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I leaned back, wiping the beads of sweat that accumulated at my hairline, breathing out a gust of air I didn’t realize I had been holding. Feeling like I’d just performed a delicate, life-saving surgery, I stared down at the pelmeni I’d been stuffing. The dumpling recipe was new to me, only sprung on me the day before by my tyrant of a boss, and my first few batches hadn’t passed muster.

These looked perfect to my eye, but I wasn’t Russian, and I’d never made dumplings of any kind before in my life, let alone in one of the most famous restaurants in Los Angeles. Tearing my eyes off of the savory concoctions I’d been toiling over, I glanced around me and hid the thrilled smile that always tried to burst out when I realized I was really working at Khoroshiy.

The name literally meant “good” in Russian, but you had to be way better than good to work there at all, let alone be the head chef. As soon as I saw no one paying attention to me, I pinched myself. Yep, awake, and still standing in the vast, gleaming kitchen, surrounded by a busy hive of cooks getting ready for dinner service. They all had so much more experience than me. How did I get to be their boss?

At just twenty-one, I had still been cooking in my hometown in Georgia since I could reach the stove, so I wasn’t exactly brand new. When I worked up the guts to enter the Peachtree Inn’s annual cooking contest last summer and won the 2,500-dollar prize, I was ecstatic, and just as soon as I could wrap everything up back home, I came to LA instead of putting that money toward my culinary school debt.

It had to be here, the place of my dreams. The ultimate melting pot when it came to food. And the good weather was a plus, too, since I’d barely seen three inches of snow my entire existence and didn’t want to completely turn my life upside down.

It only took about a week to realize that just because the weather was as balmy as it was back home, that was where the similarities ended. Los Angeles was cutthroat, and hellishly expensive. I’d been scraping by doing deliveries, babysitting, and the night shift at a grocery store, but I came here to be a chef. When my money was just about to run out, I panicked and started applying for every last restaurant job I could find, even if there was no hope I’d be hired. The last thing I wanted to do was have to tuck tail and go home a loser who was now in even more debt.

That couldn’t happen. Not when my parents already thought cooking was a dead-end job and culinary school was a massive waste of money and time. They’d never even been remotely supportive, and I realized from a young age that I might as well go my own way. The last thing I wanted was to have my perpetually disappointed mom and dad think they were right. They firmly believed my dream of being a celebrity chef was futile and hilarious and never stopped letting me know it.

There shouldn’t have been any hope of getting hired at Khoroshiy, but there I was, looking proudly at my successful pelmeni after a full month of employment. When I looked up from the doughy little wonders, I caught a glimpse of my boss, the owner of the place, striding briskly past the kitchen. Barely saw his chiseled profile and the blonde waves that flowed almost to his shoulders and I still got a shiver up my spine.

And not necessarily in a bad way.

It was a miracle that Nikolai Fokin had given me the time of day, let alone hired me. As far as tyrants went, he had to be one of the better-looking ones around. I got even sweatier in the roasting kitchen as I thought back to the way he looked me over during my interview, and that odd smile he gave me when I whooped with joy that he was giving me a shot.

He’d been an absolute nightmare ever since, assigning me increasingly tricky tasks to fulfill. These wafer-thin dumplings from hell were just the most recent, and I almost wanted to call out to him to come see that I’d gotten over his most recent hurdle.

There was no way I’d do that. Mr. Fokin was terrifying… and scorching hot. Made the kitchen seem like Antarctica with the way I broke out in goosebumps when he was barking orders, but then he’d smile, and I’d melt. It was too lethal of a combination and it was just better that he stayed in the office where he belonged.

But no, I wasn’t going to get a reprieve from his long looks or penetrating eyes, because his booming voice had changed direction, and soon he was taking up most of the doorway as he perused his domain. Nobody else looked up, and I whipped my gaze back to the dumplings, which didn’t seem so perfect anymore. Too thin this time? Would they fall apart the moment I boiled them?

My eyes cut to my boss, taller than me by more than a foot, and looking like Thor in a designer suit. My heart sped up, and I curled my hands into balls to keep them from trembling. Within seconds he was at my side, and I found myself leaning toward him, as if I was a tiny planet veering into the gravitational pull of a blazing sun. His dark blue eyes narrowed as he looked over the dumplings, reaching past me to poke one. It didn’t explode, but I was on the verge of it, as his hand brushed the sleeve of my chef jacket, his fingers leaving their heat on my wrist.

