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  “Mistakes like dating my father.” Eva pressed her lips together, instantly wishing she could call back the words.

  But Claire didn’t get upset. “I can never regret my time with Theo, because it gave me you. Even if, yes, in many ways your father reminds me of my first lover—a man who seeks only the thrill of passion, not the comfort and steadiness of love.”

  It would’ve been easy for Claire to make that a criticism of Eva’s recent—and future—behavior. But all Eva saw in her friend’s face was sympathy, concern, and the warm affection that had sustained Eva for most of her life.

  “I’m sorry that first love affair sucked,” Eva said, not even trying to hide the hoarse rasp of emotion in her voice. “And I’m really, really sorry it didn’t work out between you and my dad.”

  Overcome with the need to give Claire something in return for the secret she’d shared earlier, Eva said, “You know, I was mad at him for a long time for screwing things up with you. I’m not sure I’ve forgiven him yet, actually.”

  She flipped blindly through the magazine in her lap, page after glossy page of restaurant industry news, food trends, and insider gossip.

  “You should forgive your father.” Claire laid one hand on Eva’s, stilling her manic page turning. “I forgave him long ago for not being what I needed. However, I admit I still get angry, sometimes, when he is not the man you need him to be.”

  When she was sure she could keep her voice even and steady, Eva said, “It was hard for us after Mom died. You know that. Hard for me—but for him, too. Everything at home reminded him of her, including me. I understood.”

  Claire’s voice was as soft as her face had been. “How sweet you are beneath the spoiled-princess-of-the-restaurant-world facade. You know my only wish is for you to be happy.”

  Eva forced herself to meet Claire’s too-perceptive stare. Calling on years of training, Eva arranged her mouth into her brightest smile and said, “Happy and sweet, that’s me. Or it will be, once I get a little sugar from that hot pastry chef.”

  Claire’s lips tightened, and for a breathless moment Eva was afraid she wasn’t going to let her get away with it. But then, mercifully, all Claire said was, “I give up. There is no reasoning with you. Simply promise me you’ll be careful, and do nothing you’ll regret.”

  The heaviness of those last words made Eva pause and eye her friend with concern. “Don’t worry,” she said slowly, studying Claire’s shuttered expression. “I won’t do anything to mess up the competition. The RSC is my top priority. No matter how hot Daniel Lunden is, he’s just a bit of fun on the side. Like whipped cream! Fluffy and light and sinfully tempting.”

  “A little whipped cream can be fun and harmless. Too much will make you unhappy—and it’s not always so simple to know when you’ve had enough.”

  Eva wasn’t blind. She’d seen the way their young celebrity judge, rock star and famous foodie Kane Slater, looked at Claire. Fifteen-year age difference or not, Eva had known she needed to monitor the situation, and she thought she had.

  Choosing her words, she said, “You’re starting to sound fairly dire. Is there something I need to know?”

  The shrug Claire gave rang alarm bells in Eva’s head—jerky and stiff, it lacked Claire’s habitual Gallic grace.

  “Nothing you need to be concerned about. Only a slight difficulty between Kane Slater and me.”

  “Difficulty,” Eva repeated, trying not to push too hard.

  Claire ran a hand through her hair, disordering the loose auburn waves. “It is my own fault. I blame no one but myself. Oh, don’t look at me like that, it’s nothing apocalyptic. Only … let us say I indulged in too much whipped cream, and it didn’t agree with me.”

  There was definitely a story there, but it would have to wait for another time. Eva could tell by the tightness around Claire’s mouth that she’d said all she was going to—for now.

  “Speaking of your father,” Claire said, in an unusually clumsy subject change. “He’s been calling me without cease.”

  “Oh really?” Interest prickled along Eva’s nerves.

  “Yes. He is worrying about you and the competition. You know that he wants to fly to Chicago to check on us?”

  The tightness in her throat had nothing to do with the fact that her father didn’t trust her abilities. Really.

  “I hope you told him we didn’t need any hand-holding.”

  Claire crossed her legs. “Yes, I told him. I don’t know that he listened, but I told him. He seemed concerned that the television filming might fall through.”

