Hard No: Secret Baby Enemies to Lovers Romance Read online

  Hard No

  Hazel Parker

  Copyright 2021 by Hazel Parker - All rights reserved.

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher.

  All rights reserved.

  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 - Steph

  Chapter 2 - Trent

  Chapter 3 - Steph

  Chapter 4 - Trent

  Chapter 5 - Steph

  Chapter 6 - Trent

  Chapter 7 - Steph

  Chapter 8 - Trent

  Chapter 9 - Steph

  Chapter 10 - Trent

  Chapter 11 - Steph

  Chapter 12 - Trent

  Chapter 13 - Steph

  Chapter 14 - Trent

  Chapter 15 - Steph

  Chapter 16 - Trent

  Chapter 17 - Steph

  Chapter 18 - Trent

  Chapter 19 - Steph

  Chapter 20 - Trent

  Chapter 21 - Steph

  Chapter 22 - Trent

  Chapter 23 - Steph

  Chapter 24 - Trent

  Chapter 25 - Steph

  Chapter 26 - Trent

  Chapter 27 - Steph

  Chapter 28 - Trent

  Chapter 29 - Steph

  Chapter 30 - Trent

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1 - Steph

  Every chef has burned food at some point in their careers, but causing a client’s entire kitchen to go up in flames?

  It’s funny how sometimes I can’t seem to cross a room without stumbling but put a knife in my hands and I become a virtuoso. I smile at the irony as the blade comes down in a series of rapid motions, almost a blur, so sure I am in what I am doing.

  Strange kitchen in a strange house in a strange part of town? These details barely register with me at the moment. I’m in my element. I’m in the zone.

  I glance up from the cutting board at the strange kitchen in question. It’s undoubtedly the nicest private kitchen I have ever been in. And how could it have been anything otherwise? I’ve seen my share of money come through the door of each of my three restaurants, but this was my first interaction with an honest-to-god billionaire.

  I didn’t know Trent Stone, not personally, not even by word from around the campfire of the Chicago culinary world. My attention began and ended in the kitchen, not the society columns.

  Stone had distinguished himself from the first, though, by throwing increasingly dizzying offers of money my way to get me to come to his home and cook a private meal for two. It wasn’t the only such request I had gotten since my third restaurant had received three Michelin stars. My services had been highly sought after even before I had scored that particular touchdown.

  This instance was different, though. Most times when I declined an offer because of my workload, the client made an effort at swaying me before grudgingly going with someone else. Not so with Stone. He had pursued me for weeks now with daily phone calls and emails. It didn’t matter how much I insisted I didn’t have time for private functions; he kept calling, each time upping the ante.

  It had almost been funny at first, his persistence. It had stopped seeming that way when the monetary offer had made the jump from enticing to ludicrous.

  Still, I had declined. Not that I was holding out for more money, no. It was time that I didn’t think could be bought, time away from my restaurants, my own kitchens.

  Or so I had thought. Ludicrous eventually morphed yet again and became absurd. It had all built up to one late-night phone call.

  He had led by offering me even more for the job. My reservations against it remained the same, and I told him so.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Stone,” I’d said. “I have three businesses to run. Every spare moment I have is spent planning and prepping.”

  “Don’t you have an assistant chef at each of them?” he wanted to know.

  “I do, but I prefer to be on-site, working alongside my staff.”

  “How do you manage to be in three kitchens at once?”

  I shrugged, even though this was a phone conversation. “I manage. That’s the restaurant business for you.”

  “I understand that you’re going to be renovating one of your establishments,” he had said, as though he had sensed an opening. “I’m prepared to offer you enough to completely cover the renovation expenses. Think about that for a moment.”

  I did. I was hardened but not immune to the siren song of money. No negotiating with the bank, no loan to repay, just one glorious, all-encompassing check.

  “You can sacrifice one evening for that, can’t you?” he had pressed.

  Yes, indeed, I think, as the dried chili peppers fall into perfectly diced slices.

  I had been both amused and a little exasperated after I had finally broken down and taken the job, when it came to settling on the menu. It seemed like once Stone had me at his beck and call, he lost a lot of interest in the particulars. When I had questioned him about what exactly he wanted, I invariably got a short and vague, “Surprise me,” “Sky’s the limit,” or, worst of all, “Whatever you think.” That last one was, I was convinced, rich-person code for “I’m not investing any more thought into this; that’s your job.”

  I had been pretty frustrated by Stone’s lack of input, and he must have picked up on that, because he tossed even more money onto the sizeable stack that he was already paying me so that I could buy whatever ingredients I chose.

  And so, armed with no restrictions and basically a blank check for ingredients, I had decided to pull out all the stops: Kobe beef, almas beluga caviar, and black truffle brie cheese, all served on—god save us all—a gold flake-infused corn tortilla. It’s the kind of dish that you have to make a reservation for months in advance at a very small handful of restaurants, almost all in Europe, that could actually make it. I had never had occasion or the means to try my hand at it, but when it comes to food, the vertical limit never scares me.

