Hungry for More

CHAPTER 7



Two days later, still no Roni, and Les Fleurs was going mad. The rush didn’t let up from five until after ten. It was nuts, but Amy was getting better at running plates and watering suits. Not much better, but enough that James let her hang around. She figured the chaste cooler kiss had something to do with that. The lobster salad, Josie, was flying out of the kitchen like nothing else on the menu. He was probably keeping her around for another kiss for another inspired dish.

Not that they had kissed again.

In fact, they had barely spoken. He was busy all the time, racing between the prep kitchen and the main kitchen, tasting and stirring and shouting and waving his arms.

It was all very sexy, actually. Like watching an artist paint. He was possessed, immersed, passionate. And intimidating. It was clear his staff loved and feared him. Mostly feared. Lovely in a man who looked (and cooked) as good as James.

Unless you wanted to kiss him. Then his passion for the restaurant was a major pain in the butt.

Not that Amy wanted to kiss him.

Okay, so she did. But it didn’t mean anything more than the fact that it had been such a rotten three months since she lost Maddie, the warmth of any human touch would turn her to jelly. Just look how soft she’d been getting around Troy, and all they did was play checkers and talk.

She refilled the breadbaskets, her back to the chaos. There were so many things she still had to ask Troy about Les Fleurs. Like, why was there no sign outside, just three red tulips carved into the doorjamb? Fleurs, she knew, was French for “flowers.” But still—no sign? And what was with the bare-bones menu? “Chicken, $29,” the menu read. “Duck Breast, $37.” “Soup du Jour, $12.” The servers had to describe the sauces and the sides over and over and had to memorize the specials down to their ingredients. They even had to know the name of the duck farm and that it was organic and humane. As if anything in South Jersey could be humane.

Okay, so she really shouldn’t have told the couple at table three that the ducks bedded down on three-hundred-thread-count sheets dyed to match their tail feathers while a violinist played Mozart to them. But the snobs didn’t blink an eye, even when she offered to bring out live bunnies in a basket so they could choose one for their lapin soup.

Although, come to think of it, they did order the veggie cassoulet.

God, she was exhausted. Amy was sure the servers must recite the dishes in their sleep. It was almost as if James couldn’t bear for the diners to have to read, as if that was too much work for someone spending three hundred dollars on dinner for two.

Come to think of it, maybe it was. For those prices, the food should come prechewed.

She put bread on tables six and four, then scurried back for more, pausing to arch her back. Sleeping on Troy’s couch wasn’t helping her performance, but the kid was starting to talk about his mom, and the info was priceless. Nice, sweet, good, gentle, kind— the woman was exactly what Maddie would want in a Gypsy.

And exactly the kind of person who wouldn’t be able to handle screwing up nice people’s lives with the chaos of discovering their One True Love.

She prepared another breadbasket with enough food to take a Gypsy family through a whole day: three whole-wheat walnut rolls, three brioche, and three thick slabs sawed from a simple crusty French loaf—her favorite.

She glanced from side to side, broke off a crust, and stuffed it into her mouth. Everyone scarfed the bread, but Stu had warned her it was a major taboo to do it on the floor, where a customer might see. Too bad. She couldn’t help it; even though the staff all shared a huge predinner meal around four o’clock, she still couldn’t resist the temptation of James’s heavenly bread.


She tossed two herbed butter tubs into the basket and went to table four, bread in one hand, ice-water pitcher in the other.

The men at the table barely glanced at her as she put down the basket. She filled the glasses as she listened halfheartedly to their real-estate talk. Leases, subleases, square feet, to hell with tenants’ rights . . .

“Hey! I know you.” One of the men at the table, dark-haired and blue-suited with a red tie, grabbed her wrist midpour. “How do I know you?”

Amy gulped down her bite of bread, but it stuck in her throat. She cast her eyes around the table as she coughed, trying to remember this man. She didn’t doubt for a moment that she knew him.

