would offer him that much. But then Alex could suddenly see what the plan was. Jacques was luring the man away in a deliberate attempt to leave her high and dry. He’d keep him on for two or three weeks, just long enough to cause scads of trouble for her, then he’d fire him under some pretext or other.
Alex opened her mouth, prepared to warn Pierre, but the smug expression on his face stopped her. Peter had always been an egotistical bastard. It was bad enough when he was only the sous-chef, but in the short timesince she’d promoted him to head chef, his ego had grown to ten times its previous bloated state. No, she thought with a sigh, he wouldn’t believe her. He’d think it just sour grapes.
“I know you can’t afford it,” Peter said pityingly. Then with something less than sympathy, he added, “Just admit it so I can stop wasting my time and get out of here.”
Alex’s mouth tightened. “Well, if you knew, why even bother suggesting it? ”
“I didn’t want you to think I was totally without loyalty,” he admitted with a shrug. “Were you to beat their offer, I would have stayed.”
“Thanks,” she said dryly.
“De rien,” he said, and turned toward the door.
Alex almost let him walk out, but her conscience got the better of her. Whether he’d believe her or not, she had to at least try to warn him that he was setting himself up for a fall. Once Jacques fired him—and she didn’t doubt for a minute he would—Peter would be marked. The entire industry would know that he’d left her for them, and then lost that job. Even if people didn’t suspect the truth of what happened and label him a putrid little weasel, they would think he’d been fired for something.
Alex had barely begun to speak her thoughts, however, before Peter was shaking his head. Still, she rushed on with it, warning him as her conscience dictated. The moment she fell silent, he sneered at her with derision.
“I knew you would be upset, Alexandra, but making up such a ridiculous story to get me to stay is just sad. The truth is, I have been selling myself cheap for some time now. I’ve built up a reputation as an amazing chef these last several weeks while cooking in your stead—” “
Two weeks,” Alex corrected impatiently. “It’s only been two weeks since I promoted you to head chef. And you’re cooking my recipes, not coming up with brilliant ones of your own. Surely you can see how ridiculous it is that someone would pay you that kind of money for—”
“No, I do not see it as ridiculous. I am brilliant. Jacques sees my potential and that I deserve to be paid my value. But you obviously don’t. You have been trying to keep me under. Now I will get paid what I deserve and enjoy some of the profits produced by my skills.” Mouth tightening, he added, “And you’re not going to trick me into staying here with such stupid stories.”
With a little sniff of disgust, Peter turned on his heel and sailed out of her office with his nose up and a self-righteous air that made her want to gag.
Alex closed her eyes. At the moment, she wanted nothing more than to yell a string of obscenities after the man, and suspected she would enjoy his fall when it came. Unfortunately, her own fall would come first.
Cursing, she pulled her Rolodex toward her and began to rifle through the numbers. Perhaps one of her old friends from culinary school could help for a night or two. Christ, she was ruined if she didn’t find someone and quickly.
An hour later, Alex reached the W’s in her Rolodex with no prospects when the phone rang. Irritated withthe interruption when she was having a crisis, Alex snapped it up. She barked “hello,” the fingers of her free hand still flipping through the cards one after the other in quick succession.
“I have someone I want you to meet.”
Alex frowned at the strange greeting, slow to recognize her sister’s voice. Once she did, a deep sigh slid from her lips, and she shook her head wearily. She really didn’t need this right now. She was heartily sick of the parade of men Sam had been presenting her with over the last eight months.
It had been bad enough when she and their younger sister, Jo, had both been single and available, but now that Jo