  It would be going both easier and faster if I had a sous chef working under me on this gig, but one of the few things Stone had insisted on was that this was to be a one-chef show. That means I’m doing everything from the prep work to carrying out the finished courses. It would be hard work even if I had help, but now, if not for Stone’s perfectly climate-controlled kitchen, I would be breaking out into a most unladylike sweat.

  I look longingly at the ultra-premium anejo tequila that’s destined to go into the salsa. I wonder if Stone will let me keep the leftover ingredients. If that’s the case, I’m having a few celebratory shots once I get home.

  I shake my head, getting it back in the game. In the cooking world, you don’t put the cart before the horse because any number of things can go wrong, especially if you’re juggling multiple centers of attention, like I am now.

  A glance at my watch both tells me that I’ve been at it for three hours straight now and only have about thirty minutes before Stone’s declared serving time. Better step on the gas a little harder. I don’t know anything about him, but I figure that he’ll be a stickler for punctuality.

  One thing I have in my favor is my sense of timing. Even going back to my days in the trenches as a line cook, I can say that I never sent out a plate of food that was less than perfect, or worse, cold. Everything will be ready right on time, I affirm to myself.

  “How’s progress?” says a voice off to the side.

  I jump a
little. I was so absorbed in what I was doing that I didn’t notice that the man himself had decided to materialize for a check-in.

  I pause in my knifework and look over. Stone is standing down at the other end of the counter, watching me.

  It’s only the second time I’ve laid eyes on him, the first being when he had breezed through when I had started working in his kitchen late this afternoon. All of our previous interactions had been through texts, e-mails, and phone conversations. He was, it seemed, always too busy to meet in person. I didn’t take that as a snub, either. Billionaires don’t get to be billionaires by loafing and socializing.

  The same way I didn’t get to where I am today by stopping this close to the finish line. I am torn between wanting him to go away and being curious about him.

  He looks the part of the insanely wealthy—expensive clothes from head to toe, everything just so. On top of that, he’s exceptionally easy on the eyes. Dark-haired and tall without being towering, he leans on the counter with confidence. He gives the impression of being flawlessly fit beneath his clothes. Probably loves to play tennis or golf or both.

  I push down my curiosity and opt for wanting him to find something else to do. “Everything’s clicking,” I tell him, half-turning back to the cutting board so he will get the message and leave. “It’ll be ready for you and—” I pause, realizing that I had put little thought into whom the other half of his party might be. My curiosity bubbles up all over again. “Your guest,” I finish.

  “Good,” he says. He lingers for a bit longer, looking over the small sea of ingredients. Then he’s gone, and I’m back to crunch time.

  I’m using the corner of a napkin to wipe up stray gold flakes, feeling like the world’s most posh housekeeper, when everything falls neatly into place and is at the ready at seven o’clock sharp, exactly as ordered. I scoop up the two plates and carry them from the kitchen and down the hall to the dining room.

  There is a luxurious table in the center of the room, too long in my opinion for two people sitting opposite one another to enjoy any kind of dinner conversation. Seated at the table is a slim, auburn-haired woman in a mauve evening dress. She’s very slim, actually; the kind of thin that screams professional model. I wonder if she’ll be able to handle the astronomically rich food I’m about to offer up. Probably just pick at it.

  Stone himself doesn’t exactly seem eager to enjoy the meal, either. He’s out of his seat and wandering around his side of the room, looking like he’d rather be doing something else. He has the look of a man who wants to be on his phone but is making an effort to be polite.

  “Ah,” he says, noting my presence in the doorway. “It’s ready.” He nods approvingly, and I move over to the table.

  I set down the first plate in front of the woman, who offers me a wispy “thank you” and a small, perfunctory smile.

  Stone seats himself on the other side of the table, and I set down his plate in front of him.

  He surprises me by commenting with enthusiasm, “Looks terrific. Thanks for your hard work.”

  I start to thank him, then realize that I’ve dropped completely off his radar again as he turns his attention to the woman. I mentally shrug. I have been dismissed.

  The woman has her hands folded in her lap and seems to be in no hurry to raise them to take up her napkin or silverware. This, I judge, is going to be one quiet dinner. It seems like a good time to make my exit.

  Back in the kitchen, I arm sweat off my brow, hoping that it wasn’t there when I was serving just now. There’s still plenty to do…the dessert course has to be assembled, and I can always get a head start on the cleanup. Even though Stone had told me in an e-mail that he would have his people take care of the latter, I hope that if I package the leftovers up myself, he’ll let me keep them. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who raids the fridge in the middle of the night.

  Not that there would be much to raid anyway. I had gotten a look at the inside of his refrigerator as a matter of course while I had been prepping and was monumentally unsurprised to find that I had plenty of space to work with—there was nothing in there, not even any condiments.

  My chances of enjoying some truly high-end tequila later seemed to be looking up.

