The Sexiest Dead Man Alive

Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Deep Chocolate Pot-de-Crème with whipped cream and carmela's torchetta--$8.00

“So we’re sitting there at dinner, and I’m thinking I could get over his Elmer Fudd voice, when he says, ‘I’d go pay the check, but I have an erection.’”

Jenn nearly choked on her French fry. “He said what?”

Deadpan, Rose repeated herself. Then, “That’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Oh my God, yes,” Jenn said, slapping the table with the palm of her hand. “On a first date? In my book, you don’t mention your sexual appendages until at least date five.”

Okay, so she’d known the guy was weird---known it even before he started talking about his dick. But Rose was somehow hoping that just this once, a guy could turn out normal. Or even semi-normal. “My life sucks. I knew he was too good to be true.”

Jenn leaned forward so the other patrons of the Chili’s Restaurant wouldn’t hear her. “Were you, you know, doing anything? Playing footsie or even holding hands?”

“No. Just sitting there. Okay I was naked, but other than that, no, nothing.” Rose grinned. “Honest to God, Jenn, I was just sitting there. Guys don’t get erections that easy, do they? It’s not as if I’m some super model.” Rose looked down at her decidedly un-super model body. In her opinion, the only thing her petite Italian parents had given her that was remotely model-like was her long, wavy, brown hair. She took a sip of her mineral water wishing the glass contained something a bit stronger---like a Dewers.

“Well, if guys do get ‘em at dinner, they don’t talk about it. Not on a first date.” Jenn gave a little shudder. “That was very weird.”

Rose let out a sigh. “I thought so. And he’s so perfect otherwise.”

“I don’t know. That Elmer Fudd thing was hard to take.”

Rose pushed a curling strand of hair away from her face and leaned her chin on her hand, the picture of dejection. Elmer Fudd had had potential. He’d come up to her at Monroe’s, an east side bar that attracted the suit and tie crowd, and seemed completely captivated by her. It was nice. Flattering. And if his intensity seemed a bit, well, strange, Rose figured she could get used to a guy who was completely focused on her. But Elmer turned out to be a little too focused. “Why are losers so attracted to me?”

“They weren’t all losers.”

“Name one who wasn’t,” Rose challenged.

“Ummm. The lawyer. He wasn’t a total loser.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Oh, and living with your mother when you’re thirty-five is okay with you?”

“Some women might think it was cute.”

“He was too attached to her, if you ask me.”

“That’s gross.”

Rose shrugged in agreement. “I don’t have anything against a guy loving his mom. In fact it’s kind of nice. But Steve gave me the creeps after a while. I think he used to slip her the tongue when they kissed good-bye.”

“Stop it,” Jenn said, purely disgusted even as she laughed.

Rose drummed her fingertips again her mouth. She was thirty-two years old and the last long-term relationship she’d been in was during her early twenties. It wasn’t as if she needed a man, though a guy sure came in handy sometimes.

“You’ll find someone,” Jenn said, then her eyes widened. “Whoa. Lookee there. Cutie at ten o’clock.”

Rose squinched up her face in disgust at the look pure lust on Jenn’s face. “Jenn, you’re married and pregnant.”

Jenn turned back, completely unapologetic. “I’m not dead. I don’t know why people think it’s easy to turn off the radar as soon as you get married.”

“I thought it was on auto shut-off.”

Jenn pulled a face. “I’d never act on it, but it doesn’t hurt to flirt a little. Sheesh. You sound like Brian.”

“Uh-oh. I smell a fight.”

Jenn got all sullen for about three seconds before recovering. “Anyway, I was looking at that guy for you.”

“Please don’t even think about setting me up. It’s not like I’m desperate or anything.”

“I know,” Jenn said quickly.

Rose narrowed her eyes. “You think I am desperate.”

“No I don’t.”

“You’ve turned into one of those women I hate.”

Jenn smiled good-naturedly. “I have not.”

“You have. Just because your married…”

“And pregnant. Don’t forget my biological clock had been put on pause.” She smiled.

