Flaming Read online

  Flaming

  An Assured Elites Romance

  by

  Parker Avrile

  ♥♥♥

  All Rights Reserved

  © 2022 Parker Avrile & Paris April Press

  ♥♥♥

  Sparks fly when a prince on the run collides with a celebrity chef.

  A Michelin-starred restaurant and his own TV show fill every waking moment of Tony Snye's hectic life. Hungry for love, the lonely chef consults the celebrity matchmaking experts at Manhattan's Assured Elites.

  He never dreams they'd pair him with a prince on the run from an arranged marriage.

  As long as the Assured Elites matchmaking service rules the Big Apple, no hot gay celebrity can remain unpaired. The novels in the Assured Elites gay romance series can be enjoyed in any order. A checklist to get you started:

  ♥A Fiercer Heat

  ♥A Higher Flame

  ♥A Hotter Fire

  ♥Flaming

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  A Note to Readers

  Baked Alaska Flambé

  Baked Hawaii

  Flaming Volcano

  Cherry Jubilee

  Classic Creme Brulee

  Classic Bananas Foster

  Flaming Calvados Apple Tart

  Cheesecake Flambé

  Blood Orange Creme Brulee

  Crepes Suzette

  Flaming Steak Diane

  Old Fashioned with Burnt Orange Peel

  Death by Chocolate Flambé

  Flaming Black Cherries Over Vanilla Ice Bombe

  Flaming Midori Melon Ball

  Flaming Blue Lagoon Shooter

  Flaming Strawberries on French Vanilla Ice Cream

  Old-Fashioned Swedish Glogg

  Flaming Pineapple Crepes

  Flaming Honey-Glazed Guineafowl

  Flaming Dr. Pepper

  Tequila-Flamed Shrimp Tostadas

  Szechuan Chicken On Fire

  Satsumas Burning On Vanilla Ice

  Spicy Engagement Chicken On Fire

  Omelet Flambé

  Kir Royale With Flaming Vodka on Top

  Wedding Cake Baked Alaska

  Shrimp Bisque and Brandy Flambé Soup

  Crepes Grand Marnier

  Flaming Ring of Fire Cocktail for Two

  Fuzzy Navel with Peach Vodka in Flames

  Champagne Cocktail In Flames

  About the Author

  Extended Copyright & Credits

  A Note to Readers

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to anyone, any time, or any place is not intended and is merely coincidental. The cover model appears for illustration purposes only and has no relationship to any events in this story. Brief mentions of real persons, places, or products are used fictitiously and in accordance with fair use. All trademarks remain the properties of their owners. Some locations and police proceedings have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

  Baked Alaska Flambé

  The storefront was a cruelty-free, ivory-free netsuke shop on a street in a quietly expensive Manhattan neighborhood.

  Each precious miniature was sculpted from the finest gems or the rarest jades. Prices were not displayed. One understood from the respectful hush within that only the wealthiest of collectors could afford to invest in any of the rare pieces on display.

  The real business took place in back.

  Assured Elites. A name that did not appear on any sign. A name whispered from mouth to ear.

  “Oh, honey, it's the only place for a gay celebrity to meet his match,” was the whisper that found its way into the receptive ear of celebrity chef Tony Snye.

  One might think it would be easy for a telegenic twenty-eight-year-old Wunderkind to find true love... or at least true lust. One might think wrong.

  Surrounded by climbers and users, Tony was at a loss to connect with somebody who didn't view him as a stepping stone. A celebrity chef has connections.

  And one man too many had pretended to be fascinated with Tony when the true object of his fascination was Tony's access to the billionaires of New York City.

  “Tired of hookups with golddiggers and no-stringers that don't lead anywhere?” The whisper was seductive. “Tired of being some straight celebrity's experiment?”

  That hit the nail on the head. Were rumors going around?

  For Tony was indeed tired of being some straight celebrity's experiment. He winced, yet again, as he considered his summer fling with a certain Famous Actor.

