Excerpt of A Dash of Romance by Elizabeth Harbison

"Warren Harker, age, forty-one, height six feet two, hair, black, eyes, blue, educated at Stanford, but got his master's from Harvard Business School."

Rose Tilden listened incredulously as her boss, Marta Serragno, of Serragno Catering, listed the attributes of the man who had hired them to cater his party tonight.

"Has worked in real estate development and construction since 1988, established Harker Companies in 1992. Likes his meat rare, his business cold and his women hot. Bank portfolio, four hundred and twenty-seven million, give or take a million." Marta licked her lips. "And soon he's going to be mine." She turned her dark eyes on Rose. "You can count on it."

"You sound pretty sure of yourself," Rose commented.

"Do you doubt me?"

Frequently, Rose thought. But there was no point in arguing with Marta. It wouldn't end until she felt she'd won. Might as well give in to her early on.

"Never."

"Wise girl." Marta tapped her index finger against her temple. "That's the right answer."

"Although, if you ask me..." Rose went on. Sometimes she was unable to stop herself from giving her opinion. Her sister, Lily, said it was her red hair that made her fiery that way. "We could do with a little less real estate development and a little more fixing up of what already exists."

Marta gave her a chilly look. "I do hope you don't plan on saying that to Harker."

"Not unless he asks." She'd never been shy about giving her opinion. Lily also kept telling her she needed to learn to zip it, because that red headed fire was going to get her into trouble, but every time she tried, she failed.

This was particularly bad in her line of work, since she was supposed to be nice and accommodating with the client and their guests, even in the face of sexual advances (which happened a lot) or complaints that were clearly concocted with the aim of getting free service (which happened even more frequently). Rose was amazed how often the richer clients tried to get something for free. Three years into the business, Rose had learned several strange truths, and one was that the wealthier the clients, the cheaper they tended to be.

And the cheaper they were, the meaner they tended to be.

Rose had trouble with that, but Marta was just fine with it. The richer the better, she didn't care.

"Frankly, my dear," she said to Rose, "you're not going to have any sort of conversation with our client, so the idea of him asking your opinion on inner city refurbishment is out of the question."

Rose gave a short nod. Marta was really such a jerk. If she weren't so ridiculous, Rose might occasionally feel offended by her slings and arrows.

"Now," Marta went on. "Did you make that artichoke salad everyone likes so much?"

"Eight pounds of it." Rose pointed to the large bowl she'd been working on for the past hour. She knew why Marta wanted the lemon artichoke salad. It was one of Rose's specialties. As a matter of fact, it was one of the dishes that tended to...well, people thought it had some sort of aphrodisiacal properties.

Clearly, Marta was looking for magic. "You did it..." Marta gave a small, tight smile. "The usual way, right?"

Rose held a smile back. Marta was so transparent. "I always do it the same way," she assured her.

"Excellent." Marta turned her attention back to the gorgeous man in the parlor of the large hotel suite. "I'll definitely be having a bowl of that tonight. Even though I hate artichokes."

Rose stopped working and looked at her boss. "Marta, if you hate artichokes, don't eat it."

"If anything they say about that dish is true, I'm going to eat it."

"Not everything they say is true."

"Honey, if I eat it, the stories had better be true," Marta said, in a voice that could have been jesting or bitterly serious.

Rose shrugged. "You haven't even met Warren Harker yet. What if he's a dud?"

Marta fixed a cold dark eye on her. "Number one: I have met him, although briefly. And number two: if he is a dud, he's a dud worth four hundred and twenty-seven million." She pressed her thin red lips together. "For that, I might have to learn to love artichokes. Wait a minute." She touched her finger to her chin. "Maybe all that matters is if he likes artichokes."

Rose shook her head and wordlessly went to assemble the silver chargers of cheese by region. Marta didn't like cheese. She didn't like fish. She didn't like any vegetables. She didn't like sweets. In fact, Rose had rarely seen her put anything in her mouth at all. Why she was still in the catering business was a mystery.

After all, she'd only inherited the business. Her second husband — or was it her third? — had left it to her when he'd died several years back. In that time, to her credit, Marta had kept the business going and had even upped its profile. But she'd never once shown any interest in food. She was just ruthlessly ambitious, and willing to succeed in any area that would allow her to prosper, both financially and socially.