She needed the upper hand until she figured out who he was. Plus, she needed to not choke to death. Forget taboos. She grabbed his water glass, washed down the crust, and then smiled sweetly. “Are you the man with that enormous . . .” She paused for full effect as she focused her gaze on his lap. One. Two. Three. She looked him in the eye. “SUV?”

The man didn’t let go of her arm. His eyes narrowed. “You’re that Gypsy psychic.” His grip tightened. “From Baltimore.”

The image of this man in a neon-lit, red-velvet-draped storefront came to her like a scene from a movie. Why’d he have to spot me here? Her stomach dove for cover, but she held her voice steady, her eyes hard. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never been to Baltimore.”

The man stood, his grip still tight on her arm. “You swindled me.” He was starting to huff and color around the gills.

Easy, big boy. Amy’s heart ran cold as conversations at the nearest tables stopped. She could handle this guy, no problem, but she didn’t want a scene. James would kick her out for sure.

She could sense a kernel of doubt in the blundering man, his two-martini-addled brain trying to reconcile this fancy schmancy eatery with their last encounter in the shabby storefront on Porno Row in Baltimore. She had swindled this guy, but what were the details? He was one of so many. There wasn’t time to figure it out. She considered dumping the ice water on him and running.

But that probably counted as a scene in an uptight joint like this.

She could go the seduction route. That would be quiet and smooth and hopefully tempt him out of the dining room and into the street where they could talk. Amy let her eyes go wide.

But just as she was about to speak, he jerked her wrist, sending water splashing onto the pristine wooden floor, the ice cubes skidding in all directions like frightened mice.

Nice job, mister. Now they had the full attention of the entire place, staff and diners, everyone frozen except for a flash of black—Stu slipping into the kitchen.

The man’s eyes widened as he studied the tattoo on the underside of her arm. “That snake. I still see it in my dreams. No, my nightmares. It is you.” He pulled her close to him and whispered fiercely, “You told me my One True Love was named Susan Lord. Then, wouldn’t you know, I run into a Susan Lord the very next day? But she was working for you, wasn’t she? You two swindled me—”

Amy continued her blinking innocent-doe-caught-in-the-headlights act while her mind focused like a laser. Bob Stutz was his name. Scummy land developer. When he wasn’t tearing down the old-growth forests for shopping malls, he turned his attentions to tearing down whole neighborhoods, ripping the poor of East Baltimore out like trees; their roots were deep but were no defense against his bulldozers. Amy didn’t pick her marks randomly. She always made sure they were scum. Rich scum, true. But she never swindled anyone who didn’t deserve it.

Or who didn’t need it.

She remembered scamming Bob with civic pride. Mayor Dixon should have given her a ribbon.

Conning this guy had been child’s play, if she remembered correctly. The usual. She had hired a young Gypsy, Amelia Denton, to pose as Susan Lord, Bob’s One True Love. Didn’t take much to persuade him Amelia was the one. After all, sensual, beautiful young women like Amelia didn’t let fat, stubby, puffy men like Bob near them in the real world. But Amelia’s great-aunt had been forced out of her building on Biddle Street by this prick, so Amelia put on the charm full force, had Bob eating out of her hand.

Anyway, Susan Lord was the real name of Bob’s One True Love; Amy always told the real name. Of course, Amelia was no Susan Lord. A night or two of flirting, straight vodka for Bob while the bartender funneled Amelia water, then an hour or two of searching while Bob slept. Bank numbers, credit card numbers, jewelry, car keys—it was too easy when you were inside. Worked like a charm.

Until it came back at you when you least expected it. Like now. The restaurant around them was silent except for the giddy whispers of diners who, up until this moment, were sure the truffle potatoes were the most exciting thing that would happen to them in their entire, boring, sheltered lives.

Troy appeared with three towels draped over his arm. He dropped a towel, moved it with his foot, then replaced it with a dry one, removing every last drop of water. If you weren’t watching closely, you might have thought he was just standing there. He had used the same effortless grace to clean up when she had spilled the soup on Dr. Trudeau on her first night.

