Quinn sighed. Tonight would be fun. Tomorrow, when they did their walk-through, she’d deal with Le Belle Bleu.
Taking a shortcut through the back of the hotel, she stepped into the kitchen. She’d seen grown men reduced to tears in François’s pressure cooker of a production, but there was Matteo, working in a group of a half dozen sous chefs, looking like he’d spent his life there.
She watched, fascinated, as he pulled the pan half off the burner and tossed in four or five herbs. Was there anything the man couldn’t do? And how had she ever pegged him a flirty playboy? He was a brilliant businessman. He also made chef’s whites look outrageously good.
She stepped closer to see what the last sauce was. He gave her an even look. “Quinn.”
“Just wondering what you’re making,” she said brightly. She pointed at the green sauce. “What’s that?”
“An Indian mint sauce.”
“Looks exotic.”
“And I can’t mess it up.” He gave her a dark look. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”
“Just checking to see how you’re doing.”
He threw a couple of drops of hot sauce into the third sauce. “You’re distracting me.”
“How could I be distracting you? I’ve been here two seconds.”
He gave her a deliberate once-over. “Do you really want to know?”
Heat burned a path up to her cheeks. “Not so much.”
His eyes glittered. “François,” he called out, pointing a finger at her. “She needs to go.”
The chef quirked a finger at Quinn. “You know the rules. Out.”
She gave Matteo an outraged look. “That was low, calling in the teacher.”
He added the mushrooms to the hot sauce and shook the pan over the flame. “I want to win. Out.”
Quinn turned around with a huff and left. He wanted to win because he wanted to make Daniel Williams look even more lackluster than he had this morning going through the menus. It had been painful to watch. He was rapidly shifting the tide and he knew it.
She got dressed and greeted the guests and judges with Thomas. The judges spanned everything from a native pop singer who’d made it big on the international music scene, to the prime minister and governor general of the island, to one of St. Lucia’s most celebrated artists.
The evening went smoothly. Dinner was a gastronomic study in perfection, but it was François’s main course—the lamb with Matteo’s green mint sauce that stole the night. Quinn didn’t even need to see a scorecard to know who had won it was so patently obvious from the looks on the judge’s faces.
As the results were being tabulated, the chefs changed and came out to mingle with the crowd. She watched Matteo turn on the charm, drawing the VIPs to him like moths to a flame, including the St. Lucian pop singer, Catrina James, who was beautiful and vibrant in a fire-engine-red dress that showed off her creamy, perfect skin. Quinn had never seen such a chameleon as Matteo. He molded himself into exactly what he needed to be at any given moment. Brilliantly.
He had changed into gray pants and a white shirt, his olive skin darker, swarthier from the hot rays of the Caribbean sun. It made his startling gray eyes stand out even more. Added to the intensity surrounding him, sitting just below the surface. Made him look even more dangerously attractive. If that was possible.
He caught her gaze. She pulled hers resolutely away and sat down at the bar, ordering herself a soda water. She’d been running all night, making sure things went smoothly. Sitting for a couple of minutes and reviewing the itinerary the manager of Le Belle Bleu had sent over for their walk-through tomorrow would be a beautiful thing the way her feet ached.
Matteo slid onto the stool beside her just as the bartender delivered her soda water. The sexy scent of him drifted into her nostrils. Made it hard to concentrate.
“Would you like a drink?”
“Si. That kitchen was smoking hot.”
Not the only smoking hot thing around here, her recalcitrant brain proclaimed. She ordered him the island beer he’d favored at dinner, and turned to him.
“You were brilliant in the kitchen. Is there anything you can’t do?”
He gave her a thoughtful look. “I am hopeless under the hood of a car. Desperately bad at sudoku. And my grammar is sometimes suspect.”
“Shameful.”
“I wasn’t blowing you off, Quinn. It was an act of self-preservation.”
From what? Her stomach did a funny little jump. “How,” she asked deliberately, “are you today?”
He pulled the beer the bartender set down toward him. “I’ll be better tomorrow.”