He reached across the table and grabbed her wrist. “Wait.”

“But if we have nothing to talk about…”

She looked innocent enough, he thought as he gazed into her big blue eyes, but he knew better than to believe the wide-eyed stare.

Penny could be convinced to take the job; otherwise she wouldn’t have bothered with a meeting. Playing him for a fool wasn’t her style. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t enjoy making him beg.

Given their past, he supposed he’d earned it. So he would bargain with her, giving in where he had to. He would even have enjoyed the negotiation if only she didn’t look so damn smug.

He rubbed his thumb across her wrist bone, knowing she would hate that. She’d always lamented her large forearms, wrists and hands, claiming they were out of proportion with the rest of her body. He’d thought she was crazy to obsess about a flaw that didn’t exist. Besides, she had chef’s hands-scarred, nimble and strong. He’d always liked her hands, whether they were working on food in the kitchen or working on him in the bedroom.

“Not going to happen,” he said, nodding his head at the paper and releasing his hold on her. “You know that, too. So where’s the real list?”

She grinned and eased back into the booth. “I heard you were desperate. I had to try.”

“Not that desperate. What do you want?”

“Creative freedom on the menus, complete control over the back half of the store, my name on the menu, ownership of any specialty items I create, the right to refuse any general manager you try to stuff down my throat, four weeks vacation a year and ten percent of the profits.”

The waitress appeared with their lunches. He’d ordered a burger, Penny a salad. But not just any salad. Their server laid out eight plates with various ingredients in front of Penny’s bowl of four kinds of lettuce.

As he watched, she put olive oil, balsamic vinaigrette and ground pepper into a coffee cup, then squeezed in half a lemon. After whisking them with her fork, she dumped the diced, smoked chicken and feta onto her salad, then sniffed the candied pecans before adding them. She passed over walnuts, took only half of the tomato, added red onions instead of green and then put on her dressing. After tossing everything, she stacked the plates and took her first bite of lunch.