  FA claimed he couldn't be seen in public with Tony because, “I'm an Emmy winner, babe, and you're a chef. How would it look?”

  I'm a celebrity chef. With a new TV series. I might win my own Emmy one day.

  Besides, how could I look any worse than the blond ‘fake housewife’ you were photographed with for Page Six?

  But Tony had his pride. He would not wallow. He would not grovel.

  He was Tony Snye, celebrity chef. Out, loud, and proud.

  Also a little lonely.

  “The restaurant business is brutal,” he said aloud. “So often, I'm working while others are playing.”

  The two men in front of him nodded as sympathetically as any pair of trained therapists. Behind them, a long desk displayed a triptych of oversized monitors flashing mysterious numbers. There was plenty of room at the desk, but they stood hip to hip, easy in each other's closeness in a way that branded them a couple.

  An extremely handsome couple. Both in their mid-thirties. Both with male model jawlines. Tall, almost the same height to the inch.

  A well-matched pair.

  They're a good advertisement for their services.

  Tony hated hope. It was the cruelest emotion. But, looking at the couple, he felt a flicker of hope's flame all the same.

  More numbers flashed on the additional monitors hanging on the back wall above their heads.

  “I don't know if love is possible for me.” Tony had not intended to make such a confession, but the words came pouring out. Somehow, these men invited confidence. “My work...”

  “Love is possible for all who find this shop,” said one of the men.

  “Those who are not ready cannot find the door,” said the other.

  Huh. Well. All that sounded a bit mystical and mumbo-jumbo.

  Celebrity chef/emerging TV star Tony Snye didn't believe in mystical. He assured himself he was far too sophisticated for that.

  But he did believe in computers. The flashing numbers on the multiple devices working around him inspired faith.

  The Assured Elites artificial intelligence was hard at work on the problem. Mere mortals might not understand what it was doing, but there was science behind it.

  Tony's flame of hope flickered higher.

  Then, something more visible began to flicker. The central screen in the triptych started rolling like an old-time television set.

  With a snap, the numbers vanished to be replaced by the image of a face.

  Tony studied the screen. The face belonged to a tall, elegant man of perhaps thirty with carefully styled sandy-blond hair and sculpted cheekbones. The ice-blue eyes were large and direct, with a piercing gaze one associated with the golden eyes of an eagle.

  A very good face. A most excellent face.

  But hardly a celebrity face.

  A Manhattan chef like Tony Snye would recognize any genuine celebrity at a hundred paces. Be he actor, artist, or hedge fund financier, a man of influence expected to be welcomed and glad-handed whenever he found his way through the doors of one of New York City's finest restaurants.

  As Tony lifted an eyebrow at the two matchmakers, the screens to the right and left also flickered. A snap, and a second snap, and they too had settled on the image of a face.


  The same face.

  One of the men was looking up at a higher screen, one of those on the wall that still flashed numbers. His elbow winged out to nudge his companion.

  The other man let out a soft whistle. “Wow.”

  “Wow, indeed.”

  Tony was beginning to feel uneasy. “What do you mean, wow? What's wrong? And who's that guy?”

  “He's your match.”

  “A perfect match.”

  “Seldom have we seen a pair with compatibility numbers so high.”

  “Truly, this is fate.”

  Truly, this is bullshit.

  “But he's not a celebrity,” Tony pointed out. “I know all the fucking celebrities in this town.”

  Should he have sworn? Well, he'd already done it. Anyway, the public learned long ago from Gordon Ramsay that chefs were as capable at slinging f-bombs as they were at slinging hash.

  “When you're in the restaurant business,” Tony said, “you've got to know every important face. And this guy, sure, he's attractive. But he's nobody.”

  “Ah.”

  “We see your concern.”

  The two matchmakers exchanged a knowing look. The assured smugness in their eyes made Tony want to hit somebody or at least punch some bread dough.

