Roxanne Claire - Barefoot by the Sea

If it ever got out that he was still alive and living under yet another name in yet another country…

He didn’t want to think about the consequences. He’d bought one more life, and he knew what to do with it. Lie low, remain distant, stay uninvolved, and, for God’s sake, don’t mess around with someone who wanted to run a bloody DNA test on him.

He popped the top of a food processor and started dropping in diced avocado. “Got any dry vermouth, by any chance?”

“And here I was hoping for something made of all-garden-grown ingredients. Caviar and booze isn’t exactly farm-fresh.”

Shrugging, he squeezed lemon. “But they are organic. Your organs need vermouth.”

Smiling, she pushed away from the table and headed around the corner. “It’s back here with the wine.” After a second she returned, placing the bottle in front of him.

He nodded thanks. “If you hate my soup, I make a mean martini.”

She relaxed again, watching him work. “Speaks French, makes martinis, kisses like a trained professional. Where does this man come from?”

And, just like that, it was time to start the lies.

He didn’t answer immediately, pretending to examine the quality of the lemon leaves he’d use as a final garnish.

“I didn’t get a chance to study your resume,” she pressed.

Neither did I. He’d barely glanced at the thing Henry had e-mailed him when he’d printed it at a local office-supply store this morning.

“Where’d you learn to cook?”

“I’ve worked in a lot of kitchens in a lot of places,” he said vaguely.

“Yes, I remember: You’re on the run.”

His head shot up with a spike of adrenaline in his veins. “Excuse me?”

“You told me in the bar you’re always running. So how do we know you’ll stay here?”

“You don’t,” he said honestly. Fact was, he was one phone call away from a disappearing act. But that phone call might take a week, a month, or…well, they didn’t have that much more time, did they? Once the kids turned four, the possibility of getting Sam and Shiloh back dropped to next to nothing. “But while I’m here, I’ll be the best damn chef you can find.”

“We need someone who’ll stick around.”

He splashed the vermouth into the processor, weighing his answer and dividing his gaze between the food and the woman in front of him. “I won’t walk out in the middle of a dinner rush, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It’s not what I’m asking. Will you stay into next year? And beyond?”

Well, that depended on some stranger in Canada he’d never met and his government liaison’s mood and a few hundred other things he had no control over. “I’ll do my level best. How’s that?” He stabbed the food processor’s On button with a little more force than necessary.

“Do you have a short fuse, Mr. Brown?”

“I don’t have a short anything, Ms. Galloway.”

She flushed slightly. “And you can’t flirt your way through the truth.”

“I’m not flirting and I am telling the truth.” Or as much as he was able to, which was precious little. “Can I cook in peace or do you want to interrogate me some more?”

“Interrogate?” She straightened, angling her head in surprise. “I know this is some kind of game of evasion to you, but to me this is a job interview. Questioning is not interrogating.”

A game of evasion? He was torn whether to bark in anger or ask how she’d already sniffed that out.

He couldn’t do either one. All he could do was answer her questions with lies, transparencies, and clever twists of the truth. “Of course. Knock yourself out.”

“How many years have you been cooking?” she asked.

“Since I was young.”

“A non-answer. How old are you?”

He glanced up, surprised at the bluntness. “Is that legal to ask?”

“I don’t know, but why won’t you answer?”

She was right; not answering would only wave a red flag. Anyway, he’d changed his identity, not his age. “Thirty-six. How about you?”

“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.

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 swallowing nearly impossible. Okay, the “interview as a way to dig for personal information” was a cheesy technique, but what was he hiding? And she’d been unnecessarily snippy, but that happened when someone was so abrasive.

With a little tremble in her hand, she scooped up another spoonful of soup, letting the delicious flavors of avocado and lemon linger on her tongue. If Lacey tasted this soup she wouldn’t care if he was hiding the Holy Grail. She’d hire him in a heartbeat.

“Did he bolt?” Marcus asked, nearly launching himself next to her the minute John was out the door.

“He really couldn’t answer the most basic questions,” she said.

Marcus grabbed another spoon and practically stabbed the soup, slurping some noisily, then grunting with pleasure. “But he killed the most basic of soups. Shit, that’s good.”

“He’s not right for the job,” she said, as much to convince herself as Marcus. “We can’t count on a guy like that. In fact, I think we dodged a bullet.”

Marcus took some more soup. “No kidding. What the hell kind of loser has a bug on his neck? What was that, anyway?”

“A scorpion.”

Marcus lifted his eyebrows as he sucked in another mouthful. “Dude’s inked up pretty good.”

“I saw the thorns on his arm and that swirly black thing down to his hand and God knows what else on the rest of him.” Well, God might know, but Tessa wasn’t going to find out because she was too smart and mature and together to look twice at an evasive, deceitful, tattoo-covered—