  “It won’t.” Eva had to fight for a calm, even tone. “I promised him I could make it happen, get the RSC on the Cooking Channel, and I will.”

  “Well. That’s good, then.”

  Rolling her eyes at her friend’s bland reply, Eva said, “It will be good. I know you’re not into it, but I think Dad’s right. This is the way to take the competition to the next level, and it’s my chance to finally make the RSC look more like my mother’s vision of it.”

  Claire snorted. How did she make even that noise of disdain sound elegant? “This version of the next level involves ridiculous grandstanding, fistfights, backbiting, and all those other lovely reality show staples.”

  Eva’s stomach clenched in automatic denial. “No way,” she protested. “We’re going to keep it classy. The show is going to be all about the food, all about the craft and technique of some of the most talented chefs working today. And the more popular the show is, the more of those chefs we can help.”

  Claire sat silently for a long moment as the engines throbbed to life, filling Eva’s head with white noise.

  “I hope you’re right,” Claire finally said, her gaze searching Eva’s face.

  Eva, who also very much hoped she was right, turned on her most brilliant, confident smile—the one that banished the doubts from every potential restaurant investor and made the local health inspectors blush.

  “Come on, you know I’m going to pull it off. It’s the RSC! My family’s thing. I’m not going to let it go to pieces, or turn to shit, the very first year Dad lets me get involved with it.”

  Suddenly Patrick the flight attendant appeared at Eva’s elbow like a wonderful magical sprite, holding a tray of long-stemmed champagne flutes.

  Eva accepted her mimosa with a conspiratorial wink, and passed one to Claire.

  “Drink up, ma chérie,” Eva said, purposefully using her ugliest American accent to make Claire grimace, then laugh. “We need the fortification before the RSC starts in earnest.”

  Clinking the cheap glasses together put a little sparkle back in Claire’s brown eyes. “Yes. Here’s to overcoming challenges.”

  “And to throwing down some challenges of our own.”

  Tipping her head back to let a sip of the tart-sweet cocktail slide down her throat, Eva enjoyed the blend of dry sparkling wine and sweet orange juice. This early in the morning, the sugary alcoholic goodness gave her a bigger lift than the air under the plane’s wings.

  Somewhere back in coach, Daniel Lunden was sipping a plain old ginger ale, surrounded by giddy passengers swilling down their mimosas. She pictured him glaring at them, those brows drawn down tight over his brooding blue-gray eyes as he silently condemned them for letting her buy their forgiveness with brunch drinks.

  Eva drained her glass and licked the sharp taste of anticipation from her lips.

  “Let the games begin.”

  Chapter 3

  Chicago didn’t look at all like he’d expected.

  Blinking up through the cab window at the short, squat high-rise office buildings—high-rise? Medium-rise, at best—Danny contemplated the stainless-steel gray of the October clouds and wondered why he felt so unsettled.

  Apparently he looked as weirded out as he felt, because his brother clapped him on the back hard enough to send him sprawling against the car door, if Danny hadn’t already been bracing himself against the freaky vertigo of seeing so much sky stretching o
ver the tops of the buildings.

  “Buck up, Danny,” was Max’s helpful advice. “Chicago’s a great town. You’re gonna love it.”

  Danny shrugged, leather-jacketed shoulders squeaking against the cracked vinyl of the taxi’s backseat. Even the cab looked all wrong, drab gray instead of bright orangey yellow. “We’re not here to love Chicago. We’re here to cook. It doesn’t matter what city we’re in—once we’re in the kitchen, we could be anywhere, and the only sight I want to see is my marble pastry board set up all nice and cold and in one damn piece.”

  One of Max’s brows quirked up in that annoying way he’d had ever since they were kids, whenever Danny was being a moron. Which, according to Max, was often.

  “Come on, Dan. I never pegged you for one of those New Yorkers who refuses to leave the city.”

  Danny tensed. “Not everyone feels the need to spend half their life wandering the globe playing with their auras and trying to find themselves. Or whatever new-agey crap gets you out of bed in the morning.”

  Eyes wide, Max backed off, hands held up in front of him as if Danny had pointed a gun at his chest.