Oh my God, there was no way I had a crush on this tyrant. He was way too big, too intense, too… old, at thirty-six, when I was just barely past the age to be able to buy wine for sauces. And there was the little fact he’d been putting me through the wringer since my first day. He seemed to enjoy making me sweat. Which… might not have been such a bad thing if… No, not a crush, not at all. He was just insanely attractive and exactly my type of man, apparently.

I started to panic when his look turned even more ferocious than usual. This was my third attempt at these damn dumplings, and someone like Mr. Fokin didn’t like failure. I couldn’t afford any more mistakes.

“What’s the filling?” he rumbled, sending more shivers up my spine.

We both glanced at the faded paper with the recipe, the translation from the original Russian scrawled at the bottom. Someone had made this dish a hundred or more times before me, and Mr. Fokin was used to it being that way. But the chef in me, the one I knew was good— just like the translation of Khoroshiy— had added a few things.

He followed me to the boiling broth as I admitted my changes, his brow furrowed. I held my breath as I tipped the dumplings in and quietly breathed a sigh of relief when they didn’t explode. I was seriously going to faint if I couldn’t get my breathing under control, but it was hard enough when Mr. Fokin was near. Having him scowling and waiting for him to judge my work was nearly torture. Pushing his suit sleeves in the heat was torture, revealing the many tattoos that snaked up his rippling arms.

When the dumplings were cooked and strained, he reached for one with his long fingers, and I was entranced when he brought it to his full lips. Swallowing hard, I licked my own, dying to taste one myself, but not daring.

With a slow smile that had me reaching for the countertop to keep my balance, he nodded for me to go ahead and try one.

“Delicious,” he said, his blue stare freezing me in place as I chewed. “Changing my grandmother’s recipe was a risk, but it worked. This time. We’ll put them on the menu tonight.”

His brusque tone belied the compliment, but I was buzzing with happiness and relief. I knew the changes to the spices would work, but having someone who was so knowledgeable about fine food and who was so damn difficult to please agree, made my spirit soar.

The second Mr. Fokin was out of the kitchen, and my brain and body could function properly again, I called over my sous chef, Kerri, to tell her we’d need to get started on more dough right away.

Kerri flitted over like a sprightly sparrow, her eyes bright. She was about ten years older than me, with a husband and a little girl who just started kindergarten. She’d been head sous chef for three years, and should have gotten my position. It was probably part of my miracle that she didn’t want the extra responsibility until she was done having kids, and she’d been nothing but helpful and sweet to me.

“Can I try one?” she asked, knowing how hard I’d toiled.

“Yes, please do. They got as glowing of a review as I think I’ll ever get,” I said, the slightest bitterness ringing in my voice.

“Nik’s only pushing you because he sees you’ve got potential,” she told me.

Or he was a massive dictator who liked seeing me on the verge of collapse. But I didn’t say that, of course.

The kitchen got down to working like a finely tuned clock, and dinner was well underway when someone asked to see me in the dining room. My heart stopped, going back over the last few dishes I’d allowed out. They were all perfect, and I steeled myself to go full Gordon Ramsay if someone dared to say otherwise.

Our host, Jeremy, led me over to the table, where a tall man with black hair cut almost military short sat with a silent woman who was decked out in jewels that might have been better suited to an Academy Awards ceremony. She kept her head down as the man smiled up at me, revealing perfect teeth and a disarming dimple.

He held out his hand, a huge gold watch on his wrist, and grinned at me. He had a bit of scruff on his jaw, his dark eyes flashing as he looked me up and down in a way that made me want to pull my jacket tighter around me.

“I had to meet the chef who made these pelmeni,” he said with the slightest Russian accent. “It was like being transported to my childhood.”

I instantly relaxed. I wasn’t getting chewed out for some imaginary fault, but instead was getting my first ever tableside compliment in the month since I’d been at the restaurant. It was one of my dreams coming true.

“I’m so glad to hear that,” I told him, holding my own hand out for him to shake.

Instead, he held on and tugged me closer, so I was leaning over the table. His smile almost seemed like a leer now, but I didn’t want to snatch my hand away just yet. This sort of Hollywood schmoozing was part of being a big-time chef, and I needed to play along.

