No Funny Business (The Lennox Brothers Romantic Comedy) Read online

  No Funny Business

  Talia Hunter

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Also by Talia Hunter

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Natalie

  Kade Lennox was back in San Dante.

  Kade.

  Freaking.

  Lennox.

  I was at the window of the café, about to wipe down one of the front tables, when I spotted Kade quite a way down the street. He was walking down the sidewalk with a grocery bag in each hand, coming from the direction of the organic store on the far corner.

  He stopped next to a parked car and juggled one of his bags so he could open the trunk. His movements were smooth and effortless. As he put the bags in the trunk, they didn’t rip, and nothing dropped or smashed.

  Me? I was dripping water from the wet rag I had in one hand, and the spray bottle I had in the other was slowly leaking over my fingers.

  What on earth was Kade doing back in San Dante?

  I’d last seen him nine years ago. He’d left my bed with broken springs, and my heart… well, I’d been able to buy a new mattress, but my heart had taken a lot longer to heal.

  He was still every bit as gorgeous now as he was then, and I didn’t even have to squint to make sure of it, seeing as I was a sucker for punishment and had never missed an episode of his TV show.

  Kade got into the car.

  There was someone in the passenger seat. Someone with long, dark hair.

  A woman.

  She had her sun visor down so I couldn’t see her face, but Kade gave her a beaming smile.

  He was dating here in San Dante?

  Bringing my hand to my chest, I pressed it over my thumping heart. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten I was still holding the wet rag, and it left an uncomfortable wet mark on my Mack’s Place T-shirt.

  Logically, I shouldn’t feel so dizzy or unsettled. After all, I’d been the one to break up with him.

  But seeing him with another woman still felt like a Kade-tastrophe.

  It was like being clobbered by a train. A real-life version of Murder on the Disorientated Express.

  I knew Kade dated a lot, of course, the gossip magazines carried full-page spreads. But it was one thing to see him photographed with a gazillion different women, and another to actually have to see the Kade-inator in action.

  He said something to the woman, then laughed. No doubt he’d made a flirtatious joke or complimented her. He had a knack for making people feel good, and I remembered all too well how incredible it had felt to be the focus of so much charm.

  Kade’s smile could melt icebergs, and his tongue was made out of quicksilver. He’d made me feel special, like I was the only woman in the world. After all this time, I could still almost feel the pressure of his lips on mine, the way his kisses used to sweep me away.

  As he started the car, I could only be grateful he hadn’t leaned over to kiss the woman he was with now, and made the disorientation train run back and forth over my heart a few more times.

  He pulled a u-turn and drove away, and it was only when the car was finally out of sight that I noticed the group of customers about to come into the café's front door.

  With weak legs, I staggered back to the front counter and stashed my cleaning equipment out of sight while the group came in, chatting with each other and looking at the menu board on the wall. They conferred for a while in a language I guessed was German, then one of them moved to the counter.

  “Do you only have fried sandwiches?” he asked in accented English.

  I nodded, giving him the brightest smile I could manage. “They come with fries.”

  He scratched his head, glancing back at his companions and looking a little bewildered. “Our guide book said this is a café we must visit.“

  “Absolutely.” I nodded to the framed photograph on the wall next to the counter. It was a black-and-white photo of the building Dad had converted into his café. It showed a single dusty road stretching away from it and a weary looking horse tied up outside. “The building’s historical. See? That picture was taken before San Dante was even a town.”

  The man turned back to his friends and spoke in German with them for a while longer. I figured they were deciding whether to stay and eat or not, but eventually they made up their minds and placed their orders. They already looked disappointed by the limited choices we had available, and I hated that they were almost certain to be even more disappointed when their food arrived.

  My current chef was the worst I’d ever hired, but it had proven impossible to find anyone good for the wages I could offer. It was a vicious cycle. Bad food brought in fewer customers, which meant less money to pay for a decent chef.

  If I didn’t manage to sell the café soon, I wasn’t sure what I’d do.

  “Please sit down,” I said to the German man and his friends. “Your orders will be ready soon.”

  Lee, my twenty-year-old chef who’d been sent from the underworld to torment me, was frying bacon in the kitchen. I put the group’s food order on the counter and glanced into Lee’s frying pan with a grimace. The bacon rashers were drowning in oil so hot it was smoking.

  “I need eight fried sandwiches,” I told him. “And don’t forget we’ll need to go over the menu options for tomorrow, seeing as we have that large group booked in. Let’s plan something special for them.”

  Lee grumbled something that sounded like, “Chicks are bitches,” though it was hard to tell for sure, seeing as he didn’t bother to face me.

  I didn’t respond immediately, but took a moment to suck in a deep, calming breath.

  After having just wallowed in memories of Kade’s irresistible charm, Lee seemed like the anti-Kade. Lee wouldn’t know what charm was if he accidentally swallowed some and started choking on it.

