Escaping Valentine's Day by Christi Barth

Author:Christi Barth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781958686249
Publisher: Tule Publishing Group, LLC
Published: 2022-10-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Another day, another chef demo at Il Cibo E Il Mondo. Huck didn’t hate it. He got to cook whatever he wanted for breakfast and dinner. During the day, he got to meet talented chefs and talk shop until it was time for their publicity push for a new product or cookbook. The widows were a good time and pretty easygoing. Guess surviving what they had put everything else in perspective.

It should go down as a great trip.

His gaze slid across the clustered women until it screeched to a halt at that now-familiar pixie cap of dark hair.

Except for how Rory was complicating the whole trip worse than the million-step recipe for a classic beef Wellington. Making every day hard. Because ignorance was bliss. He’d worked so hard to forget how wonderful and beautiful she was.

After five solid years, he’d managed to forget maybe two percent of everything he loved about Rory Hibbert. And Huck had counted that as a major win for his survival.

After five short days? It’d all flooded back. Plus more. Everything he’d loved about her back then. Every new thing he was discovering to love about her now.

Not that it mattered. He knew he wasn’t getting a second shot with her. Not with a freaking prince in the picture. What chance did a journeyman chef with more attitude than savings have against a titled businessman with an accent?

The only saving grace was that the prince wasn’t at the store right now. He wouldn’t be tortured by watching Nic use his moves on Rory. Again.

He could pretend to have her to himself.

Again.

“Signor Huck, it is your turn.”

Crap. His wandering mind jolted back into his body. In the nick of time, too, as he held a cheese wire taut across a piece of pale-ivory Parrano. It was cheese day at Il Cibo. Chef Borroni—doing today’s demo—had thrown down the gauntlet. Bet Huck he could slice a piece of cheese thinner.

Huck was a full chef. He didn’t spend his nights slicing meats and cheeses for antipasto appetizer platters. But the guy was good-natured, and the widows were rooting for him.

Too bad his knives were back at the villa. He could slice a leaf in two with his favorite knife.

Huck winked at Rory. “Drum roll, please.”

She beat it out on a stack of fish cookbooks as he sliced the wire down. It was a thin cut. But when Borroni held it in front of the newspaper, you couldn’t read the print.

They could through Borroni’s slice.

There was a collective groan. Two fair-minded women clapped for Borroni. Huck shook his hand. “Guess you’ve got the experience for that book you’re hawking. Well done.”

The man’s eyes twinkled as he twirled the oiled end of his mustache. “Five euros, if you recall.”

“Yeah, yeah. Rory, will you grab a fiver out of my wallet? In my jacket?” Huck popped the salty cheese in his mouth so the moment wouldn’t be a total loss.

“Signoras!” Borroni clapped his hands. “I will not try to sell you my knives.

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