Page 16 of Get Lost

Chapter Seven

The morning of the Winchester wedding was balmy; it was going to be a scorcher. Kelsey began the day by checking all of the misters and fans that had been installed throughout the event property because a sweaty bride was an unhappy bride—and sweaty guests were even worse.

The bridal party was getting ready in a room within the main house, and they’d just sent Kelsey a text to let her know they were ready for more champagne, so after she verified the misters were good to go, she headed for the kitchen.

But as soon as Kelsey crossed the threshold, her jaw hit the floor. The kitchen was a complete disaster. Flour dusted every surface. Pots, pans, and baking utensils were strewn about everywhere. The entire room was in complete disarray. The money she would have to charge the Winchesters just to pay a crew to clean this place after the wedding made Kelsey’s stomach churn.

French pop music blasted through the room from a speaker somewhere in the corner, and though Kelsey didn’t hate the melody—or the way Jean-Luc moved his hips while he worked, unaware that he was no longer alone in this hellscape—the volume was a bit much and she couldn’t think straight.

But eventhatwasn’t the real problem, because frankly, she hadn’t been able to think straight since she met the sexy chef.

On the large island in the center of the room, every last one of Kelsey’s nightmares had collaborated to create one giant, hideous monstrosity.

That three-tiered pile of sadness could notpossiblybe the wedding cake. And a man that deliciously beautiful couldn’t possibly have created something so exactly theopposite.

Kelsey breathed in deeply through her nose, assessing the scene before her, even as her mind began mentally scrolling through the rolodex of pastry chefs she knew in Los Angeles. How quickly could she get one of them out to the desert? How quickly could they make a wedding cake of this size?

The icing was green. And not, like, sage or sea foam, or some other muted, wedding-appropriate variant of green. No, this was straight up Oscar-the-grouch-green, three tiers high.

She cleared her throat and the handsome chef looked up at her, quickly flashing her a sexy-as-sin smile.

But it was his cake that was the real sin, and Kelsey couldn’t get distracted by her ridiculous attraction to him.Eye on the prize, Kels.

“Bonjour, Kelsey. Comment vas-tu aujourd'hui?”

“Bonjour,” she replied curtly, too consumed by the sight before her to even try to figure out what he’d just said. “What is that?” She pointed to the… cake. Could she even call it a cake? Was the inside green too? She shivered at the thought.

“Je ne comprends pas,” he said in that sexy way of his.

Mmm. His mouth curled around each word like—

No. Kelsey gave her head a little shake. She wouldnotget swept away in this man’s sexy voice, his mouth-watering accent, or the way his dark eyes and accented tongue always seemed to have a straight connection to her core.

This was business, and she couldn’t mix business with pleasure.

She pointed to the cake, searching her brain for the tiny bit of French she’d retained since middle school. She’d barely passed that class. She could say mushroom.Champignon. Cat.Chat. Black.Noir. But she couldn’t for the life of her remember how to say ‘what the fuck is that hideous monstrosity you call a cake?’.

So she just waggled her finger at it and hoped for the best.

“Le gâteau?” Jean-Luc asked, brows furrowed.

She frowned, motioning to the cake again. “Green. Um…” She scanned her brain for the name.Verde?No, that was Spanish. Oh! “Verte! Verte!” she yelled excitedly.

His eyes lit up and he nodded. “Oui, oui! Vert. Is… good?”

Ignoring the way his mouth formed her native language with the sexy caress of his French accent, she shook her head. “No.Nooo,” she said, probably a little too harshly. But they were down to mere hours until the wedding and this shit had to be fixed. Quickly.

Jean-Luc’s black-as-night eyebrows furrowed as he looked back and forth between Kelsey and the cake. “Tu n’aimes pas mon gâteau?”

Kelsey grimaced, shaking her head. Even though she wasn’t one-hundred percent sure of what he was asking, if it involved that pastry blunder on the table, the answer was no.

His eyes narrowed. “Tu n’aimes pas mon gâteau?” A bit of an edge had slipped into his tone.“Vous aimez assez ma baguette, n’est-ce pas?”

Kelsey hesitated this time, choosing not to answer him or give him any body language response as he assessed her, then assessed the cake, then he finally brought his gaze back to her again, more fire in his eyes.

Kelsey swallowed hard. What had she just done?

She’d offended a French chef, that’s what she’d done. She had to fix this somehow—

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