  I sneak a look at my watch. Plenty of time before dessert is due. That’s a good thing because the bottle of water I have consumed while I work is announcing its presence rather loudly by this point. Normally, using a client’s facilities would be out of the question, one of those unspoken rules of private catering, but Stone’s assistant (I wasn’t about to think of him as his butler, but I supposed his job amounted to the same thing) had let me know where the bathroom was located. I took this as a sign that using it was okay.

  Besides, I really wanted to see what a billion-dollar bathroom looked like.

  I shut off the gas range and shuck out of my chef’s jacket. I’ll only be gone for a minute, but it’ll be nice to cool down a bit in the meantime.

  There’s no dolphin-shaped fountain in the bathroom, but it’s still pretty close. The hand soap smells French, which is to say expensively pleasant. It makes my skin cry out at the pampering. I’m washing my hands, mentally going through the checklist of things that have yet to be done, when a piercing beeping begins to sound from another part of the house. Specifically, the direction of the kitchen.

  I hustle from the bathroom back to the kitchen and see that my chances of cooling off are literally going up in flames. In my haste, I must not have turned the range off all the way, and it had ignited the jacket I left beside it. The garment is burning merrily, and the rest of the kitchen is quickly catching.

  The room is filling with thick smoke. The alarm continues to bawl. Stone’s assistant runs into the room, casts a frenzied look at the pandemonium unfolding before him, then hauls out his phone to frantically dial 911.

  Yes, I am most definitely not going to be enjoying a post-job tequila later tonight.

  Chapter 2 - Trent

  My date Jamie is an international professional model and about as interesting as wet chalk. We had been set up by friends, on what basis, I can’t tell. Apart from us both being single human beings, we don’t have anything at all in common.

  What I can’t tell is whether this is actually her personality—or lack thereof—or if she just isn’t into me. Either way, this is our third date, and I feel like the night so far has pretty much told the tale. I had hoped that all of this would get her to open up, loosen up a little, but it appears that all of my planning is going to come to nothing.

  The long silences between us are maddening. There are dozens of things I could otherwise be doing. Admittedly, all of them involve working, but they seem much more attractive than my current situation just the same.

  “So,” I say. “Where’s your next modeling job? Somewhere exotic?”

  Jamie nods. “Bali,” she answers but then volunteers no follow-up information.

  “And will you be…accompanied? Other models, I mean?”

  She shakes her head. “No, just me.”

  There’s another agonizing lull in the conversation.

  “So, how has your work been?” she asks at last.

  “Keeps me busy. I suppose modeling does the same for you.”

  “Yes,” she says.

  When I can’t stand it anymore, I excuse myself with the pretense of checking on dinner and head for the kitchen.

  The chef, White, had been a real chore to secure, having taken an excessive amount of time and effort before she’d come on board, but the word on the street that she was the best appears to be well-justified.

  It looks like a bomb has gone off in the kitchen, but it is an orderly bomb. Everything is neatly laid out and within easy reach. I look appreciatively at the organization for a moment, then turn my attention to the chef herself.

  She’s pleasant to look at, sporting some enticing curves and a narrow waist in spite of the unflattering nature of her chef’s jacket. Enough so that I’m curious
as to what she looks like beneath. What I can see of her is intriguing. She makes Jamie look like a popsicle stick.

  Ah, Jamie…I should be getting back to her. For the moment, however, it’s much more interesting to look at White.

  Her hair is pulled back in a simple, no-nonsense ponytail, and I wonder what her hair would look like if it were allowed down around her shoulders. For now, though, it’s the way that she moves that holds my interest the most.

  When we had met briefly upon her arrival, she had seemed a little awkward and insecure when she was introduced to me. This impression remained with her as my assistant, Curtis, led her off to the kitchen to begin work.

  Now, though, she moves with a confidence that is fascinating. Her hands dance over the cutting board, her fingers plucking up ingredients and expertly distributing them as she needs them. If she makes a misstep anywhere, I surely don’t see it.

  “How’s progress?” I ask. I’m a little amused when she startles at the sound of my voice. I probably could have watched her for an hour and she wouldn’t have noticed, she was so intent on the task at hand.

  “Everything’s clicking,” she says. She’s looking at me, but at the same time, her eyes keep drifting back to the food before her. I know the feeling well—she wants to get back to work. Yes, this was definitely a good investment on my part.

  “It’ll be ready for you and…your guest,” she goes on.

  Yes, my guest. I can’t be the rude host. I’ll have to get back to the dining room and pick back up the thread of our non-conversation.

  “Good,” I say. I put off the chore for a bit longer, surveying the exotic-looking ingredients with interest, especially the gold leaf. That’s something I hadn’t been expecting.

  When I can’t delay anymore, I leave. Almost before my back is turned, the rapid click of chopping begins again.

  Back at the table, Jamie hasn’t moved. She might as well be a willowy statue sitting there.

  The minutes crawl by. I’m wondering if we’re going to be reduced to talking about the weather when the food arrives. It’s a welcome diversion, plus it looks great. I say so, then look to see if Jamie appreciates the elaborate look of the dish. If she does, she isn’t giving it away. She must play a mean game of poker.