The Schemer (Harbor City 3)

“Oh no.” She’d let him carry the bag the final block and up the three flights of stairs, but he wasn’t gonna end her that way. “You’re not cooking for me. I have a lot to live for.”

His booming laugh warmed her as they stopped in front of their building and she punched in the entry code. For the first time since she walked out of the Lakeland Community Center with Nunni’s warning to her—well, to her mom, really—to watch out for the wrong kind of man, some of the tension leaked out of her shoulders. Tyler completely fit Nunni’s description of the wrong kind of man. He was a schemer, a plotter, a man intent on turning himself into the perfect Harbor City Richie Rich. Of course none of that mattered in their situation because it wasn’t like her mother’s. No one was falling in love and no one was going to get hurt. It was just some fun, nothing more.

“Does it make a difference if we won’t be alone?” he asked as they headed up the stairs.

“You’re moving on to cooking-related murderer with a partner?”

He flipped her off with a laugh. “No, I hired a cooking instructor.”

She slammed to a stop on the second-floor landing. “No way.”

“Yes way,” he said. “And I need a taster.”

Everly had no clue what Tyler was up to, but he was definitely up to something. The man never did anything without a plan. “What made you decide on this?”

“This horrible upstairs neighbor of mine keeps complaining,” he said as he carried her groceries down the hall on a direct path for his apartment.

Yeah, that sounded about right. She had complained—a lot—to the building’s owner, who had just happened to turn out to be her can’t-cook-a-thing downstairs nemesis. Funny how life turned out sometimes. Her gaze dropped to his ass as he turned to unlock his door. Good Lord. One of these days she was going to snag that lucky quarter of his and just bounce it off his buns. Now that was a coin flip she would enjoy whether she won or lost.

Determined to play along with their little game rather than give in to the urge to jump him in the hallway, neighbors be damned, Everly said, “What a bitch your neighbor must be.”

He unlocked his door, turned, and looked at her. “She has her positives.”

“Oh yeah, like what?” Fishing for compliments? Her? Okay, totally.

Tyler stepped closer. The paper bag crinkled, and there was enough heat in his gaze that the grocery bag being crushed between them should have caught fire. “This thing she does with her tongue.”

That thing? Oh yeah, it had made his eyes roll back in his head, so of course she’d done it again. And again. And again. Key West had been fun, that was for sure.

Everly dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “She only does that in Florida, from what I hear.”

He tsk-tsked. “Saddest news I’ve heard all day.”

The sound of someone singing off-key about having friends in low places filtered out from his apartment, snagging her attention. “Did you really hire a cooking coach?”

He took a step back and pushed open the door, and the most delicious scents in the world came wafting out of his apartment. “Come on in and find out.”

The tomatoey, garlicky aroma was the smell equivalent of when someone cancels plans when all she wanted to do was stay home anyway. In other words, it smelled like heaven. The man in the What’s Cookin’? T-shirt and khaki shorts despite the blustery weather outside was instantly recognizable to anyone with a stomach in Harbor City and probably outside of it, too. Heath Hostile was a bad-boy chef who started out as a short-order cook at a diner and ended up running one of the most successful trio of restaurants on the East Coast, one of which—Wheat & Rye—was in Harbor City. He had his own TV show where he went and rescued failing restaurants.

A little starstruck, she turned to Tyler, who was still holding her groceries. “Why is the guy from Hostile Takeover in your kitchen?”

Tyler shrugged and put the grocery bag on the island. “I’m a silent partner in his restaurants.”

“And I’m the only one who can stomach your cooking.” Heath gave her a wave before returning to the simmering pot on the stove.

Okay, this was a secret she needed to learn. “How in the world do you manage to do that?”

“Iron stomach.” Heath patted his flat stomach. “And you must be the mystery woman Frankie was talking about.”

She turned to Tyler and raised one eyebrow. “Mystery woman?”

“Ignore him,” he said, shooting a glare Heath’s way. “He’s an idiot about everything but food.”

“Speaking of which, tell me there’s pasta in that bag,” Heath said. “It’s almost time to put the pasta on now that your sauce has been simmering for four

hours.”

Tyler dug around in her grocery bag and pulled out the spaghetti, holding it up like a trophy.