Page 2 of The Rebel Heir
Still, anything serious with him was not a part of her plan.
Clearing her throat, Jillian collected the printed menus and carried the stack out of the pantry. She walked to the dining room at the rear of the house with its elaborate glass wall as Nicolette Lavoie-Cress stepped off the elevator in the corner to her right beside the staircase. “Good morning, Mrs. Cress,” she said, giving a polite nod to the middle-aged, olive-skinned French beauty with silver-streaked blond hair and bluish eyes like Cole’s. “I was just putting out the breakfast menus.”
Nicolette nodded. “Very good,” she said with her heavy French accent. “For dinner, I am expecting the entire family...except Gabe.”
Jillian was well aware that Gabriel Cress had moved out of the family home after a massive fall out with Phillip Senior. He had not been back to the townhouse, not even for the fall and winter holidays. Cole had also revealed that Gabe was still with Monica, the Cress family’s former housekeeper for the past five years.
But she made sure her face revealed none of that awareness or that the woman’s regret was clear.
“The temperature is finally starting to warm up, so let’s do some kind of pasta,” Nicolette said.
Phillip Senior, a tall, solid, dark-skinned man with broad features and a bright smile, stepped into the kitchen. He was from England and had met Nicolette when they both attended culinary school in Paris. He shared an intimate look with his wife before he gave Jillian a formal nod of greeting and continued into the dining room. He claimed his seat at the head of the long table for ten, topped with charcoal leather and surrounded by steel-blue-suede armless chairs.
“How about seafood linguine with squid, mussels, clams, shrimp, scallops and lobster?” Jillian offered, wanting to reclaim the woman’s attention.
Jillian found her to be sophisticated and composed unless communicating with her husband. Her love for Phillip Cress Senior was of no question, nor his for her. Neither tried to hide their affection for one another.
“Merveilleux,”Nicolette said, moving across the kitchen to the dining room, as well.
Jillian, pleased that she thought itwonderful, followed behind and quickly moved around the table to set a menu on each place setting. Cole, swiping through his phone, did not look up when she put one before him. She held no curiosity about what had his attention. She neither wanted nor claimed ownership to a wild, rebellious man like Coleman Cress.
That would be ludicrous.
Jillian no longer trusted her love goggles. In truth, she’d shattered them under her foot, determined not to have yet another failed relationship thanks to childhood fantasies of a romance like that of her parents, who’d been together since high school. For now, Cole Cress and his eight-pack abs were all about fun distraction and nothing more.
And what could be more fun than lovemaking made all the more daring with whipped cream, taking long motorcycle rides through Manhattan, or bathing together in hot, scented water filled with flower petals.
As the rest of the family entered the dining room, Jillian cleared her thoughts and headed to the kitchen.
“Good morning, Chef Jillian!”
She smiled down at the happy face of Collette with her dimpled cheeks, bright yellow spectacles and big toothy smile. Phillip Junior and Raquel’s four-year-old daughter was completely adorable.
“No-no,” Nicolette gently reprimanded her granddaughter from her seat at the end of the table opposite her husband.
“Oops,” Collette said, giggling as she briefly pressed her hands to her mouth. “Bonjour, Chef Jillian.”
Nicolette, Jillian knew, was teaching French to the little one.
“Bonjour, Collette,” she returned warmly before continuing into the kitchen to retrieve a crystal carafe of her fresh-squeezed citrus juice and a warming carafe of Ghanaian coffee.
She eyed Felice, the live-in housekeeper who’d replaced Monica, in the den attached to the kitchen’s east side in the spacious open floor plan. Like Jillian, the older woman focused on her daily duties. She wasn’t as pleasant as Monica, but she got her work done, which was all that mattered.
“I see that you insist on dressing like a derelict, Coleman,” Phillip Senior said in his British accent.
Jillian paused because the annoyance in the patriarch’s voice was unmistakable. All of the other sons wore suits and held a more professional demeanor. Cole’s insistence on not doing so was a constant thorn in his father’s side.
Cole shifted his eyes up from his phone to glare down the table at his father. “If you mean comfortable and of my choosing as a grown man, then yes,” he said, his tone cold.
It was like watching day transform into night in an instant. Cole was charming and friendly, a charismatic gentleman—except in his interactions with his father. He seemed to enjoy antagonizing him.
“Life is all about the choices we make,” Cole continued.
Phillip Senior’s eyes narrowed to slits and the movement of his cheeks evidenced his clenched teeth.
Nicolette looked over and saw Jillian standing there.
“Phillip, I’m sure this can wait,” Nicolette said.