Some Like It Hot (28 page)

Summing up without taking her eyes from Danny, Eva said, “Team West/Midwest now has five points, while Team East Coast/South has four. The final point will either give a decisive victory to West/Midwest, or we’ll be forced into a tiebreaker round. Chefs? Are you ready to present your last dish?”

Danny looked down, unable to bear the weight of emotion in Eva’s gaze. He didn’t know what she was feeling, what she wanted from him.

He couldn’t think about that now. He had to concentrate on keeping his hands from shaking so he didn’t drop this fucking cake on the way up to the judges’ table. Feeling as if he were marching up the gallows to his execution, Danny made his way forward, the cake stand balanced between his hands, every step keeping pace with Ryan Larousse.

Who was also presenting … cake. Cake that looked like a strange piece of avant-garde sculpture, snowy white with flaked coconut and glittering with what looked like diamonds.

Shit.

“I see you opted not to cut the cake before judging,” Theo said, nodding at Danny’s platter.

He sounded neutral about it, but Danny’s defenses shot up. “I wanted you to get the full effect of the decorations on it,” he said. “Wedding cakes are at least half about what they look like.”

And his cake looked damn good, if you asked Danny. Even considering his hypercritical eye, he was pleased with how it had turned out. The fondant gleamed like raw silk, smooth and gorgeous as it wrapped around the two tiers. Flashy for a wedding tasting, maybe, but this was the RSC. Danny had pulled out all the stops.

He’d spent precious hours fussing with spun sugar and food dyes, crafting tiny sprays of blossoms that looked almost too real to eat. Using more of the fondant, he’d pulled a satiny ribbon of white to cascade down the sides of the cake. The whole thing glistened in the bright lights of the kitchen, a pure, perfect piece of art.

“And it is lovely. But this is a culinary competition,” Claire reminded him. “So taste will be important, too.”

Swallowing down the heated response that jumped into his mouth, Danny said, “I’m aware of that.”

Danny didn’t think he’d ever been as aware in his life. Every heartbeat shook his chest and pounded through his body. His breath was shallow, as if the room were low on oxygen and his body was trying to conserve it. A single drop of sweat trickled behind his left ear, sending a shiver down his spine and lifting the individual hairs on his arms.

“And what do we think of Ryan’s cake? It’s certainly striking.” Eva looked at the Larousse inquiringly.

“It’s coconut mango,” Larousse said smoothly. “We all came up with ideas together on our team, very collaborative, and we wanted to do something out of the ordinary. Not the standard, boring white cake with vanilla frosting.”

He shot a deliberate glance at the white frosted cake sitting in front of Danny, waiting to be judged.

“That’s why I went with a coconut-inflected cake, very thin layers, with a beautiful mango filling. Enjoy.”

Don’t enjoy it, don’t enjoy it,
Danny chanted silently as Larousse carefully sliced and arranged his cake onto separate plates.

But the judges didn’t seem to hear him. As each of their faces lit up, Danny’s guts twisted into knots.

“Very nice, this cake,” Claire said, forking up another bite with a considering purse of her lips.

“The mango,” Kane moaned happily. “That’s, like, my kryptonite, man. Is there lime juice in it?”

“Yes,” Larousse hurried to confirm. “A little bit of acidity brings out the sweetness and complexity of the fruit, don’t you think?”

Oh, seriously?
Danny bit down on a sneer.
He put the lime in the coconut, did he?

“Yes, thank you for that input,” Eva said shortly, pushing her plate to the side. “Let’s try the next one.”

Danny couldn’t even enjoy Ryan Larousse’s brief expression of sullen anger at Eva’s dismissal—he was too busy watching every minute shift of muscle on the judges’ faces as they took their first bites of his wedding cake.

He couldn’t read them. Like, at all.

Sweat prickled at Danny’s hairline, and he wanted to scratch at a patch of dried icing on the front of his chef’s jacket, but he forced himself still.

“Is that … almond infused into the cake?” Kane asked, sounding surprised.

Danny had to clear his throat before answering. “Yes. The filling between the layers is a ginger cinnamon butter cream, flecked with bits of candied almond.”

“It’s very light. And moist,” Claire commented.

“Which is uncommon for a cake with enough structural integrity to stand having more than one tier.” Theo looked impressed.

Eva finished her piece first and used the back of her fork to pick up a few stray crumbs. “I love how delicate it is,” she said, looking over at the judges. “It’s subtle, but beautiful.”