Rose gave her long-time friend a sneer. Domesticity looked good on her. Her once spiky blond hair was now a sleek bob that looked fantastic with her Nordic features, and the small amount of weight she’d gained since she got married made her face look less angular. “Okay. Pregnant. Just because you’re married and two weeks pregnant doesn’t mean that I want to be married and pregnant. It doesn’t seem all that wonderful to me.”

Jenn just tilted her head, a patronizing gesture that said, “You poor disillusioned woman.”

In mock misery, Rose covered her face with her hands. “God, I’m thirty-two. Do you realize that means the earliest I could possibly have a baby is thirty-five? I was fifteen when my mother was thirty-five.”

Jenn burst out laughing. “You could get pregnant tomorrow, if you wanted to. And anyway, you don’t really want to be like your mother, do you?”

No, Rose did not. She would rather have been like her grandmother, the woman who actually raised her. Mom was not the typical Italian mother with a kitchen in the basement and Saran Wrap covering the good living room furniture. Rose, who to the horror of her attorney mother would rather be in a kitchen than anywhere else, had the misfortune of having a career-driven mother who set out at an early age to prove she was not typical. Her mother dumped her father when he suggested they have another child, and looked at her daughter as if she’d been spawned by an alien. The fact Rose was a fantastic cook and pratically running Anthony’s Ristorante meant nothing.

“I’m old-fashioned. I’d like to have a husband or at least a boyfriend before I have a baby. And that takes time. First I have to meet him, then date for a while, then fall in love, marry. All that takes years.”

“Let me dig your grave now, then.”

“You might as well.”

Jenn laughed again. “You’re being stupid.”

Rose sighed, checking her watch. “Maybe. Listen, I have to get going. You remember that personal chef job I applied for?”

“The one that pays 80K?”

“Yeah. I’ve got an interview in an hour in Kingstown. It’s strange though. I still don’t know who I’ll be working for and I don’t know whether I’ll have to prepare anything, so of course I had no idea how to dress,” Rose said, looking down at her black capris and sleeveless cream cable-knit sweater. “Do you think this is all right?”

Jenn shrugged. “I have no idea what a personal chef is supposed to wear. One of those white smocks and funny hats?”

“I considered that, so I brought my stuff just in case. I’d think for that money they’d want to know what they were getting. I still can’t believe I got an interview. You should have seen how lousy my application was.” Rose fished in her purse for money to pay her part of the bill.

“I’ll call you later in the week. Maybe you can come over this weekend.”

“Okay. Maybe.” Rose wouldn’t. Couldn’t. She liked Jenn, but seeing her in her perfect suburban home was depressing. Jenn had been the wild one, the partier, the one who had a hangover on Saturday mornings. The one who slept around. And now she was Married Woman with a handsome husband, gorgeous house and a baby on the way. She didn’t even work anymore and for a single woman that was perhaps the oddest creature of all. Jenn was still Jenn, but…not. Especially not at home with her husband, Brian. She was like a different woman, Betty Crocker meets Courtney Love.

As soon as Rose reached her car, her mind was on the interview. Clearly, she had little to offer someone who was looking to impress clients or ritzy friends. She could cook the pants off some formally-trained chefs, but it meant nothing without a resume. Working on Federal Hill at Anthony’s Ristorante didn’t carry much weight, even if Anthony’s served the best Italian food on the hill.

On top of her lack of experience, she was cursed with a strong Rhode Island accent, a dismal cross between Boston and New York accents that made anyone who possessed it sound illiterate, and a tendency to be brutally honest. “That mouth of yours, Rosalie, it gonna get you in big trouble some day,” her grandmother told her too many times to count---and usually after a fight with her mother.

Rose glanced down at the directions before spotting Marlin Road. Between grand houses and high hedges she saw the intense blue of water and her stomach clenched a bit nervously. She’d known no one who could offer a personal chef eighty thousand dollars a year would live in a normal house, but these houses were more like mansions than ordinary homes. The road, purposefully rural and narrow to please its well-heeled residents, wound its way along the coast shrouded by towering maple trees planted long ago to give the road a bit of elegance and privacy. This was not the campy, beachy crowd. This was New York and Connecticut money, people who talked in that clenched-teeth, jaw-thrusted manner.

