Thick seafood gumbo simmered on a back burner of the stove. The spicy scent of paprika, cayenne pepper, garlic and onions permeated the air. Dozens of foil-wrapped potatoes baked in a five hundred degree oven, while in the convection toaster, fat loaves of French bread basked a buttery golden brown.

Overhead the industrial sized, broad-bladed ceiling fan was on the fritz, spinning lazily for a few minutes, but then abruptly cutting out. Tendrils of dark hair had escaped from Melanie’s ponytail and perspiration plastered them against the nape of her neck. She pressed the back of one hand to her damp forehead in a useless attempt to stay her anger.

As a sous chef Melanie was used to the heat. And as the daughter of a Cajun cook, she’d grown up with food preparation running through her veins. She was madly in love with every sultry aspect of the magic that went on in a kitchen.

What she was not accustomed to and what she was not madly in love with was having her suggestions shot down without explanation.

She had glanced up at the daily menu posted on the dry eraser board by executive chef, Robert LeSoeur, and noticed that the innovative creation she’d scribbled down the night before had been slashed through with a bright red marker.

Melanie ground her teeth. Contrariness summoned her, which was odd because she was normally quite happy-go-lucky. Her mood came like a stranger’s shadow blocking out the sun on a bright summer day. Something about that exasperating man brought out a whole other side to her and it wasn’t pretty.

Fine. If that’s the way he wanted it.

This meant war.

Without even a simple FYI, LeSoeur had axed her new specialty dish from the carte du jour. He’d completely dismissed her ideas, making her feel overlooked and insignificant. The way she had often felt growing up as the youngest of four sisters. Charlotte was the smart one, Renee was the pretty one, Sylvie was the funny one and she’d just been the baby.

As she’d gotten older, to compensate for bringing up the rear, Melanie had become the wild one. But her unruly behavior had never stopped her from feeling overshadowed by her more accomplished siblings and coming back home had brought those lurking childhood insecurities back to the forefront.

She hated feeling overshadowed and insecure. It made her want to rebel. And now here was LeSoeur making her feel like a rebellious ten-year-old all over again.

Besides, the turkey was already defrosted and she’d officially had enough of LeSoeur’s high-handed ways. Time for a showdown.

She was making the recipe whether he liked it or not. He couldn’t fire her. Her family owned Chez Remy’s, an elegant dinner restaurant housed inside the Hotel Marchand, a four-star establishment tucked away on one of the original blocks of the French Quarter.

Purposefully, Melanie squared her shoulders, strode across the cement floor to the stainless steel commercial refrigerator and with her biceps straining, dragged out the forty pound turkey. She hauled it over to the prep area and peeled off the plastic wrapper. After removing the giblets, she lubed the turkey up with extra virgin olive oil, all the while ignoring the round-eyed stares of the prep cooks.

The men kept glancing from Melanie to the marked out menu item posted near the stove and back again. They recognized mutiny in the offing, but had the good sense not to comment on it. Although Jean-Paul Beaudreau, who had worked for her family since she was a small child, grinned and murmured something in his native Cajun dialect about the sexy appeal of a tempestuous woman.

Hmph.

She wasn’t tempestuous. She just wanted her voice heard and damn it, either LeSoeur simply enjoyed provoking her or he needed to be fitted a high powered hearing aid. She picked up the oversized bird, now prepped for cooking, and marched it over to the rotisserie.

“It’s too big.” Robert’s voice was a cool caress against her heated ear.

Melanie startled, but did not look up.

Her insides went soft and weak. Mentally, she steeled herself against the unwanted sensation of sexual attraction by not missing a beat. She kept right on trying to jam that bird into the oven as if Mr. Hot Body himself was not hovering behind her.

He watched her for a few minutes without saying a thing. She could feel his eyes drilling into the back of her head.

A bead of perspiration trickled hotly down her throat. She wasn’t about to concede that he was right. Melanie kept working it like Cinderella’s ugly stepsister trying to stuff her big fat foot into that delicate glass slipper.

I will make this fit.

“If you’re determined to do this then at least let me help so you don’t end up hurting yourself,” Robert said and stepped closer.

“Buzz off,” she said flatly, but he ignored her. Lord, the man was stubborn.

He came up behind her and slid his big arms around either side of Melanie’s waist, grabbing hold of the slick bird she held positioned in front of her. Suddenly, she was having a lot of trouble breathing normally and she could not blame it on just the heat.