The Chef's Choice Read online

  Chapter 6

  Jack had stopped by the apartment to pick Peter up that morning. They'd arranged it the night before. Peter would pick up Emille's car at the restaurant and deliver it to her, just in case she was crazy enough to want to go to work on a sprained ankle. Or in case she was smart enough to have wanted to have said ankle checked out by a medical professional. As far as Peter was concerned, Jack's animal husbandry skills were not reliable for establishing an accurate diagnosis.

  As he pounded the pavement back to his apartment, he couldn't seem to get Emille out of his thoughts. It was good that she was stepping back into the dating arena. Her self-esteem had started going south as her weight increased, and she'd retreated more and more from romantic entanglements. Any entanglements really. It was the same way she'd retreated from wearing high heels and dressing up. He hoped what happened the night before wouldn't sour her for dating again.

  His first memory of Emille played through his mind. It was the day she'd come in to apply for a secretarial job at Orson and Son. Peter was on his way back to his office when he'd spotted her standing in front of the receptionist's desk. It was taking the receptionist over a half an hour to 'deliver' Junior's morning coffee, and everyone knew it would be another half hour before she was done.

  Peter had taken one look at the tall woman in the sexy black suit and promptly redirected himself to the front desk. Any woman who could make such a mannish style look so very feminine was worth his attention.

  "Good morning. My name is Peter Anjou," he'd said. "Can I help you with anything?"

  "Hello. I'm Emille Carter," she'd replied pleasantly. "Kyle Orson, Junior invited me to come in and fill out a job application."

  Peter's brows had risen at that. He'd given Emille a thorough once over. Junior didn't usually go for brunettes. Neither did Peter, usually. Not that he had a preference. But Emille's hair would make any man take a second look, even fifteen years later. It was thick, and lush, and… very, very decadent. And in the years since their first meeting, the very scent of it had never failed to grasp his attention. Peppermint was his favorite herb for a reason.

  That day, her dark hair was pulled into a French roll, revealing the sexiest little curls at her nape and above her ears. Her brows were thick, but perfectly shaped to accentuate her bright, brown eyes. She was a classic beauty - not the kind that you'd find in magazines. But all that hair set her apart from other women. Emille's beauty was more lasting than a model's. It was the kind of beauty that would never be called cute, or pretty. It was a beauty that evolved into stunning, then striking as she aged.

  The fact that all that had topped one of the tallest, curviest, most Amazonian figures he'd ever seen was what had compelled Peter to change his course in the first place. It wasn't every day that a man of his stature found a woman that he could look directly in the face. She was wearing black pumps that made her an inch or two taller than him. And he'd loved it. At six feet and five inches tall, it was rare to find anyone, especially a woman who matched his height. Peter loved nothing more than seeing a tall woman in high heels. Emille was lush to his leanness. But what a lush it was. She wasn't a woman who would ever be able to wear a man's shirt successfully. The women in his life seemed to think it was sexy for them to put on his shirts after making love. Emille would bust out of that shirt at the chest and the hips. Though her legs went on for miles, her hips were curved like a woman's hips should be. That was the day that Peter had become convinced that in order to create perfection like Emille Carter God must surely be male.

  Up until that moment, he'd been convinced that tall women came only in one shape. Straight. And that those same tall women wore only one height of shoes. Flat. Until he'd met Emille, he hadn't even known he had a definite preference for tall, shapely women who wore heels that made them taller than him. She'd unknowingly created a fetish for him.

  He remembered thinking that if Emille was Junior's latest swing, then it was probably a good thing that Michelle was delivering his coffee. The receptionist would have taken one look at Emille and sent her packing. She wouldn't get the job, and he wouldn't get a chance to ask her out. Thinking back on it now, it was definitely a good thing, because fifteen years later, Michelle was now the ex-wife and bane of Kyle Orson, Junior's existence.

  Thinking Junior had gotten to her first, Peter changed his mind about approaching her with interest. He'd ended up cracking a few jokes as he'd helped her through the application process, and had allowed himself to be my-friend-ized.

  It was definitely good that things had worked out that way. It turned out Emille wasn’t involved with Junior. Their relationship had been strictly business. A few of the guys at the firm had cast their lines in her direction, but Em had never bitten. She was a pretty private person. Peter had just assumed she was private about her relationships. It wasn't until a few years into their friendship that he'd finally broached the topic in a roundabout way.

