You can find more about Louisa and her books at louisaedwards.com.

Under Her Clothes

Louisa Edwards

Contemporary, sexy stories for sassy women

Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Mills & Boon

www.millsandboon.co.uk/cosmo

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Copyright

Chapter One

Colby turned back the cuffs on her clean white chef’s jacket to expose the tattoo of an antique silver serving spoon on her left forearm and resisted the urge to adjust the rolled-up athletic socks tucked down the front of her pants.

The intricate swirls of the spoon’s inked handle, crisscrossed with old burn marks and a wickedly curved knife scar, would bolster her cred in any restaurant kitchen in New York. Giving away the fact that the only bulge in her checked pants was cotton instead of cock? Would not.

No big deal, she reminded herself as the 6 train lurched to a stop at the Seventy-Seventh Street station. Just another one-on-one interview in just another kitchen with just another arrogant misogynist of a head chef. You’ve done this a hundred times. Man up.

Colby’s snort was swallowed by the hydraulic hiss of the doors opening. Man up? That’s exactly what she intended to do.

Because no matter what mantra she repeated as part of the pep talk she’d been using since she started fending for herself at sixteen, this was definitely not just any old job in any old kitchen. Scoring this gig at Maison de Ville would prove, once and for all, that she was every bit as talented as any male chef who’d been promoted over her.

Hustling across the platform and up the stairs into the chill brilliance of autumn in New York, Colby shoved her way through the mob of early-morning commuters still yawning into their blue paper coffee cups. She glanced up and down Lexington Avenue to orient herself—the Upper East Side of Manhattan was so not her hood—and caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the glass of a shop window. Superimposed on the clear surface separating the fur-clad mannequins from the street, a stranger stared back at Colby.

She lifted her hand to the side of her head, watching as the boyish reflection copied the motion, fingertips brushing across the soft bristles of buzzed hair. Colby had intended to shave off every single strand, but Grant had flatly refused. Once he quit trying to talk Colby out of this stunt, he’d argued that leaving a fall of dark gold across the top of her head would be enough to change her look from feminine to androgynous—and since she was never going to pass for übermasculine, androgyny was her best bet. Hence, the tousled fall of longer blond hair along the crest of her skull.

Because nothing said “take me and my kick-ass knife skills seriously” like a Mohawk.

Grinning at the young guy mirrored in the window, Colby straightened her shoulders and took off for the restaurant. The sound of her best friend’s voice in her head reminded her to butch up her walk. Confidence was key.

One thing Colby had never lacked was confidence. Supporting herself independently since the age of sixteen would do that for a girl. And she’d been practicing for this daring social experiment of professional cross-dressing practically her entire adult life.

A woman in a high-end restaurant kitchen worked hard to be “one of the guys,” or she didn’t work at all. Colby was lucky—she was tall and lean, without any of those distracting curves at the bust and hips that would’ve made it even harder for her to blend in with the other chefs on the line. She’d despaired over her flat chest as a preteen, but now she was grateful not to have to bind her breasts like some ingenue in a Shakespeare play.

Just go in there and show Chef Fevre what you’ve got. In one hour, you’ll have the proof you need to make restaurateurs finally take you seriously as head chef material.

Colby’s steps hitched briefly at her first peek of the elegant town house at Seventy-Seventh and Park. Smaller than the mansions and skyscrapers around it, Maison de Ville still commanded its corner of Manhattan’s ritziest neighborhood. Creamy white awnings shaded large, sparkling windows, a larger one covering the crimson carpet that led to the restaurant’s main entrance.

Swallowing down nerves and hitching the strap of her knife roll higher on her shoulder, Colby marched up the white stone steps and shoved her way into the dim cool silence of the restaurant’s foyer.

