Burning Down the Spouse Part 3

Rodin had nothing, noth-ing on this man.

Holy spanakopita.

Stunned by Nikos's breathtakingly chiseled good looks, Frankie's head swirled, and her legs trembled. He really was that beautiful. Even in her stupor of postdivorce lunacy, she could not deny the appeal of his hard, cla.s.sic features. His hair was thick, the color of midnight in the height of a winter chill, falling just past his chin. A widow's peak in the center of his forehead drew her attention to his eyebrows, raven and arched. His ruddily toned skin held two patches of color along the angular slant of his cheekbones. Eyes the color of black olives a.s.sessed her with a smile full of straight white teeth.

Oh, that smile. Disarming with a hint of playful.

He had a dimple in his chin, too, and catching sight of it made Frankie's breath hitch.

s.h.i.+t. Had they been introduced? Maxine gave her arm a discreet pinch. Frankie coughed to hide her embarra.s.sment. "I'm Francis-Fran . . . kie. Uh, Bennett."

The dark Adonis put out a hand for her to shake. "Nice to meet you, Frankie. Welcome to Greek Meets Eat. Home of the World's Best-"

"Meatloaf," she muttered to avoid his hand. Oh, no. If she shook that hand, long fingered and wide, she'd pa.s.s out.

Maxine coughed in Frankie's ear, "Shake his hand, princess."

Immediately, Frankie did as she was told, their fingers connecting for a moment before she tugged her hand away, shoving it into the pocket of her jeans. His skin was warm with just the right amount of callusedness, burning an imprint against her icy flesh.

Nikos's expression said he wondered if she was deranged, but he hid it well when he called over his broad shoulder, "Let's go back to the office and sit and talk. You want coffee, Max, Frankie?"

"No!" Frankie faltered behind the shelter of Maxine. "I mean, no, thank you."

Maxine smiled over her shoulder with encouragement, following Nikos to the end of the wide diner. His fingers turned the bra.s.s doork.n.o.b on a broad, red enamel door, holding it open for them to enter with a sweep of his long muscled forearm.

Maxine found a chair, patting the one beside her as Nikos took his place behind the desk cluttered with papers and a computer. "I appreciate you coming to Trophy Jobs, Nikos."

He grinned, alarmingly warm and charming, making Frankie's already slow breathing hitch again. "Don't thank me. You're pretty impressive, lady. I know you didn't expect a lot from Lacey, but she was one of the best d.a.m.ned short-order's we've ever had."

Maxine's chuckle and the glance she exchanged with Nikos bordered on mysterious. Frankie fidgeted in her seat, uncomfortable with the fluorescent lights of Nikos's office. "Who knew Lacey, of all people, would want to go off and study at Le Cordon Bleu?"

His laughter was hearty, his eyes warm with fondness. "We miss her, but she sends us postcards all the time. Anyway, with the kind of luck we had the first time around, you were the person who came to mind."

Who was Lacey, and oh, my G.o.d. She was in a diner. A diner. A diner boasting the world's best meatloaf. Meatloaf. Food for heathens who had no taste buds, if you listened to Mitch.

But she wasn't listening to Mitch anymore. Bamby With A "Y" was.

Strangely, that made Frankie want to bust a grin.

But it hurt to consider moving her facial muscles. So she didn't.

"So you have all the information on Frankie's work history, right? I had Bettina fax it over this morning."

Nikos slapped the papers on his desk with a loud hand. "I don't need paperwork, Max, but yep, I got everything."

Good. That was good, Frankie mused. She wondered if he had the DVD of famous chefs' wives gone wild, too. Sliding down into her appointed chair, she pulled her sweater closer around her chin.

"Okay, good then," Maxine said, rising.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where was the divorce guru going? Surely Maxine wouldn't leave her here all by herself with the reinvention of gorgeously glorious. Not when she was as fragile as eggsh.e.l.ls and liable to crack at any given moment.

Oh, but she would. Maxine gave Frankie's shoulder a rea.s.suring pat. "I'll just wait outside and let you two talk. I think I'll have some of that coffee while I do." And then she was gone.

And they were left staring at each other.

His glance was openly curious, but cheerful.

Hers was petrified, and well, petrified.

Nikos cleared his throat, rustling the papers Bettina had sent. "So, Frankie. Do you have any experience working in a diner-maybe a restaurant?"

I was a c.r.a.ppy waitress. But I can work a Slap Chop like a breast implant salesman works an A-cup convention. She s.h.i.+fted in her chair, pulling the sleeves of her sweater over the palms of her hands. "No."

"Any food experience in general?"

"I've been known to eat it." Oh. Jesus.

His chuckle was thick and s.e.xy. Just like him. "Right." He patted his hard abdomen. "Me, too. What I mean is, Max says you have experience as a chef."