  “Boys, play nice,” Jules interjected from Max’s other side. She didn’t raise her voice or anything, but then she didn’t need to. Her genuine distress at seeing her best friend and her boyfriend squabbling like … well, like brothers, was enough to simmer Danny down.

  Except this thing with Max was more than plain old vanilla sibling bickering, and Danny knew it. They’d hashed out their differences enough to be able to work together, but sometimes the issues simmered over and blew the lid off their careful, stilted relationship.

  A pang of guilt shot through him, but before he could apologize, the weird, non-yellow taxi swerved to the curb—at least the cabdrivers seemed to have gone to the same driving school as the ones in New York—in front of the hotel that would be their home base for the first leg of the Rising Star Chef competition.

  Paying the cabbie and dealing with the fact that some of their luggage seemed to be missing from the trunk allowed Danny and Max to skim over the awkward silence that had started cropping up between them anytime they got into an argument lately.

  The cab carrying Beck, Winslow, and the missing gear pulled up, and in the ensuing confusion of bags and luggage carts, Danny managed to shake off his worries and get juiced about the start of the competition.

  The irrepressible Winslow Jones was a big help with that.

  “Man, can you believe this joint?” The youngest chef on the team stared up at the vaulted ceiling of the lobby, jaw hanging open in exaggerated awe. “Now this is what I’m talking about. Lunden’s needs more shiny. Marble floors and what not.”

  Danny reached over to rub Winslow’s smooth shaved head. “Sure. You can be in charge of polishing,” he deadpanned, cracking Win up, and smiled his way over to the reception desk.

  The Gold Coast Arms, a four-star hotel in the swankiest part of downtown Chicago, was the home of one of the city’s best restaurants, Limestone—which also happened to be one of the Jansen Hospitality Group’s biggest stars. Rumor had it that Eva Jansen had strong-armed—or sweet-talked, depending on whom you heard it from—the ritzy hotel into sponsoring the preliminary round of the RSC, which was usually held in a bare-bones convention center somewhere.

  Glancing around at the opulent decor—even the walls were shiny, patterned with some expensive-looking gold-leaf stuff—Danny shook his head. He would’ve preferred a basic, utilitarian setup to all this luxury. It was unnecessary and distracting, when distraction was the last thing he and his guys could afford.

  A scuffle drew Danny’s attention to the far side of the lobby where an enormous glass-and-steel doorway arched almost to the ceiling. In the course of his explorations, Winslow had managed to bump the chrome easel beside the door, knocking the sign it held onto the floor.

  Win got it back on the easel, realized it was upside down, and turned it right-side up, apologizing profusely the whole time and just generally making a spectacle of himself.

  Danny’s amusement faded into concentration when he read the sign, though, which proclaimed in bold letters that the acclaimed hotel restaurant Limestone was temporarily closed in preparation for the Rising Star Chef competition.

  That sign, and the knowledge of what it cost a restaurant like that to simply shut down business for days, brought it home to Danny for the first time.

  This was really happening.

  It was another half hour before they were installed in their rooms. Jules and Max were holed up in what everyone was already calling the Honeymoon Suite, even though it was just a regular room.

  Danny, Beck, and Win were bunking together.

  The Gold Coast’s sponsorship did extend to comping the contestants’ rooms—but hotel management had definite ideas about how many people fit in one of their two queen-bed deluxe superior rooms.

  “Thank the sweet Lord we’ve got a chick on our team,” Winslow said fervently, slinging his oversize packing case onto one of the beds. “Until they saw Jules, I think they were fixing to cram all five of us in here, two to a bed and one in the bathtub.”

  “Hey, at least we’ve got a great view of the Water Tower.” Danny held the gold-striped curtain back to point at the very top of Chicago’s most famous historic landmark, just barely visible from their window.

  Win sucked his teeth and squinted in Danny’s general direction, but Beck, who’d efficiently unpacked his one small bag into the three narrow drawers in one of the bedside tables, stood up and said, “It’s fine. Lots more space than some places I’ve slept.”