A giant floral arrangement bristled from an antique entrance table under the cool glitter of an unlit crystal chandelier. The air was heavy with the scent of fresh-cut roses, but when Colby inhaled the perfume into her lungs, she caught a deep, savory note underneath. Following her nose, she stepped around the entry table and past an unattended hostess stand toward the empty dining room. Large comfortable chairs, plenty of space between tables—this place was all old-school elegance and luxury, a bastion of wealth and high society where the city’s elite came to see and be seen...and to eat some of the most consistently perfect classical French cuisine available anywhere outside of Paris.

Colby stepped lightly across the plush navy-and-gold carpet, almost afraid to breathe too loudly. It was like being in church. If she wasn’t running late already, she’d stop and genuflect.

A door swished open at the back of the spacious dining room, hidden from view behind a discreet partial wall. For an electrifying moment, the silence of the restaurant was shattered by the industrious bustle of a kitchen hard at work. Heartbeat quickening, Colby hurried toward the comforting clatter of pans and the rap of sharp knives against cutting boards just as a man stepped out from behind the partition.

Tall, was all she could think for a moment as recognition seared through her. Colby’s gaze traveled up...and up to meet a pair of piercing, ice-blue eyes. She was five foot eleven. She topped most guys she knew by an inch at least; if she got lucky, she’d generally be eye to eye with her boss rather than towering over him. This man? Had a good half a foot on her, along with fifty pounds of broad, sinewy muscle.

“Arriving later than five minutes early is arriving late.”

His voice rolled through her like thunder, dark and menacing. The barest hint of an earthy French accent grounded the words, making Colby shiver.

Scrambling for a legit excuse that wasn’t “I couldn’t decide how many socks to stuff in my jock,” Colby was lucky she remembered at the last second to pitch her tone low and a little husky. “Oui, chef. I’ll remember that.”

Screw making excuses or whining that she wasn’t actually late. She’d never justified herself or asked for special treatment as a female chef, and she wasn’t going to start now.

Colby did her best to meet the man’s glittering, pale gaze and felt a thrill that shook her down to her bones. Because this huge, imposing man with the stern jaw and the shoulders of a linebacker was Dominic Fevre. The executive chef of Maison de Ville, which was the crown jewel in Eva Jansen’s tiara.

There’d been a profile in the New York Times about Eva Jansen, the city’s most successful restaurateur, and the coup she and her most famous chef had pulled off by reinvigorating a landmark classic like La Maison. There were photos, an online slideshow that Colby had pored over when Grant first mentioned this interview.

None of those images had done Dominic Fevre justice.

In pictures, he looked exactly like his reputation: a hard-ass, no-nonsense, totally old-school chef. And she had no doubt that’s exactly what he was. But pictures didn’t capture the soulful slash of dark brows over those unearthly light blue-gray eyes, or the pure, angular perfection of his wide mouth. The pictures of Fevre had cemented her determination to pull off the craziest scheme she’d ever come up with.

The living, breathing reality of Fevre made Colby squeeze her thighs together to stifle the sudden surge of aching heat.

Fevre didn’t smile, but the tightness at the corners of his eyes eased. Maybe that was as close as he got to a smile. “Bien. And you are...?”

“St. James. Colby St. James.”

“Ah yes. The late addition to my list. How nice to have influential friends.” Those impressive dark brows lowered slightly. “I would not normally take on a candidate based purely on a recommendation, but apparently Grant Holloway has some sway with my boss. Ms. Jansen asked that I include you, and of course, I agreed. But do not think for a moment that you will be exempt from the rigorous examination I would give to any other applicant.”

Colby stood up as straight as she could and met his gaze straight on. “I wouldn’t expect anything less, chef. Thank you for the opportunity.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Welcome, Mr. St. James. Please join the others in the kitchen. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

He strode past her, close enough that she could feel the warmth pouring off that big body. As Colby wobbled toward the kitchen door, she told herself the weakness in her knees was relief that he’d seen what he expected to see—a young male chef—and that meant her disguise was workable. She was so busy clamping down on the ridiculously inconvenient surge of lust at first sight, she almost missed everything else Dominic Fevre had said.

