Romancing the Chef

When Veronica Howard is invited to compete in an all-star TV cooking contest, the up-and-coming restaurateur is ready for a fair food fight. Then she discovers who her main competition is: Ace Brown, her friend from culinary school—now the world's hottest celebrity chef. Has she gone from the frying pan right into the fire?

Ace Brown—aka the Sexy Chef—knows what women want. After all, recipes for desire are his globe-trotting specialty. Ronnie may not have given him the time of day back in school, but this time Ace is cooking up a surprise she can't resist. Seducing the voluptuous foodie will be his pleasure…until she turns up the heat. With sexual sparks flying, is the footloose bachelor about to become a connoisseur…of love?

Veronica Howard stretched her aching muscles. Her step aerobics class had been especially rigorous today, and she knew she'd pay the price tomorrow.

Ronnie was thirty years old and a former couch potato. So when it came to exercise, her body was in a constant state of rebellion.

"After you've done it for a while, you'll start to love it," her best friend, Cara Gray, a former fitness instructor at the trendy Tower Vista health club, had often told her. But Ronnie had been working out seriously for over a year… and she still hated it.

Ronnie headed from the locker room to the club's juice bar, The Big Squeeze, where she and Cara hung out after their workouts. The state-of-the-art gym in Bethesda, Maryland, was a bit of a drive from her new town house in Washington, D.C., but it was worth it to keep up their tradition. Without Cara's constant pep talks, Ronnie would have quit a dozen different times already.

Even though Cara was now helping her husband, A.J., run their computer consulting business, the women still met at the gym three times a week. But her best friend didn't need the workouts. Cara's years of physical fitness had apparently made her body fat resistant even after three kids. But Ronnie, who worked with food for a living, needed to exert herself to stay fit.

As Ronnie entered the juice-bar area, she saw that Cara was already waiting for her. Cara had placed a shot glass filled with a ruby-red juice at her seat. It looked like blended berries, so Ronnie picked up the glass and filled her mouth. As soon as the thick liquid touched her tongue, she nearly gagged.

"Ugh. What the heck is this?" she sputtered. "It tastes like…beets."

Cara laughed at Ronnie's yuck-face. "And hello to you, too." She nodded to Ronnie's half-empty glass. "It's a special blend of carrots, beetroot and grapefruit juice, so good call on the beets."

Ronnie wiped her tongue on her napkin. "And you thought I would like this why?"

"Because it's good for you," Cara said with a mischievous grin. "I figured you were ready to kick things up a notch."

Ronnie shoved the glass across the table. "Well, I guess I'm not, because I'm not drinking any more of this."

"Ron-nie! You're a chef. Your highly trained palate should be able to handle a little beetroot."

"Honey, I may have a newly skinny body, but that doesn't mean I have skinny taste buds." She swiveled her neck, feeling her curly ponytail swinging at her nape. "If there's one thing I've learned in the last few months, it's everything in moderation."

She eyed the offending glass. "And some things in nada-ration."

Cara rolled her eyes, having finally learned to ignore Ronnie's affinity for making up words.

Ronnie caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirrored panels behind the bar. It still shocked her to see that her round frame had been replaced with an hourglass. As a chef, she'd worn her extra weight as a badge of honor—a testimony to the quality of her food. For years she'd told all who would listen, "If I lost weight, people would think my food wasn't any good."

She'd been a member of Tower Vista for as long as her friend had worked there, but it was only recently that she'd gotten serious about working out. The good old days had been all about massages, dips in the hot tub and fruity juice-bar drinks—all the perks of belonging to an upscale gym without the perspiration or sore muscles. But after coping with some harsh realities in recent years, Ronnie had realized it was time for a few drastic changes.

Her dream of opening her own restaurant had finally come to fruition, and she'd lost nearly eighty pounds. But the most significant weight she'd lost was the one-hundred-eighty-pound no-good ex-boyfriend she'd finally cut loose.

Now she was happily single, and the only male she needed was her German shepherd, Baxter. Baxter provided affection, security and above all.loyalty—the one thing she'd never been able to get from a man.

"Fine. You're off the hook for today." Cara took back the red shot and downed it in one gulp. "But I'm not giving up the battle. I'm going to turn you into a health nut sooner rather than later."

It's never going to happen, Ronnie thought, but she kept that fact to herself. When she'd decided to get in shape, Cara had been beside herself with glee. Even though she no longer trained professionally, she'd taken Ronnie's weight loss on like a job, mapping out a strict regimen of diet and exercise. Now, even though Ronnie was happy with her current figure, Cara was still trying to push her further and further into the realm of fitness fanaticism.

"Yeah, good luck with that. In the meantime, I've got some news."

Her friend's eyes lit up. "What kind of news? Are you ready to start dating again?"

Ronnie rolled her eyes. Sure, three years was a long dry spell without a man, but she still hadn't reacquired her thirst. And the time on her own had done her a lot of good.

"Believe me, this has nothing to do with any man. I've been invited to participate in another Gourmet TV Food Fight."

Cara blinked. "That's great, Ronnie, but you do those all the time."

Ronnie smiled. "Yes, but this one is special. It's the first ever All-Star Food Fight. They're taking the top winners from the last two years and pitting us against each other in a three-part challenge. The prize is one hundred thousand dollars!"

Cara's eyes widened with surprise. "You're kidding me. That's ten times what you usually win."

"I know, and that's not all. Each round takes place in a fabulous place—Las Vegas, Hawaii and Paris."

Cara clutched a hand to her heart, her almond eyes taking on a dreamy expression. "You lucky girl. I've always wanted to visit Paris."

Ronnie's posture collapsed. "Well, there's no guarantee that I'll make it to Paris. The challenge starts out with five contestants. With eliminations after the first two rounds, only the top three will get to go to Paris."

Her friend, loyal to the end, waved off her concerns. "Oh, don't worry. I know you'll make it to the final three. One, because none of those chefs have the creativity and flair you have. And two, because I'm so going to visit you in Paris for the finale."

Ronnie released a tense breath, and Cara reached across the table to give her hand a reassuring pat. "Crave has been open for almost two years, and it's already received four-stars. You have nothing to worry about."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, but there's going to be some pretty stiff competition. In fact, against most of these celebrity chefs, I definitely qualify as an underdog."

"Really? Who are the other chefs?"

"First, there's the queen bee herself, Etta Foster."

Etta Foster, a cross between Martha Stewart and Sarah Lee, was a household name. She had the most extensive line of cookware and frozen foods of any chef in the business. That was aside from her franchise of cooking shows on Gourmet TV. Yet despite her vast culinary empire, she still evoked the down-home image of a Southern grandma baking in her country kitchen.

Cara shrugged. "Etta Foster is a powerhouse, but she's old-fashioned. Your modern approach will blow her out of the water."

"Okay, but I'll still have to face off with Ann Le Marche and Stewart Compton."

Her friend, who only watched GTV when Ronnie was on it, was unimpressed. "I've never even heard of them."

"Well, I'm certain you've heard of my biggest...