FEED YOUR SOUL
Arabella and Gaige are total opposites.
She’s super girly.
He’s all man.
She makes decadent desserts for a living.
He hunts down information on bad guys.
But from the moment they met, their chemistry was undeniable.
1
ARABELLA
Imoaned in relief as I kicked off my stiletto heels the minute my hotel suite door shut behind me. When I’d signed on to be a judge for the reality television cooking show that had jump-started my career when I’d won it less than two years ago, I’d been excited about the opportunity to work with the other judges. Owen Walker, especially. The celebrity chef had amazing skills in the kitchen, and he wasn’t too bad to look at either. But today’s taping had been insane. Jude, the producer, had been fired yesterday, and everything took longer as his replacement took over.
All in all, I couldn’t complain too much about the firing since Jude was a slimy flirt who gave me the creeps. And that was before I’d known that he was sleeping with one of the contestants. She’d been kicked off the show for breach of contract, at Owen’s insistence since apparently sleeping with the producer hadn’t been enough for her. She’d also been trying to land Owen in her bed, and she’d been horrible to his new fiancée.
The whole thing was a mess, and it had taken a lot of the excitement out of the project for me. Luckily, we were morethan halfway done with taping, and I had a month-long break in my schedule once I was finished. I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do with all that free time, but it didn’t make me look forward to it any less. Odds were good that I’d pop over to London to see my little sister for part of it. Almost as though she heard my thoughts from across the world, Celina’s face popped up on my cell phone’s screen alerting me to her incoming call.
“Are you spying on me again?” I teased as I answered.
“Maybe,” she laughed. “Why? Did I call right when you were going to call me again?”
“No, but I was thinking about you.”
“Good thoughts, I hope.”
“Absolutely! I was thinking about—” I trailed off at the sound of three hard knocks on the door. “Hold on a second.”
I padded across the room and pulled the door open, surprised to find a guy who looked familiar standing there. He was holding a big, brown paper bag with a white slip of paper stapled to it. The scent of Chinese food wafted up, and my stomach growled in response. My voice dripped with disappointment as I said, “Sorry, I think you’ve got the wrong room. I didn’t order dinner.”
He looked down at the receipt and back up at me. “Room 2039? Arabella Green?”
I took a small step backwards, a little freaked out. “Yes?” I answered cautiously.
“Then this is yours.” He thrust the bag at me, and I latched on to prevent it from crashing to the floor.
“But I didn’t—”
“It’s already paid for,” he tossed over his shoulder as he turned and moved quickly down the hallway.
“Arabella!” My sister screeched through the phone that was now pressed against the brown bag.
Grumbling to myself, I toed the door closed as I lifted the phone back to my ear. “I’m here.”
“What happened?”
“Food delivery.” Dropping down on the couch in the sitting room, I tore open the bag and found egg rolls, crab rangoon, pork fried rice, and chicken with snow pea pods inside. It was exactly what I would have ordered for myself, which made it even stranger. “Any chance you ordered it for me?”
“No,” she drawled. “Why?”
“Because I’m staring at all my favorite Chinese dishes, and I haven’t ordered dinner yet.”
There was a moment of startled silence over the line. “That’s super weird, Arabella.”
