Flambé: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romantic Comedy (Flambé Series Book 1)

  Flambé

  Elle Berlin

  Flambé Series Book 1

  By Elle Berlin

  Copyright © Elle Berlin, 2021

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  The author acknowledges the trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  This book is licensed for your personal use only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with, especially if you enjoy sexy romance novels.

  Cover Design by Elle Berlin

  Editing by B. T. Linblade and Piper Riskel

  Layout and Formatting by Piper Riskel

  Rev. 2021.02

  About The Book

  The perfect dessert should lick you dirty.

  A seduction: that’s what my restaurant Flambé will be when it opens—the hottest one-night stand you didn’t know you wanted to indulge in.

  Except my one-night stand just became the lynchpin in securing my restaurant’s biggest investor. Flambé is a classy establishment, but now I have to hire the Tiki-drink-slinging shirtless wonder Connor Voss as my new bartender … or I’m out of business!

  Call me a control-freak, but Connor is a recipe for disaster, and I won’t last the week. Not only is Connor sure that he can mix a drink better than me (let him try!), he thinks he’s allowed to play with fire, flirt with the wait staff, and defy everything I say. I may be “the boss”, but he’s sure he can do whatever he wants because he knows woman-on-top is not my favorite position.

  But this is my kitchen.

  If Connor Voss wants to play with fire, then he’d better get ready, because he’s about to learn just how I hot I burn.

  Flambé is the first book in the Flambé Series.

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  Something—or someone—had to inspire hot-headed chef Arie Noel to open the sexiest restaurant in Waikiki. That someone is Xander Carlisle.

  Romantic, gorgeous, and the trendiest new chef in London, Xander is American girl catnip. But to Arie, he’s just an old friend from culinary school; he’s definitely not “the one who got away.” Even though she’s spent hours fantasizing about how he might crème her brûlée.

  When Xander invites Arie to cook for him, she doesn’t want to admit that she just got fired. She can’t seem to work in anyone’s kitchen—especially a man’s kitchen—without turning it into a flaming temple of mayhem. Arie desperately wants to impress her friend, but his flirty glances hint that more is on the line than her cooking reputation.

  Tonight might inspire something they’ve both been avoiding since college … and it starts with the perfect dessert.

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  Contents

  Prolouge: Arie

  1. Arie

  2. Connor

  3. Arie

  4. Connor

  5. Arie

  6. Connor

  7. Arie

  8. Connor

  9. Arie

  10. Connor

  11. Arie

  12. Connor

  13. Arie

  14. Arie

  15. Connor

  16. Arie

  17. Connor

  18. Arie

  19. Connor

  20. Arie

  21. Connor

  22. Arie

  23. Connor

  24. Arie

  25. Connor

  26. Arie

  27. Connor

  28. Connor

  29. Arie

  30. Connor

  31. Arie

  32. Connor

  33. Connor

  34. Arie

  35. Connor

  36. Arie

  37. Connor

  Whiskey Splash

  1. Esme

  Hungry for a Free Book?

  About the Author

  Connect with Elle Berlin

  Also by Elle Berlin

  Prolouge: Arie

  I love the fire.

  I love the way it burns close to the skin.

  I love the way the flames dance and heat into a blue iridescence. I love the smell of the fire: of sulfur and smoked wood and sugar burning.

  The perfect cocktail is lit with Diablo’s kiss. The perfect pastry is brûléed-golden with three layers of molten glaze. The perfect dessert is a hot fuck that licks you dirty with its surprise sweetness, with its creamy center that makes you gasp and sit up straight, makes your toes curl, makes your thighs quake.

  That’s what my restaurant will be when it opens—a seduction—the hottest one-night stand you didn’t know you wanted to indulge in and now you don’t want to end.

  So, put on that tight skirt, that little lacy number, that dress that seems a little too daring. Bring your taste buds, and your sweet dreams, and your skin that’s just a hint too eager.

  In three weeks, I open the sexiest late-night restaurant in all of Hawaii, and trust me, if licking chocolate off a jalapeno pepper makes you blush, then Flambé is going to burn you up.

  You’re welcome.

  1

  Arie

  Crash!

  The second I walk out the swinging doors of the kitchen, I smash right into my business partner Simon and a hundred grand-opening invitations go flying. Black envelopes explode in a confetti of 100-pound fancy-paper, each hand-swooped in gold calligraphy.

