Fortune's Just Desserts by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online Page A

had a way of weaving her words around a man until he couldn’t tell his left hand from his right or up from down.
    And he had no desire to be disoriented.
    Marcos retreated to his office while he was still ahead. Or at least breaking even.
    â€œBy the way,” she called after him. His shoulders stiffened as he paused without turning around, waiting. “Congratulations on your brother’s engagement.”
    â€œYeah. Thanks,” was all he said before he closed the door behind him.
    Better him than me, he added silently as he went to his desk.
    Â 
    Wendy walked back to the dining area, smiling to herself.
    She was wearing down Marcos, she could feel it. He wasn’t nearly as terse as he had been when she’d first come to work here.
    Moreover, working at the restaurant had turned out to be more fun than she’d expected it to be. She liked the people, liked the energy she felt when they were busy.
    And when the doors were closed and the kitchen staff was getting ready for the evening shift, it was even better. She’d made a discovery the second week she was here that she’d been heretofore unaware of. She discovered that she liked to cook, something she’d never had a need to do before. Growing up, there’d been a cook, Elise, who’d made all their meals. Wendy hadn’t even been allowed to stay in the kitchen when the woman was working. Elise had claimed it threw her off.
    Enrique, the main chef at Red, had allowed her to dabble a little and had given her a few basic pointers, encouraging her to experiment and to trust her instincts.
    Trust her instincts.
    Now, there was something no one had ever said to her before. Probably because no one thought she had any instincts to speak of.
    That was part of the reason she liked being here. The people who worked at Red treated her like aregular person. They saw her as Wendy the waitress, not as Wendy the heiress, and they treated her accordingly.
    Except for Marcos Mendoza. Despite her enthusiasm on the job, he clearly thought she was spoiled and incapable of doing an honest day’s work.
    It would be her pleasure to prove him wrong.

Chapter Five
    E very day Red closed its doors at two and opened them again at five. The hours between lunch and dinner afforded the staff time to clean up from the first service and prepare for the second. While it was not a time to kick back, the stress level was notably reduced and conversations of no particular consequence drifted through the air.
    Three-thirty would usually find Marcos making his way into the kitchen to check on the progress of the dinner preparations. As with any good restaurant, Red had several items on the menu that never changed, long-standing customers favorites. There were people who frequented Red specifically toorder these items. Changing them would upset the clientele.
    But it was also a given that if Red was to continue to thrive and grow, the menu had to keep evolving. And that meant trying out different dishes, all in keeping with the Tex-Mex flavor that Red was known for.
    So, new dishes were periodically given a trial run to see how the patrons responded to them. Things that worked or secured a devoted following remained on the menu. Things that didn’t were removed.
    Marcos supervised the menu, but its creation and content were all up to Enrique Montoya, a somewhat temperamental but highly regarded chef who Marcos had managed to lure away from Etienne’s, a pricey and popular restaurant in San Antonio.
    From the very beginning, the staff, Marcos had noted, would tiptoe around the chef each morning until they could ascertain what kind of a mood Enrique was in. If he was in a genial, friendly mood, the staff relaxed and work flowed. But if the chef was quiet, speaking only in clipped, two- to three-word sentences, everyone was subdued, doing their best to be silent and not set off the somewhat volatile man.
    Sometime within the first couple of weeks that he