“Chef Vega is expecting me,” Jonah said.
“Wait at the bar,” he said, thumbing toward the other side of a fluted wood wall. “She’ll be out in a minute.”
Thanking him, Jonah stood near a row of cane-back barstools, checked his phone, then muted it.Sorry, Atlas.
Isobel Vega swept into the room a few minutes later, looking very much like the pictures he’d seen online. She was in her late forties, compact, with dark hair pulled back tight and eyes that assessed him the way Broussard’s did—measuring, calculating, deciding whether what she saw was worth her time.
She wore street clothes, not an apron, and reached out a hand that was so small he fleetingly wondered how she managed a chef’s knife. Quite well, he reminded himself.
“Mr. Lawson,” she said, shaking his hand. “Marcel speaks very highly of you. Thanks for coming in.”
“Thank you for the invitation. Chef Broussard’s been a great mentor.”
One dark brow lifted. “He doesn’t mentor. He tolerates. If he’s mentoring you, that tells me something.” She gestured to a stool. “Sit. Let’s talk.”
She wasted no time firing questions at him. She asked about his training, his technique, his palate. She wanted to know what he’d cook if he had thirty minutes and a fish he’d never seen before. She asked him to describe the difference between a sauce that was good and a sauce that was right. She was sharp, direct, and not completely humorless, though she kept her smiles in check and didn’t laugh once.
Which tracked, based on what he knew about her and the high-end restaurant industry.
He tried to concentrate and mostly succeeded. But the urge to check his phone and be sure Atlas hadn’t gotten “lost” in a stucco building in Niceville with a sticker on his chest was strong. He couldn’t stop seeing those little arms reaching for him.
“Where’s your head?” Isobel asked, fifteen minutes in.
He looked at her. She was watching him with an expression that said she already knew the answer and was testing whether he’d be honest about it.
“My son is in daycare for the first time,” he said. “He’s four months old. I dropped him off an hour ago and it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Where’s his mother?”
It was a natural question, maybe a little personal, but he was used to it. He just didn’t want to get into the “killed three weeks after Atlas was born” thing now. It would derail the interview.
“She’s, um, out of the picture.” He hoped that wasn’t disrespectful to beautiful Carly Danes. Surely she’d understand, having worked in restaurants most of her adult life.
Isobel studied him for a long moment. “How old are you?”
“Thirty.”
“Totally single parent with full custody?”
“Yes.”
“And you want to work in a kitchen three nights a week plus Saturdays while you go to culinary school.” She looked next-level doubtful he could pull that off.
He took a deep breath. “I want to build a career that gives my son a life worth having.”
Something shifted in her face—not sympathy, exactly, but recognition. “I started in kitchens when my daughter was eighteen months old,” she told him. “My mother watched her. Every night, I’d come home smelling like fryer oil and garlic at one in the morning and check on her while she slept.” She paused. “It’s not easy. It doesn’t get easier. But if the work is in you, you find a way.”
He nodded. “The work is in me.”
“I know it is. Marcel wouldn’t have sent you otherwise.” She stood, scrutinizing him, visibly weighing her decision. “I have one other candidate I really like.”
His heart dropped.
“I’ll want kitchen tests from both of you. You have two weeks to think and prepare, then I’ll want you in here to make your signature dish. I’ll watch every move you make, pick apart every slice of your knife, and judge every decision. Then I’ll decide.”
“That sounds good.”
Her brow flicked. “It won’t be, so come prepared to wow me.”