  A few of the guys in the office had been teasing him about his Sunday ritual, and Emille had boldly confessed that she was the only child of an avid angler so she saw nothing wrong with a man who preferred to spend his Sunday mornings on his boat. With a tongue in cheek expression, she'd suggested that she probably had more experience handling a rod than all of them in the office combined. The guys had guffawed about it, but Peter had taken her seriously. That afternoon, he'd stopped by her office and invited her to join him on his boat the next Sunday morning, providing her boyfriend didn't object. She'd graciously accepted his offer, explaining that there was no one in her life to object.

  The following Sunday, Peter had waited for her to arrive, fully intending to try his luck with her over the course of the day. But, when Emille had arrived at the boat equipped for business, and had spent the rest of the morning proving her worth as a fishing companion, he'd kept his mouth shut. She was so casual about being alone with him, there was obviously no interest there other than friendship. Why rock the boat? Right?

  It was all just as well anyway. If he'd made a move on her back then, he'd have missed out on what had turned out to be a very close friendship. His first and only with a woman.

  Then there was the fact that for whatever reason, Emille wasn't happy with herself. And it had shown in the way she'd - well, for lack of a better term - let herself go. It had been a slow, painful process for her as well as those who cared about her. It had gotten to the point where if one of the guys didn't call her up and invite her out, Emille wouldn't leave her home for anything but work, grocery shopping, or to pay her bills. It was like she stopped expecting men to find her attractive, and subsequently, she'd stopped going to the effort of dressing attractively. Oh, her grooming was impeccable, but she was one head-piece away from a full on burqa.

  Eventually, she'd started getting a lot of criticism about her size. Because he'd wanted to be a good friend and offer her support, Peter had never mentioned anything to her about the weight gain. Instead, he'd tried to engage her in all sorts of activities. She'd gone hiking with him a few times early on. And had even tried kayaking before deciding to skip all activities but fishing. Peter was a very physical man. He'd never vomited a day in his life because of physical exertion. Emille was wheezing and spitting in five minutes of brisk hiking. At the time, he hadn't understood that Emille wasn't just a woman trying to keep up with him. Emille was a very unfit woman trying to keep up with a very active man. By the time he'd understood that, he'd blown any chances of getting her to trust him to help her manage her weight.

  A part of him believed she wouldn't have appreciated the help. Even now, she was more concerned with the criticism than she was with her own welfare. Unless that changed… unless she learned to be happy with the woman she was, she would never want his help. Nor would she be willing to try to help herself.

  He was almost home.

  Why did I kiss her? he asked himself for the thousandth time since he'd left her house.

  He'd kissed her before. On her neck. On he
r hair. On her hands. On her cheeks. Her temples. Everywhere but her lips. People kissed their friends on the mouth all the time. But her lips were off limits for some reason. After the scare she'd given him last night, he'd needed to show her he cared. Though his intention had been to kiss her temple, somehow his focus had lowered to her mouth, and it happened.

  She'd been shocked too! Shocked enough to kiss him back instinctively. Then her eyes had opened, and she'd seen it was him at the other end of that kiss. Emille's startled expression had been enough to send him bolting. He should have apologized. They were friends and he didn’t want her to start thinking there was more there than there really was. He wasn't attracted to her in that way. Emille was his fishing buddy. She was his buffer when he needed a date who didn't have any expectations of him. It wasn't often. But, there were events that a man simply preferred not to take the woman he was dating to. His college graduation. His grandmother's funeral. His mother's wedding. And so on.

  He'd just play it off the next time he saw her. She didn't plan on fishing with him this Sunday, so it would be another week before he saw her again. Unless, of course, he stopped by to check up on her. He could play it cool, and they'd get past that awkward stage all the sooner.

  He was still trying to convince himself to play it cool when he arrived at work a few hours later, and saw Emille's leopard print pump lying on top of his desk. Jack must have put it there after they'd cleaned up the table last night. His self-appointed feat became nigh on impossible as his gaze kept wandering to the slim, red heel of her shoe. He was in trouble. There were certain things that made certain women irresistible to certain men. Whatever his Achilles' heel was, Emille had possessed it in spades back when they'd first met. The handwriting was there on the wall for all... well… ehem! The shoe was on the desk for anyone who cared to see. If Emille was remembering what it was like to be the most beautiful woman in the world, he was in big trouble.