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Janey is waving her arms wildly and shaking her head. I quirk my head, silently asking what’s wrong. She mouths, “I’ve got her. Alarm goes off in one hour. Let her sleep.”
It goes against every instinct I have to leave her on the couch, but if she’s so exhausted she collapsed before even making it to bed, an additional hour of rest might very well be important. I nod, slowly stepping back but watching to make sure I haven’t disturbed Abigail’s slumber.
I feel eyes on my body and look back up to find Janey appraising me openly. She flashes me a thumbs-up and a grin. “Boss lady did well with you.”
The compliment is kind, but I feel awkward in my underwear in front of Janey, so I retreat to the bedroom after shooting Abigail one last look of longing. I would so love to carry her to bed, curl her into my side, and listen to her tell me about the flowers she touched last night. She finds them beautiful, but what I find even more stunning is her passion.
I shower and shave, quickly getting dressed in kitchen clothes. I have work to do this morning, a private bridal party luncheon. The same one Abigail and Janey were making centerpieces and arrangements for.
But I can’t leave without touching her. Slowly and quietly, I approach Abigail’s makeshift bed on the couch and bend down to ever so gently press my lips to the back of her hand. “I will see you later, mia rosa,” I whisper.
Janey smirks at me as I leave, wiggling two fingers at me in goodbye. I trust that she’ll take good care of Abigail today.“Chef Toscani!”
The sharp bite of my name breaks into the zone of focus I have perfected through years of practice. The entire kitchen could be on fire, sous chefs battling it out with fists and knives, and I still wouldn’t break from my concentration.
But that annoying voice does it.
“Yes?” I snap, looking up to see Meredith stomping through the kitchen. She’s wearing another black power suit, and I wonder if she sleeps in them.
She probably lies in bed like a vampire, her black heels on and legs straight with her hands crossed over her chest. And when the sun rises, she hisses at it like a pissed off cat but forces herself up. Maybe that’s why she’s always so cold and angry? She’s a creature of the night forced to live in the daylight.
“What are you doing?” she stands behind me at the line, arms folded across her chest.
“You are not supposed to be in the kitchen,” I remind her. “There are food and health codes.”
Her eyes narrow, and instead of backing up the way I’d hoped, she steps closer to my station. She knows what she’s doing, intentionally irritating me to get the answer she wants. I’m certain she’s accustomed to people acquiescing to her maneuvers and manipulations.
I’m not one of those people. I don’t need anything from her.
On my cutting board, I have a small pile of diced onions and a larger one of tomatoes. The skins and juicy remnants are in another pile to be trashed. Using the back side of my knife, I wipe the unneeded bits into my trash bowl, but one wayward tomato bit misses and falls to the floor, only to be intercepted by Meredith’s expensive black pump.
Oops! Did I do that? I think smugly.
“Ugh!” She groans, kicking her toe out to sling the tomato bit to the floor.
“Kitchens are messy places,” I say with zero apology.
Her lips press into a thin line. “As I told you at yesterday’s meeting, I needed the menu for today’s luncheon by last night.”
“Must’ve slipped my mind.” It did no such thing. I never had any intention of sending her a menu, my food reduced to nothing more than a list of ingredients. “No worries, I’m already preparing lunch, creating wonderful dishes the guests will love, each more delicious than the last. This, I promise.”
Her smile is robotic, but the gleam in her eyes is dangerous. “How about this? Since you didn’t do what you were told, with each course the waiters bring out, you can come out and explain what they’re eating and how you made the dish. Really give it that personal chef touch for the girls.”
We’re locked in a battle of chicken, seeing which one of us will flinch first.
She obviously knows that table visits are something chefs dread. The fawning over our food is fun, of course, especially when you are a new chef, but it is disruptive to the flow of the kitchen to have the captain of the ship leave the bridge mid-voyage.
Plus, based on the bridal party’s interest at the dinner at Avanti, I might have to play polite with guests when I would rather be in the kitchen.