“Jesus,” Rose whispered as she stared at one particularly elegant house. “These friggin’ people must be loaded.” Then she frowned, realizing how brainless she sounded. “My gracious,” she said in her most eloquent accent. “How well off these residents must be.” She’d tried to lose her cursed accent, even considered going to a voice coach, but that cost money and extra money was not something she had a lot of. Every extra penny—--and there weren’t a lot of those---went toward her dream of owning a restaurant. Her mother could have helped, with the reluctance of a pit bull giving up a bone, but Rose hadn’t asked her mother for a loan since she’d been sixteen.

Suddenly, the sky brightened and she found herself staring at a small sandy beach. A discreet sign to the left informed the riff-raff that this was a private beach. Somehow she’d missed the turn-off. “Three fifty-seven,” she mumbled, and pulled a smart three point turn to head back the other way. She drove the road again, craning her neck to read the numbers tacked onto strong pillars, wrought-iron fences, and fancy plaques. “Three thirty-three…three forty-nine…three sixty-one…Shit.” She slammed the brake. “Where the heck is this place?” Growling out her frustration, she pulled another three point turn, this time cursing the idiots who designed such a narrow road. Crawling along so slowly she could hear her tires moving against the smooth, black asphalt, Rose peered for the ghost house. Then she saw a small opening in the dense woods, a dirt road disappearing into the gloom of an overgrown mass of brush and trees that were just beginning to leaf.

Rose turned in, wincing at the screech of branches scraping the paint of her ten-year-old Honda. She was searching for some indication she was on the right drive, looking for a number nailed to a tree, when she saw it: a surveillance camera tacked high on an oak tree, its red light blinking. It looked like the sort of camera outside a bank.

She rolled down her window. “Hi,” she said, and waved to whomever might be watching. If this was the wrong house, she wanted whoever was at the other end of the dirt road to know she was friendly. As she drove, she noticed more cameras, some angled toward the road, some pointing into the woods.

“These people must be totally paranoid.” Or part of the witness protection program. Or members of some underground crime family. Maybe that’s why she got the interview, because of her Italian last name. Rose grinned, picturing her face plastered on the front of the Providence Journal with the caption: Crime Family Cook.

The road brightened ahead, and Rose saw a glimpse of the house. It stood like a large white box in the middle of a huge clearing, looking like something that belonged in California---big concrete, modern, and cold. It could have been an office building for all the warmth and character it possessed. Rose, who lived in a city where “modern” meant a house was built in the 1920s, instantly disliked this pretentious square thing. While the lawn was so perfect it didn’t look real, not a single flower or bush had been planted to soften the exterior of the home, and Rose wondered if the starkness of the place was mostly functional; an additional precaution against whatever marauders the people in the house were trying to ward off. To one side, though highly visible, was a small guard house, the kind she’d seen at military bases.

Rose told herself not to prejudge the occupants of the concrete cube. And what did she care about the people anyway if they were willing to pay her eighty thousand a year to do something she loved?

As she approached the house, a security officer stepped out of the small guard building and waved her to park next to a beat-up old jeep. Rose smiled, sensing a kindred spirit in the guard, who owned a car even older than hers.

“Rose Pisano?” he asked through her open window. Now this could be an added benefit---the guy was gorgeous, boy-toy material if she’d ever seen it. Boy toy was one of Jenn’s favorite expressions and pertained to the kind of guy who looked good on your arm, was probably good in bed, but didn’t have the mental staying power to last longer than a month. Boy toys were for recreational purposes only.

“That’s me.”

“Please follow me.”

Rose jumped out of the car, burning with curiosity about the people who lived here. She rubbed her hands over her arms to ward off the chilly air; it was about ten degrees cooler here by the ocean. “Work here long?” The best way to get a guy to talk was to ask them about themselves.

“About six months.”

“You like it?”

“It’s okay.” Me cave man, me not know many words.

Ah, but he had nice pecs bulging beneath that blue polyester-cotton blend shirt of his. Rose gave herself a mental shake. This guy was probably a depressing ten years younger than she was. “They have a lot of parties? I’m applying for the personal chef position and have no idea what I’m in for. If I get the job.”

