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She tries to push me away, but I hold my ground. I slide my hand down between her legs and give her a knowing smile. “And someone sure is wet.”
Her cheeks flush a beautiful pink, and she pushes me away. This time, I let her. The smoke isn’t subsiding, and if we don’t take care of it soon the smoke alarms will go off. She pulls the extra-crispy bacon out of the pan piece by piece and lays it on a bed of paper towels to absorb the extra grease. Then, she turns to the eggs, which are even worse than the bacon. She has to scrape off the entire bottom layer before she can separate out two scoops of scrambled eggs and top them with cheese.
“Isn’t bacon and eggs a little cliché for a chef?” I tease from my seat on the island.
Eve sprinkles some freshly-cracked pepper over the eggs and then levels a glare at me. “Well, I would have done more if I didn’t spend the first twenty minutes in the kitchen cleaning up the broken bottles and spilled liquor from last night.”
“Oh, right. I forgot about that.” Warmth spreads in my stomach remembering the flurry from the night before. I couldn’t wait. Couldn’t go upstairs or carry her to the couch. I needed to taste her right then, so I’d swept hundreds of dollars of alcohol onto the floor. “My bad.”
She laughs and then turns and thrusts a plate into my hands. “That’s okay. You better just hope I didn’t slip a few of those glass shards into your breakfast.”
Her eyes light up with amusement, and then she walks past me and into the dining room, giving me no choice but to follow her long, bare legs to the table.
* * *
The food is delicious. Bacon and eggs might be cliché, but Eve truly knows her way around the kitchen. Even half-burnt, everything is buttery and well-seasoned and completely free of glass shards.
“You really are a great cook,” I say, shoveling a bite of eggs into my mouth. “I’d pay good money for this breakfast.”
“Thanks.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and I notice the tip of her ear is pink. “My dad only paid for culinary school because he thought it would make me a more valuable wife, but owning my own restaurant is my dream.”
I think about the things Benedetto said to me the night I went to visit him. The way he discussed his daughter as a commodity made me want to wring his neck. I can imagine him telling a young Eve that she’d need to learn to cook to secure herself a good husband. It is very on brand for his particular genre of asshole.
“Keep cooking like this, and you’ll have your own restaurant one day,” I say. Then, quickly, I add, “And you have plenty of other qualities to make you a good wife. You don’t even need to cook.”
Eve is quiet for a minute, and when I chance a look, she is smiling down into her plate. My chest tightens at the sight.
“I want to be a chef like Véronique Cauchon. She is a famous French chef who—”
“I’ve heard of her,” I say, interrupting her.
Eve smiles and sags down in her seat. “I’ve idolized her for years. She is the exact kind of chef I want to be. Influential with a signature blend of traditional cuisine and invention. She takes classic French dishes and puts an entirely new perspective on them. She was supposed to come do a lecture at my school, but it got cancelled because of budgets. I was devastated.”
“Maybe you’ll get another chance to see her again,” I suggest.
“Maybe,” she shrugs, her pouty lips tucked to one side of her mouth. Then, she takes a bite of bacon and props her head up on one fist, eyebrows raised. “Who is your idol?”
“Me?” I ask, as though there might be someone else in the row.
She nods and tips her head forward, encouraging me.
“Now? Or when I was a kid?”
“Either.” She stares at me expectantly, and I wrack my brain for an answer. Any answer.
“No one,” I say finally. “My dad, maybe. I liked that he was in charge of people and had a lot of power. But beyond that, I never looked up to anyone.”
“No one?” she asks, surprised. “Not an athlete or an astronaut or an actor?”
“My childhood didn’t leave a lot of room for those kinds of hobbies,” I admit. “From as long ago as I can remember, my father was preparing me to take over the family.”
Her curiosity slips away, replaced by sympathy. “Even when you were just a little kid?”
I nod, uncomfortable with her attention on me. I don’t talk much about my childhood. Not because I’m ashamed or embarrassed, but because there isn’t much to say. My father bought me a pocket knife when I was five and a gun when I was seven. My interests included learning to fight and following in his footsteps. Anything beyond that didn’t matter.
“Don’t feel bad for me.” I don’t plan to say it, but the words are out of my mouth before I can take them back. I scoop my last bite of eggs into my mouth and push the plate away.
“I wasn’t going to,” she says. “I don’t.”
