“You think ya got balls, but you don’t. Those round things you're so proud of are tits, and tits ain’t balls, babe.” There he stood, the guy who’d been on the NY Times bestseller list for eighteen months now with not one, but two, cookbooks; the charmer who had three different food shows running concurrently; America’s sweetheart, the owner of twelve – yes, folks, count ‘em, twelve – of the countries most successful restaurants, and not one of them served a duplicate dish. Women threw their panties at him, men tried desperately to buy his friendship with whatever toys they had available. Poppy Lacroix was more than a legend; he was a wonder of the world. And he was Arianna Lacroix’s father… at least biologically.

Very few had the pleasure of seeing him in his natural environment, and for that, his publicist was forever grateful. Even in his own kitchen he was king of the world.

“I have something better than balls; I have brains.” Arianna Lacroix picked up a carrot and peeled it with a handy paring knife, creating long, thin strips of earth-marked skin that she let drop to the floor. She wished she could drop some of her own skin to the floor. Even though it was summer in New York City, he refused to use air conditioning. While Satan liked it hot, Satan’s offspring could’ve used a bit of chill. Sweating was most definitely not her thing, in spite of her Cajun heritage. 

“Which you got from yours truly, thank me very much, plus and also I blessed you with some raw talent. But that Barbie bitch who birthed ya threw in a heap of DNA, too, and that, I’m afraid, watered down the whole stew.” Poppy curled a lip and slid his knife through a leg of lamb, separating bone from flesh in one clean, perfect movement. His dark, curl-covered head was bent to the task at hand, his lean, lanky frame turned away from her, letting her know what was important in this room – and what wasn’t. “At least she gave you her damn looks so you’ll never go hungry. There’ll always be some man sniffing around, willing to feed ya.”

“You’re an ass, Poppy.” An ass that I’ve spent twenty-six years of my life trying to please. Why the hell do I give a damn? Why do I put myself through this? I should adopt a senior citizen and pretend he’s my father. A stranger in a coma would give me more than this man.

“Yeah? So? You think you’re the first to say?”

Arianna grunted. “Hell no. I’m probably not even the first of your offspring to say.”

He shrugged a bronzed, muscular shoulder, his spotless white muscle shirt emphasizing his physique. It was no surprise women threw themselves at him. He might be narrow but he was built like a cat, all sinew and grace. And attitude. “Only one I know about, anyways.”

“Lucky, lucky me.” Ari bit the tip off the carrot and enjoyed the sensation of crunching the dense flesh between her teeth.

“That you are.” He stopped filleting the leg and stared at her, the knife he loved far more than he loved her held in front of him. He ran a thumb across the blade, supposedly testing its sharpness, but Ari thought it was more likely foreplay. He was watching her with that look, and she noticed for the millionth time that their eyes were the same grayish blue, which always gave her a moment of discomfort, because when he looked at her, his were always cold and angry. When she gazed at someone, did she look so rabid? Of course, when he was talking to a fan or the camera or a woman he was trying to get into bed, he could somehow make that cruel stare seem seductive.

His words reached her brain and she couldn’t resist asking. “I am what?”

“Lucky.”

She glared at the head of garlic in front of her, then laid her broad knife on top of it and smashed. “And how do you figure that?”

“If you weren’t my girl no one would care two dumps about your cooking. You’d be washing dishes at some nameless shithole in Nowhereville. Maybe you’d be flipping pancakes at Denny’s. So yeah, you’re lucky, little girl. Show some respect.”

“Maybe being your seed got me attention in the first place, but my rep is my own. I’ve worked for it, I’ve earned it, I’m taking credit for it.” Ari tossed the remains of the garlic to the trash bucket and headed toward the door. Why she’d thought it would be good to have dinner with him, she didn’t know.  It wasn’t wise to be in a room full of knives and heavy pots and hot oils, and Poppy. Actually, it was never wise to be in a room with Poppy. Someday she’d learn that. Although if she was honest, her head already knew. It was her heart that refused to learn the lesson.

“You take what I let you take, nothing more. Beck Jameson doesn’t want you, he wants me. He thinks if you sign on, he’ll get me. My name, my skills, my talent. That’s what he thinks. But he’s wrong. You sign on, he ain’t getting a damn thing of me. You got that? You make sure he knows. You tell him. He takes you, that’s all he’s getting. A pretty face, a nice rack, a tight ass. And even those ain’t good for much, because you don’t stick. You and I both know, you don’t stick.”

“You’re wrong. He wants me, because I’m good.” She’d been such a fool, so excited about telling him about Beck’s offer, so proud, hoping he’d, for once, be proud too. But no, even following in his footsteps wasn’t enough. And that was a lesson she ought to have learned by now; she’d been trying for ten long, painful years. Yet she still fought to find the magic thing that would make him love her. Clearly that thing didn't exist. ”I can stick if I want to.”

“I’m not wrong.”

“You are wrong. I can.”

“Okay, prove it. You go open that restaurant, and you stick. For a year. No, that’s not fair, no way you can swing it, I’ll take pity on ya, just six months. You last six months. If you stick, I’ll do that damn fool TV show the network’s been bugging us about. And if you win that, I’ll admit, on national TV, you’re a good chef all on your own, without my name backin’ ya.”

   Ari stared at him, realized she was shaking. “Deal. You’re wrong about me and I’m going to prove it.”

“I’m not. And we both know it. You know how I know?”

She couldn’t tear her eyes away from him, couldn’t help herself, although every logical part of her screamed at her to open the door and walk through it. Those thick lips, the same ones she recognized from the mirror each morning, sneered at her, mocked her. "Because if you really thought you had it, you wouldn't be standing here pretending to be a tough chick, telling me about the great offer you got. You'd be standing next to Jameson, setting up your own shop. You're all talk, little girl. Like I said, you don't got the balls, you just got tits. Now get out of my kitchen and go find some man who wants to play with 'em."