Right. Max would say that. "Define 'chef.'"

Nikos rolled his tongue around the inside of his cheek. "Well, aren't they usually people who cook? You know, like that food thing we talked about."

"Yes, they are, and no, I'm not a chef. I hate to cook." That said, she waited while he processed her response and s.h.i.+pped her back off to Maxine. Screw her car. The repo man could come and take it. She didn't need to drive if she never planned to leave the house again.

He nodded his sleek black head, all agreeable. "Well, that's a good thing. We don't need a chef."

d.a.m.n. Foiled again.

This was ridiculous, and she was doing nothing but wasting his time. So if she frigged up the interview, she could go back home to her aunt's dark guest bedroom and get back into her nice warm bed. Let the frigging begin. "Can we be frank with one another?"

He sat back in his chair, running a hand over the dark stubble on his chin. "I want you to be whoever you want to be."

Frankie ignored the joke in favor of her purpose, a warm bed and nothingness. "You can't possibly expect me to believe you don't know who I am."

"Should I know who you are, Frankie?" When he said her name, slow and easy, a chill of unadulterated pleasure swept along her arms.

Her laughter was filled with bitter irony. "Maxine told you to pretend you didn't know, right? So I wouldn't be humiliated on my first official public outing."

His face remained placid, his smoldering black eyes perfectly blank. "Have you been in jail?"

"Jail?" If she had any gumption, she'd be affronted. But she didn't. So no affronting from her side of the desk.

"You said this was your first 'official public outing.'"

"It is. And, no. No jail." Though, she'd come precariously close after the judge viewed the tapes of her outburst. Destruction of property, blah, blah, blah.

"Hospitalized?"

Frankie's return gaze was filled with cynicism. "What you really mean is inst.i.tutionalized, don't you?"

Nikos waggled a finger in admonishment and gave her a playful grin as a chaser. "Uh-uh-uh. You went there. I didn't."

"No. I haven't been inst.i.tutionalized. Though, after my display, I'm pretty sure some would say I should be." In fact, Mitch had. On Hollywood Scoop. With his best sad-sympathetic face. Oscar statues had wept from near and far at his performance.

"Display? I have no idea what you mean."

Who on the planet, and probably twelve other alternate dimensions, didn't know who she was? She'd been on every rag mag and television gossip show for months, speculation about her mental well-being the primary focus as they'd replayed in every speed imaginable her infamous symphonic wooden spoon debut.

Quite frankly, on that night, she admittedly had looked like someone who'd escaped a full-body b.u.t.terfly net and gone off her prescription pharmaceuticals. Hair wild, eyes wide and glazed, spittle forming at the corner of her mouth-all in perfect focus thanks to close-up genius, cameraman number two, Andy Jeffers. Add in the spoon she'd wielded like a sledgehammer, and she made one scarylooking lunatic.

Mitch and his PR crew had put some spin on her outburst, too, making him look like the poor, suffering husband of a woman whose mental state was challenged by the voices in her head.

"You really don't know who I am?"

Nikos shook his dark head back and forth, the light catching the deep gleam of his thick hair. "Nope. Not a clue. You wanna tell me who you're supposed to be so I can behave accordingly? If you're royalty or something, I want to be sure I bow appropriately," he said with a teasing tone.

"I'm Mitch in the Kitchen's wi . . . um, ex-wife." There. The elephant could leave the room.

"Mitch in the where?"

Wow. Not only super-fantastical looking, but gracious and kind. "Kitchen."

Yet, his eyes read thoroughly perplexed. "And why would I pretend I didn't know you were Mitch in the Kitchen's ex-wife when I don't even know Mitch? In fact, I don't know anyone named Mitch. Unless we're talking Miller, and he defines the word 'dead.' G.o.d rest his soul."

Frankie sighed. His denials made her head swim. "Because Maxine told you to be nice to the pathetic, broke ex-trophy wife who, by the way, wants a job like she needs another useless ovary."

His thick eyebrow arched. "You were a trophy wife?"

Frankie flapped her hands in concession, not at all offended by his surprise. "I know. Hard to believe, looking the way I do, right? But as Valentino is my witness, I was a trophy wife with all the bells and whistles. Maxine said so. Clothes, hair, makeup, personal ma.s.sage therapist. The only boat I missed was the plastic surgeon's, and I just know Mitch would have talked me into double Ds before long. So yes, I was a trophy wife. For eighteen years. Now I'm not. I've been replaced. Hardcore replaced. But you knew that because Maxine told you." She fought not to make it sound like an accusation, but he wasn't making this easy.

Nikos frowned, delicious lines marring his smooth forehead. "Maxine didn't tell me anything other than she had an applicant for an opening I have here at the diner for a prep chef. There was never any talk of a Mitch or a kitchen or for that matter, a display."

