"You're very good at that," he says.
"Yes," I say simply, because I am and false modesty wastes everyone's time.
I push the onions toward him and go back to the stove, and he tries again with better results.
I hate this island already.
In fact working on this island and avoiding the three of them is going to be a lot harder than I envisaged, because they know where to find me.
14
SANTOS
Jennifer fixed my grip without asking. Two fingers adjusting mine, four seconds of contact, then gone, like touching a hot surface and pulling back before the burn registers. She stepped away and went back to the stove and started talking about blade angles, and I stood there holding the knife and trying to remember what century I was in.
The plan was simple. Walk down the hill. Be easy. Be normal. Give her room, the way Tomas said, the way Matteo's silence confirmed, the way I agreed to at midnight in the study and meant genuinely and then abandoned completely the moment the strawberry hit me at the base of the hill this morning and every reasonable thought I possessed scattered like birds off a wire.
She's at the stove now, her back to me, moving like someone who knows exactly where everything in this kitchen. The apron ties at her waist. Her hair is up in the loose complicated way it was in the suite, the way that looks accidental and is not.
I grip the knife tighter and start again trying not to get distracted. But it’s hard when her scent is intoxicating me. It’s changed. How do omegas change their scent? Only if they’rehappy, sad or emotional and when they’re in heat. Fuck, that’s the last thing I should be thinking about right now?
Heat.
Knotting.
I’ve made millions, but right now I have no concentration and I’m getting distracted. It’s as if the real Santos left the kitchen the moment I stepped in here and became some teen with a fucking crush.
I get the next piece more or less even, which feels like a victory worth considerably less than I would like it to be, and the kitchen settles into the specific warmth of a room being worked in properly, her moving between the stove and the counter, me at the board, and the saffron in my blood doing exactly what it has been doing for three months in every city I walked through, which is behave in ways I have not authorized.
The door opens.
Carmen. Clipboard, bergamot-and-clove sharpness arriving a half second before she does, the look she gives the room taking in Jennifer at the stove and me at the board and the onion situation in approximately one second.
"Good morning," she says, in the tone she reserves for situations she intends to understand fully without appearing to investigate them.
"Morning," Jennifer says, not turning around, spoon moving in steady circles.
Carmen's gaze settles on me with the pleasant patience of a woman who has managed this island for seven years and has seen everything and is simply adding this to the collection. "Sir. I wasn't aware you'd met our new chef."
I feel Jennifer go still at the stove, the movement stopping for exactly one beat before it resumes, and her scent does the thing that has been bothering me since I arrived, banks down tight and controlled and tells me absolutely nothing.
She turns around. She looks at me. Her face is professional and entirely pleasant and her eyes are doing the specific thing they do when she is being extremely careful about something.
"We haven't," she says. "Met."
I extend my hand across the island. "Santos Ferretti."
She wipes her hands on the cloth at her waist, crosses the kitchen, and takes it. Her grip is firm and her hand is warm and she looks directly at me with those green eyes and says, "Jennifer Sullivan.”
"One of our island's owners," Carmen adds pleasantly, looking between us with the expression of a woman tying a bow on a grenade. "And Jennifer is your new chef, sir. Excellent start."
"I'm sure," I say.
Jennifer has already turned back to the stove. Her shoulders are level. Her scent is still sitting too quiet in the warm air, controlled in a way that is not natural, the way you hold your breath when you do not want anyone to know you are holding it.
I set the knife down. "I'll leave you to it."
Carmen nods. Jennifer doesn’t look around, leaving my alpha purr with disappointment.