Page 49 of That Prince is Mine
When the server came to grill the meat for them at the table, Emma politely waved her away. “That’s all right. I’ll cook for our table.”
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Jeremy grinned when the server left with a shrug. The murderous light evaporated from his eyes when he looked at Emma. “You need to relinquish control sometimes. The servers are professionals. You can trust them with cooking our meat.”
Michel’s eyes narrowed at the easy way the other man teased Emma. They were undoubtedly close, but how close?
“It’s not that I don’t trust them.” She placed long strips of marinated boneless beef rib onto the sizzling grill. “I just enjoy doing this.”
Jeremy rolled his eyes, and she elbowed him in the ribs, then went right back to grilling the galbi. Michel’s eyebrows furrowed into a faint frown at their antics. He was being ridiculous. They were friends. That was how close friends acted with each other. Right? Impatient with himself, Michel turned his focus on Emma as she laughed and talked while expertly flipping the meat and cutting it into bite-size strips with a pair of kitchen shears. Fascinating.
Emma caught his eyes and smiled a little shyly at him. His answering grin was full blown and ridiculous. Her lashes fluttered down as she returned her focus to dinner, but Michel couldn’t look away. His gaze slid to her creamy bare shoulders and lingered. Suddenly, the delicious grilled meat in front of them didn’t tempt him. All he wanted to do was bite the soft curve of her shoulder and lick away the sting. His mouth watered with the hunger to taste every inch of her.
“Okay.” Emma sat back and spread her hands toward the grill. “Help yourselves. We need to get it off the grill before it burns.”
Without stuffy decorum, she and Jeremy began piling the meat onto their plates. After a couple of seconds, he and Sophie followed their example. His friend was a more accomplished chopstick wielder, but Michel managed not to drop any meat on the table. He carefully picked up a perfectly cooked piece with his chopsticks and popped it in his mouth. It was a literal flavor explosion. The sweet and savory marinade added to the richness of the generously marbled beef, and the meat melted in his mouth with hardly any assistance from his teeth.
“This is fantastic.” He reached for another piece of galbi. “What’s in the marinade?”
“I don’t know their exact recipe, but it’s generally soy sauce based with sugar or honey—sometimes people use grated Asian pears or apples—garlic, onions, and toasted sesame oil,” Emma said. “Do you really like it?”
“How could I not?” And he liked every minute he spent with her—he liked her more every minute. His gaze lingered on her face until she blushed, but he couldn’t look away.
The side of his face prickled with some sort of premonition—or perhaps a sense of self-preservation—and he reluctantly broke eye contact with Emma to meet Jeremy’s stinging gaze. The death ray had intensified into a weapon worthy of Armageddon. Michel swallowed his annoyance at the other man’s antagonism and prepared to offer his best diplomatic smile, but it died on his lips when Jeremy gave the barest shake of his head. Was he warning Michel off Emma? Something snapped in him at that.
“Tell me, Jeremy,” he drawled. “How exactly do you know Emma?”
“My mother is her godmother.” It was impressive how Jeremy managed to enunciate with his jaws clenched so tight.
Emma glanced warily between them as though sensing a storm brewing.
“So, you’re a family friend of sorts,” Michel said blandly.
“I’m basically her older brother.” The other man’s nostrils flared like those of a bull being taunted by a matador.
“Basically is a far cry from actually.” Michel bared his teeth at him in a not-so-diplomatic smile.
An angry flush rose up Jeremy’s neck, but he seemed to check himself and leaned back in his seat, slinging an arm across the back of Emma’s chair. “In some ways, basically is much better than actually.”
It was Michel’s turn to see red. His hands clenched into fists, and he leaned forward. He wasn’t sure what he could do with an open-fire grill between them. Perhaps he could cautiously reach across the table to smack the smirk off the other man’s face—anything to get him to drop his arm from Emma’s chair.
“Michel.” Sophie placed a firm hand on his forearm.
“Are you guys for real?” Emma snapped at the same time. With an impatient huff, she shoved a too-big piece of galbi into her godbrother’s mouth. “Eat, dingus.”
Jeremy dropped his arm from her chair and chewed his meat with a sullen scowl. Michel lowered his eyes to his plate, bemused by his own behavior, and took a deep, calming breath.
Deliberately ignoring the two chastised men, Emma smiled at Sophie. “How are you enjoying dinner?”
“I’ve had Korean barbecue before, but this is exceptional,” Michel’s royal guard said as she slowly withdrew her hand from his arm.
“It’s the lump charcoal—sutbul.” Michel loved how Emma’s eyes lit up when she talked about food, especially Korean food. “There’s nothing quite like the smooth, smoky flavor it adds to the meat.”
Michel opened his mouth to speak, but Sophie shot him a look that told him he hadn’t earned his right to talk yet. She turned her attention back to Emma. “I read in my research—sorry, I’m a bit of a nerd—that Korea has the greatest number of distinct cuts of beef in the world.”
“That’s right.” Emma beamed at Sophie like she was her star pupil. “Each cut of beef has such different textures and flavors, especially when they are flash grilled at the table like this. It’s an art and a science that Koreans pursue relentlessly.”
Sophie raised her shot glass filled with fiery soju. “I have to salute that.”
“Hear, hear.” Emma clinked her glass to Sophie’s and tilted back the potent liquor, and Michel’s royal guard followed suit.