  Are they laughing at me? Have I been scammed? Is this like the time I hired that astrologer?

  “Prince Conrad of Zahren has not yet arrived in Manhattan.”

  “Zahren?” Tony shook his head. “What is that?”

  “A small but prosperous country on the border between Switzerland and Austria.”

  “Nuh-uh. I know what that country is.” He thought a minute. “Moss, moss, lichen. Liechtenstein.”

  They laughed. One of them said, “This is the other small but prosperous country on the border between Switzerland and Austria.”

  Tony still had his doubts. “Look, guys, I appreciate that you scoured the world to search for appropriate matches, but I still run a restaurant in Manhattan last time I looked. My clientele expects to see the real chef on the premises. Also, we're still filming episodes for season two of the show. I'm not free to do a tour of the royal houses of Europe.”

  “Hmm.” The two men exchanged another of those knowing smiles.

  “And yet we're predicting that you are fated to meet and fall in love.”

  “The prince must be arriving in Manhattan at any day.”

  “Amazing the sort of secret information our proprietary software can ferret out.”

  Tony's shoulders sagged in despair. His flame of hope flicked out.

  Another bamboozlement. These guys had me going for a minute, but they're making it all up on the fly.

  “Do not concern yourself,” one of them said. “You will not be billed until you announce your engagement to the prince.”

  My engagement. To a prince.

  Who probably doesn't even exist.

  Yeah, that'll be the day.

  Tony started to shoot back with a few choice Gordon Ramsayisms, but what was the point? While he'd wasted his time on this wild goose chase, at least he wasn't out of pocket on the adventure.

  I mean. If they're waiting for me to become betrothed to a prince, they'll be waiting a long time to ship that invoice.

  Anyhoo, as far as time-wasters went, Assured Elites wasted a lot less of it than Famous Actor had. He could console himself with that.

  Might as well plaster a smile on the face and move in for the final round of handshakes.

  “Thank you for spending so much time with me,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

  “Please, Mr. Snyder.”

  Tony winced. How did they know his birth name? Even the tabloids had never learned that particular secret.

  The flame of hope sparked again. Maybe their magic computer did know things. And if it knew things, maybe it could predict things.

  “Please do not thank us yet,” one of them was saying.

  “You will have rich opportunity to express your appreciation later,” added the other.

  “When we have earned it.”

  Heart beating a little faster, Tony swallowed his final thank you and slowly walked out of the store.

  Baked Hawaii

  According to some, the Aging Billionaire was a suspicious character who had fled the island of Maui only steps ahead of some local version of the Mafia or the Yakuza or...

  Well.

  Tony read Page Six religiously every day, but he wasn't always sure what they were hinting at. The Aging Billionaire was undoubtedly on the run from something or somebody. Even if he'd cared, Tony, a Manhattan boy born and bred, didn't have the background to figure out who or what the Billionaire fled.

  Anyhoo, on the occasion of his seventy-ninth birthday, the Billionaire's various relatives and hangers-on had arranged for Tony to surprise the old sinner with the Manhattan version of a tiki party. Tacky as fuck, yeah, but Tony didn't even consider turning down the gig.

  For one thing, the budget for the blast was in the low seven figures, which would do wonderful things for Tony's bottom line.

  For another thing, if Martha Stewart could cater a tiki party, then fucking Tony Snye could cater a tiki party. Honestly, how hard could it be? Put a lot of rum in coconut bowls and keep setting things on fire, and there you go.

  “You'd better hope Page Six doesn't hear about this.” Amanda, his general manager, had squinted ominously at the coconut-bowl glassware. “Cultural appropriation is not the done thing at the moment.”

  She was a fortyish woman who got her hair blown out in some sidewalk salon every afternoon before she showed up for work. Surely, that was a worse faux pas than ironic barware. Still, Amanda was good with money and people, so Tony had wisely decided never to tease her about the big hair.