But when she pushed open the serving doors and entered the white, sterile brightness of the cleanest, most streamlined kitchen she’d ever seen, her gaze fell instantly on the spit-polished crowd of young chefs milling nervously between two stainless-steel work tables in the center of the room. Everyone around them moved with a purpose, intent on various culinary missions like prepping vegetables for stock and breaking down large cuts of meat into smaller portions.

So who the hell were the guys standing around with their thumbs up their asses?

Join the others, Fevre had said. Remembering it, Colby felt a chill flash-freeze her insides. What others? What the hell kind of interview was this?

She knew going in there’d be stiff competition for the chance Jansen Hospitality was offering to be head chef at their newest restaurant. She knew she’d have to excel, to distinguish herself as a cut above the rest, to be offered such a plum job. That was the entire point of this stunt, after all. She’d beat out the competition and get the job—then unmask herself and show the world that a woman did belong in a first-class restaurant kitchen, after all.

But a group interview? Could she pull this off?

Colby set her jaw. Nothing had changed, not really. She’d always had to work twice as hard as anyone else in the kitchen, just to get in the door. When it came to standing out from the crowd, Colby St. James was a pro.

* * *

Dominic squeezed his eyes shut for a moment after the newest young man slipped into the kitchen, working to ensure that none of his dismay would show in his expression.

Merde. Why this? Why now? Why him?

Colby St. James wasn’t Dom’s type—not even back when he’d had a male type. And to feel this quick and dirty spike of hunger for a tall, whipcord-lean boy now, when all of Dominic’s focus should be on his work, and the problem of his brother...

Dom ground down on his back molars and twisted the lock in the front door, effectively keeping out any more stragglers. It was past time to get this interview process started, and that was all he should be worrying about at the moment. He’d decided long ago that his career was more important than anything else, and that determination had taken him far.

This new responsibility his restaurant’s owner had saddled him with was going to be challenging enough. He wouldn’t allow himself to become distracted by anything—not his brother’s sudden reappearance in his life, and certainly not an inappropriate attraction to one of the chef candidates.

He would ignore the awakening of desires he’d thought long dead, and he would treat Colby St. James exactly the same as any other talented young cook who hoped to be considered for the job of head chef at Eva’s newest restaurant. He would do this because Eva trusted Dominic to find her the perfect man to helm the new restaurant, and because his own perfectionism wouldn’t allow him to give his backing to any but the best chef candidate.

There. Enough. Decision made.

Secure inside the impenetrable walls of his own ambition, Dominic threw open the kitchen doors. His stare automatically took in the stages of the various daily tasks his crew undertook to get ready for lunch service. He gave an approving nod to Antonio, his sous chef. He didn’t need to double-check to be sure that his people, handpicked and personally trained by Dom, were doing things his way. The traditional way. The right way.

Turning his attention to the five young men he was meant to be evaluating, Dominic steeled himself for another glimpse of slightly fey, striking features and a golden blond shock of hair—but Colby St. James wasn’t standing with the other chef candidates.

Narrowing his eyes, Dominic followed the shifty glances and uncomfortable fidgets of the others in time to see Colby emerge from the walk-in cooler carrying a huge hotel pan mounded with veal bones. Slimly muscled forearms hefted the heavy, unwieldy load more easily than Dom might have expected. Wiry as he was, Colby St. James was obviously stronger than he looked.

Another flicker of heat sparked a fuse in Dominic’s belly that seared up his chest and out of his mouth in a growl. Slender strength and blond good looks aside, St. James was obviously incapable of following directions. Extremely and emphatically not Dominic’s type.

And yet, something about rebellious, disobedient Colby St. James had Dominic’s prick hardening in a rush that left him light-headed. It was intolerable.

Dominic’s fabled control evaporated like steam in a hot oven. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Chapter Two

Colby bobbled the tray, but to his credit, he managed not to drop it, which would have set the kitchen behind on making the demi-glace. Carefully sliding the hotel pan onto the steel worktop at the saucier station, Colby grimaced in Dom’s direction. “Sorry. Just...it looked like the espagnole was already working, and I know you use demi-glace on the veal cheeks dish, so I thought you’d want to get the brown stock going as soon as possible.”