The guard stopped and quickly eyed the house, as if he were nervous, as if his job depended on him keeping his mouth shut. “I’ve never seen a soul come in or out of that house.”

“Except the owners?”

“No. No one.”

It was all so gothic, Rose had to stop herself from giggling. “You mean you’ve worked here for six months and you haven’t seen anyone?”

“A guy comes to mow the lawn in the summer once a month. And Bert’s delivers groceries once a week. But no one goes inside. Not even me.”

Rose gave the guard a hard stare. He was tall and athletic, maybe twenty-four, and he was distinctly nervous about talking to her. Or was it that he was nervous about being seen talking to her.

“How many people live here?” Rose asked, catching the guard’s paranoia and looking at the windows to be certain no one was peering out at them. The black squares offered up little information about the interior of the house and Rose wondered if they were made of special glass like the stuff some people put on their cars. People like bad guys, people with something to hide.

The guard shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I said, I’ve never seen them. A guy talks to me via radio and a phone in the guard house.”

“Isn’t that kind of strange don’t you think?”

The guard shot another nervous look at the house, then eyed Rose for a moment before dipping his head and whispering, “It’s fucked up if you ask me.”

Rose fought a chill that threatened.

“There’s three shifts and a weekend shift and no one---no one---has ever seen anybody come in or out of that house. There’s no car, no boat, no friggin’ nothing. I even went to town hall to check out who owned the place, but it’s the same corporation that signs our checks: Clarke Enterprises.”

“Maybe it’s some old guy in a wheelchair.”

“Maybe.” But he didn’t seem even close to believing that.

The guard clammed up as they approached the front door. He pressed a button for an intercom. “You’re interview is here.” He turned back to her. “By the way, the name’s Paul.” The door clicked as it was electronically unlocked and the guard pushed it open, immediately stepping back.

Rose gave him a look of mock terror. “Well, Paul, if you hear any screams, come running,” she said, then laughed. The guard didn’t even crack a smile as he stepped up to close the door behind her.

Two things hit Rose when she walked into the entry hall: It was as cold as a tomb and appeared completely abandoned. The huge entry hall opened up into a room that overlooked the Atlantic and neither area had a stick of furniture that she could see. The marble floor was dusty, cobwebs hung from the high ceiling and coated the fancy chandelier above her head. A camera, its red light blinking, had been installed near the chandelier. She half-expected a bat to come dashing out of some dark corner. “Hello?” she said to the camera. No answer.

Then she saw an arrow written on a piece of paper tacked to one wall. It pointed to a small room off the entry hall, which was also empty, but for a chair and a telephone. And a camera in one corner. As she walked into the room, the phone rang.

Rolling her eyes at the ridiculous drama, Rose picked up the phone nearly ready to tell whomever was on the other end they could shove their job. “Rosie’s House of Horrors.” If the guy didn’t have a sense of humor, she didn’t want to work for him anyway.

He laughed, a deep rumbling sound that was pleasantly normal. “I know this all must seem strange.”

His voice, deep and rough, sent a shiver of sensation from her ears to her toes. It was as good as the longest, deepest, wettest kiss Rose had ever had. She jerked the phone away from her head, then cautiously brought it back. “Very strange,” she said slowly, looking up at the camera. “Can you see me now?”

“Yes.” Again, that long, deep kiss.

Yes, yes, oh my God, yes. She was having phone sex, and that thought was so bizarre, she laughed aloud. He was probably fat and old and very, very pale if what Gary said was true about him never leavig the house Rose conjured that distasteful image in her head to ward off any more erotic thoughts. “Is there a camera in the kitchen?”

“In every room. Except the bathroom.”

Okay. Now that she had the old-fat-pale guy in her head, she could carry on a conversation.

“Are you hiding from the law?”

“No.” He still sounded amused.

“Just hiding?”

That was the only way to put what he was doing, Declan realized. Hiding from the world.

“Why don’t we talk about the position.” He already knew she wouldn’t take the job. Too bad, because she was the best-looking of the lot. Two men had answered the downstairs phone only to tell him without preamble they were no longer interested in the position. The woman, a skinny throwback from the sixties wearing tie-dye T-shirt and a long ugly skirt, looked as if a lion were about to eat her. This one, this petite woman with the long, wavy hair, looked completely relaxed; amused by his theatrics, and definitely not interested in the job. Perhaps he could convince her.

