The Perfect Ingredient (Dare Valley) by Ava Miles Read Free Book Online Page A

like a serrated knife through Angel Food cake.
    “I love being watched,” he said huskily, laughing out loud when Elizabeth’s mouth pinched shut.
    So she was jealous.
    Okay, this could be fun.
    He wrapped an arm around Natalie and led her to the kitchen. When the door closed behind them, she disengaged from his hold.
    “There’s no need to use me to make her jealous. I have too much respect for myself and other women.”
    A forthcoming female? He didn’t come across that every day, not when his fame had women throwing themselves at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any disrespect. It won’t happen again.”
    She smiled then. “Good. Now show me what you have in mind.”
    Natalie’s questions were as insightful as they were straightforward as he introduced her to his staff and gave her a tour of the kitchen. She knew food, and she understood portions and price points.
    When she sampled their newest dessert, an apricot semifreddo with salted almond brittle, she suggested adding a slice of wildflower honeycomb from Dare Valley’s finest honey producer to give it a local touch. It was a genius idea and just the kind of thing he was looking to do at High Stakes. What a pleasure it was to speak with someone who understood his vision.
    Soon he forgot about Elizabeth and was showing Natalie his new shipment of Gorau Glas, a blue cheese from Great Britain that had redefined blue cheese for him.
    Too bad it wasn’t the perfect ingredient, the one he sought like the Holy Grail.
    The first time he’d heard the phrase was from Manny Caruthers, his childhood mentor. The head chef at a small restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen, Manny had caught Terrance trying to steal food from his kitchen. Rather than turning the punk kid in to the cops, he’d taken him under his wing, giving him a second chance. Terrance’s mom had died of a drug overdose a few years later, not long after his seventeenth birthday, and Manny had taken him into the restaurant’s walk-in cooler and gestured to the food.
    “When my grandma passed, there was this huge hole inside me. She taught me how to cook, and she said that those of us who love to feed people are obsessed with finding the perfect ingredient—the one thing that fills the emptiness inside us with peace.
    “My grandma’s perfect ingredient was having a glass of honey water and sitting on the back porch steps. Mine is the chipotle hot sauce from New Orleans that I add to the butter I use on my sourdough bread every morning as I watch the sun rise. Terrance, you need to search for your own perfect ingredient. Once you find it, you’ll have the peace you don’t have now, the peace you never had with the woman who gave birth to you and then threw her life away.”
    Terrance hadn’t been ready to listen at the time, but Manny’s words had stayed with him. He’d been searching for his own perfect ingredient for a long while now, but he still hadn’t found the peace his friend had described to him—no matter how special or exotic or unusual the ingredients he’d sampled.
    “Oh, my God,” Natalie said after her first taste of the cheese, interrupting his reverie. “I think I might have an orgasm. Right here in your kitchen.”
    At forty dollars a pound, it warranted an orgasm. Thank goodness the high rollers coming to The Grand didn’t blink at the prices on the menu, so Mac gave him tremendous leeway when it came to ordering the best.
    Usually he never missed the opportunity to make a wicked comment, but she’d put him in his place, and he respected that. “It’s life changing, isn’t it?”
    “I don’t think I will ever buy blue cheese crumbles ever again.”
    “Not in the plastic container?” he asked, aghast.
    “Yes. We normal people can’t always afford this stuff or don’t have access to it. I would go broke if I served this at an event.”
    Terrance shaved off a taste of the cheese for himself and slid it in his mouth. Sweet mother of… “Depends on the event. Who’s