  “Excuse me?” I asked, with great restraint.

  I always tried to stay polite with Lee, even though he was basically Lucifer with pimples and floppy bangs. The thing that helped most was dreaming up new, grisly ways the Lee character would die in the serial-killer slash-fest of a novel I was writing.

  “Chicks,” he repeated, turning away from the stove to scowl at me. “Why do they pretend not to like me? Are they all dumbwits?”

  Besides being a terrible chef and an unpleasant person, Lee’s habit of getting words wrong set my teeth on edge.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you have eight new orders to cook.” I spoke in my most professional, no-nonsense tone.

  “That’s not an answer.” He pointed his spatula at me, one hand on his hip. “You’re a chick. Tell me what’s wrong with your kind.”

  “My kind?” I stopped myself from blurting anything else. Taking a firm grip on my self-control, I managed not to inform him that ‘m
y kind’ weren’t pretending not to like him.

  “Most of the orders are for fried cheese,” I said instead, with the patience of Mother Theresa, the calm of the Dalai Lama, and the iron will of Dr. Bruce Banner keeping himself from turning into the Incredible Hulk. “But there’s one order for fried—”

  Fire flared bright and hot behind him and my stomach clenched. “The bacon’s on fire!” I waved frantically at the frypan. “Quick, cover it with one of the saucepan lids.”

  “Shit.” Lee grabbed a glass of water off the counter and threw it into the pan. Flaming grease spattered everywhere, and suddenly there were several small fires burning all over the kitchen.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” Lee backed toward the door. “Evacuate! Everybody out!”

  I leapt for the fire extinguisher, tore it off the wall, and sprayed a quick burst of foam at each of the fires. It didn’t take much to put them out, but the foam was soapy and made a filthy mess. It also had a sharp chemical stench.

  Lee stared around at the devastation, his mouth slack.

  “Shiiit,” he breathed for the fifth time, as though the word was the only one he knew. Then he snapped his mouth closed and took off his apron. “Guess I’m done for the day.”

  Self control. Calm. Patience.

  Unfortunately, I could no longer make myself feel a single one of those things.

  “Don’t you dare leave,” I snapped. “There’s a mess to clean up and meals to cook.”

  His brow furrowed. “You don’t think I should clean this up?”

  I gritted my teeth. “Why not? You created the mess.”

  “Yeah, but head chefs don’t deal with shit like this. Go get a cleaner.” He threw his apron onto the counter, where it flopped into a blackened, acrid puddle of soapy foam.

  I breathed out through my nose, picturing yet another gruesome death for the Lee character in my novel, involving a fire extinguisher and one of his orifices. The resulting image was the only thing that enabled me to reply without shouting.

  “We still have customers. Just help me clean up so you can cook those orders.” I pointed at the piece of paper I’d ripped from my notebook, which was miraculously untouched by both fire and foam. Eight orders were still visible, and eight customers were waiting to eat—and to pay.

  He cocked his head and his annoying bangs slid into his eyes. “Listen, crazy chick. Nobody’s going to eat here until you’ve had it cleaned up, understand? The place stinks. It’s sickening. Your customers have left.” He motioned to the hatch that connected the kitchen with the rest of the café, and I whirled around to peer out.

  Lee was wrong, the customers were still there. But they were standing up like they were about to leave.

  “Don’t go!” I dashed through the door into the dining area. “Everything’s fine. Please sit down and your food will be out in a minute.”

  The German man shook his head with a regretful expression. “We saw a little of what happened. Those are bad chemicals. Toxic.”

  The woman next to him wrinkled her nose. “The smell is everywhere.” She nodded at the muffins and sweet snacks displayed in a glass cabinet on the counter. “All your food will be ruined.”

  One gave a pointed cough and another put a handkerchief over his face. They filed out in a hurry, throwing apologetic looks over their shoulders.

  “Told you.” Lee sauntered out of the kitchen like an angel of war strolling casually away from a nuclear mushroom cloud, with his satchel over his shoulder and his mobile phone attached to his hand. “I’m outta here.”

  And just like that, my inner Dr. Bruce Banner’s iron self-control shattered, and my Incredible Hulk came rampaging out.

  I spun on Lee, my voice dropping to a low, dangerous hiss. “If you don’t get back in that kitchen right now to help me clean up the chaos and mayhem you created, so help me, I’ll fire you!”

  Lee stared into the terrible face of my violent green rage, and openly scoffed. “Like you could fire me.” He slouched to the door and shouldered it open. “Let me know once you get the place cleaned up.”

  “Lee, I’m warning you—”

  “Chill out, crazy lady. Don’t have a cardio arrest.”

