Page 9 of A Billionaire for Christmas

WARNING: HOT MESS INCOMING

‘Is that what you do? Buy up small businesses?’ Molly asked, trying to keep her voice calm.

An actual billionaire was interested in buying her company.

How could that even be possible? Yes, she’d been slaving away in the resort’s main hotel kitchen for weeks.

Yes, she’d had orders up to the eyeballs, day and night, with hotel guests ringing up to request party platters and bottles of fizz as though she was doing Deliveroo. But surely that wasn’t enough.

Levi shrugged. ‘Sometimes. Although I hear the company responsible for these tasty bites is a local restaurant, which is unusual.’

Tasty bites?

‘Better still, my sources tell me that the restaurant owner is currently working in the main hotel kitchen herself, which is even more dubious. Makes me wonder if the business is in trouble if she’s taking on more work to keep financially afloat.

She’ll be getting a basic wage while they charge a fortune for something that she’s making.

She clearly has no idea how to run a business.

Now that’s a good time to buy someone out.

Anyway.’ He leaned over once more and threw a couple more canapés down his throat. ‘Tell me more about you.’

Stunned silence.

He had basically called her an idiot.

Molly was flabbergasted at the rudeness.

He obviously had no idea it was her, but still. Molly did not care for his rather disturbingly accurate depiction of the financial ruin her culinary business was currently teetering on the brink of. The business that wouldn’t even belong to her if she didn’t get that bucket list done.

She took a deep calming breath. She would play along. She took off his jacket, folding it carefully. ‘What’s unusual about a restaurant owner taking on outside contracts? Lots of restaurants do it. Perhaps her coworker signed an agreement without her knowing about it?’

Levi shrugged. ‘Doubt it.’

‘Or maybe she just felt like getting out from behind her desk and getting her hands dirty for a change? Connecting with real people. Finding out what they want. Discreetly checking out the competition perhaps.’

‘Highly unlikely. Would you work all day in a restaurant and then all night in a hotel kitchen? There will be more to it than that, I guarantee. I’ve been in business a long time.’

He was depressingly close to the bone.

‘Or maybe she’s just supremely talented and wanted to show off what she can do?’ Molly tried to sound matter of fact. ‘I mean, look at the craftsmanship. These are among the best appetisers you’ll find anywhere.’

‘I’ll look into their finances. They’ll be struggling. Poor business decisions probably, or bad management, because you’re right, there’s certainly nothing wrong with the product.’

She watched him toss another highly innovative, cutting-edge masterpiece of scientific food technology down his throat as though it was a dry-roasted peanut.

She would have to rise above it. ‘As mentioned, I’m an expert in the food industry.

’ She shifted her weight. It was time to change the subject. ‘What industry did you say you’re in?’

‘This and that.’

‘Sounds awfully vague,’ she said, handing the jacket back to him.

He took it from her, causing her to quiver as his fingers grazed hers. ‘It is awfully vague.’ A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth as he casually flung the haute couture jacket over onto the opposite sofa before turning his gaze back to her.

Molly wondered whether he could feel the energy crackling between them, but Levi was giving nothing away.

He pointed to the floor-to-ceiling window, the snow still thwacking against the glass in waves.

‘I might as well pick your food industry brains while we wait for the storm to die down.’ He seemed slightly on edge, clutching for something to say.

Perhaps he was politely switching to business mode to ensure they didn’t try to rip each other’s clothes off with their teeth.

‘Okay. Talk me through these. They look well thrown together.’

Thrown together? Molly nearly choked. Ava had once compared Molly’s ability to take an age over every precise detail to that of a bomb disposal expert.

Molly took a glug of the fizzy liquid. The hit was instant.

Before tonight, she hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since the day Ava died.

Christmas Day. Of all the days. Molly felt her chest tighten as, for the billionth time, the guilt at being ‘alive’ seeped through to her bones.

‘Are you okay?’ Levi asked, concern in his voice.

Molly shook the heaviness from her mind. It was never going to go away. She just had to find a way to live with it. Or she could fill her life with distractions. Like the one right in front of her, currently making her stomach flutter.

‘Is it the champagne?’

Molly blinked herself back to the present. ‘Yes.’

‘Yes?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

She needed to get her act together. She took another sip and pretended to swill it in her mouth.

