When I’m with You (Because You Are Mine #2)(23)
Author: Beth Kery

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Her slight frown told him she’d understood his subtext. Allow Elise to run wild in the Noble penthouse without supervision?

Not likely.

The following day, Elise glanced up when Sharon walked into the kitchen.

“Lucien would like to see you in his office, Elise.”

The knife she held in her hand stilled at the news. It took her a moment to recover, something she hoped Evan and Sharon didn’t notice. It’d been a seemingly innocuous announcement, after all.

“You can take over here, Evan. You have it down perfectly,” she said with a reassuring smile as she set down the knife. She’d been instructing and assisting Evan in the dressing of a capon. “I’m sure I won’t be long,” she added over her shoulder after she’d washed up.

She coached herself to ignore the butterflies she felt as she walked down the long hallway to Lucien’s office. He couldn’t be requesting the meeting because she’d done anything wrong. Her work ethic had been unquestionable. In fact, she was usually the first one there in the morning, eager to begin cooking. Part of that motivation might have been the depressing dreariness of her hotel room—not to mention a desire to pass Baden Johnson’s room before he awoke from his nightly intoxication—but the point was, she’d been here, ready to work. She’d become an expert at avoiding her leering, malodorous neighbor at the Cedar Hotel.

Her stomach fluttered with anticipation as she knocked on the carved wood door, graphic memories of her former meeting with Lucien in his office flooding her consciousness and mounting her anxiety.

“You wanted to see me?” she asked a moment later when Lucien opened the door. Today he was dressed in black jeans, a simple black crew-neck shirt, and an ivory blazer that highlighted his broad shoulders and the smooth, beautiful color of his skin. He was such a sinfully gorgeous man, some rare, magical blend of unknown origins, the mystery of his existence somehow perfectly fitting the magnetic enigma surrounding him. She recalled how once during her fourteenth summer, she’d bluntly asked him about his ethnic heritage. They’d been fishing off the dock, a pastime they’d both gravitated toward that summer, a simple, wholesome activity that stood in such contrast to the complex machinations of their parents’ business and social lives. It was obvious to anyone that Lucien couldn’t be the natural child of his blond, painfully thin mother, and Lucien towered over his paunchy, balding father. Lucien hadn’t taken offense, probably because he’d sensed her childlike sincerity and simple curiosity.

“I never knew or saw my biological parents. My mother and father adopted me when I was still a baby,” he’d replied, nodding at her fishing line. She’d obediently lifted it, and sure enough, a fish had stolen her bait. He took it from her without comment.

“I’m adopted, too,” Elise had told him. She’d thought it a thousand times before. It must be true. How else to explain how she felt as if she were interacting with a different species when she related to her parents? Lucien’s smile had struck her as a little sad.

“You are the spitting image of your mama.”

“I am?”

“Yes, but you will surpass even her beauty one day,” he’d said as he rebaited her line. He’d glanced aside and noticed her expression. “You look like her. What is on the inside is whatever you make of it.”

She’d stared at the sunlight dancing in the azure Mediterranean Sea, not wanting him to know how much his words meant to her. “Don’t you ever wonder about your true mother, though? Don’t you ever miss her?”

She recalled how he hadn’t answered immediately.

“I wonder about her once in a while,” he’d said, handing back her pole. “But it’s hard to miss what you’ve never had.”

What you’ve never had. Neither Lucien nor she had known much about what it meant to have a nurturing, available mother.

Lucien waved her into his office, snapping her back to the present. “Come in. Elise, I’d like you to meet Denise Riordan, Fusion’s new chef.”

Elise’s startled gaze flew to the other occupant of the room. A tall, auburn-haired woman with a stern expression that was softened by kind brown eyes stood to greet her.

“I hadn’t realized Lucien had gotten so far along in the hiring process. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Riordan,” Elise managed, despite her surprise.

“I understand from Lucien that you’re a talented chef. I would be glad to take you on as my stage, if my qualifications are suited to your school . . . and to you, of course,” she said.

“I’m sure that anyone Lucien would hire has the best qualifications,” she said, glancing sideways at the distraction of Lucien’s tall form when he approached.

“I’ve already taken the liberty of sending off Ms. Riordan’s applicant information along with an explanation of the alteration in plans to your school in Paris. We should be hearing back quickly,” Lucien said.

“Thank you,” Elise replied, dumbfounded by the fact that he’d taken pains to smooth the path with her school.

“If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I need to speak with Sharon. I’ll just leave you two to get better acquainted,” he said politely.

Denise Riordan and she sat in the chairs before Lucien’s desk and got to know each other. By the time Lucien returned twenty minutes later, she felt certain she could work well with the older, knowledgeable woman. Two chefs in a kitchen was never an easy scenario, but Elise was eager to learn, and she had no problem with taking on the subservient role. It’d been what she’d expected when she came to Chicago, and she was convinced Denise Riordan had significant things to teach her.

“Please stay for a moment. I need a word,” Lucien said to Elise after he’d returned and Ms. Riordan was saying good-bye.

Neither of them spoke for a moment after the new chef closed the door behind her. A prickly, electrical atmosphere descended.

“I received the medical exam results you left me,” he said. “Did you receive mine?”

“Yes,” she replied airily, as if she discussed such things all the time despite the heat of embarrassment in her cheeks.

“Do you like her? Denise?” Lucien asked quietly from where he stood near the door.

“Very much. I don’t suppose there’s a reason you chose a female chef, is there?”