So she'd succeeded in the catering business by hiring the best people and running the operation with an iron fist. So what if she couldn't cook? In true Henry Ford fashion, she'd simply hired someone who could.

Rose.

Rose, along with her sister, Lily, had grown up in the Barrie Children's Home in Brooklyn. The two had spent some of their time in foster care, all fairly good experiences, but as they'd grown older they'd spent more and more time at the orphanage. People didn't want to foster older children as much as younger ones.

When they were sixteen, though, they learned that their first foster mother had died, leaving her meager estate to the girls so that they could go to vocational school and learn a trade.

Rose had gone to culinary school, while her sister had studied hotel management. Now, while Rose worked as an assistant caterer for Marta, one of the most prominent caterers in New York, Lily was a concierge in one of New York's most exclusive boutique hotels, the Montclaire.

"How's it going in here?" a small, twitchy man with a dark comb-over and black-rimmed glasses asked. "Is everything on schedule?"

"It certainly is, Mr. Potts," Marta cooed. "You go tell your boss everything is just fine. In fact, maybe he'd like to come in here and —" she gave a coy smile " — sample my wares."

Mr. Potts raised his eyebrows so high his glasses slid down his nose. He pushed them up hastily. "Mr. Harker trusts that your wares will be everything they're advertised to be, Ms. Serragno."

Rose stifled a giggle.

Potts left and Marta turned to Rose. "Can you believe that man? When I land this big fish, and I will, that worm is going to be one of the first things to go."

"Oh, I don't think he meant anything by it," Rose said, not to reassure Marta so much as to spare Potts his job if she did manage to get her hooks into his boss. "Warren Harker's just a busy guy. He trusts us to do a good job, just like we always do."

Marta gave a mild nod. "I'll do a good job, all right. How's that artichoke salad coming along?"

The suite was incredibly posh. Rose had seldom seen such ornate handiwork and she'd worked in some of the finest homes in Manhattan. The chandelier alone must have cost more than a year's worth of her salary. Word was that Harker had two residences in Manhattan, and countless others across the world. Money to burn. Real estate development must be on an upswing.

"Would you care for an hors d'oeuvre?" She asked a group of party guests, holding out the platter with its pretty little assortment of appetizers.

"Oooh! What are those?" a plump, bleached blond woman asked excitedly.

"Avocado egg rolls." One of Rose's better concoctions. "They're particularly good with the tamarind sauce."

The woman drew in her breath appreciatively and took several of them.

"I'll try one of those," a deep voice said behind Rose. Startled, she turned to find herself face-to-face with Warren Harker.

He was taller than she'd realized, even though Marta had gone over his stats quite explicitly. His eyes were a pale, crystal blue, with the faintest laugh lines fanning out into his tanned skin.

"Mr. Harker." She held the platter out to him.

"Would you like an hors d'oeuvre?"

"Anything but that artichoke salad your coworker has been chasing me down with." He smiled and picked up a cheese puff.

"You don't like the artichoke salad?"

"I don't like anything held out to me on a spoon with someone saying, "Come on, just have a little bite.'" He smiled. "Reminds me of my mother trying to get me to eat liver. Not a good memory."

"Oh, I see." Rose groaned inwardly. Marta did have a tendency to be a little heavy-handed when she wanted something. Or, in this case, someone. "Look, I'm sorry about that. She's not..." What? Not herself? Marta was being completely herself. Not taking her medication? She had a purse full of prescriptions. "She's not usually like that." A lie, but harmless.

"Have you worked with her long?" He had a great voice. Low, smooth, perfectly modulated.

"Just about a year."

"Ever think of striking out on your own?"

She looked at him. "As what?"

"A caterer." He laughed. Very nice laugh. "You are the cook in this operation, aren't you?"

Marta didn't like anyone to know that she didn't cook. "One of them."

"One of them," he repeated and gave a broad white smile. "You're good. Loyal. If I were in the food business, I'd try to steal you away right now." At her puzzled look, he explained, "My assistant set this whole thing up, and she says that Serragno never cooks, she just hires the best." He gave a shrug.

"Which is why I hired her. And if she hired you, you must be the best. At whatever it is that you do."

Rose gave a wan smile. "I made the artichoke salad."