Completely disarmed by the fact that the kid was right, damn him, Dom gestured Colby back into line with the others with a short jerk of his chin. “When I give an order, I expect it to be followed. Instantly and without question.”

He watched with interest as the younger man bristled for a moment, then got himself under control, angular face blanked of all expression. The only thing that gave Colby away was the visible clench of a muscle at the back of his sharp jawline.

“Yes, chef.” Colby scooted back into line with the others, eyes cast down, but there was no power on earth that could make that kid look meek.

A sidelong flash of the young chef’s blue eyes sent a hook into Dom’s loins and tugged. Hard.

Clearly, Dom realized, there was only so far he was going to get by mentally referring to Colby as a kid.

Get it together, Dom snarled silently. Turning on his heel, he folded his hands at the small of his back and paced the line of chef candidates as if they were a batch of raw recruits up for inspection. Which, in many ways, they were.

“You are all here today because you impressed someone—either a boss who already works for one of Eva Jansen’s other restaurants or Ms. Jansen herself. You may be proud of yourself for getting this far. Don’t be. You may believe your past work entitles you to my good opinion. It does not. I don’t give a shit who you are or where you come from, who you trained with or who you impressed. Your only task now is to impress me.”

He paused, his gaze touching on each candidate in turn as he assured himself that they all understood the obvious subtext: that Dominic Fevre was not an easy man to impress.

“Here’s how it’s going to work,” Dom continued. “I will observe you on the line here in the Maison de Ville kitchen, every night for two weeks. That is how long you have to impress me, to convince me that you are the right man to helm Jansen Hospitality’s new restaurant.”

Several of the candidates exchanged excited glances—some stared straight ahead as though tamping down terror. But Colby St. James jumped as if he’d put his hand down on a hot burner, that bowed, expressive mouth dropping open.

“Something to say?” Dom clipped out, pausing in front of Colby and staring him down.

The boy’s jaw snapped shut with a click, that muscle throbbing again in a way that made Dom wonder if Colby was grinding his teeth. “No, chef. Two weeks, heard.”

“You have something more important to do?” Dom asked gently. “If so, please, feel free to leave now. And don’t come back.”

“No, chef.” Colby didn’t drop his gaze for an instant, and Dominic felt reluctant respect burning through the haze of stifled desire.

What was it about Colby? Dom was drawn to him as though invisible threads tied them together, tightening and pulling and wire-taut with tension. Without meaning to, he’d stepped right into Colby’s space, almost toe-to-toe, as if he were daring the kid to challenge him. Any other chef in this kitchen, Dom knew, would be backing down, hunching shoulders and trying to make himself smaller to escape the searing focus of Dom’s intense regard.

But Colby St. James never seemed to do what Dom expected. No, this young man, who was here only because a friend of Eva’s had gotten him into the interview process at the last minute, didn’t hunch. He squared his shoulders and didn’t lower his eyes, and only by the quick rise and fall of his wiry chest did Colby betray any reaction to the tension that crackled between them.

“Chef?” Colby muttered, so quietly Dom thought no one else in the kitchen could hear. “I’m not giving up. No disrespect intended. Your intimidation routine is kick-ass, but I’m in it to win it.”

Dom realized exactly how long he’d been staring silently, looming over Colby and ignoring the rest of the candidates as if they were alone in the kitchen. Dragging his gaze from Colby’s ripe, tempting bottom lip, Dominic nodded briskly and stepped back.

“All of you, report to Antonio,” he ordered hoarsely. “He’ll give you your line assignments for the day. Each of you will have the chance to show what you’ve got at the different stations. I expect any chef I recommend for the job of executive chef to be more than competent at every aspect of kitchen work, from prep to dessert. Maison de Ville will be open as usual. Do not embarrass me.”

Good advice, Dom reflected as the chef candidates all but saluted before marching over to Antonio at the grill station. Dominic could stand to remember not to embarrass himself.