If only Bob could be cleaned away so easily. “Didn’t you read my note?” Amy hissed at Bob. Her wrist was starting to hurt, but she pretended otherwise. She had to calm him down and get him outside so they could discuss this rationally. “We left you a note on your bed stand. Susan Lord is really your One True Love. You need to find her. The real her. It’s your only hope of not being an a*shole for the rest of your life.”

“Why should I believe you after—?”

“Is there a problem here?” It was James, at her side, looking as calm as if he were inquiring about the doneness of a steak. James nodded at Troy, and the boy withdrew to join the rest of the kitchen staff, who had assembled around the kitchen door. John-John had an enormous black frying pan in his hand, and he looked as if he was prepared to use it.

A flutter of relief moved through her, which dissipated into dismay. Everyone in the entire restaurant had come to a halt and was staring at their odd triangle—Bob, flustered and puffing in his conservative suit; James, menacingly calm, in his pristine chef’s whites; and her, playing the innocent.

It wasn’t her strongest role.

Bob looked James up and down. His face had gone red with anger. “This waitress is a lying, conning—”

James held up a hand. “Let this woman’s arm go. Now.” His voice was icy but calm.

“Who the hell are you?” the man asked James. He still gripped her arm, but his eyes darted around the room nervously.

Chef whites? Apron? Two guesses, Bob. A rush of triumph gripped her.

James pulled his chef’s knife out of his apron. “Me? Who am I?” He studied the blade.

Off with his head! James was going to risk dinging his precious knife on this anvil-head? For her? She felt like a pure, innocent maiden.

What an odd feeling.

“Who I am doesn’t matter,” James said to Bob. He was still looking over his knife, turning it this way and that. “It’s who you are that’s important. Are you a person touching a member of my staff? Are you a person upsetting diners in my dining room? Disturbing these fine people’s meals?” He expanded his arms to take in the room, the knife catching the light. James’s face was eerily still. He met Bob’s eyes and held them.


Bob yanked his bloodshot eyeballs away and glanced uneasily at his tablemates.

They stared into their sweating water glasses. Checked their watches. One manically stuffed roast chicken into his mouth, as if he knew this was the last shot he was getting at James’s two-star food.

Harmless boobs, Amy thought. But what about Bob? Amy could see that he was trying to gauge whose side James was on. He was obviously confused that James—a man and the boss of this classy establishment—was siding with a female underling. It didn’t jive with Bob’s sense of order in a male-dominated, money-dominated world.

“I think you should go,” James said. His words hung in the air, heavy with the weight of his unspoken threat.

Bob backed away a step, keeping his eyes on James’s knife, dropping her arm. “I think I might have . . . you know . . . She just looks like someone I used to know.” Bob began to tuck himself back into his seat. “My mistake.”

James caught Bob’s arm before he sank into the chair. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me?” James looked angry enough to flip him like a pancake, despite the other man’s heft.

The other two men looked at each other, befuddled. One of them grabbed a shrimp from his plate, but James plucked it from his hand and tossed it onto the table. “Dinner’s over.”

They looked at each other in shock.

“Now.” James looked from his knife blade to each of them in turn.

As one, the three men scuttled from the table, casting wary glances back at James. They hustled into their coats, which Joey, the ma?tre d’, had waiting by the door. “You’ll be sorry,” Bob called, just before he scurried through the door into the cold night. “I know people. I control this town.”

“Susan Lord,” Amy called after him. “Look her up.”

Joey shut the door firmly behind them.

Then all was silent.

James tucked his knife back into his apron. He raised his voice into the void so the whole dining room could hear. “So sorry about that little mix-up. Espresso and dessert on the house for everyone.”

The room buzzed with its good luck—a scene by a famous chef and free dessert.





Trust your instincts over your recipe.

—JAMES LACHANCE, The Meal of a Lifetime