Bargaining with the Boss (Honeybrook Love, Inc. 2)

"Believe me, I can tell." He chuckled.

She took a swipe at him from across the island, but he dodged her and set the skillet on to heat.

"Don't worry," he said, "that's a good thing. I never liked fancy French food. Or any kind of fancy food, for that matter."

She nodded. "I'm with you there. My second husband took me to Paris for our honeymoon and forced me to try escargot. It was like garlicky, buttery, rubber." She shook her head and made a noise of disgust while he did his best not to think about what else that bastard had forced her to do during the course of their marriage.

"Escargot is nothing. It's the cheese that gets me."

"Right? Why does it had to smell like that? I don't want to hold my nose while I'm eating dinner. Though, sometimes I would have to anyway if I was eating with my ex's work friends. Well, not friends. Business associates."

"Oh really?" He buttered two pieces of bread, then set them in the skillet, listening as she went on.

"They were so obsessed with wearing the best cologne money could buy that they didn't even care what it smelled like--they just wanted it to be the most expensive one. By the time we got to dessert, my head was always spinning. One time, I almost passed out right in my creme brulee.”

"It's like that with the women at charity events, too." Brooks added.

"Oh god, the charity events! Don't get me started," she trilled another laugh and it took all if energy not to skirt around the island and move closer to her.

"The charity stuff was always the worst. It'd be a ton of greasy old men and ditzy girls and nobody every knew what the cause was."

"You know, once I went to a 'save the elephant' gala and an old woman spent most of the night showing off her antique ivory bracelet set."

"It doesn't surprise me." Natalie laughed. "Oh, in the beginning, I used to fight tooth and nail to stay home from those things. I must have pretended to be sick at least twenty times a year just so I wouldn't have to listen to Biddy Hartwell talk about her grandchildren anymore. I mean, I get it. They're smart."

"Not so smart. The oldest got arrested for drug possession last week." He opened the tuna, then set to work finishing his masterpiece.

"You knew Biddy?"

"Of course. She was always trying to set me up with her daughter. Who, by the way, is twenty years my senior. But Biddy was never the worst of them. The worst was--"

"Molly Buchannan?" Natalie chimed and he turned to find her grinning at him.

"How did you know that?"

"Because there was never a more annoying woman placed on this earth than Molly Buchannan. And she'd never let you back out of anything. And she always wanted help. Or to set you up."

"Or to be your girlfriend." Brooks added.

"Strangely, I never had that problem." Natalie laughed again, and for a while he listened to the crackling of the pan and her soft breathing behind him.

This was nice, he decided. Being in a home. Relaxing with a friend.

"I'm surprised you have anything bad to say about the society set. By the look of you in the papers, you can't get enough of it," she said.

Was that what it looked like? That he loved the time he spend coddling heiresses or schmoozing with men who could talk about nothing than the antique airplane they were restoring?

"Clearly, you don't know me all that well."

"Don't I?"

He turned to face her, then placed his elbows on the island and tried to think of the best way to explain himself. "I go to those functions for the business. To keep our face in the public mind. But that's not why I end up in the papers. I show up in the papers because those damned parties are so dull that the second I spot a chance to distract myself, I snatch it up. And I take those distractions very seriously."

"I can tell." Natalie bit on her bottom lip, but she couldn't disguise the smile spreading over her face. Than she continued, "you're burning the tuna."

Dammit.

Another thing they had in common.