Digging Deeper by Barbara Elsborg Read Free Book Online

masterpiece.”
    “You could stop biting the rest,” Beck said.
    “But I don’t want them to feel neglected and anyway, they like the feel of my teeth.” She smiled when she saw his Adam’s apple move up and down.
    “Felicity, I’m not paying you to talk,” Celia hissed in her ear.
    Flick walked across to the bridesmaids, but didn’t miss the comment that followed her departure.
    “Her legs,” Beck whispered. “I can almost see… Oh God.”
    Flick did a complete circuit of the room with the canapés before Giles beckoned her back.
    “Don’t neglect us, Miss Knyfe or I’ll have to report you to my mother.”
    Flick offered him the tray.
    “Knyfe?” Beck laughed. “Don’t tell me that’s your name? Flick Knyfe?”
    “Felicity Xanthe Knyfe,” Flick said.
    “I didn’t know you had a middle name. How do you spell it?” Giles asked.
    “X-a-n-t-h-e. Why?”
    Giles smiled. “Just curious. You’re the first person I’ve met with a name beginning with X.”
    Flick glanced at Beck as he gave a curious groan.
    “Xanthe was my Dad’s idea, though calling my sister Carving was a mistake.”
    Giles chuckled. “I can see now why my father looks forward to you coming.”
    Flick wasn’t sure if she really heard him add “and so would I.” She hoped not. She popped the last canapé into her mouth as Giles reached for it.
     
    Flick leaned against the kitchen door not daring to ask again how long it would be before the meal was ready. Last time Nik had almost speared her with a cucumber. Lady C behaved as though the delay was her fault. Henry had told Flick to open another bottle of champagne, but only he, Giles and the bridesmaids seemed to be drinking. Beck had declined because he was driving. Every time Flick walked into the room, he oozed another pint of testosterone. She felt breathless with lust. Her heart rate jumped into overdrive with just a glimpse of him. She needed Kirsten to find out if he had a girlfriend.
    “Five minutes,” Nik snapped. “Get their bums on the fucking chairs. They’re having soufflés so I want them all fucking sitting down waiting when they come out the oven.”
    Flick rushed to usher everyone through to the dining room.
    Somehow she managed to serve everyone miniature cheese soufflés accompanied by pear and hazelnut salad, before the soufflés collapsed. She even got out of the room without dropping a plate or planting a kiss on Beck’s lips. He had Kirsten sitting on one side of him, which was good, and the bridesmaid with the biggest breasts on the other, which was bad. Flick stomped off in a grump.
    By the time she reached the kitchen the two chefs had returned to hurling insults at each other. Flick had no idea what catastrophe could have occurred in her absence but instructions had to be relayed through her. She took out the cursing to save time.
    Her stomach rumbled as she served Beck a chicken breast, stuffed with wild mushrooms, wrapped in bacon. He looked up at her.
    “Hungry?” he asked.
    “No.” Her stomach rumbled in protest. Flick didn’t blame it. She was always hungry.
    Celia’s mother, Gertrude, reached out and grabbed her arm as she passed. “Tell them the vegetables are undercooked.”
    “Of course.”
    One message she wouldn’t be passing on. The knives were far too sharp. When Flick pushed open the kitchen door, the mood had changed again. Nik and Nita appeared to be most of the way through one of Henry’s bottles of claret. They were attached to each other at various points along their length from the lips down. Flick beat a hasty retreat to the stairs, sat on the bottom step with her elbows on her knees and thought about the last time she’d been kissed. Months ago by Miserable Bastard. The night he’d dumped her. Marcus had been an energetic kisser, though sometimes overenthusiastic to the point of leaving her with bruised lips. Only so many times you could say you’d had an allergic reaction to lipstick, though she’d rather have