  “What cultural appropriation?” he asked. “Is Maui a culture?”

  “See, that's the kind of soundbite we don't need some TikToker spreading around.” She breathed out like she'd been doing yoga, which was—or so Tony thought—also cultural appropriation. But he knew better than to say so. “Island culture,” she finally added.

  “Manhattan's an island,” Tony pointed out.

  She sighed even more loudly than before.

  For all that, the event was going well. Drinks with umbrellas came and went. No one commented on the coconut bowl barware. Certainly, no one raised their phones to make TikToks accusing the upper 1% of appropriating tiki culture.

  The Billionaire also ignored the expensive sushi, which was a little annoying, but Tony decided old people like comfort food, so what did that guy know about fine dining anyway?

  And everyone, the big boy included, liked the Baked Hawaii, an idea Tony more or less lifted from Marty's website.

  Could he call her Marty? As long as he did it behind her back, he figured he wasn't being especially disrespectful.

  Baked Alaska was the classic recipe. Ice cream on the inside, cake and meringue on the outside.

  Baked Hawaii was filled with a selection of tropical sorbets instead. Passionfruit, piñacolada, kiwi... All the pastel colors. Coconut cake, of course.

  And then always, for the outer layer, that beautiful meringue.

  Sugar-white and whipped stiff, ready to be blasted with a torch until all the sharp edges crisped to a delicious shade of golden brown...

  Tony manned the torch himself. Like any serious chef, he was a master of showmanship.

  The crowd applauded, and the applause was earned. Truly, his creation was a work of beauty.

  As the plates of dessert were handed around by his staff, Tony went from table to table to greet his guests. This part of the evening wasn't about cooking and it wasn't creative, but he enjoyed it just the same.

  It was fun meeting the rich, the beautiful, and the famous. Fun knowing they'd eaten his food and drunk his drinks.

  “Nice to see you again,” he'd say, over and over, never getting a name wrong. “And how is the...?” Tony never got that part wrong either.

&nb
sp; He'd schooled himself to always ask his guests about something that allowed the patron a little point of pride.

  The new yacht.

  The kid who got into Harvard Law Review.

  The spouse wrapping up a role in a Hollywood movie.

  A wicked NFT investment that paid off big according to a report appearing in the sacred pages of The Wall Street Journal.

  Suddenly, Tony stopped dead in his tracks. For a moment, his brain locked up.

  He'd seen a face he both did and did not recognize.

  Prince Conrad of Zahren.

  But how could it be? Was he a friend or relative of the Aging Billionaire?

  Hardly. The old coot was from Maui, with some extended family in California and Japan.

  Prince Conrad was from, well, wherever he was from. The little country in the Alps that wasn't, moss, moss, lichen, Liechtenstein.

  And yet there he sat, looking stiff and mildly bored, between two highly animated hedge fund friends of the Billionaire.

  Perhaps the prince was also a billionaire. Princes could be presumed to have money.

  Maybe Prince Conrad was being feted around Manhattan to persuade him to invest in one of those rich people's fancy funds.

  He was a striking man on a monitor, but even more striking in life. The perfection of his skin, his hair, the way his shoulders moved in his tropical print shirt...

  Tony wished he'd looked into the man more deeply after Assured Elites had identified him as Tony's ideal match.

  He hadn't, though, because he hadn't believed in their prediction. Tony? Engaged to a prince?

  Come on, dudes.

  Tony wasn't even sure he'd believed in the prince.

  And yet Prince Conrad was undoubtedly here in this room attending one of Tony's catered events.

  Was it a scam?

  I could have asked Amanda to look into it for me. How do I even know Zahren's a real place?

  But he'd been too embarrassed to confess to his GM that he'd consulted with a matchmaking service. Especially because he suspected such a confession would only give her an excuse to try to set him up on another blind date with her nephew.

  The prince turned slightly, and suddenly those direct blue eyes were fixed on Tony.

  His mind raced. Or was it his heart?