"He usually sent us to watch television then while he started dinner, but I'd leave Jo and Sam watching cartoons and go into the kitchen to bother Gramps. I'd ask what he was doing, and why he was putting this or that in, and he'd explain patiently and give me a small task to do. By the time I started high school, he was letting me do larger tasks and even letting me cook while he assisted me. I've loved cooking ever since, and when I graduated from high school, I decided to train as a chef."
"Your grandfather must have been proud," Cale said, and frowned when he saw sadness claim her face.
"I'm afraid he never knew. He died of a heart attack toward the end of my last year at high school."
"I'm sorry," Cale said quietly, absently rubbing a hand over his stomach.
"So am I." Her tone was solemn. "He was a wonderful man."
"What about your other grandparents?" Cale asked.
"Oh." Alex sighed. "My father's parents died before I was born, and my mother's mother, Gramps's wife, died of brain cancer when I was little. I don't even remember her. Gramps was it."
"Well, I'm sure he would have been proud to know you went on to become a chef."
"He would have been bursting with it," she said with a laugh. "Especially since I trained in Paris. He always used to tell me Paris produced the world's best chefs. He would have been impressed that I went there."
"You trained in Paris?" Cale stopped painting at the news that she'd been so close geographically so many years ago. If not for fate, he might have met her then.
"Nothing but Paris would do," she assured him on a wry laugh. "I was determined to be the best chef in the world."
"Did you like Paris?" he asked, wondering if she would like his home.
"I loved it," Alex assured him. "The smells, the sights, people watching ... It's the only place I know where absolutely everyone seems to be wandering around with baguettes in hand." She grinned and admitted, "I was almost sorry to come home when I was finished training."
"But you did," he prompted when she fell silent.
"Oh yes. I managed to get a job as a line cook in a good restaurant, then worked my way up to sous-chef, but my dream job was head chef. It probably would have taken another four or five years to find that kind of position anywhere if I hadn't opened La Bonne Vie."
"Did you make the money for that the same way your parents did? Renovating houses? "
"No. I'm neither handy like my dad, nor do I have a good eye like my mom," she said. "I started La Bonne Vie with my share of the inheritance when my parents died in a car accident."
"I'm sorry, but I'm sure they'd be pleased with your success. The one is doing so well you're opening a second," Cale praised.
"Yeah, if I don't go bankrupt before opening night," Alex said dryly. She glanced down and suddenly asked, "Are you all right?"
The question and her concerned tone of voice made Cale look up to see her backing down the ladder.
"Jesus, you look awful," she murmured, stopping beside him. "You've been rubbing your stomach intermittently for the last little while, and I thought something might be wrong, but you're pale as death, Cale."
He glanced down to see that he was indeed rubbing his stomach. He was also suddenly aware of the gnawing sensation troubling him. He needed to feed, Cale realized unhappily. He hadn't fed since ... well, actually he'd only had the one bag at the enforcer house in the last forty-eight hours. Cale had unexpectedly entertained a couple of cousins in his hotel in New York last week and had used up more than he'd planned during his stay. His supply had run out yesterday, but he'd decided that rather than send for more, he could hold out until he got to the hotel in Toronto, where a cooler of blood should be waiting.
Unfortunately, Cale hadn't yet made it to the hotel. He'd received a message from Marguerite asking him to stop in once he'd landed and had headed straight to her home after claiming his rental car. As it turned out, that had been something of an ambush. He'd arrived to find Marguerite, her husband Julius, and Lucian and Leigh waiting for him.
Cale hadn't even gotten through the door before Marguerite was telling him about her certainty that Alex was the one. He'd heard her out, taking in Lucian's solemn face and crossed arms the whole while, and had known instinctively that Lucian was there to back Marguerite and would just pester him until he agreed to meeting the woman. That being the case, the first chance he'd gotten to get in a word, Cale had agreed to go to the enforcer house and arrange to meet the woman. He suspected he'd surprised everyone by agreeing so easily, but the moment he had, Marguerite had insisted he should head over at once. Lucian had spoken up then, giving him a quick rundown of the people there. He'd then given him directions before sending him on his way to the enforcer house, where he'd managed to get in one bag of blood before being hustled off to the restaurant.
That one bag hadn't been nearly enough, he acknowledged as Alex raised a hand to feel his forehead. The gnawing sensation in Cale's gut immediately intensified in response to her scent. He definitely needed to feed, he thought, and didn't realize he'd said it aloud until Alex frowned and said, "We just ate."
"It was a very small burger," he muttered and moved away, ostensibly to set down his roller, but really to get away from Alex and the blood he could actually smell pulsing under her skin.
"Yes it was," she said almost apologetically. "I always get the little cheeseburgers rather than a proper burger. It's those reconstituted onions. I really like them. Still-""And it's the only thing I've eaten all day," he interrupted as he straightened.
Her eyebrows flew up, and she was suddenly moving. "Okay. Time to go."
"You don't have to come with me," Cale said with alarm when she grabbed her purse and coat.
Alex shrugged her coat on. "How long have you been in Toronto?"