Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Yeah, I couldn’t stand in her way. Hell no.
Not to mention that I would probably kill someone if I walked into another restaurant and saw her working in someone else’s kitchen. It made something possessive and primal well up in me, made me see red just at the thought.
All of that aside, though…why the hell would I bring her back to a restaurant that was failing? She would lose her job right along with me. I couldn’t hitch her to a sinking ship. What kind of selfish asshole would I be then?
No, it was better this way, or so I kept telling myself.
I brought a new chef in, but I told him to keep everything the way that Stevie had done it. The other line cooks and such were glad to keep doing things Stevie’s way—I could tell that they missed her. I couldn’t blame them.
I didn’t have the heart to change Stevie’s menu. The food was good, she was right, and I thought it was better than Theo’s. I went to the farmer’s market every week with the other cooks and we worked out deals with suppliers so that we knew we would have enough to get us through each week. People were happy to deal with us, since they’d seen me with Stevie. They kept telling me to say hi to her for them.
That was Stevie all over, getting people to be her friends so easily.
And then, as the days kept going by—business started picking up.
Of fucking course it did.
People loved the food, and were complimenting me all the time for it. We had full bookings, we had a full restaurant, we were working our way steadily back into the green. I couldn’t believe it. Well, not at first.
But then I started to wonder, as the compliments and the customers kept rolling in… had that review really been full of shit?
It was hard, when all chefs took such pride in their work, to know who was right and who was just nursing a wounded ego. But as people consistently praised my food, I couldn’t help but feel that Stevie hadn’t been nursing her ego at all. She’d just been right. That reviewer had an issue and that review was indeed full of shit.
One night, three weeks after Stevie had left, I stared out over the full dining room. Everyone was chatting, laughing, having a good time, enjoying the food. The restaurant looked the way it had back in the heyday, back in the beginning before Theo and Virginia hurt me. But now it was even better because Stevie had been right. She wasn’t here, running things, and yet the food was still good. The cooks could make it easily and keep up a consistent level of taste and standard.
Unlike with Theo’s food, where he had to be there and it was so complex that once he left nobody could keep up, we could keep up while Stevie was gone. That didn’t mean that she was useless, far from it, but it was good to know that she hadn’t micromanaged things to the point where they failed without her. That, I now felt, was one of the signs of a true professional and a great chef.
We were doing so well. Our business was booming. It was all back on track and I was feeling optimistic. More than that, I was feeling confident about the days ahead.
The desire to hop into my car and go see Stevie, to tell her how things were going and convince her to come back, was so strong that it felt like there was a rope around my chest, tugging me towards her.
In fact, I turned to head towards the front entrance and—
I saw Brooke.
Oh, God.
We hadn’t even really gotten around to talking about Brooke. Stevie and I, I mean. I’d known that it would come up eventually but when we weren’t even in a proper relationship… I’d just put it off. There were so many other things to deal with, about the restaurant.
But now…
Brooke would never forgive me for sleeping with her best friend. I couldn’t possibly do that to her. Virginia broke our daughter’s trust. I wasn’t going to be the person who broke it a second time.
Things were just better this way. It was all… for the best. Stevie was going off to get a proper career at a better restaurant. I was doing well in my restaurant. It was all fine.
Just… fine.
Chapter Twenty: Stevie
I was fucking miserable.
Not because of the pregnancy. I wasn’t far enough along yet to start doing things like wishing I could see my feet or being unable to sleep on my stomach. Although how I was feeling wasn’t helping the situation. I was sure I could handle that all better though if it wasn’t for the other thing: my goddamn job.