“Hey, I just call ’em like I see ’em.” He gave her a jaunty salute before taking the steps, two at a time, down to the ground floor.
Turning on her heel, Marin headed in the opposite direction, passing by the Red Room before cutting through the majestic State Dining Room. Even after working in the White House for nine months, Marin was still awed by the history that surrounded her every day. Normally, she would stop and spend a few minutes daydreaming about the men and women who had dined in this room, wondering what they had eaten and what they had worn to dinner. Or she’d glance at the stunning portrait of a pensive President Lincoln that hung above the room’s marble fireplace, trying to guess what the man was thinking.
Today, however, she kept her head down, pondering her life—or lack thereof. Unlike her two brothers and three cousins, she’d eschewed a career in the family hotel business, preferring a pastry kitchen to a boardroom. At twenty-seven, Marin had studied with some of the best chefs in the world, including two years in Switzerland at the Richemont Centre. When First Lady Harriet Manning, Marin’s godmother, asked if she would come to Washington to work at the White House, Marin jumped at the opportunity.
Little did she know how challenging and demanding the job would be. In the months since she’d arrived in DC, she’d yet to meet her neighbors much less anyone to hang out with. Her circle of friends included Otto, the guard dog; Diego, her gay sous chef; and Arabelle, an adorable five-year-old with a tendency to suck her thumb when she thought no one was looking. Still, Marin loved it here at the White House.
Rounding the corner into the butler’s pantry, Marin bypassed the elevator that would take her to the third-floor office she shared with the executive chef of the large White House kitchen. Instead, she headed for the spiral staircase that led to her domain; the pastry kitchen tucked away on a mezzanine floor just above the pantry. She would start on the cookie dough while she pondered her dilemma.
“Oh—” She cried out when she collided with a man hurrying down the narrows stairs. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
Marin was surprised to confront anyone this early in the morning. The only people who used these stairs were the kitchen chefs, an occasional usher or housemaid. The man staring down at her from two steps above was unfamiliar to her. At first glance, he appeared to be one of the contractors who delivered the food to the White House. Deliveries of supplies to the pastry kitchen were normally made via the dumbwaiters, but it wasn’t unusual for the heavier items to be carried up by contractor staff. With the Easter egg roll days away, the chefs had been ordering a multitude of supplies.
With the stranger’s sudden appearance, it dawned on Marin that among the nearly five hundred staff working in the mansion, there had to be dozens of eligible men around. She didn’t need to scour Washington DC for a wedding date. All she had to do was interact with some of the men working in the White House.
Starting with this guy.
She studied him carefully. Dressed in dark chinos, a navy windbreaker and a dark ball cap adorned with an obscure logo, she guessed he was good-looking—if one liked guys with finely chiseled features arranged in a cold sort of way. Still, Marin treated him to the five-thousand-dollar smile her parents had paid for when she was thirteen.
“Good morning? Are you lost?” Wishing she’d paid more attention to how Ava attracted men like bees to honey, she hoped her teasing sounded flirtatious.
His lips formed a tight line as he slowly shook his head. Without a word, he pressed his slender frame against the railing and gestured for her to proceed up the stairs.
“Oh,” Marin said, the giddiness at her plan fading. “Um, okay.”
The close confines of the winding staircase forced her to pass within inches of him. The odor of cabbage and beetroot wafted off of him and Marin cursed her keen sense of smell. Their eyes met when she slid past him. Marin had the feeling of walking over someone’s grave when she peered into his icy blue gaze. His pupils looked so empty and devoid of any emotion that Marin was happy to put some distance between them when she climbed a few steps farther.
“Have a nice day,” she called out, unable to suppress the manners two years of cotillion had drilled into her.
He hesitated briefly as if wanting to say something, before he quickly turned. His gloved hands shifted his messenger bag on his shoulder and he disappeared down the stairs.
“He doesn’t count,” Marin mumbled to herself as she climbed the last few circular steps. “He’s obviously painfully shy. Not to mention a little creepy. Surely, there’s at least one half-decent guy somewhere in this big house.”
Spirits buoyed, she hurried into the pastry kitchen only to let out a squeal when she nearly collided with yet another unexpected person. At least this time it was someone she knew. Bita Ranjbar, Arabelle’s maternal grandmother, was standing in front of the glass cabinets housing an assortment of marzipan and sugar figures. The woman’s rich perfume permeated the narrow, low-ceilinged room.
Bita was a frequent guest of the Manning family at the White House, usually when the First Lady had a busy travel schedule. The president’s son, Clark, Arabelle’s father, was enrolled in a demanding neurological fellowship program at the Washington Institutes of Health. Clark and his wife, Farrah, lived with Arabelle on the third floor of the mansion. As far as Marin could tell, Farrah wasn’t much into motherhood. The former fashion model chafed at the “Mommy and Me” circuit, preferring instead to run around with her jet-set friends, much to the dismay of the president and his wife. It was left to Bita and Harriet Manning to raise their granddaughter, along with a doting White House staff. Not that Marin minded spending time with the little girl.
Marin leaned against one of the long counters in front of a bank of ovens trying to get her heart to settle into a normal rhythm. At five-foot-eight without her hat, she always felt a little claustrophobic in the room carved out between two floors. Right now, though, she felt as if the kitchen was closing in on her. “That’s the second time in less than five minutes someone has scared the bejesus out of me.”
Bita arched a perfectly made-up eyebrow at her. “Second time?”
The woman’s thick Persian accent always reminded Marin of the housekeeping supervisor in her family’s hotel in Constantinople. Not that she could picture Bita vacuuming or dusting. She’d never seen the older woman looking less than perfect. Her jet-black hair was always stylishly coiffed; her makeup was impeccable, and her clothing, designer. It was quite a feat to look that good at seven-twenty in the morning. Marin looked down at her baggy black uniform pants, her sensible Skechers, and her turquoise T-shirt from The Gap in disgust.
No wonder that guy didn’t even want to make eye contact.
“Yeah.” Marin pulled out her key and stowed her backpack and jacket in the small locker in the walk-in pantry next to the spiral staircase. “I nearly took out some unsuspecting man on the stairs just now.”
“On the stairs, you say? A stranger?” Bita’s voice held a trace of panic. “Should we alert the guards?”
Marin bit back a smile. She and Diego always chuckled at the way Bita referred to the White House as though it were a palace.
“He was just a delivery guy sent up from the kitchen,” Marin said to calm the easily excitable woman. “Neither of us expected to see anyone else in this part of the house so early. We both startled one another, that’s all.” After adjusting her ponytail, Marin set her tall, pleated toque on her head and pulled on her chef’s jacket. There. Sufficiently armored, she felt ready to face the day. A day that was already proving to be unsettling. “What can I do for you this morning, Bita? Everything is well with Arabelle, I hope.”
“Oh, my little princess is fine.” Bita clapped her manicured hands with excitement. “I came here to remind you about the cookie baking this afternoon. Arabelle is very anxious this morning that she have cookies for her friends before the family leaves for Camp David tomorrow night. Today is still good, yes?”
“Of course we are still on,” Marin said.
The little girl must be really excited this morning if Bita had come down to the small hidey-hole of a kitchen herself to confirm Arabelle’s visit. Usually, the Secret Service simply called. She mentally shrugged. Apparently, it was going to be one of those days where nothing made sense.