‘I fear it may be a touch on the dry side. The tasting notes are too…’ She sucked in her cheeks.

‘…too flowery.’ Molly sat back. She knew nothing of champagne, per se, but she sounded like an expert.

Confident. Knowledgeable. Superior. Firmly on solid ground conversation-wise.

‘It’s vitally important to cleanse the palate and stimulate the tastebuds in order to fully appreciate such exquisite canapés. ’

Levi inspected his flute and drained it. ‘But at 3,000 euros a bottle, you’d expect it to go with almost anything, wouldn’t you?’

Molly nearly spat out her champagne, but at almost 200 euros a mouthful it was too expensive to waste.

Levi glanced at the mini artworks. ‘These canapés must be something else.’

Yes, her canapés were good, but perhaps not that good.

She really must get this newly developed penchant for low-level lying under control.

She flicked her hair from her face, nervously tucking it behind her ear before Levi raised an eyebrow with interest. She dropped her free hand into her lap as they locked eyes.

‘I’m hoping to take my business in a more gastronomic direction,’ he said.

‘Solo travel and culinary hotspots with Michelin stars are the latest emerging trends. I’d value an expert gourmet’s opinion.

’ His gaze tore right through her as though she were an open book, the pages flicking back and forth in an icy wind.

‘How long have you been running your company? Do you have a Michelin star yourself?’

‘Long enough. And not yet.’ She carefully picked up a canapé from the tray, willing and praying to all the gods that she would not drop it on the expensive carpet.

‘Try this.’ She pretended to inspect it.

‘It looks like a hand-crafted panino nero bun, with lobster meat, assembled on puréed gherkin and wild keta caviar.’ She hoped her voice was not shaking as much as her hand.

‘It’s molecular gastronomy at its finest, I’d say.

’ As she held it out to him, she realised that he was not making any effort to take it from her.

‘High praise indeed.’ His eyes were twinkling, reflecting the lights from the candles dotted around, but his face remained impassive.

‘Are you going to take it? Or do you want me to feed you like a baby?’

Her words hung worryingly in the air, causing Molly to, once again, wonder if she was experiencing early onset dementia of some sort or whether a demonic influence really was at play. She hadn’t sounded like herself since she stepped foot in the Cigar Lounge.

Arching his brow in surprise, Levi straightened up, taking the morsel from her. ‘I doubt these snacks are even aphrodisiacs. Probably just a marketing gimmick.’

Molly knocked back her drink, holding it out for a top up.

There was nothing that she did not know about food, the making of food, the putting together of flavours, the effects of food on the mind and body and, in particular, how to combine food groups to encourage the flow of endorphins.

In other words, she was a master when it came to creating culinary aphrodisiacs.

‘It’s a question of stimulating the love senses.’

‘Go on.’ Levi shuffled a little closer to her, his eyes wide with interest.

Whenever she was in the company of a food enthusiast, she became a completely different person.

The shyness seemed to fade without her even trying.

‘So, even though the ingredients on their own wouldn’t increase a person’s sexual appetite, putting them together in such a way that all of your senses, your sight, taste, touch and smell, are stimulated at the same time does often produce the desired effect. ’

‘So this is an actual aphrodisiac?’ Levi turned it this way and that.

‘Only if you roll it gently on your tongue. Release the flavours against the roof of your mouth. Really take your time to experience it fully. As though it was a sexual act.’ Molly cringed at how unnecessarily erotic she was making the simple art of eating sound.

‘Okay. I’ll roll it on my tongue.’ He devoured the delicious bite-sized treat more carefully this time, his face changing as the flavours burst onto his tongue. His eyes lit up. ‘You’re right. That’s amazing. There have to be at least twenty different aromas in there.’

Molly beamed with relief. Perhaps she was in with a chance to get this rodeo back on track. ‘Obviously, some of it has to do with the placebo effect. If people think they’re eating an aphrodisiac, the psychology of their sexual desire is so multifaceted that they’ll naturally experience an impact.’

Molly felt she was overusing the words sexual and desire to an unnecessary degree and wished that she’d stop. However, it appeared contagious.

Levi regarded her with glee. ‘When should I be experiencing an increase in sexual desire? How many of these things would it take?’