Page 15 of Recipe for Romance (Applewood #2)

Nicole studied him for a moment and he tried not to squirm under the scrutiny.

Aiden had been stared down by some of the meanest, most intimidating chefs in the business and he’d faced demanding customers and harsh critics, but never once had he felt as worried about what someone thought of him as he did in that moment.

He had admitted to being an asshole, to not caring, but for whatever reason, Aiden wanted her to see past that, even though he wasn’t completely sure there was anything for her to see.

Finally, she smiled slyly as she tore another piece off her sandwich.

“I think you want me to think that you’re the type of person who doesn’t care about someone else’s feelings, and I’m certain there are situations where you truly couldn’t care less, but I don’t think that happens as often as you want me to believe it does. ”

Aiden blinked at the confusing words that had just tumbled from her mouth and shook his head. “I have no idea what you just said, but I can assure you that your sandwich was perfectly adequate.”

Nicole snorted next to him. “Perfectly adequate. It’s like you’ve read every report card I’ve ever gotten.”

Aiden frowned. She’d said it so casually, but when he looked at her, he could see that the light in her eyes had dimmed.

He wanted to ask her why the words had bothered her, but he held his tongue.

Getting to know Nicole better would only deepen his feelings for her, and that couldn’t happen. He wouldn’t allow it.

Dusting her hands off on her leggings, leaving light streaks of peanut butter in their wake, Nicole shook herself and turned to face him. “So, how do we take my cooking skills from perfectly adequate to out-of-this-world amazing?”

Aiden tried to not let the sight of her now dirtied leggings bother him, and he also bit back a remark about her skills in the kitchen actually being less than adequate, but if he was going to help her, he would have to be completely honest. “First of all, I said the sandwich was adequate. Your cooking this morning was less so.” He waited for Nicole to look affronted, for the inevitable push back he got from a lot of potential chefs, but it never came.

Instead, she simply took in what he had to say and nodded.

“What else?” she asked. Her expression was eager, the sight pleasing him more than it probably should have done. What else could he teach her? What could she teach him? Bedroom fantasies started to play in his mind, but he shut them down quickly.

Aiden turned away for a moment, needing a break from his own wandering thoughts as well as the intensity in her eyes.

“The way you work also needs to change,” he told her.

Flicking his gaze back to her, he tried not to smile when she produced her little notebook from earlier, her pen scratching against the page.

“You’re disorganized, sloppy. You moved from one task to another in such a frenzied manner that I genuinely worried you would injure yourself.

I waited for a pattern to emerge, to see if there was some sort of method to your madness, but if there was one, I certainly couldn’t decipher it. ”

Nicole gnawed on her lower lip, reddening the delicate skin there.

The sight of her worrying had Aiden wanting to haul her into his lap and take the words back, to make it better so that she would smile and relax again.

The urge was so protective and nurturing that it unnerved him a little.

The woman next to him had shaken something loose in him that Aiden worried he might not ever be able to put back.

Before he could spiral further about that, Nicole sighed and leaned back on the couch.

“I have ADHD,” she admitted quietly. Her voice was small, but not from embarrassment.

It was more from resignation, an emotion he hadn’t expected to hear in her tone and not one he enjoyed the presence of.

Nicole offered him a wry smile. “It makes things like being organized and staying on task a little tricky. The extra energy I tend to have helps with the whole long hours and being on your feet all day part of it, but the rest isn’t quite as easy to manage. ”

Aiden nodded. He didn’t know much about ADHD.

His brother, Travis, had sensory processing issues that made his life a bit more challenging than it might be for others, but other than that, Aiden hadn’t spent much time with anyone who had a mental health condition or could be described as neurodivergent.

Not to his knowledge anyway. “How do you manage everything? If you don’t mind my asking. ”

The smile on Nicole’s face looked slightly more genuine as she turned to face him more fully, her leg bumping his knee.

The heat from her warm body penetrated the thick denim of his jeans and spread throughout the rest of him.

Aiden knew he should move away, create space, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“I take medication, limit my caffeine intake and anything else that doesn’t mix well with my meds,” she said with a shrug.

Pulling her phone out, she swiped at the screen to show him a calendar with multiple different colored tasks on it.

“I try to put everything on a calendar, even meals sometimes so that I don’t forget to eat.

I also have to keep a low limit on my credit cards because impulse shopping can be a real problem.

Other than that, I’ve tried a couple of other things like yoga and meditation, but for the most part, I’ve just sort of dealt with it. ”

Aiden processed everything she’d just told him, his mind already spinning with possible ways in which he could help her.

