Except Lily didn't make her feel inadequate. She made her laugh, Jessica thought warmly. She made her feel… useful.
"Those look great." Lily nodded at the arrangement of fruit on the lettuce leaves. She grabbed the poppy-seed dressing out of the freezer and handed it to Jessica. "Stir that up and then spoon it down the middle of the fruit. And if you'll point me to a platter, I'll stuff this egg mixture into the pitas, and we'll be ready to go."
A few minutes later, carrying a tray on which she'd carefully balanced all the salads, Jessica followed Lily back into the dining room. She felt as flushed with accomplishment as if she'd devised the menu herself.
The first person she saw when she entered the room was Christopher, and her smile widened with the instinctive flash of joy the sight of her husband invariably gave her. She noted that her sister had yet to put in an appearance—not that that had anything to do with anything. Cassidy was always late… and surely the fact that Christopher had also been late getting to the dining room this morning was strictly coincidental.
Circling the table, she offered a salad first to the dark, silent Marine who quite frankly rather unnerved her, then to the members of her family.
"My word," Aunt Maureen said, looking up from the prettily arranged plate to Lily, who was placing a breakfast pita on everyone's bread plate. "This is amazing. You were only gone ten minutes. How on earth did you manage something so nice in such a short amount of time?"
Lily shrugged. "It's what I do—I'm a chef by trade. Besides, I had a terrific assistant." She shot Jessica a grin, then turned back to Maureen. "Your niece actually made the salads."
"Well, I followed directions, anyway," Jess amended. Setting the rest of the plates down in the vacant places at the table, she propped the tray against the sideboard and took her seat next to Christopher.
"Yes, Jessie's a good little direction follower." Cassidy breezed into the room, wearing just the right outfit, complete with chunky jewelry, her hair twisted up in a messy, casual do that Jessica knew took her forever to arrange. "Good morning, all." She slid into the vacant chair next to Zach that Lily had been heading toward and looked down at the salad plate in front of her. "So what was your contribution, Jess? Washing the lettuce?"
Jessica felt herself start to disappear, simply fading away until she became part of the surroundings, the way she so often did around her younger sister.
Then simultaneously, Christopher squeezed her thigh beneath the table while Lily sat down and leveled a look at Cassidy as she reached for her linen napkin and shook it open. "Actually, she pretty much did it all. Cut the fruit, arranged it, dressed it. And as you can see, she did a lovely job of the presentation. What is it that you do, Ms. Beaumont?"
The question was asked in a perfectly polite tone of voice, but Cassidy's cheeks mottled red beneath her impeccable makeup. And suddenly Jess didn't feel quite so much like a part of the wallpaper.
"Cassidy shops," Richard supplied, and picked up his pita. He took a bite and hummed a little in appreciation.
Cassidy shot her brother a sour look. Then she turned to Lily with a superior smile. "Actually, my real forte is fund-raising. Someone has to look after the less fortunate." She glanced down at the plate in front of her but made no move to pick up her fork. "Being a cook is certainly a useful little job, though. If you're looking for work, I'm sure I could find you a place on someone's staff. Our crowd is always looking for good help."
Jessica winced at her sister's rudeness and Aunt Maureen said, " Cassidy" in a remonstrative tone.
But Lily merely smiled. "That's very kind of you, but I have a job."
" Do you. Do you work for a good family, dear? Or perhaps cook for a nice little diner?"
"No. I'm a corporate chef."
Cassidy shrugged impatiently. "Cook, chef, what's the difference?"
"Training, chiefly—a chef has a great deal more of it. I got mine at the Culinary Academy in San Francisco and in Le Cordon Bleu at the California School of Culinary Arts in Pasadena. Then I apprenticed for several years with two of the top chefs in Los Angeles."
Zach abruptly set down his fork. It clattered against his china, and Jessica looked over in time to see him push his chair back from the table.
With his shuttered eyes and unsmiling mouth, he appeared completely intimidating to her. but obviously her sister didn't agree. She reached out to run her beautifully manicured fingers down his arm, and sent him a flirtatious glance from beneath her long lashes. "You're not leaving already, are you?"
"Yes." His face expressed no emotion as he stared down at her fingers tracing the soft veins that stood beneath the tanned skin of his forearm. "I have some calls to make." Withdrawing his arm from beneath her hand, he stepped back, circled the table, and walked out of the room.
No one said a word for an instant, then Lily, too, set her napkin aside and rose to her feet. "Excuse me, won't you?" she murmured. "I need to talk to Zach for a moment, then I'll be back to clean up the kitchen."
"Oh, dear, you needn't do that," Aunt Maureen said with a little flutter of her hands.
"I don't mind, Mrs. Beaumont, really. It's just another part of the job."
"What?" Cassidy demanded sweetly. "The big, important chef doesn't have a little helper-bee to do the dirty work for her?"
"Shut up, Cassidy," Jessica snapped.
Her sister turned cool eyes on her. "Well, well, the mouse speaks." Then she turned away, and Jessica watched her watch Lily walk out of the room.
As soon as the petite blonde disappeared, however, Cassidy turned back to her, and something about her air of satisfaction made Jessica's stomach churn.
"So," Cassidy said. "Did Christopher tell you about the… service… he performed for me this morning?"
Chapter 11
A chef! Zach stalked across the foyer and up the graceful central staircase, taking the stairs two at a time. And not just a line cook giving herself a fancy title, either, from the sound of it, but a highly trained professional . He swore with inspired creativity beneath his breath. Because, as much as he'd love to scoff at the notion, it made an awful sort of sense.
Nothing like having your fuck-ups come home to roost. All of a sudden he couldn't even convince himself that, in spite of having a career, the possibility still existed that Lily was the golddigger he'd repeatedly accused her of being. For, too late, he figured out the fault in his logic that had bothered him the other day when he'd demanded to know if she was worried his stopping Glynnis from marrying David would lose Lily her meal ticket. He smacked himself in the forehead. It never occurred to you, genius, that if a meal ticket had been her big concern she would've been all for you breaking up the big romance? Once Glynnie has a husband to monitor her finances, chances of wriggling money out of her are pretty much shot.
Zach blew out a breath and squared his shoulders. So all right, big deal. He'd been wrong, and as a consequence he'd leveled a bunch of unfounded accusations at her. What the hell—he'd apologize.
Even if he still did wonder what was in it for her. There had to be something. Gainfully employed or not, no one put herself out to the extent that Lily had for someone she'd known as short a time as she had his sister. No one outside of the Corps, anyway.
"Zach."
He spun around at the sound of her soft voice and watched her jiggle down the corridor with that hip swiveling, feminine walk of hers, looking like every Marine's wet dream as she perambulated toward him on yet another pair of her ubiquitous high heels. He marched over to meet her. "Well, you really got me good, didn't you? I'm sure you're pretty damned pleased with yourself."