A touch on his forearm turned the muscles there to corded steel. No one touched him in his kitchen. Ever.

Even before he rounded on the offender, the spark of sexual electricity zinging up his arm told him who it was. Of course. Colby fucking St. James.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot, chef,” the kid was saying confidently with a bright smile.

“Let me give you a hint, Colby St. James.” Dom leaned in, close enough to feel that spark jump between them like static. “Failing to follow my orders for the second time in the first hour is not the way to impress me.”

“Maybe not.” Colby’s lips quirked in a subtle smirk that shot straight to Dom’s dick. “But you know my name. I stood out from the pack.”

That was true enough to make the hairs on the back of Dom’s neck stand at attention. “Standing out for having a smart mouth isn’t what most people want. I should throw you out of my restaurant right now.”

Colby’s thin chest heaved once. “But you won’t.”

“Why not?” Part of Dom truly wanted a reason.

“Because.” Colby straightened his white sleeves, twitching them proudly over his scarred forearms, laddered with burn marks that told the story of a chef who had served his time and earned his bones. “You want to see what I’ve got.”

God, yes. The words called to something in Dominic, a primal urge to strip the white chef’s coat off Colby’s body, to bare all that skin to Dom’s hungry gaze and possessive touch. Fire raged under his skin, all the more devastating because it caught him by surprise. Dom wrestled with his impulses, clenching his fists behind his back to keep from reaching out for Colby.

Colby licked his bottom lip as if he knew what it would do to Dom. Those dark blue eyes snapped with challenge. “You want to see if I can back up this smart mouth with my kitchen skills. And I’m here to prove I can.”

“Maybe,” Dom rasped, stamping out the flickering fire as best he could. “But your skills will have to be exceptional to get me to overlook your tendency to talk back.”

“I can take orders when I need to.” For the first time, Colby’s gaze dropped, but it wasn’t submissive. Just the opposite, in fact. “But I’m a leader in the kitchen. And correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s what this interview process is all about—finding someone to lead the team at the new restaurant.”

The fact that Colby was right only fanned the flames. Desire like he’d never felt roared through Dom’s system, shocking and disorienting and obliterating all logical thought. “And you believe that’s you. But you haven’t got the job yet, and right now? You’re in my house. My rules. So why don’t you run along and do everything Antonio tells you—and then you stay after service to close down. Every night. For two weeks...or as long as you last.”

See how Colby liked being singled out for that. Closing down was a punishment detail, reserved for whoever had screwed up and earned Dom’s wrath during service. Even though he ran a tight, clean ship, at the end of service the kitchen still tended to look like a war zone. Washing down the stations, mopping the floors, scrubbing out the grease traps—no one liked closing down, but it had to be done.

His crew was already thrilled to be getting time off while these chef candidates rotated through their stations. They’d be even happier to be off scrub detail for two full weeks.

Colby St. James obviously wasn’t happy. But instead of objecting, as Dom had almost hoped he would, Colby rolled his shoulders and gave a tight smile. “You think a little mopping is going to scare me off? Every hard-ass chef I’ve ever cooked for has given me the shit work. You’re going to have to try harder than that.”

Fury and desire and denial exploded like a Molotov cocktail in Dom’s chest. It took everything he had to keep from hauling Colby in close—to shake him or kiss him or both. “Don’t push me, boy. Or you’ll find out what it’s like to work under a real hard-ass.”

Colby’s gaze narrowed as awareness sizzled between them. His perfect, damnably kissable mouth tilted up at the corners. “Promises, promises,” he murmured as he slipped past Dominic to join the other chef candidates.

Dom watched him go, the subtle twitch of lean hips under the shapeless white jacket and black checked chef pants, and felt a subsonic growl building in the back of his throat. His cock was a heavy, throbbing weight between his legs, aching for the touch of another man for the first time in a decade. What the hell was happening to him?