There was one thing that bothered him and had from the beginning though.

“Why do you want to be a chef? I mean, I’m sure with the right management, the ADHD could actually be a huge asset to you in the kitchen, but wouldn’t another career be easier? ”

Nicole rolled her eyes at him, a move that reminded him of other young chefs he’d worked with.

Of course, he’d never wanted to kiss any of them like he did her.

“You sound like my dad,” she said sadly.

The reminder of who her dad was acted like a bucket of cold water on his libido.

Eddie had asked him to teach his daughter, not ogle and fantasize about her.

Aiden slid away from her slightly, but he still found himself leaning his body toward her as he listened intently to her words.

She looked up at the ceiling for a moment before meeting his gaze again. “He doesn’t think I can be a chef.”

Aiden frowned. “He said that?” It wouldn’t shock him to learn that Eddie was a bit harsh with his own child, but still. Even Aiden would try to be supportive of his children no matter what the circumstances, and he was a bigger asshole than his mentor by a long shot.

Nicole laughed humorlessly. “He didn’t have to.

He promised he would teach me to cook and then always had an excuse as to why he couldn’t.

First, it was that I was too young. Then I had to finish high school and take a year to explore the world.

After that, it was about me needing a degree to fall back on.

” She shook her head, her expression a heartbreaking mix of sadness and anger.

“Do you know how hard school was for me? I’m twenty-five and just barely graduated.

There were so many hours of tutoring on top of my classes, and I thought that when I was done I would finally get what he’d promised me, but no.

” She looked up at him, her eyes going wide with panic.

“I get that I sound like a spoiled brat. Please don’t get me wrong, I am so, so happy that you agreed to this whole thing.

I know I’m probably the last person you need hanging around while you open your restaurant and that my dad basically extorted you into it, but I really do appreciate it. ”

Aiden hesitated before placing his hand over hers where it rested on her knee.

Her skin was soft and supple, and while he knew he would likely regret allowing himself the simple touch later, at the moment he couldn’t pull himself away if he tried.

“I know you do,” he told her. “And yes, this wasn’t something I expected when I went down to talk to your dad, but it hasn’t been completely awful either.

” Reluctantly, Aiden withdrew his hand, missing the feel of her skin against his instantly.

Nicole smiled at him. “Pretty high praise coming from you.” Her eyes danced with mirth as she stared into his eyes. “I’ll take it.”

Aiden felt his mouth tick up in the corner again.

The muscles near his lips had gotten more use in the last day than in the last five years.

Whether he needed to assign blame or heap credit he wasn’t sure, but either way he knew it was because of Nicole.

Narrowing his gaze, he tapped his knee as he went back over their conversation. “You never answered my question.”

“Hmm?” Nicole asked, her eyes a little hazy. Maybe she wasn’t as unaffected by his presence as he thought. That still shouldn’t matter to him, but it did.

Trying not to puff out his chest with pride, Aiden swallowed his desire to preen and got back to the matter at hand. “Why a chef? Why not something else?”

“Oh.” A sigh whooshed from her lungs, but a fire blazed behind the brown of her eyes. “Have you ever wanted to prove something to someone? Needed to do it so badly that it becomes almost an obsession?”

“In a way,” he admitted. He hadn’t been obsessed with proving himself to anyone outside of his family, but he couldn’t deny that he had fixated on it more and more over the years.

Hell, even now his opening his own restaurant was as much about proving people wrong as it was about him cooking the food he wanted to.

“I definitely have something to prove now, but it will take more than just drive to get your skills where they need to be. It will be a lot of hard work doing a lot of things that might not come easily to you. I can give you all the guidance and advice in the world, but if you don’t have the follow through, we’ll both just be wasting our time.

” Aiden had studied her face as he spoke, not seeing the fire in her eyes dim even the slightest. If anything, it burned brighter than before. “Can you commit to that?”

Nicole nodded fervently. “I can commit to that. Do your worst, Aiden Kemp. I’ll be ready for it.” With that, she hopped off the couch and wandered into the kitchen.

Her words rang in his ears. Aiden couldn’t help but wonder if she would still feel that way after she had experienced just exactly what his worst was.

If Nicole did give up, it would likely be for the best. She wouldn’t be a distraction and he would get to focus on the restaurant, but as he watched her washing her dish in the sink, Aiden knew that what was for the best wasn’t really what he wanted anymore.