Refusing to be placated by Eva’s praise—
too little, too late,
he wanted to tell her—Danny kept his chin high and his attention focused on the actual judges. Their opinion would make or break this round of the competition.

His guys were tired. Emotionally and physically, they needed a break. Danny, too, if he was honest. The idea of heading into a sudden-death tiebreaking elimination challenge made him want to throw up, but it was their only shot. He had to clinch this.

The silence stretched unbearably as the judges turned aside and conducted their whispered debate. He didn’t want to notice that Eva looked increasingly upset at the direction the conversation was taking.

Resolutely keeping the worry off his face, Danny waited. Finally, the judges turned back to the table. Eva looked pale, something fragile and sharp hiding behind her eyes, as if one more blow might break her.

“This was a tough decision,” she said, loudly enough for all the chefs to hear. “But it comes down to a matter of style. And in the end, the judges’ panel felt that one chef truly embodied the spirit of teamwork, innovation and excitement we asked for with this challenge.”

Danny’s stomach wrenched tight. He already knew what she was going to say, the instant before her eyes flicked to him and snagged on his hard stare.

Eva had to swallow once, twice, before she managed, “The point goes to Ryan Larousse. The West/Midwest team wins.”

The world stopped.

Or maybe it was just Danny who stopped—stopped breathing, stopped listening … if he could’ve stopped existing entirely, in that moment, he would’ve.

Total debilitation, the kind where his head seemed to float two feet above his body and there was no sound beyond the vague thud of his own heartbeat, lasted only a few seconds. Then he crashed back into his body, the familiar aches and pains of hours of being on his feet, racing around a kitchen, standing and bending over a hot oven flooding back, all the more painful for the brief moment of disconnection.

Behind him, Danny heard the rest of the chefs going completely nuts. While the judges congratulated everyone who’d won, shaking hands and offering further praise on their favorite dishes, Danny stood there and tried to take it in.

He’d lost. It had come down to the wire, his father’s hopes and dreams for the restaurant that was his sons’ legacy riding on Danny’s ability to perform—and he’d choked. They might be eliminated today, and have to head home to New York with their tails tucked between their legs, because Danny couldn’t get his head together and keep it in the game.

It was all his fault.

Even as the knowledge flooded him, his eyes tracked Eva’s stiff body as she made her way around the winning chefs, her usual fluid, energetic grace nowhere in sight.

Yeah, this was Danny’s fault. But he’d had help jumping this train right off the tracks, and an iron-cold lump of vengeful bitterness lodged in his chest.

He was startled from his contemplation of revenge by a hand reaching across the wreckage of two wedding cakes sitting abandoned on the table.

Danny blinked down at Ryan Larousse’s outstretched palm.

“You put up a hell of a menu,” Larousse said, no trace of mockery in his tone.

“But you won.” Reluctant respect simmered up in Danny’s chest. It made it slightly easier to go on. “You deserved it. You pushed hard, and we folded under pressure. Congratulations, man.”

A spasm of dissatisfaction twisted Larousse’s features. “Yeah, that wasn’t how I wanted it to go. I know I was kind of a dick before, about Skye Gladwell and your boy Beck, but…” He struggled for a moment, as if unsure if he wanted to go as far as actually apologizing. Danny wasn’t entirely surprised when he went a different direction instead.

Mouth firming, Larousse stuck his chin out and said, “I hope to see you and your team in the final round. I hope you don’t get cut. Good luck.”

Danny reached out and grasped Larousse’s still-hovering hand, shaking it once. “Thanks, man,” he said sincerely.

“Actually, it’s time for the judges to go into seclusion and discuss exactly that.”

Danny stiffened at the sound of Eva’s voice from behind him. He felt his shoulders go steely, his spine straight and rigid as he faced her. She was silent for a long moment, lips slightly parted as if she had more to say.

The moment spun out, longer and longer, like heated sugar pulled taut into taffy, but her shoulders slumped and she turned away, breaking the spell. Danny deliberately didn’t watch her go, the pain of every glimpse of her like a knife to the back of his neck.

Searching the crowd, Danny found the rest of his team huddled around their worktable. Max had his arm around Jules’s slim shoulders. Beck stood a little apart from everyone else, his face so shuttered and closed off, it made Danny realize with a sudden jolt just how far Beck had opened up since he first came to Lunden’s.

Not anymore. Beck looked like a stone giant, his expressionless impassivity made all the more noticeable by the fact that he stood beside Winslow, who couldn’t keep his emotions off his face if his life depended on it.