* * *

Disaster. Catastrophe. Epic cock-up of the worst possible kind. The buzzing in Colby’s ears nearly drowned out the sous chef’s lightly accented voice as he outlined the duties the chef candidates would be taking over for that night’s dinner shift.

Contrary to what she’d said to Chef Fevre in a moment of brash insanity, Colby hadn’t been looking to stand out. At least, not for anything other than her unparalleled abilities with a knife. And now here she was, not an hour into an audition process that was going to take—oh, God—two full weeks, and she’d already pissed off the head chef enough to make him put her on cleanup duty.

It was hard not to despair that even in guy drag, she was still about to be handed a mop and a bucket.

But she couldn’t help it. The intense attraction she felt to Chef Fevre turned her into a crazy person. And what was worse, she’d even become delusional—because she could swear that at one point back there, the attraction had gone from a one-way street to a four-lane freeway with no speed limit.

Was Chef Dominic Fevre, the most alpha, badass drill sergeant of an executive chef in Manhattan, secretly gay? That alone wouldn’t be enough to blow her mind; Colby knew plenty of gay men and women who could hold their own in any kitchen in the city.

But for a guy like Fevre, the poster boy for the old-school French brigade system, anything other than pure hetero was a bit off brand.

Making a mental note to kill Grant for not telling her—because there was no way her gay best friend Grant’s infallible gaydar had malfunctioned—Colby forced herself to focus on what the sous chef was saying, rather than on the skin-prickling awareness of the executive chef standing somewhere behind her.

But all through the painstaking process of making the sauce espagnole—which she’d been assigned while the other candidates smirked—Colby felt Dominic watching her. For the first time in her career, she found herself grateful for the way she’d always had to fight and scrap to get any respect, because the mental toughness she’d developed as a woman in a man’s world was all that got her through that first day of observation.

Colby loved cooking. She loved the intricate balance of creativity and craftsmanship that chefs at the highest level got to play with. The fast-paced, high-stakes world of restaurant cooking was not for everyone, but Colby had been addicted since her first job washing dishes for a three-star Italian joint back in DC. She loved the heat, the noise, the adrenaline jolt of pounding out dish after perfect dish under the suffocating pressure of the dinner rush.

But she didn’t want to stay on the line forever, churning out someone else’s vision. She wanted a kitchen of her own, where she’d finally have the freedom and independence to cook her kind of food. Too bad starting a restaurant on her own would require a loan so big, the last bank had actually laughed at her. And despite how good Colby knew she was, most restaurateurs hesitated to hire women for the top spot, fearing that they wouldn’t be able to command the respect of their line cooks.

So respect had to be earned. Fine. All Colby wanted was a shot—and a chance to prove to the biggest restaurateur in Manhattan that she could do this job.

However, first she had to make it through tonight’s dinner service. Not only was Chef Fevre’s serious, diamond-hard stare a major distraction, threatening to make her add sugar instead of salt, or cut off a pinky while dicing carrots and onions to a tiny, perfectly uniform brunoise for the mirepoix. That was bad enough, but Colby could handle it. She’d trained herself to respond to intimidation and scorn by working harder and smarter until she outshone everyone around her.

Bigger assholes than Chef Fevre had expected Colby to give up and wash out, and they’d been disappointed. His obvious disapproval only made her want it more. But this time was different. This time she wasn’t just fighting to prove herself—she was fighting to prove a point to a restaurateur who could make or break Colby’s future. And to do that, she’d have to keep this charade going for a lot longer than the single hour, one-on-one interview she’d planned for.

What had seemed like a breeze, or at least doable, when she’d come up with this plan suddenly felt like an impossibly high mountain to climb.

Colby carried a tray of roasted veal bones into the walk-in cooler and heaved them into an empty place on the well-organized wire rack. Taking advantage of the short space of alone time, she whipped the compact mirror out of her pants pocket and took stock.

