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“What was there to handle? You and I were on fire that night!”
“Exactly! Fire flares. Fire burns. And I wasn’t interested in being burned to ash before I’d really done something in the world.”
“You could have worked for me. I would have offered you a job.”
She drew back, almost getting up onto her feet. “That’s the problem!”
“What?” Something knotted in his gut. “What’s wrong with that?”
“I didn’t want to be your shadow!”
She was up on her feet, moving away. He got up but didn’t follow her. He wasn’t going to chase her.
“I went into culinary school to be a chef.”
“And you did!”
“But I didn’t want to get stuck in one place. Once everyone understood that we were…” she paused and he knew she was searching for the right words, “involved, then that would be the end of me, Lucas. I would be your girlfriend.”
“Who cares?”
He saw her hands fist and he was suddenly grateful that she didn’t take a swing at him. He’d seen her pick up a side of lamb on her own before. Caroline had muscles.
And anger.
Only one of those she was aiming at him.
“Everyone cares! Especially me! Look. It’s hard enough for a woman to get ahead in a kitchen. Men are still saying it’s their domain.”
He narrowed his eyes at that.
“See?” She gestured at him. “You think it too. Men cite their moms for inspiring them, but they’ll always say they took their mom’s food to the next level, but what about a woman? WE have to fight harder to be seen. Men already think of us as weaker. Less than. I wanted to make a name for myself, not have it be connected to a man just because I was in love with him. I mean…” She looked away.
He held onto that thought, but he didn’t want to talk about it… yet.
“And the fact that I was a father?”
When she lifted her head to look at him, he saw the dark shadows in them. “I saw my career pulled right out of my hands.”
Lucas took a step back, staggered by her words. “What are you talking about?”
“Women are expected to take time off, to back away from cooking to raise their families.”
“That doesn’t have to-”
“How many female chefs do you talk to on a daily basis? How many females do you see one minute on the culinary scene and then they’re just gone? How many of them have children?”
The picture she painted with her words was dark, painful.
He’d never really paid attention to those situations.
“A man shows any interest in raising his child and they applaud and congratulate him. A woman wants to work, others think it’s inhuman! Where is her maternal drive? And when she comes back to the kitchen? Wouldn’t she rather be home with her children? The judgement is there and it’s cruel.”
Lucas felt her words like a weight on his shoulders.
How would he know?
He’d never spent much time thinking about what it would be like if the situation were reversed.