Out on the floor, Eva’s assistant started rounding the other judges up, herding them toward the kitchen door. He passed Win, who ducked his head too fast to catch the hopeful expression on Drew’s face. But Danny saw it, and he saw, too, the way that the brilliant, beaming light behind Winslow’s eyes, the life force that made Win such a magnetic presence, seemed to have been snuffed out.

And just like that, anger burned through the guilt and shame, incinerating everything in its path until all Danny could think about was bursting into the judges’ panel, throwing accusations around, humiliating Eva the way she’d tried to humiliate Beck, hurting her the way she’d hurt Winslow.

As if feeling his gaze on them, Max looked around, frowning. Something like compassion suffused his older brother’s serene expression, and Danny backed away from it, shaking his head to hold Max off from coming after him.

Danny slipped into the hallway just as the judges disappeared into the room down the hall. He breathed in his first breath in hours that wasn’t full of the hot, salty air of a furiously working kitchen.

He wasn’t ready to deal with Max’s Zen platitudes about everything being Fate or Destiny or Meant To Be, and he wasn’t ready to pull himself together and put on a good face for the rest of the team, either.

All Danny wanted was revenge.

The moment of truth.

Eva had never really understood that phrase until this moment.

Claire’s words of wisdom from earlier kept running through Eva’s head on an endless loop, forcing her to look at herself and challenging her to be honest about what she saw.

The picture was a little grim.

Not on the outside—she looked pretty good today, she thought. Her lavender silk dress fluttered around her, the perfect shape to soften the accidental new angles of her body.

Stress … the ultimate diet!

A casual khaki cotton blazer completed the outfit and professionalled it up a bit, but her shoes were pure indulgence.

Eva’d needed the pick-me-up of white-and-tan spectator pumps with a four-inch heel that morning.

She was vain enough to be glad to look hot, since it might be her last appearance on camera for the RSC.

What she was about to do would change everything. It would mean giving up on her goal of getting her father to respect her—but it wasn’t as if that had been going so great.

And besides, she was a businesswoman at the core. A negotiation where she traded her own self-respect for her father’s? That was a shitty deal.

Her heart was a wad of uncooked dough in her throat as she sat at the judges’ table and Claire opened the debate about whether they should send home the Southern Team, or the East Coast.

It was now or never.

Pulse pounding in her temples, Eva stood up and turned to face them before she could change her mind or chicken out. “Wait, before you begin, I have something I need to say.”

Claire’s eyes went wide, then soft with sympathy at the no-doubt strained look on Eva’s face. “Now?”

The sick, twisty feeling in her stomach intensified, but Eva pushed it down. “Yes, now. If I don’t get this over with, I’m going to wind up with an ulcer or something.”

“Shall we leave you alone with your father?” Claire asked, already standing up and reaching for the door behind her as Theo frowned in consternation.

Eva shot her friend a grateful smile, but it collapsed on itself before she could manage to get the first sentence out.

“No, please. Stay. This concerns all of you.”

With a quick tilt of her head, Claire paused with her hand on the door, already open enough for Eva to worry that her friend might actually leave her twisting in the breeze, no moral support at all.

But then Claire sat back down and folded her hands on the table. “Go ahead,” she said in her quiet, accented voice, and Eva felt warm gratitude suffuse her, driving down the nausea and nerves.

“Well?” Theo quirked a bushy brow in her direction. “What’s this new drama about?”

Swallowing hard, Eva tried another smile. This one didn’t stick, either. “Sorry, Dad,” she said. “You’re not going to like this.”

A movement by the door drew Eva’s attention, just a quick flash of white, but her tired, agitated brain immediately leaped to identify it as the sleeve of a chef’s jacket. Breath snagging in her chest, Eva stared at the narrow space where the door hung ajar.

There. Again, a flash of white and movement, and somehow, Eva knew exactly who it was.

“Danny,” she called hoarsely. “Please come in. What I have to say concerns you, too.”

After a long moment, the door swung open farther. She’d been right. Danny stood there, defiance hardening his handsome face into an almost unrecognizable mask.

“Chef Lunden,” her father murmured, a light of understanding coming into his eyes.

Knowing it was even worse than Theo was imagining, Eva swallowed hard and braced herself. Forcing her head high and her gaze direct, she looked at every person in the room, one by one, ending by locking her gaze on Danny’s steely blue eyes.

Now or never.

Without dropping Danny’s gaze, she reached below the table and opened her briefcase. Hands oddly steady, she pulled out the thick stack of legal documents Cheney had given her.

