Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
The hysterics were reserved for my mother who had sobbed happy tears on the phone when I told her. I’d quickly found reasons to end that phone call. I didn’t do well with emotions, especially hers. Too many bad memories attached.
“He had a reputation,” I continued, patting my face dry. “For being a misogynistic asshole. Not something unique in the top tiers of the culinary world or the world in general,” I added dryly with a bitter smile.
Though looking at the man who should’ve embodied toxic masculinity, I couldn’t find a trace of it in him. He was masculine in every sense of the word. But no misogynist.
“I expected that,” I continued, spritzing my face with toner. “I considered myself able to handle such things. If you can’t handle pressure and a stripping down of everything you are, then you aren’t capable of being in those world-class kitchens. But the asshole everyone said he was didn’t materialize. He was hard on his staff, expected perfection, but I respected that. And he treated me with respect. Was patient. Impressed. Gave me freedom with new dishes, responsibilities that I didn’t expect to get being so new. Which didn’t earn me friends in the kitchen.”
I took a deep breath, putting down the toner before toying with a moisturizer.
“I guess I considered him a mentor. Almost a father figure. Which, in hindsight, is an insult to my father’s memory.”
I gulped down fire and shame, remembering how part of me had wished for a man like that as a father instead of the easygoing, loving and jovial man I remembered. Because if I had a tough, stern and cold father, maybe it’d be easier to lose him.
“I stayed late often. To clean up, scrub ovens, counters, to experiment with recipes of my own. Gerald had given me free rein of the kitchen after service… A huge gift.”
I thought back to the serene nights, the sizzling of the pans, the clang of pots and the faraway noises of Paris. I stayed until after midnight plenty of times, even when I’d have to be up at six to prepare for service.
“I was always alone in the kitchen,” I rubbed lotion onto my neck. “Gerald was always at events and parties, being celebrated. He liked that. Bathed in the attention and praise he got for being a genius.”
I rolled my eyes. I’d always found him a little narcissistic and pompous. But again, to survive and thrive at that level, you always had to have a certain level of narcissism and delusional belief in yourself.
“But then one night he was there,” I whispered.
I still smelled him. Expensive port and aftershave couldn’t cover the bitter twang of sweat.
“He’d been drinking. But he wasn’t drunk. Not that that would’ve been an excuse for what happened next,” I scoffed.
Kane had been intently listening, his elbows resting on his knees. That was his way. When I had his attention, I had all of it. He hung on my every word. Previously, I’d liked that. But at that moment, I didn’t.
I was suddenly aware of my body, of his body, of the story that I’d shoved down so deep that it tore out bits of me while coming back up.
Kane pushed up from where he was sitting, crossing the short distance between us. He gently angled me away from the mirror to face him, his breath on my face, his enticing scent mingling with that of my memories. “What happened next?” he asked quietly.
Kane was hyperaware of everything. Of minute details. Of gestures I made, expressions, the tone of my voice. He had learned who I was in the short time we’d been together. Actually, knew me.
I swallowed past the lump of dread in my esophagus. The memory had made nausea swirl in my gut. I regretted going there. Thinking that I was strong enough in Kane’s arms, his presence. But I also knew I couldn’t let myself retreat. Knew Kane wouldn’t let it go now.
The only way through was forward.
“He, um,” I pulled in a long breath. “He came on to me. Not very elegantly either.”
There was the smell of the port. What I’d been cooking. Beef Wellington. Something I’d never put on a menu since that night.
His hands were fumbling, invasive straightaway.
I’d swatted them off, tried to push him away even as he backed me into the door to the walk-in freezer.
I hadn’t been aware enough of my surroundings, of him casually talking to me with a strange gleam in his eyes, herding me to an area of the kitchen where I couldn’t escape from.
I hadn’t thought I’d need to be on guard in a way a woman needed to be on guard—when she was walking to her car at night, when she was breaking up with someone unpredictable, refusing the advances of someone at a bar.