The Billionaire’s Full Figured Desire

But this man was nothing like what she expected.

“Good afternoon, young lady,” the man said pleasantly. “My name is Eli. And I’ll have the lobster frittata, please. That’s all.”

Frida was so surprised at the prompt order that she hung there for a moment, pen poised on her notepad before she realized that she was staring. She quickly nodded, jotted down the order, and went on her way. When she brought his order back to him, some ten minutes later, he distracted her with some warm conversation regarding the restaurant, and whether or not she liked it there.

“I’m fairly new, sir,” Frida admitted. “I’ve only been here a few weeks, about a month, actually. So I can’t really form an opinion of much worth, but I do like it here. The ambiance is great, the food is even better, and I’m really hoping to move to a kitchen position before too long.”

She did not know what made her start pouring all of that out, she just felt as though she could trust this Eli, for some reason. He had one of those faces. Over the next few weeks, Eli quickly became Frida’s favorite customer, better even than the builders. He came in every day in the late afternoon, knew exactly what he wanted to order by the time that Frida reached him, and he always tipped her nicely for being polite.

And when she brought him his order, she always stuck around and talked for a few minutes. Before long, serving him had become the highlight of her day. But the day was always going to come when there was a mishap in the kitchen, and Frida was surprised that she’d managed to go so long without one. But one day, she got the sense that there was some kind of spanner in the works back there, after service was stalled.

More than one customer had begun to complain to Frida that the food was taking too long, and Frida privately agreed. And when she finally went back into the kitchen to enquire with the sous chef, whose name was Andrew Ferguson, about what was taking so long. When she reached the kitchen, Frida already knew it was bad because Chef O’Malley was there, in the kitchen. The Head Chef hardly ever came out of his office, except to prepare meals for his special guests.

But now, he was right there, in the thick of it, conversing fiercely with Andrew in hushed voices.

“Chef,” Frida said as quietly as she could in case she was in earshot of any of the customers. “What’s the holdup?”

Andrew spun on the spot when she called out to him. “Nothing, Frida. It’s fine. Go out there and tell them the food will be out momentarily.”

“It’s not fine,” Frida said firmly. “And lying to the customers is a bad idea.”

“She’s right,” O’Malley nodded. He swore viciously. “What the hell are we going to do?”

“What happened?” Frida repeated.

“Someone accidentally put chicken stock instead of vegetable stock into our entire supply of besciamella sauce,” Andrew explained. “We need that sauce for lasagnas, shepherd’s pies, you name it. But with chicken stock in it, it’s no longer suitable for vegetarians.”

“Is that it?” Frida rolled her eyes. “That’s why everybody’s panicking? We just tell the customer the problem, and offer to get them something else!”

“No!” O’Malley hissed. “You don’t get it, Frida. One of the customers ordered a vegetable lasagna.”

“So?”

“So, he’s not just any regular customer,” Andrew explained.

“He’s Elijah Barker-Lewis! The food critic!”

Frida shrugged. “Never heard of him. Is he that bad?”

“Restaurants have been shut down based upon his reviews,” O’Malley was saying. “His steel-nibbed pen has punctured many inflated reputations! And not just in Seattle, either. He goes from state to state! I heard that three restaurants shut down in Sacramento alone after he visited them in California.”

Frida’s eyebrows went up. “Wait…what did you say his name was?”

“You’ve never heard of Elijah Barker-Lewis?” Andrew asked, eyes even wider in shock.

Suddenly, the truth hit Frida at sixty miles an hour. Elijah Barker-Lewis. Eli is short for Elijah!

Suddenly, she understood the purpose behind all his incessant questioning about the restaurant. Suddenly, it all made sense why he had such expertise when it came to ordering. Suddenly, it was all becoming clear why he chose to sit at the same table at the back, underneath the antlers; one of the few tables that were out of eyeshot from Chef O’Malley when he stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining area. He was a food critic! And she hadn’t even realized!

“It’ll take another half hour to make a new besciamella,” O’Malley was saying. “Meanwhile, we need to find a way to stall.”

“Half an hour?” Frida’s eyes popped out of her head. “You don’t need a whole half hour to make a new white sauce! It should take five, ten minutes tops.”

O’Malley ogled her. “Pardon?”

“You know how to make besciamella?” Andrew sounded more scornful than surprised.

Frida shrugged. “My mom used to make it all the time. We called it bechamel, which is the French name, but it’s the same principle.”

It was almost as though Frida was back at home, in her mom’s brightly-lit kitchen, both of them just having fun and making a mess. No pressure, no nothing. Just the food. She had begun to work while she was talking, taking down a silver pan from the rack above the stoves. “You guys should really not keep these above the stoves,” she murmured. “Metal conducts heat, makes it hot.”

She placed the pan on the stove, lit the gas, and sparked the fire. It roared to life. Both Andrew and O’Malley were watching her with something akin to amazement on their faces, at the speed and grace with which she was moving. In fact, every chef in the kitchen was, and even the kitchen porters. Frida was surprising herself; it was like riding a bike, and she was pleasantly surprised to learn that she’d lost none of her skill. Like water flooding a sewer pipe, it was all coming straight back.

Frida scooped a generous knob of butter from a bowl of iced water on the countertop (professional kitchens keep butter in iced water, as opposed to a fridge because the water keeps the butter cold and fresh for much longer). As soon as the butter on her knife was dropped into the heating pan, it sizzled and began to lose its form; butter melted alarmingly quick and burned just as rapidly. Burned butter would not do for a roux, which was the basis of the bechamel sauce, and so it was important to be careful at this part.

Frida tipped up a big bag of plain flour and tipped a generous helping of flour into the melting butter. This was called a roux, a mixture of unsalted butter and flour. Or, more accurately, a mixture of fat and flour used to thicken sauces. Before putting the flour back, she reached inside the bag and sprinkled a little flour across the pan’s steel handle.