  “Simon!” I yelp as the most beautiful—and expensive—invitations I’ve ever seen in my life toss themselves across the dining room floor. “Damn, I’m—”

  “Running around like a murderess with her head chopped off,” Simon snaps, doing his best to avoid stepping on the invitations, but still bending several in the process.

  “You’re ruining them, Simon,” I screech. “Watch your step!”

  “Me?! Watch my step! You just—” Simon grabs his black-rimmed glasses and turns away from me, taking several long and deliberate breaths, as his shoulders heave and he contemplates going Mount Vesuvius on me.

  It’s been a stressful month—for both of us.

  It’s been one disaster after the next: the menus aren’t back from the printer yet, the patio furniture hasn’t been delivered, the website isn’t up, hiring people that meet my impeccable standards is a nightmare, not to mention training the half-way decent ones. Add to that Simon insisting we go through the chore of hiring a local calligrapher for our invitations, because nothing says hot-new-restaurant to Waik
iki’s influencers and elite than swirly gold letters spelling out Flambé! Which is a constant reminder of why I do the food and Simon does the marketing—it works.

  Of course, that is until the floor ends up littered with your handiwork.

  Simon swirls around to glare at me, pulling his tussled brown hair out of his eyes and resetting his dark-rimmed glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. He’s perfected the “boy-next-door-turned-hot-entrepreneur” vibe. Remember that geeky guy from high school, now imagine he comes home from college exploding out of that plaid shirt with hard muscles and broad shoulders. That’s Simon. You never knew boyish charm could fill out a pair of jeans so well and set all your lady parts to tingle.

  Simon could make any girl go wild, except for me, because he’s my business partner and my best friend, and combining work and play is a disaster scenario.

  “Arie,” Simon snaps, trying to reign in his frustration. “I love you, but someone needs a night off!”

  “You can’t take a night off!” I shoot back at him, my mind whirring with everything that’s not finished yet. “There’s a stack of resumes to go through and we still need to finish the proposal for our investor meeting tomorrow night.”

  “Yes, I know all that! I didn’t mean me,” he clarifies. “I meant you.” He puts the stack of envelopes that didn’t hit the dust onto the bar. “You need a night off!”

  “I don’t need—!”

  Simon grabs my shoulders and squares off with me. “Arie! You’re going to turn into the Mother of Dragons in a second and burn this place to the ground if you don’t relax—and not in the hot sexy way.”

  “I’ll relax when we’re open!” I snap, which only causes him to raise his eyebrows like I’m proving his point.

  “We’re both owners here and I’m pulling the Veto card. I’m forcing you to take the night off!” He gives me a hard stare, before dropping to the floor to collect the invitations at our feet.“I don’t need a night off.”

  “Correction,” Simon sasses. “You need to get laid!”

  I frown. He’s right, which I don’t want to admit, but Simon’s the kind of best friend who’s watched me spend every breathing moment of the last eight months making sure this restaurant becomes a reality. He’s well aware that my dating record has been like the Sahara Desert—a long, hard, abandoned sand dune of nothing—completely deadly.

  “We’ve been busy,” I toss back at him. “Planning a restaurant. Living the dream. Making sure that—”

  “Everyone who works for us thinks you’re an insane tyrant,” he cuts me off, standing up and laying more invitations on the bar. “The fun Arie I knew in college got laid all the time. She knew how to work hard and play hard.”

  “Well, that was before—”

  “Oh no!” He wags a finger at me. “What I think you were about to say is, and I quote: ‘The best way to be successful in business is to fuck your way to the top—’” I shake my head as he quotes me. “—and I like being on top.” He trusts his pelvis for emphasis.

  “You’re playing dirty,” I grumble, knowing all through college my go-to for grades and tests and stress was to find a hot cowboy who could handle an untamable mustang. It was a prescription I’d doled out to Simon monthly, and here he was tossing it right back at me. “We are meeting with our investors—”

  “Tomorrow!” he interrupts again. “This is non-negotiable, Arie. I don’t want you setting foot in this restaurant for the next eighteen hours!”

  “But the proposal—”

  “Is on my to-do list.” He starts pushing me toward the door. “And I will do it. Heck, you know you won’t write a word of it anyway.”

  That’s true. I cook. I design. He’s the mastermind with the calculator and a pen.

