MacAllister's Baby by Julie Cohen Read Free Book Online

his smiles before he turned back to the kids. ‘Have you watched my television shows?’
    Another nod and shrug.
    ‘What’s that?’ Angus prompted.
    ‘Yes, Chef,’ Jennifer and Danny said in self-conscious mumbles.
    ‘Excellent. Did you like them?’
    ‘Yes, Chef.’ The second time was easier for them. It would get easier every time, Elisabeth knew. Angus wasn’t a teacher, but he knew the teacher trick of subtle, good-natured bullying.
    ‘Brilliant. Thank you.’ He checked their faces to make sure he had their full attention, and then his face grew serious.
    ‘I want you to understand something right away,’ he said. ‘Being a chef is not like that TV show. It isn’t chucking a lot of things in a pan and then a jump-cut to a finished dish; it isn’t a lot of laughing and playing around with the camera. Being a chef is hard work.’
    Angus leaned his hands on the table, his face level with the teenagers’, his voice quiet and authoritative. ‘I’ve been cooking since I was younger than you two. It has taken me years to get where I am today. I’ve worked eighteen-hour shifts in kitchens that were like war zones. I’ve sweated and bled and borrowed a hell of a lot of money to make a name for myself. And the work hasn’t ended just because I’ve got the name.’
    He watched them, to make sure what he’d said had sunk in. Jennifer and Danny both looked slightly taken aback, but they were absorbed.
    ‘Do you two want to be chefs?’
    As he asked the question Angus looked straight at Danny who, caught unexpectedly, stammered, ‘Y-yeah. Chef.’
    ‘Yes, Chef,’ Jennifer murmured when Angus directed his gaze at her.
    ‘This is a fresh start,’ said Angus. ‘Whatever might have happened to you before today, whatever problems you might be having at school or in your life, in here they are gone. I’m not going to judge you for anything that’s happened in your past. I don’t care about that.’
    He’d been speaking to the kids, but with those words Angus looked directly at Elisabeth. And she knew what Jennifer and Danny had felt like when he’d put them on the spot: pinned by the full force of his attention, all of his intensity, helpless to do anything but respond as he wanted.
    Except in Elisabeth’s case, the feeling was compounded by a rush of sexual desire. And the realisation that he was referring to their earlier conversation, when he’d asked her why she was angry at him when he hadn’t done anything.
    She swallowed, not trusting herself to say anything in front of the students. Angus looked away.
    ‘For me, all that matters is how well you cook,’ he said. ‘That’s it. I’m going to judge you on your dedication to making good food. Look at these.’
    He held his hands out before him, palms up, fingers spread.
    For a moment, Elisabeth couldn’t tell what he meant. His hands were beautiful. Strong and capable, with long fingers and slightly turned-out thumbs. The most extraordinary hands she’d ever seen, the only hands that had ever made her body respond before she’d ever felt their touch.
    But why did he want the kids to look at them?
    Then she saw it, what she hadn’t been able to see before because she hadn’t been looking closely, and she drew in a sharp breath.
    His hands were covered in scars from fingertip to wrist.
    Some were white and fully healed, some pink and shiny. Some thin, some round. He turned his hands over slowly so they could see that the backs of his hands, and his forearms, were similarly marked.
    ‘If you become a chef, you’re going to have hands just like this,’ Angus said. ‘Knives will cut you; pans will burn you. I won’t even go into what a bacon slicer can do. This one—’ he ran his right thumb up a jagged scar the entire length of his left index finger ‘—was caused by a prawn. And if you become a chef, you’ll be proud of every scar, because every single one of them taught you something that’s made you better.’
    Elisabeth