Page 29 of All For You

“Out of the way, I said! Out of the way!”

What a rude prat. With a tense face, he carried the tray over to the counter and set it down.

“Why did you do that?” I asked, furious. “It can’t be cooked yet. Have you gone completely bonkers?”

Ignoring my question, he pulled off his oven mitts and rudely raised a finger. “Shh. I need to make a call to a friend.” He pressed a button on his phone.

“What the— No, you shush,” I hissed, fully aware of the camera. “Darcy, this is not social time. Get off the phone. We need to talk about this.” My chest was about to explode with fury.

“Mr. Wainwright,” came the voice from Darcy’s speakerphone. Was his friend being ironic?

“Tom, remember that family chicken dish you make? With the truffles and cheese and heart nuts?”

Darcy pointed at his phone, then the pad and pencil nearby, like I was his assistant and supposed to take notes. Seriously, he’d never taken his own notes before? I shoved the pad closer to him to indicate he should write this down. He looked peeved.

“Yessss,” his friend Tom said on speaker, clearly uncertain where this was going.

“I’m away for the weekend, and I’ve made the dish, but it’s smelling a bit.”

“But, sir, Chicken Wainwright is tricky to make,” his friend Tom replied, with a definite note of panic in his voice.

I sucked in a breath. Sir? Was that a nickname?

Darcy pointedly did not look up at me. Shit. Darcy hadn’t made this dish before.

“What do you think is smelling, Tom?”

“What sort of smell is it?”

“Kind of…rancid.”

“Maybe the cheese is off? I can’t say for certain. Sorry, sir.”

“We had to use Stilton.”

“No, I wouldn’t use Stilton. By the way, Mr. Wainwright, I had planned a pork roulade for when you get home Sunday night. Would that be acceptable?”

Why was his “friend” calling him Mr. Wainwright? And why was he speaking so formally? A flash of red moved out of the corner of my eye—the cameraman. I held a panicked breath. This interaction was not something I wanted to be filmed.

“Sorry I don’t have time to think about dinner right now,” Darcy murmured, his eyes flicking away. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

“Very good, sir. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful about the chicken dish.”

Darcy rang off and put his phone back in his pocket.

I eyed him suspiciously. “Wait, wait, wait. Who is this Tom?”

“A. Friend.” His tone was defensive, and he bit the inside of his cheek.

“Oh my God, did you think I came down in the last rainfall?” I rolled my head back. “A friend who has a pork roulade planned for your return. A friend who calls you ‘sir’ and ‘Mr. Wainwright.’ I’m going to take a wild guess and say, ah, let’s see…” I tapped my lips. “Tom is your personal chef. I thought you said this was an old family recipe?”

“Itisan old family recipe.”

“One your family chef makes.”

He gave me a flip wave. “Irrelevant. Water under the bridge. Let’s move on. Okay, it might smell a little, but believe me, this dish is to die for.”

CHAPTER 16