The eyebrows she’d waxed into more of a slash than their usual arch were scrunched into an anxious frown. The thin skin over her sharp cheekbones was pink with the effort and exertion of prepping for an intense dinner service. She thinned her lips and narrowed her eyes, jutting her jaw determinedly at her own reflection.

Could she really carry off this act for two full weeks?

Okay, realistically...maybe not. But she was sure as hell going to give it her best shot. And if—when—she was found out, at the very least she would have made her point about the stupid, bass-ackward blindness of the culinary world when it came to women in professional kitchens.

She’d hold her own against the other chef wannabes, and show the world she wasn’t the best “female chef” in Manhattan—she was one of the best chefs, period.

By the time prep was done and the first dinner ticket came in, Colby was starting to hit her stride. She’d assessed her competitors over the course of the afternoon, and only one of them, a grimly silent Asian guy who’d staged under the same Michelin-starred French chef who’d trained Dominic Fevre, stood out.

John Qui was worth keeping an eye on. He was a lifer who’d learned on the job, working his way up to cook from dishwasher, same as Colby. The other three were spit-shined culinary school grads without a single burn mark between them. They’d started the day cocky and smirking, but their starch was wilting before the dinner rush even got going.

“Behind, hot,” a tight voice spat out. Colby tucked her elbows in and spared a quick, exasperated glance for the cook hustling down the line with a steaming saucepan of hot milk. Bryce Manning was the culinary school grad who’d hung in the longest, through a combo of what seemed like grit and spite, but he was clearly starting to crack under the pressure of his station. He’d been designated saucier tonight, a tricky, persnickety station that required focus, organization and attention to detail.

“Watch it,” Colby hissed as hot milk splattered the toes of her battered kitchen clogs.

“Just stay out of my way,” Manning snarled back, face purple with heat and embarrassment.

Colby rolled her eyes and turned back to the grill station where she was marking off beautifully marbled steaks to order. Manning might be one to watch, too, if only because he seemed like the kind of guy who’d sabotage her if he got the chance.

Swearing under his breath, Manning made it back to his sauces while all around them, the kitchen swirled along with an eerily silent clockwork precision that was nothing like the loud, chaotic kitchens Colby was used to.

All day long, it had been quiet like this, the Maison regulars working silently side by side with the five auditioning chefs. She thought once service started, it would devolve into the usual fiery rush of clattering pans and shouted orders...but the atmosphere had stayed military tight. Only the auditioning chefs occasionally wrecked the forced calm as they fumbled their way through the unfamiliar kitchen.

Besides turning out amazingly consistent and immaculate food, the regimented perfection of the crew made any mistakes stick out like a fly in a bowl of cream.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Antonio making a brief note on his ever-present flip pad. The sous chef was Dominic Fevre’s eyes, ears and sometimes his voice here in the kitchen. After looming uncomfortably in the corner for a while watching the action, Chef Fevre had disappeared into the back office down the hall on the other side of the kitchen from the dining room.

Colby had to admit, she hadn’t managed to relax until he was gone. Every moment in his presence sent tingles of interest rushing over her skin, lifting every hair and keeping her on edge.

Now, even as she plated up four steaks, their perfect grill marks at a precise forty-five-degree angle, and winged them over to the runner who was waiting to take them up to the pass, the now-familiar tingle swept down Colby’s spine once more. Without even turning, she knew Chef Fevre was on the floor.

She didn’t need to turn to confirm what she already knew, but somehow she couldn’t help herself. Colby glanced from the next round of tickets she’d already memorized and looked over her shoulder to see Dominic Fevre standing straight-backed and grim at Antonio’s side.

Wincing, Colby refocused on her station and hoped like hell that whatever updates Antonio was murmuring to the intense head chef, there was nothing in there about Colby getting into it with Manning.

Every inch of her skin was alive to the presence of the huge, scowling French guy behind her. His stare was like an itch between her shoulder blades, impossible to scratch and just as impossible to ignore.

Losing herself in the swift flow of orders, temperatures, and pick-ups had never been so hard, but she couldn’t afford to screw up. Especially not with Chef Fevre watching.

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