“I wasn’t expecting someone so young and beautiful to be making such perfect Russian comfort food.”

I swallowed hard, feeling my face going red. It might have been a nice compliment if he still didn’t have my hand in such a tight grip. I pulled away a tiny bit, but there was no letting up on his end.

“Uh, thank you,” I said, glancing over my shoulder for Jeremy in case I needed his advanced diplomacy skills to get out of this.

“Come and work for me,” the man said, his thumb stroking the back of my hand. He looked past me and grinned in a wild sort of way that had me wriggling my hand out of his tight grasp. He was somehow more intimidating than my boss, who was scary enough. “Whatever your salary is, I’ll raise it by twenty percent.”

WelI, that escalated quickly. I straightened up, reeling at this new twist. Mr. Fokin paid me a lot, which was more than fair, and I had put a pretty good dent in my mountain of bills. The sudden offer had me too flustered to reply right away, and before I could think of something to say, I didn’t have a chance, because a big hand slapped down over my wrist and pulled me away into the kitchen.

Crap, it was Mr. Fokin, and he didn’t look happy. I opened my mouth to explain it was just a compliment, but his scowl had me snapping it shut.

“That guy is bad news,” he snapped. “Whatever he offered, I’ll match it.”

What was happening? “He said he’d raise my salary twenty percent, but I’m sure he was just—”

“Done,” he said, not taking his eyes off me and shockingly still gripping my arm. “I won’t lose you. Especially not to that creep.”

He let go, leaving a warm imprint through my sleeve, and stormed off, with me reeling at this new turn of events. One thing I’d learned in the month I’d been working there was that Nikolai Fokin didn’t joke around much. Which meant I had just gotten a whopper of a raise. There was a lull in service where we waited for everyone to order their desserts, and I filled Kerri in on my first compliment.

We slid out of the kitchen and stood in the shadows of the hall so I could point him out, because even though I didn’t share the news of my raise, it was obvious to everyone in the kitchen that something weird had gone down.

“That’s him,” I said. “He totally tried to poach me.”

Kerri shook her head, frowning. “That’s Arkadi Mikhailov,” she said with a slight shudder. I shrugged, and she rolled her eyes at me. “He’s bad news.”

“That’s exactly what Mr. Fokin said.”

“Well, he’s right. He’s lucky he didn’t get kicked out trying something like that.”

As we hustled back to the kitchen and I oversaw the staff putting the finishing touches on the flourless chocolate cake and fresh berry compotes, she filled me in on Arkadi. Apparently, he was some kind of dangerous, organized crime boss.

“You can see why Mr. Fokin can’t stand him,” she finished. “He’s always trying to muscle his way in.”

Of course, I could. Who wouldn’t hate someone like that? I was filled with trepidation when he wanted to thank me again after dessert. Mr. Fokin didn’t usually stay much past the end of the service, so I figured the best thing to do would be to quickly go out and politely speak to Arkadi for a couple seconds.

This time, he was standing, his date or whoever she was, huddling by the door about ten feet away. Once again, she kept her head down and fiddled with her expensive diamond bracelet as she waited.

Arkadi marched forward, getting way too close to me, and I took a half step back. He filled the small gap and took both of my hands as he grinned down at me.

“Absolutely the best meal I’ve had. I hadn’t been here since the old chef, so I wasn’t expecting much.” He looked me up and down again, his dark eyes roving like he was looking for the best spot to take a bite. “Nik knows how to pick talent. That’s one thing I have to say in his favor.”

“Thank you,” I told him primly, taking another step back. He didn’t let go of my hands; now they were stretched between us.

I tried to pretend I didn’t know the truth about this guy because it was making me uncomfortable to the point I was about to jerk away. The spirit of Gordon Ramsay had completely deserted me.

He tugged me closer, so close I could smell his spicy cologne. Too close.

“Come work for me,” he urged in a smarmy voice. “I won’t let you say no.”

He wouldn’t let me? Yikes. I had to be diplomatic, and I also had to get him to let go of me while not making a scene. How to politely but firmly decline his demand?

I couldn’t exactly say I wouldn’t be caught dead working for a mob boss. But what could I say that wouldn’t unleash his wrath? I needed to defuse this situation, but my skin was crawling and my mind had gone blank with welling fear.