  “Cardio? The word’s cardiac.” Setting my kitchen alight was bad enough, but when he got words wrong, it felt like he was aiming a blow torch at my very last nerve. I switched into full sarcasm mode. “Unless you think I’m going to break into a spontaneous jazzercise session?”

  He stopped halfway out the door, giving me a puzzled frown. “What are you talking about? Have you lost your rocking chair?”

  My last nerve burst into flames. “That’s it. I can’t take any more. You’re fired!”

  He stepped back inside. “Take a pill, psycho. You can’t fire me. I’m the chef.” He pointed to the blackboard above the hatch. “And that’s my menu.”

  “It’s a terrible menu! You deep fry everything!”

  “Whoa. Stop right there.” He flicked his annoying bangs back to reveal shocked eyes, as though I’d finally gone too far. “Who doesn’t like fried food?”

  I put my fists on my hips. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe adults who want to survive into old age? The same kind of people who know you go off your rocker, not lose your rocking chair.”

  He huffed. “You’re off your meds, lady. I’ll come back when you’ve stopped freaking out.”

  “Listen very closely, Lee. What I’m saying is that I don’t want you to come back. That’s why I’m firing you!”

  “But you’ll never find another chef with my talent.”

  I snorted. “Your talent for dunking everything in hot oil could be unique and special, or maybe any idiot could do it. Either way, I guess I’ll find out.”

  “Then go ahead and dig your own funeral.” He shoved the door back open. “Get ready to see my smug face when you figure out what a mistake you made.”

  I curled my hands into fists and yelled after him. “The whole point of firing you is so I never have to see your face again, you insufferable knuckle dragger!”

  But the door was already closing behind him.

  Then I was left by myself in an empty café, with a caustic stench of chemicals in the air and my tsunami of rage giving way to an ebbing tide of defeat.

  I took off my glasses to wipe tears of frustration from my eyes and blinked up at the heavens. “What am I going to do now?” I asked out loud.

  With my anger fading, I was already starting to regret firing Lee. If I couldn’t keep the café operating, my chances of selling it got even slimmer, let alone paying off the loan I’d taken out to get Dad an apartment in an assisted living center.

  My eyes were burning, and I wasn’t sure if it was thanks to the pungent fumes or my overwhelming urge to curl up in the corner and sob.

  Through the serving hatch I could see a strip of bacon stuck to the wall behind the oven, glued by a thick layer of grease. Another strip was on the floor, floating in a puddle of oily water with a fly buzzing around it.

  But I couldn’t let this get the better of me. Falling apart was a luxury I couldn’t afford. Instead, I turned all the kitchen extract fans on and rooted around in the storage cupboard until I found rubber gloves, a face mask and protective coveralls. I didn’t have the money to call in professional cleaners, so after suiting up, I got to work.

  I was cleaning the kitchen counters when my phone rang. Seeing my best friend’s name on the screen filled me with relief, and I dragged off my gloves to answer.

  “Carlotta,” I croaked. “I’m so glad you called.”

  “Are you okay Nat? You sound upset.”

  “I did something I shouldn’t have. I fired Lee.”

  “Okay,” Carlotta said cautiously. “But is that a bad thing? We didn’t like Lee, remember?”

  “But now I don’t have a chef for tomorrow, and I’m supposed to be hosting a special event. A really sweet man proposed to his wife here in the café thirty-five years ago, and they’ve booked lunch for all their family and f
riends for their wedding anniversary.”

  “Can you postpone their lunch to another day?”

  “Thirty-five years. How can I mess that up for them?”

  “What are you going to do? Can you find another chef?”

  “There’s no time.” I dragged in a deep breath and squared my shoulders. “I’ll have to cook the meals myself. I’ll stay open for breakfast as usual, and handle the table of twenty-eight people booked for the special lunch.”

  “You? Cook for twenty-eight people?” Carlotta sounded so incredulous I huffed.

  “If Lee could do it, how hard could it really be? All I have to do is try not to accidentally poison anyone.”

  Carlotta was silent for a long time.

  “Don’t do anything. I’m coming over,” she finally said. And the note of barely-contained panic in her voice told me exactly what she thought about my chances of not messing it up.

  Chapter Two

  Kade

  Apparently, I’d become a chef who couldn’t cook.

  Standing in front of the stove, I was grimacing at the disgusting taste of the quinoa I’d managed to turn into gloop when my twin brother Asher emerged from the room he was using as his office. He stopped on the other side of the kitchen island and swept his gaze across the plates, food scraps, and cooking utensils piled up on the counter.

  “Something smells good,” he said.

  “No, it doesn’t.” I lowered my fork. “And if it does, it’s a lie. Because this...” I used the fork to point at the quinoa. “Is anything but good. If this dish were music, it’d be a beginner’s bagpipe recital. If it were an insect, it’d be pubic lice. If it were email, it’d be trying to sell you a penis enlargement. If it—”