Arlie’s scalp prickled as a fizz of adrenaline further sped up her erratic heart. Taegan not only knew Arlie would be at Supply Side West, she knew she’d come early to visit the vineyards.
As she stood in the well-appointed foyer of a room she had no real right to occupy, a very unattractive idea unfolded in Arlie’s mind.
Perhaps she wasn’t the only employee of Kane Foods Taegan Lynch had been grooming to her service.
Glancing down at her phone again, Arlie saw that she only had four minutes to make her way to the chef’s kitchen the concierge had pointed out during the tour last night.
Tucking the zip bag containing her tools of the trade under her arm, she deposited the brass room key and her cell phone into her pocket before sprinting off to meet Mason in the kitchen.
She got as far as the main hall when, rounding the corner, she collided with Parker Kane.
He made an exasperated sound, stepping back and dusting his ghost-gray suit jacket like he’d just been accosted by a soot-soiled street urchin. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” he thundered.
“I’m sorry,” she said, attempting to conjure a brightness and enthusiasm that seeing him had sucked out of her. “I’m afraid I was just in a bit of a hurry.”
Arlie forced herself to look him in the eye, remembering how she’d once been afraid Parker Kane’s gaze would turn her to stone.
Perhaps she hadn’t been entirely wrong.
His cold blue eyes bore into her, freezing her to the spot.
“I knew you had been invited to participate in the events, but I wasn’t aware you would be staying at the family quarters.” His features reflected the revulsion of a man addressing a cockroach.
Aware that an uncomfortable amount of time had passed, Arlie opened her mouth, horrified at the pathetic jumble of words tumbling past her lips like a bag of dropped apples.
“I... Mason said since we’d be doing the photo shoot here—”
“Photo shoot?” One silvery eyebrow rose. “I didn’t authorize a photo shoot.”
A fine sweat bloomed on her forehead, a single cold bead of moisture crawling down her ribs. She wasn’t just a deer in the headlights. She swallowed the stone in her throat, attempting to square her shoulders.
“Samuel said—”
“Of course.” Parker Kane’s jaw hardened, his lips forming a flat, disapproving line. “Samuel seems determined to undermine my authority on all matters. He failed to ask for authorization for the photo shoot just as he failed to ask for authorization in hiring you. Had I been offered my rightful opportunity, I would have declined on both counts.”
Arlie’s heart fell from her chest and landed in her guts with a sickening splat. At the same time, a small blue flame of rage flickered at the base of her skull, fanned by years of simmering resentment. “Why is that?”
The Kane patriarch waited as a white-jacketed staff member pushed a tray of sliver-domed dishes past. “Your reputation precedes you, Miss Banks.”
For one terrifying moment, Arlie considered the possibility that, with his considerable knowledge and influence, Parker Kane had somehow learned of the circumstances of her departure from Gastronomie.
“I’m not sure what you mean.” A rusty fishhook cast into the ocean of her doubt.
“I’m sure you don’t.” He inclined his head, the ambient lighting overhead glinting off the frames of his designer glasses. “It suffices to say, like mother, like daughter.”
Arlie didn’t know what bothered her more. That he had the nerve to say this to her directly, or that he was as right about her as he had been wrong about her mother.
Yet even in the wake of her outrage, a warm tide of relief eased her shoulders away from her ears.
He didn’t know the half of it.
“As pleasant as this conversation has been,” Arlie said, glancing at her phone, “I’m late for the unauthorized photo shoot. If you’ll excuse me.” She pushed past him, doing her best to mimic the give-no-shits hauteur she’d frequently seen her best friend employ.
Legs shaking, she walked across the main hall with its cathedral ceiling and plush Persian carpets, ducking down the hallway bedecked with Dutch Masters with their gilded milkmaids and luridly sexy still lifes of delicate tulips and glossy tumbling fruit.
Had she known exactly what would be waiting for her in the kitchen, she might have paused for a moment to practice some deep breathing.
Paul Martine, the photographer whose images she had worshipped since she was old enough to reach the lifestyle rack in her local bookstore, stood squinting behind a camera anchored on a tripod.
He uttered a directive in rapid French to the black-clad assistant hovering by his elbow. She hurried off just as Paul peeked over the camera, noting Arlie’s arrival.
“You are the food stylist?”