  So evidently Beck’s claustrophobia didn’t extend to slightly cramped luxury hotel rooms.

  “The Water Tower’s kind of cool, I guess,” Win grudgingly admitted, stepping over to the window.

  “It’s one of the few structures that survived the big fire in 1871, the only one that’s still standing. Supposedly because it’s made of limestone.”

  Win brightened. “Hey, like the restaurant!”

  “I think there might be a connection,” Beck said. His expression never changed, but somehow Danny knew he was teasing.

  Fondness for his teammates suffused Danny with warmth. “Come on, guys. No point hanging around the room all day. Let’s go down and check out the competition space, see what this Limestone kitchen looks like.”

  “Good idea.” Winslow sat down to put on the pristinely white sneakers he’d removed the instant they got into the room, and nearly slipped right off the slick damask seat cushion. “Maybe they’ll have the ingredients for mimosas lying around. I could really go for one of those.”

  Groaning, Danny threw his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Seriously? Enough with the mimosas!”

  “I just don’t see what would’ve been so heinous about having one,” Win sulked. “Everyone else on the plane got one.”

  “Everyone else let Eva Jansen buy them off for the price of a mixed drink. I don’t want to speak for you, but personally, my time is worth a little more to me than five bucks.”

  “And me drinking my complimentary spicy tomato juice was the perfect fuck you. I guess we showed her!” Win’s snarky tone usually got a smile out of Danny, but not this time.

  He knew it was ridiculous to stand on principle in a situation like this. So Eva Jansen was a spoiled brat who threw money at her problems to make them go away. So what? That was her business. The smart move would’ve been to shake her hand, sit down and enjoy his tasty champagne cocktail on her dime, and let it go.

  But something about her got under his skin, in the most inconvenient way possible.

  He’d been off his game to begin with, Danny comforted himself, because he was worried about Beck. Danny cast a glance at his normally stoic friend. Looking at him now, all stern face and bulging muscles, no one would guess Beck had spent the first hour of the flight putting ten finger-shaped dents in the plastic armrests between their seats.

  But Danny couldn’t quite forget
how messed up the guy had looked while they waited and waited for the plane to take off, and he added Watch out for Beck to his mental list of responsibilities as they trooped out of the room and down the plush carpeted hall to the bank of elevators.

  “So what was Eva-the-Diva wearing?” Win asked, pressing the button with the down arrow.

  Danny blinked. “Huh? I don’t know, something blue. A dress.”

  Winslow sighed. “God. You’re such a straight boy. I need details, man! Eva Jansen is the style icon of the restaurant world. People are going to want to know what she had on. They’re going to ask me, and what will I tell them?”

  “Maybe it was purple,” Danny offered, feeling helpless. “Come on. I’m not Joan Rivers, I didn’t ask who the designer was. I had other things on my mind.”

  “But you knew it was designer.” Winslow pounced, looking triumphant. “That’s something. And I’ll just bet you had other things on your mind. If I swung that way, I’d be all over Miss Eva Diva. She is something way beyond fine.”

  Danny couldn’t help it. He sputtered. “I’m not all over her! I mean, I wasn’t. Damn it, Win!”

  Even Beck snickered a little when Winslow started snapping his fingers and singing. “It’s just … ah! A little crush … ah!”

  “I do not have a crush.” Even Danny was surprised by the amount of growl in his voice. Still, it was enough to shut Winslow up for a second, which wasn’t easy, so Danny couldn’t feel too bad about it.

  “Look, she’s hot,” Danny admitted, moderating his tone. “I’ll give her that for free. But spoiled little rich girls using Daddy’s money and rep to play with the lives of hardworking chefs? Not really my type.”

  “Ouch,” Win said, wincing. “Snap judgment much? I thought she seemed pretty cool when she emceed the regional finals.”

  “Come on, Beck, back me up.” Danny turned to their large, silent teammate.

  The guy blinked in that slow, assessing way he had, ripped arms crossed over his broad chest. Not for the first time, Danny wondered when the hell Beck found a spare four hours a day to lift weights, because surely there was no other way to get cut like that. He didn’t look a walking ad for steroids or anything, but still.