“These are the contracts I negotiated with the Cooking Channel. They give the producers rights over everything Cheney filmed so far, and everything the cameras pick up between now and the end of the competition.”

Danny’s eyes flashed angrily, then widened as Eva took the top few pages and ripped them cleanly down the middle.

“What the hell are you doing?” Theo demanded, his voice booming out into the silence of the room.

“I’m terminating our agreement with the Cooking Channel.” Eva said it quickly, but strongly. This was the right thing, she reminded herself as a visible shock wave ran through her listeners.

She managed to tear another couple of pages in half, for emphasis, before her father all but lunged over the judges’ table to make a grab for the remaining contract pages.

Eva danced out of his reach, shredding paper as she went, and Theo stopped short. As if realizing that chasing his daughter around the table wasn’t the most dignified response to the situation, he took a deep breath and ran both hands over his head, smoothing down his salt-and-pepper hair.

“Can I ask why you would choose to throw away everything we’ve worked toward since your mother first had the idea for this competition?”

Eva closed her eyes for a moment, the question hitting her like a fist. “Dad.” She hated the pleading tone of her voice, but she couldn’t help it. She needed to make him understand. “This isn’t what Mom would’ve wanted for the RSC.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Theo blustered. “But it’s what I wanted—and what you promised you could deliver. I’m afraid I’m going to need an explanation for your behavior.”

By the door, Danny shifted his weight, drawing her gaze. He could’ve been carved out of iron, for all the hard blankness of his expression, but despite how it tore at her, Eva found herself glad he was there.

Danny, more than anyone, deserved to hear her admit the truth.

“I made some … errors in judgment,” Eva said, lifting her chin. “I did things I’m not proud of, all in the name of getting bigger ratings for the competition on television. I compromised myself, my ethics, and this competition.”

“Chérie.”
Claire’s soft, unhappy voice nearly did Eva in, but she straightened her spine and soldiered on.

“Everything Danny accused me of … it was true. I never meant for it to go so far, and I certainly never intended to influence the outcome of the competition—but I believe that’s exactly what happened. My behavior, Dad, has been the exact opposite of everything Mom wanted the RSC to stand for. It was supposed to be about celebrating what chefs can do in the kitchen—not exposing what they do in their private lives. I let her down and I corrupted her legacy, and I’m so, so sorry.”

Grief and shame burned behind Eva’s eyes, but she held her head high and faced down the shocked gazes of the people she loved most. This was the hardest part.

“So now I’m going to let you all be my judges. If you decide that I should resign from the RSC completely, that’s exactly what I’ll do—as soon as I tell Cheney and his crew to pack their camera bags and head back to LA. But before I go, I have one last request.”

Making herself meet Danny’s gaze head on was one of the toughest things she’d ever done, but Eva managed it. “Please don’t penalize the East Coast Team for my mistakes. And I’m not just saying that because I … I fell in love with one of them.”

Danny blinked, jaw loosening as if his mouth wanted to drop open in surprise, but he didn’t say a word. In the hearbeats of silence that followed her declaration, Eva felt her heart rip in two, as fragile as the paper she held.

It was over. She’d lost him.

But she wasn’t finished yet. Finally allowing herself to look away from Danny should’ve been a relief, but considering she had to face her father … not so much.

“You had your doubts about me taking over running the competition, Dad, but you let me try, anyway. And I really appreciate that, more than you can know. I’ve loved the challenge of it. And I’m sorry I disappointed you. I’m sorry I failed you. But I failed myself even more.” Her voice broke, finally, and Eva felt a red tide of humiliation scorch up her neck and into her cheeks.

This was it. He’d never turn over the reins of Jansen Hospitality to her now. She’d lost everything.

“Oh, Eva.” Her father frowned, the lines in his weathered face looking more deeply etched than ever. “Sometimes you have to fail in order to succeed.”

That headache was back, throbbing in her temples and driving spikes of pain into her skull. “What does that even mean?”

“It means…” Theo sighed. “You’re right. Your mother would’ve hated the idea of televising the RSC, and she would’ve been beyond angry at the way I’ve been riding you to get it done. I’ve been so focused on getting to the next level, I lost sight of what was really important.”

Eva nodded, relief trickling down her spine like cool water. “The competition.”

Theo grimaced, as if he were in pain. “No, Eva. Not the competition.”

Bewildered, Eva clenched her fists, crinkling the papers she still clutched in her sweaty palms. “I don’t understand.”

