She paused to take a sip of a sauce, then directed the chef to add something else. She inspected the pastry chefs’ work and grinned at them in approval. Someone shouted a question and before they’d finished speaking, she was there, lending a hand.
Rico shook his head as he watched her. Sunlight poured in from the skylights in the roof and that golden light seemed to follow Teresa wherever she went. She shone, plain and simple. He was impressed. He didn’t want to be, but there it was. Teresa had stepped in when she was most needed and was taking charge of what could have been a disastrous situation.
Everyone knew that the chefs in any big kitchen had rivalries and jealousies driving them. Without Teresa, there would have been a power play with several of the chefs making a bid to step into Louis’s position. With her, the kitchen was running as well as or better than it had before.
Frowning to himself, he had to admit that there was much more to this woman than he had long believed. She wasn’t here of her own free will. He had practically kidnapped her, blackmailed her, holding the freedom of her family over her head. Yet instead of standing by and watching disaster strike his hotel, she had jumped in, unasked, to save the day. Why? He had to wonder.
Unnoticed, he watched her and as he did, something within him stirred. Not the heat of desire that was a continuous, overwhelming pulse tearing through him. This was something else. There was warmth beneath the heat and a rush of feelings that he’d been denying for five long years.
As soon as he sensed that warmth settling around his heart, he bit off an oath and walked away.
* * *
It had been great to be back in a big kitchen.
Teresa had told Melinda that she’d spent the last five years working in a series of different restaurants around the world. And it was true. But they were small places—mom-and-pop diners, coffee shops and bakeries. She’d worked in a patisserie in Paris, a bakery in Gstaad and a pretzel shop in Berlin. She’d spent time in Italian restaurants in Florence and tea shops in London.
But not since she left Rico in Mexico had she worked for a five-star restaurant. Truthfully, when she had first disappeared from his hotel in Mexico, Teresa had worried that he would track her down and find her, so she’d hidden away in small eateries that most people overlooked. But after some time, she had simply gravitated to those places as if she were punishing herself by refusing the opportunity to do what she did best—run a big kitchen.
But today that had changed. She felt terrible that Louis had taken ill, but she also had to admit that she had loved the challenge of stepping into his shoes, however temporarily. She’d worked tirelessly for hours and when the guests had all been served and the ovens shut down, she’d stayed late to supervise the massive cleanup required.
By the time she was ready to go back to Rico’s house and her gilded cage, Teresa was exhausted. And felt better than she had in far too long. She let herself in through the front door and quietly shut it behind her. A smile was still on her face as she headed down the long, slate-tiled hallway toward Rico’s bedroom. As she passed the shadow-filled living room, his voice stopped her.
“Why did you do it?”
“Rico?” The room was dark, save for the pale, watery light spilling in from the night beyond the wide windows. “Why are you sitting down here in the dark?”
She heard a click and instantly, a fire blossomed to life in the gas hearth. Multicolored slate tiles in shades of blues and grays made up the fireplace insert. Leaping flames and fiery light jumped around the room, highlighting the man who stood before it. “I want to know why you helped out in the kitchen, Teresa. You didn’t have to. It wasn’t up to you to prevent a disaster.”
She walked into the room, hardly noticing the brightly patterned throw rugs scattered over the floor. She paid no attention to the oversize brown leather couches and chairs or to the gleaming oak tables between them. She barely glanced through the wide window providing a spectacular view of his yard that swept down to an ocean that frothed with phosphorescent light.
“I wanted to help.”
“I know that. What I don’t know,” he repeated, “what I need to know, is why?”
“Is it really so hard to understand, Rico?” she asked, walking close enough to him to stare up into eyes that were shadowed in the low light, yet danced with the reflections of the flames.
“Yes,” he whispered, gaze locked on her, moving over her features as if he’d never seen her before. “You had no reason to. I forced you to stay here on the island when you had no wish to. I’ve threatened your family with imprisonment and have made you a hostage. So yes, it is hard for me to understand why you would step in during a crisis at my hotel.”
Teresa shook her head sadly. He couldn’t see how much she loved him. Or if he did, he chose to not recognize it. So how could she explain that for her, there hadn’t been a choice at all? “I wanted to help you, Rico. Louis got sick and I was right there, so I helped.”
“What are you trying to do to me?” His voice was low, deep and rough. As if every word had to scratch its way past his throat.
“Do to you?” She huffed an impatient breath. “Nothing, Rico. I’m here for a month. Would it be easier on you if I sat in a corner and cried over being trapped here by a man who clearly can’t stand to be around me unless I’m in his bed?”
“Maybe,” he muttered thickly as he shoved one hand through his hair. “I don’t know anymore.”
Teresa didn’t even know what she was feeling now. Impatience, irritation, a swell of love that was so rich and deep it filled her entire body and throbbed in her heart.
“Rico, would you rather I just sit on your bed naked, awaiting your pleasure? Would that be hostage-like enough for you?”
“Yes. No. Yes,” he ground out, then continued in a ragged voice, “if you behaved as if you were frightened or worried, that would make more sense to me. Instead you make yourself a part of things here, even knowing you won’t be staying.”
“If it would help, I could whimper for a while.”
He snorted. “You wouldn’t know the first thing about whimpering.”
A small smile curved her mouth. “At least you know me that well.”
All trace of amusement drained from his features and his eyes flashed in the firelight. “Once I thought I knew you better than anyone I have ever known.”
Her heart ached at the wistful tone in his voice. How much she had destroyed when she’d left. How much she’d given up, never to find again. How much they had both missed in the last five years because of a twist of fate. If Gianni hadn’t stolen that dagger… If she had told Rico the truth about her family when she first met him…