  “I won’t take no for an answer. You need a night off. Go dancing. Relax in a bubble bath. Sleep for more than three hours.”

  “Get laid?”

  “Preferably, yes.” He hands me my purse. “We both know that you think better, and work better, after a good night of working out your frustrations.”

  “I did come up with that great twist on flaming Spanish Coffee after seducing the singer of that rock band from Barcelona last year,” I concede.

  “Exactly,” Simon nods. “Seriously, check out The Orchid down the street, hook up with some hot tourist and work out all of this pent-up frustration.”

  “Yes, but the vendors haven’t delivered the—”

  “Nobody wants to hear it!” Simon grabs my shoulders and spins me, pushing me out the side door of our rooftop restaurant and forcing me to stare out at the glittering bay of Waikiki. “I know it’s hard to turn off that brain of yours, but find a way. I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure multiple orgasms will probably do it.”

  “You have far too much faith in the men in this city,” I grumble. “Not very many have—”

  “Your standards are too high.” Simon walks me to the elevator and hits the button. “So find yourself some young apprentice to teach the magical ways of the female form. That used to be your favorite game in college.”

  “I’d rather fix the issues with my Baked Alaska recipe.”

  The elevator doors open and he pushes me inside. “That’s your problem, you’d rather Flambé meringue than get laid.”

  “The menu has to be perfect for the opening!”

  “The whole point of Flambé is to turn up the heat. Those are your words.” He points at me as the elevator doors start to close. “Maybe you haven’t cracked the Baked Alaska recipe yet because you’ve forgot the main ingredient—”

  I frown at him. He doesn’t have to say what that elusive main ingredient is. The doors shut and I can already feel it in my skin—the slight mist of sweat, the ache of hard work in my bones, the tight coil of frustration in my shoulders—I’ve been too focused on this restaurant for too long. It’s got me high-strung.

  The elevator descends the thirty-two floors of the Atlantis Resort that Flambé sits atop of, my mind racing with excuses for why I should hit the stop button and reverse directions.

  Only, I have been a terror all day. I yelled at my sous chefs this morning and bitched out the furniture distributor over the phone. Hell, I’ve been a running show of expletives all week.

  The truth is, I’ve never wanted anything as badly as this restaurant in my whole life. Is that so wrong? The stakes are different when you put all your savings on the line and are about to grasp the one thing you’ve dreamed of your whole life. Getting laid in college, before a test, was more of a game than a real tactic for success, except … it worked.

  It worked really well.

  Simon’s right. I need to give myself one hot night.

  2

  Connor

  The music at The Orchid blasts with an angry beat that thrums from my toes to my teeth. It’s an electricity that obliterates everything and I become pure rhythm.

  The crowd is alive tonight, all of us dancing, the lights swirling as we’re pressed in like sardines. I grind against the woman in front of me, my hand on her hip, her ass gyrating. Someone else is behind me, their hands tracing over my back as we become the music and the hot taste of sweat.

  A third woman in a tight, pink dress intentionally squeezes herself between me and the lady I was dancing with, slipping her fingers under my shirt. She flashes me a seductive gaze as her fingers explore my abs, her fluttering lashes asking if her advance is okay. I half smile and wait to see where this is going.

  “I know you,” she says, pulling herself closer so her tits dance against my chest.

  She’s perky and cute, but young, probably barely the drinking age. She says something about the bar that I work at and how I made her a cocktail, mentioning how it was the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted.

  Only, she didn’t say it that sweetly. She definitely said something a whole lot dirtier, like she won’t be able to taste gin again without her panties getting wet and thinking of me. It’s an occupational hazard for a bartender, p
atrons wanting to mix alcohol and sex.

  I smile and let her fingers dance over my muscles at the top of my low-slung jeans. It feels good to let her tease that V of skin and look up at me with wicked intentions. After all, she’s only a few inches away from where she really wants to be.

  Only, she’s not the first woman to recognize me from the bar tonight and she won’t be the last. And, I have a rule. If a patron is willing to return to the bar in hopes of snagging me, then I’ll let her dream.

  I’d rather keep her panties wet and hot for my drinks, coming back into the bar weekly, than actually satisfy her. Part of my appeal is the ability to string her along with the hope that I might invite her behind the bar after hours to taste just how eager she is. Coming to The Orchid is good for business—not my intention—but it doesn’t hurt my tips or the bar’s bottom line.