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Was it as special for you as it was for me?
Did you really mean it when you said you loved me?
I settled for more logistics. “How did you meet? You and Lucy, I mean. You’ve never mentioned anything about your dad.”
Xavier sighed. “You really want to know all this? She’s dead. It’s long gone. Can’t we just leave it there?”
I drummed my fingertips on my book for a few seconds. “I don’t think so. I think I need to know.”
Xavier sighed again, forked his lettuce some more, then finally just pushed the plate aside, seemingly resigned to the fact that he wasn’t going to enjoy any of it. “Luce and I met after Mum died.”
I nodded. I just wanted him to keep talking.
“I never told you who my father was, did I?”
I shook my head. “I gather someone important. Would I know him?”
Xavier looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth. “In England you would. Rupert Parker. Proprietor of half the farmlands in the Cumbria. Though my uncle Henry is actually the steward.”
My jaw dropped. Proprietor? Steward? “I’m sorry, what? Are you some kind of gentry?”
Xavier shook his head vehemently. “Fuck, no. My father—if you could even call him that—could have qualified, I suppose. I’m just the bastard he got on an exchange student during his university days. His family paid off Mum to keep me a secret—that’s how she started the restaurant, you know. So for most of my life, I had no idea who he was beyond the money Mum got to put me through school.”
“So, what happened?”
“Mum died when I was in secondary. Car accident.”
I nodded. “I remember. I’m so sorry.”
My chest tightened like it did whenever I thought of anyone losing their parents. My own father had died when I was little, and my mother had been less than present. I understood parental absence well, particularly since I’d lost my father to a car wreck too.
Xavier was quiet for a long moment. “Right. Well. After that, my dad popped me into boarding school. Maybe it was guilt. I don’t really know. But it was certainly the easiest way to be done with the brat he’d never wanted to begin with, right? Shut up the restaurant, put the proceeds in an account for when I graduated. Done.”
“You couldn’t go back to Japan?” I wondered. “Where was your mother’s family?”
His broad mouth twisted. “They were estranged. Because of me, of course. Mum had shamed her family, right? Caused a lot of strife.” He drilled his long fingers onto the table. “I did go back, though. Took Mum’s ashes home to Aichi and scattered them in the Yahagi River like she wanted. I ended up staying two more years in Okazaki after I finished school. Lived with my granddad, working at the miso factory. But when I returned to England, expecting to get work as a cook or something else like my mum, another life was waiting for me.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
He sighed. “Rupert Parker had a heart attack, apparently grew a mediocre conscience, and decided to be a father, after all.” He chuckled, almost as if he thought it was absurd. “I’ll never forget the day the old man showed up at my shitty flat, saying he wanted to name me his heir and offering twenty percent of his estate up front if I’d leave culinary school and come live with him, learn the running of it, and attend proper university.”
“Let me guess. You took the money and started your restaurants?”
Xavier recoiled like I slapped him. “I did fucking not. Is that what you think of me?”
Unable to meet his sharp gaze, I rotated my teacup round and round on its saucer. “Right now, I’m not sure what I think of you.”
It wasn’t a compliment. But it wasn’t exactly an insult either.
Progress, I supposed.
Xavier grunted. “As it happens, Mum had been squirreling away his blood payments for years. When she died, the money from the restaurant, plus what she left, was more than enough to get started. So, initially, I said I’d go to uni, but then I went to Dartmouth just to get away from him. Dropped out after a semester and told him to fuck off.”
His broad form leaned back, getting into the story now. I waited somewhat impatiently for him to continue.
“I did exactly what he didn’t want. Finished culinary school. Opened my first restaurant, then another, and another. I wanted to blend what I’d learned in Japan with what I knew about European food. I was just starting to expand when I met you. Was thinking about coming to New York then, actually. That’s what I was doing when we met.”
I gulped. When we met, he had said nothing about his burgeoning restaurant empire. No, he was simply “looking for work,” like he was an errant traveler hopping between jobs as a kitchen grunt to pay for hostels.