If he had to hire a cook, he might as well hire one who was nice to look at. He’d tried to find the most desperate of the dozens of applications that came in, and from her resume, she looked like she might need a break or money. He was so damned sick of eating frozen dinners, he thought he’d puke if he heard the sound of the microwave dinging out that his dinner was ready one more time. He’d weighed the risk of discovery over the joy of eating something edible, and food won out.

“Okay. Tell me about the job,” she said, pulling her legs up to sit cross-legged in the chair. There was something so sexy about a woman sitting cross-legged. Too bad he’d never meet her in person.

“You’ll work five days a week, preparing lunch and dinner. I also expect you to prepare lunch and dinner for Saturday and Sunday before you leave on Friday. I don’t pay medical or dental but you’ll get two weeks paid vacation a year, but not consecutive weeks.”

She chewed on her thumbnail, the only indication she was a bit uncomfortable. “Are you in the mafia?”

“No. I prefer healthful food. I don’t eat much red meat. I’d like for you to prepare a menu monthly so that I can pick what I want from day to day. I have food delivered by Bert’s and you’ll have to prepare a shopping list.”

“Are the cameras always on? Because I don’t think I could cook if I thought you were watching all the time.”

He sighed audibly. “I’ll turn the camera on in the kitchen only when I need to talk to you.”

“So I’m never going to see you. Face to face.”

“Never.” A shame. She was so damned pretty. Another thing he never thought about when he’d started all this. No women. No sex. What a stupid plan.

Declan hadn’t thought about the complete isolation. Actually, he had thought about it, anticipated it even. But he never realized he would come to hate being alone, dreading each day knowing the only face he’d see would be his own. He found he missed life far more than he thought he would.

“I don’t know…”

“Is there a problem with the salary?” he asked, knowing full well he was paying a ridiculous amount of money.

When she rolled her eyes and shot the camera a look of disbelief, he laughed again. God, it felt good to laugh. He had to make her take the job, it had suddenly become a necessary thing to have someone---anyone---to talk to.

She uncurled her legs and stood up facing the camera. “You’ve got to know this is very weird. I’m extremely uncomfortable with this arrangement.”

Okay. At least she was still talking to him. “I understand,” he said, deep and low. For some reason she jerked the phone away from her ear. He heard her take a deep, shaking breath. Shit, he was scaring her. “Listen, I’m a normal guy in an unusual situation. I just want to eat something that doesn’t come in a box.”

She scrunched her face up in thought, clearly waging an internal battle between common sense and greed. Come on, take the job. Take it.

“I’d like to see the kitchen before I make any decisions.”

He smiled. The kitchen was the one thing about this concrete prison that the former owners did right. It was a state-of-the-art, high-end cook’s fantasy kind of kitchen, with every gadget and appliance imaginable. And it had an incredible view of the Atlantic. “Go to the end of the hall, take a left, and you’ll see it.”

He flipped a switch, turning on the two kitchen cameras. In front of him, the monitors blinked on and he waited patiently for her to come into view. He wanted to see her expression when she saw the place and was not disappointed. It was like showing a starving woman a buffet table loaded with chocolate cake.

She stared up at one of the cameras and pointedly moved a finger over one of the stainless steel countertops. “It’s a bit dusty.”

“I’ll clean it.”

Rose stood in the center of paradise and moved in a slow circle, taking in every detail. She didn’t want to see him to see her salivating over the Aga range, the double Subzero refrigerator, or the super-quiet ASKO dishwasher. And---oh my God!---it even had a Miele convection steam oven. She’d asked Tony a hundred times to install one and he’d complained such a luxury was way beyond his budget.

“What do you think?”

If only he didn’t sound so desperately lonely. So incredibly sexy. He’s fat. Pale, old and fat.

But that’s not how he sounded. He sounded young and gorgeous and hungry.

Rose’s dream man.

She looked up at the monitor and gave him a smile.

“I’ll take the job.”