She rolled her eyes, brus.h.i.+ng an impatient hand over her bangs. "Oh, she did, too. Please. You don't really think you're fooling me, do you? I mean, it's very nice that you're going out of your way to be so kind, but your performance isn't exactly red carpet worthy."

"What exactly is a Mitch in the Kitchen anyway? Is that like the ShamWow guy?"

Okay. She'd play along. "It's a television show on the Bon Appet.i.t Channel."

"The one with all those fancy chefs? Nuh-uh . . ."

"Uh-huh. The one with all those fancy chefs." And fancy women with names like Bamby.

"Your husband had a show? Like a real television show?" His disbelief was growing more convincing by the second.

Frankie's head c.o.c.ked to the right. "Yes. You really don't know who Mitch Bennett is?"

Nikos leaned forward on his desk and propped his hands on either side of his jaw, his mouth slack for a moment before he recovered and answered, "Nuh-uh. But I'm still in awe that you were married to a guy who had a television show. In fact, color me a little starstruck."

She was used to this kind of reaction when people realized she was married to a celebrity. You're not married to a celebrity anymore, Frankie. She fidgeted with the tie at the waist of her sweater.

"Do you have any idea the kind of customers the diner'd get if they knew a celebrity's wife from the whatever channel worked here?"

This wasn't going according to plan. He wasn't supposed to be excited. He was supposed to tell her she lacked experience, not to mention enthusiasm, and then politely respond by telling her he'd get back to her. "Are you kidding me?"

Nikos slapped a large hand on his desk, sending papers scattering. "Not even a little. You're rockin' my socks off right now. That kind of experience alone is all golden and s.h.i.+ny as far as I'm concerned." His words were followed by a hearty laugh, straight from his not as hearty hard-planed belly.

h.e.l.lo. What about her pain and suffering was rocking-your-socks worthy? Sudden anger tweaked her already raw nerves. "Did you hear me the first time, or did you miss the part about me being an ex-trophy wife? I'm no longer married to Mitch. So no celebrity."

Flapping his tanned hands, Nikos waved at her dismissively. His grin was wide and effusive. "That's neither here nor there. You have infamy on your side, and you worked at the Bon Appet.i.t Channel. Bet you have a bunch of secret recipes running around in your head. That's all I need to know." He shook his head and shot her a wry grin. "d.a.m.n, this is some awesome turn of events," he stated with obvious glee, hopping up from behind his desk to head to the door in two strong strides.

So cute and dense went hand in hand with Nikos Anta . . . Anta . . . Chakalakaboomboom. Whatever.

"Max, c'mon back in here!" Nikos shouted out into the diner, his voice a cheerful bellow.

Frankie shrunk farther down in her chair as she listened to the m.u.f.fled words exchanged between Maxine and her employer-whoalmost-was.

"Frankie Bennett?" he crowed back into the room.

She rose to turn and take him in, pus.h.i.+ng down the baggy folds her jeans created when she stood. Her face held a question she was too tired to ask.

Nikos stuck out his hand to her while Maxine gave her the big thumbs-up sign behind his broad shoulder. "I don't care if you can't boil water. You're hired."

Shut. Up.

CHAPTER THREE.

From the reluctant (very, very reluctant) journal of ex-trophy wife Frankie Bennett: The first rule of the Princess Club? Suck it up. Please. This is by far the most ridiculous thing I've ever done. I don't want nor do I care to doc.u.ment my postdivorce road to recovery so I can look back one day and smile at how far I've come. Seeing my pain in black and white isn't therapeutic at all. And PS, Maxine Barker's a flake. I'm only doing this to appease my Aunt Gail because she's looking over my shoulder right now and making me feel like I purposely didn't go to confession. So in the interest of keeping her happy, here's my first entry. And Maxine Barker's still a flake.

"You do so know who she is, Nikos. That was a c.r.a.ppy thing to do," his brother Cosmos chided with a slap to his back as they watched Maxine and Frankie cross the parking lot. Nikos mentally noted the drag in Frankie's step, the slump of her shoulders that were too d.a.m.ned skinny, and the sag of her jeans on what he'd bet his left lung had once been a sweet a.s.s.

He fought a grin. "Giving her a job was c.r.a.ppy how, Cos?"

"You know what I mean, you s.h.i.+thead. I heard everything while you pretended not to know who she was, then went about making like she was the second coming."

Nikos winced. Yeah, he was a s.h.i.+tty improviser. "That just sort of happened. My bad. But she was working pretty hard to avoid getting herself hired. Max told me she would because she's post something or other traumatized."

"Postdivorce."

"Yeah. That was it. She said she'd be sullen and disinterested. So I just went with it. Steamrolled her, so to speak."

"How do you suppose it made her feel, knowing you plan to use her infamous freak on television as a promotional tool?"