Dangerous Disguise by Marie Ferrarella

here? Telling her that someone had locked him in would only drag up a host of problems and questions. He wanted this forgotten as quickly as possible. Only he and whoever had put him in here needed to know the truth.
    He decided that lying was his best bet. And why not? It is what you do, a small voice in his head taunted.
    “I had an idea for a new dish and I was looking to see if we had any duck. I knew you didn’t have any in the upstairs refrigerator, but I thought that maybe there was one down here. The door must have slipped after I walked in and I guess the lock sprang into place. It wouldn’t budge when I tried to open it.”
    She shook her head. If he hadn’t had his cell phone on him, he would have spent the night in the refrigerator. He wouldn’t have frozen to death since they didn’t keep the temperature that low, but who knew just how much air was available once the door was shut?
    Maren frowned at him, still rubbing his limbs. “You should have told someone where you were going. How long were you in there?”
    “Awhile, I guess.” He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t reacting to her any longer. “What are you doing?”
    She would have thought that was obvious. Maren rubbed harder. “Trying to stimulate your circulation.”
    It took a great deal of concentration not to react to her the way any red-blooded man would. Her coat had parted and she was wearing what looked like a thin camisole underneath. She’d obviously not taken much time to get dressed after he’d called her. His blood continued warming.
    “I think you’ve already accomplished that.” He managed to curve his lips into a smile.
    She got his meaning instantly. But she continued rubbing his arms just in case. He wasn’t going to be any good to the restaurant if he had frostbite. “I see you’re back to normal.”
    “Not quite.” He looked down at his hands. For a while there, he’d lost feeling in them. Now they ached something fierce. “I’ll probably never play the piano again.”
    “You don’t play, do you?”
    The grin was fleeting. “Not yet, but I was thinking about taking lessons.”
    She stopped rubbing his arms. She thought of the other evening, in the storage area when he’d all but given her a heart attack. “Jared, you have to stop sneaking around like this.”
    The shrug was casual, belonging to a boy who didn’t see that he’d done something worthy of blame. “Didn’t want to bother anyone. Max always seems to get bent out of shape if I want to try anything new and I didn’t want to get Rachel in the middle of it.”
    Rachel was the woman who created the magic that they served under the heading of dessert. The woman represented Maren’s latest triumph since she’d stolen the pastry chef from another restaurant by promising her twice the salary and twice the vacation. Rachel Bristol couldn’t have come aboard fast enough.
    “I doubt if Rachel would know a duck from a chicken,” Maren commented. Taking his right hand, she rubbed it between hers, then moved on to the other one. She was aware of his watching her. Her throat was beginning to dry. “You said you were in there awhile?”
    He looked past her shoulder, trying to think of anything else but her nearness. “I’m not sure just how long.”
    Something wasn’t making sense here. “Why didn’t you call me right away?”
    The engaging boy was back. “Because I felt like an idiot.”
    She laughed shortly, rubbing his hands as hard as she could. They were still stone-cold. “Right now, you feel like a Popsicle.”
    “Well,” he began slowly, “there is one way to warm me up.” He saw the warning look that came instantly into her eyes and he backed off. Eventually, he wanted to wear her down, but not tonight. “Sorry, couldn’t seem to help myself.”
    “I’m your boss, Jared.” She saw humor in his eyes. Humor and something more, something she couldn’t put a name to.
    “No one’s arguing with that.”
    “I can’t just….” Her