“I should’ve said this to you a long time ago.” Theo walked slowly around the table until he was directly in front of Eva. “But until recently, I’ve been a little too involved in my own issues to notice what was going on. And now, with this whole mess … Eva, I want you to know. I … admire you for what you did today. It took guts, something you’re going to need if you want to succeed in the restaurant business.”

Eva tried to smile, her shattered heart spilling over with so much emotion, she couldn’t even tell what she was feeling. “Thanks, Daddy.”

Putting his hands on her shoulders, Theo stared into her eyes as if he wanted to imprint what he was saying directly on her brain. “Eva. We still need to sit down and talk about what happens when I retire, but no matter what, you’ll still be my daughter. I’ll still love you.”

It had to be the headache making her eyes water like this. Or maybe it was shock. Eva didn’t know what to say. “So … I guess you’re not too mad about me sending home the camera guys, and quitting the competition?”

“I already said you were right about the Cooking Channel. Quit fishing.” He still looked the teeniest bit grumpy about it, and the familiar sight made Eva’s smile feel less tremulous.

“And you’re not quitting the competition,” Claire declared staunchly. “No discussion required. I’m the head judge, and I won’t have it.”

“You mean I can stay?” She could hardly believe it. Eva glanced to her father automatically, part of her certain she’d be punished for going against him this way.

But Theo smoothed down her hair, cupping her cheek in his palm the way he’d done ever since she was little. He smiled back at her, but there were tears trembling in his lashes, too, and Eva nearly lost it. “So … does this mean you’re not mad at me for being the world’s lousiest father?”

“Oh, Dad,” Eva sobbed, launching herself into the kind of hug she hadn’t felt like she deserved in a long time.

“The fact that you admitted you were wrong,” Theo said, mouth pressed against the crown of her head. “That’s one of the first things any good executive has to learn. And one of the hardest for people like you and me.”

“How did you learn that lesson?” Eva asked his shoulder.

“Well.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “I had your mother to remind me of my extreme fallibility. She never let me get away with thinking I was perfect.”

Pain tightened a fist around Eva’s throat. “I miss her,” she confessed, shaking with the strange novelty of talking to her father about the woman whose loss had shaped both their lives.

“I do, too. Every day. But Eva, she’d be so proud of the woman you’ve become,” Theo murmured into her hair. “And so am I.”

Eva clutched tightly to his strong, solid back and let the warm strength of the embrace bolster her courage for the task ahead.

When she reached the tipping point of feeling as if she’d totally lose her shit and start bawling if she stayed put any longer, she pulled away.

“Wow, talk about drama,” she said, suddenly intensely aware of their audience. Claire looked misty-eyed, while Kane did his best to look anywhere other than directly at Eva and Theo.

Danny … Danny was gone.

Maybe she hadn’t lost everything. But she’d certainly lost Danny Lunden.

Forever.

Heart clenching tight, Eva straightened her dad’s shirt collar and wiped at the makeup smudge she’d left on his suit jacket shoulder. “I’m going to go talk to the camera guys now, and let you three decide which team to send home.”

“Right,” Theo said, sitting back down and clearing his throat. “We shouldn’t leave the losing team twisting in the wind, waiting to find out who’s been eliminated.”

“And then, I’ve got a plane to catch for San Francisco, so I can start setting up for the next round,” Eva said, injecting as much brightness into her voice as she could. It sounded pretty fakey-fake to her, but maybe no one else would notice. “There’s a ton to do!”

Dark eyes velvety with sympathy, Claire stood and intercepted Eva for a hug as she reached for the doorknob.

“You did well, Eva. I’m proud to know you.”

Eva was aware that her smile probably looked more like a grimace. “Better late than never, I guess. And thank you—for being my moral compass when I got turned around. I’ll see you in San Francisco.”

Waving good-bye to Kane, whose silent presence she’d almost forgotten in the rush of confessions and absolutions, Eva escaped into the hallway and paused a moment to catch her breath.

It was done. She could look herself in the mirror again, and not hate what she saw. And the situation with her father had turned out better than she’d ever dared to hope for, but somehow, even with a clean, unburdened soul and the assurance of her father’s love and respect, Eva felt drained. Devastated.

She couldn’t kid herself. The way Danny had looked at her earlier, as if she were someone he’d never seen before—and didn’t want to meet—told her everything she needed to know about her chances of getting him to understand.

Besides, what was there to understand? Eva knew that in Danny’s mind, she’d committed the one truly unpardonable sin.