Southern Charmer (Charleston Heat 1)

Eli blinks. Then his face cracks open with the biggest, brightest smile I’ve seen on him yet.

My heart, suddenly light, flutters around my chest like a drunk butterfly.

“You write romance?” he says. “That is the coolest fuckin’ thing ever! I don’t know if you saw the bookshelf at my house—”

“I did,” I say, grinning.

“But I love to read. I’ve met a lot of magazine writers in my day, but I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting a novelist. Least of all one who writes about love. You officially win the prize for Most Badass Profession Ever.”

I laugh, bringing my cocktail to my lips to hide the rush of warmth to my cheeks and chest. His excitement is infectious. So intensely flattering I’m not really sure what to do with myself or the insane amount of pleasure I feel just being with this guy. He’s authentic in every sense of the word. Which makes me want to be authentic, too. Authentic to my secret, romance-writing side I’ve hidden for so long.

“Thanks,” I reply. “I’d say that prize actually belongs to you. Writing romance is a hell of a lot less glamorous than it seems.”

Not that I have much experience with it. Not yet.

Eli shrugs. “Same goes for being a chef. But you’re doing something different, which takes balls. A lot of people—they don’t get different.”

My turn to blink. My throat thickens, suddenly and unexpectedly.

I look down at my drink. “They don’t.”

“When I opened this place, everyone thought I was off my rocker to keep my menu—and my food—so simple. They kept waiting for me to fall on my face. But I’m still here. Bruised. Worse for the wear. But still here,” he says, raising his eyes to the room around us.

“Yeah, well. Doesn’t hurt that you’re extraordinarily talented,” I say.

Eli shakes his head. “No more talented than any other asshole with a culinary school degree. I’ve just always been a hard worker. I keep goin’ when everyone else quits. I’ve wanted to quit, too. Every time something went wrong, I was so tempted to hang up my hat and call it a day.”

“But you didn’t.” I’m leaning into the bar now, the countertop cutting into my stomach. “Why?”

“Because I love it,” he says simply, eyes softening with emotion. “Cooking itself can be hard and hot and stressful as all get out. But when I see a packed house enjoying these beautiful dishes we put together, comin’ back again and again to eat the food I love to make—it’s satisfying. Deeply, deeply satisfying, in a way I can’t really describe. It fills me up. It’s freedom.”

I want to be filled up like that.

It’s been so damn long since I felt free like that. Which is ironic, because I thought I’d finally be free once I had it all. But now that I do, my life feels more like a prison than a wide open sky. Makes me think that as much as I should want to be the highly accomplished other half of Ted’s power couple, maybe I’m not that woman.

Maybe I’m this woman. The one who writes romance and does yoga and flirts freely with handsome, interesting, talented chefs.

What if I’ve been wanting the wrong things? Things that don’t make me all that happy?

“So what period do you write in?” he asks.

I take a long pull of my drink. “Regency. Early nineteenth century. I’m a total sucker for ballrooms and breeches. I just adore the romance of that period. All the rigid rules they had back then make for some pretty delicious plots. Forbidden romance is probably my favorite—enemies-to-lovers is a close second. I love a heroine who really grapples with convention and turns the rampant sexism of that world on its head. And the heroes—nothing turns me on quite like a Duke or a rake or a bareknuckle boxer who’s a gentleman in the streets but a total freak in the sheets.”

I hope I’m not going too far. I just can’t help myself. I’ve never been able to talk to anyone about this stuff. Now that I am talking about it, and with a handsome, smiling southerner at that, I can’t seem to shut up.

But judging from the way Eli’s eyes are dancing, I haven’t gone far enough.

“Shit,” he says. “Now I wish I’d gone into bareknuckle boxing.”

I laugh, the sheer giddiness of having someone to trade jokes about historical romance with flooding every inch of my being.

“Not too late,” I reply. “So, yeah. I basically write in the same vein as Jane Austen, just with way more explicit sex scenes.”

“So basically you go behind closed doors with Mr. Darcy and Lizzie Bennet.”

Oh, God, as if this guy isn’t hot enough.

Now he’s got to go and name drop characters from Pride and Prejudice.

Just my favorite book ever. No big deal.

“You know your Austen,” I say, looking away lest I spontaneously combust into a ball of screaming hot magma. “I’m honestly surprised—didn’t see many women on your shelves. Writers or characters.”