Seared (Cooking up a Celebrity Book 2)

by Hadley Harlin

  Jackson wasn’t getting a pass from me.

  Chapter Five

  Clara

  Paris, France

  Production reserved a large backroom for us at an adorable little bistro with striped chairs and checkered tablecloths that almost made me squeal with joy. I was in Paris! And I wasn’t eliminated first. It was definitely time to celebrate.

  Emma and I got ready in our shared room, curling our hair and carefully applying our lashes and lipstick. Fake lashes were inconvenient in the heat of a kitchen, but cameras would be following us around during dinner, too. There was no escaping them.

  I’d slipped on a form-fitting black and white polka dot dress and clenched a red patent leather belt around my waist. With a smack of matching red lipstick, I felt invincible.

  We all settled in with a glass of celebratory champagne, except for Liam. He stuck with sparkling water. One by one, we went around the table and said our claim to fame, including our current job or latest project.

  When it was my turn, I vehemently defended myself, even though it was mostly bullshit coming out of my mouth. “Well, I recently graduated from the CIA. Top of my class, in fact. I’m using this show to launch my career. Afterward, I’m hoping to have my pick of the best kitchens and mentors.”

  At least no one called me out. They politely nodded, and I didn’t realize until later it was because Jackson had bigger fish to filet. When it was Liam’s turn, Jackson barely let him finish his story before turning the screws.

  “You seriously worked at a diner flipping burgers. How exactly did you get on this show?” he asked, pointing a fork at Liam’s chest.

  Liam shrugged, not saying a word. He usually didn’t. He never rose to the bait. His lips were so sexy, I wondered how it would change his face if he ever smiled.

  I could see Jackson’s mind whirring. Then his eyes lit up. “Wait, aren’t you the guy who executed on the line for that three Michelin star restaurant, what was the name…”

  Ava helped out. “Wagyu, wasn’t it?”

  Jackson snapped his fingers as more than a few of us gasped. “That’s the one. Until you went batshit crazy one night on coke and ate thousands of dollars’ worth of beef and artichokes. I always thought that was an odd combo, but I’ve never tripped balls before.”

  I watched Liam carefully as Jackson shot back his tumbler of whiskey. Despite cameras recording everything, the guy was on his way to drunk, overconfident in his skills compared to the rest of us. It said more about his personality than his ability, in my opinion.

  Liam’s whole body tensed, but he didn’t defend himself or even look at Jackson. I wondered if the Wagyu beef incident was actually true. He didn’t deny it.

  How embarrassing. I couldn’t imagine taking drugs. Call it the good Catholic schoolgirl perpetually locked inside of me. I was, however, fairly impressed at Liam’s self-control. He could be a cocky, little jerk with that résumé, but he wasn’t. He was quiet. Reserved. Thoughtful.

  Jackson didn’t get the hint. “So what’s it like? Tripping balls, I mean.”

  Liam still didn’t take the bait. He bit into his coq au vin and resolutely ignored the rest of us. Emma and I exchanged glances. This was not going to end well.

  I piped up, “So what do we think the Germany challenge is going to be? I was a bit surprised at the complexity of Paris.”

  Jackson took aim at me next. “Are you still here, princess?”

  “I’m not your fucking princess, you asshat,” I responded without thinking. That kind of shit didn’t fly where I came from.

  Jackson sat back. “Whoa, look at the mouth on this one. Are you even legal?”

  “I can drink,” I replied indignantly.

  “That’s not what I meant, princess,” Jackson leered. “God, you’re not going to last long, but I hope you stick around long enough for me to imprint on my brain the exact way your tits bounce when you run across the kitchen. That’s about all you’re really good for.”

  My mouth dropped open. I’d never heard a guy speak like that to me before. Where I came from, that could get you killed.

  I saw Emma rise, a steak knife in her hand and slam it on the table, but it was Liam who caught my attention. And everyone else’s in the bistro. He abruptly stood and grabbed Jackson by the shirt.

  “Way too far, asshole,” he said, breathing heavily. “Apologize.”

  Jackson scoffed. “Everyone knows it’s true and the sooner she figures it out, the more embarrassment she can save herself. This isn’t news.”

  “No, they don’t. She killed pastry today,” Liam said.

  “Any chef worth their pay grade can whip up egg whites,” Jackson replied. “You agreed with me yesterday, so don’t pretend you weren’t looking at her tits today.”

  “I never equated her tits with her talent,” Liam said.

  Under the circumstances, I wasn’t quite following the nuances of the conversation, but I was pretty sure Liam just said he’d checked me out before.

  Jackson sneered. “Not out loud, at least, but we all know you’re thinking it.”

  That was when Liam lost his shit. He completely upended the table, dropping all of our drinks, food, and sharp objects right into Jackson’s lap, daring him to fight back.

  Jackson jumped to his feet, swearing loudly, but he must have sensed he wouldn’t win in a fight against Liam. Not slightly intoxicated and not against those biceps.

  “Sorry,” he muttered to me, instead. Then, he looked at Liam, “You satisfied, you crazy shit?”

  Without a glance at me, as if defending the honor of some girl he didn’t even know was a totally un-newsworthy thing, Liam stormed away. A set of cameras raced to follow him while one stayed, zooming in on my reaction.

  The rest of us had jumped to our feet to avoid the flying food, and we stared open-mouthed. I recovered first.

  “Anybody feeling some beef and artichokes?” I asked.

  Someone chuckled, probably Jackson.

  For the rest of the short evening, I watched the door where Liam had stalked off, wondering what he was thinking and if he’d come back. He never did.

  I also hoped they’d edit out that bit about the artichoke joke, but I doubted it. That shit was television gold.

  Chapter Six

  Liam

  Paris, France

  There was something about Clara. All night long, I couldn’t shake the look in her eyes when Jackson said that shit about her tits. I kept seeing the way her bright red lips dropped open in surprise and hurt. Despite her olive skin, she had flushed pink, adding to her innocence. And just like that, I had to protect her.

  While noble in sentiment, it was terrible in reality. I did not need anyone clouding my judgement, let alone a fellow contestant. My career depended on killing this competition. My mom’s sanity depended on it, too.

  She was fine, they told me, but I’d heard that before. When my dad died unexpectedly, she’d started taking sleeping pills to deal with the stress. A few before bed turned into a few in the afternoon, which eventually degraded into whatever she could swallow whenever she could. Her spiral into psychosis deepened until I came home from my senior year of high school and found her unconscious in the living room. For the first time, I was forced to properly look at my mother. Her dull hair and gray skin, her lifeless eyes and limp body.

  Now, she stayed year-round in an assisted-living home in Michigan where she constantly asked for news about my nights in the industry. I fed her as many lies as I could stomach about working in Michelin-starred restaurants and all the hotshot athletes and movie stars who raved about my food.

  It didn’t use to be a lie.

  Clara already told us the first night that she grew up in that traditional, family-oriented Italian household. Not only did she have dinner with her parents, grandparents, and even aunts and uncles every night, they all wanted to be there.

  Once my mom started downing sleeping pills like candy, the rest of the family scattered. They were cowards. It�
�d been just us for over a decade. Well, Mom, her therapists, me, and my sponsor.

  What a family we made. We didn’t even do holidays together. My sponsor had his own family for that, and I was always busy working the holiday shift at the restaurant. There were plenty of other people in New York who didn’t celebrate Christmas and needed to eat.

  I knew deep down Clara could never understand someone like me, and I could never give her what she wanted. That suburban life with two-point-five kids and a white picket fence. It was all an illusion too easily shattered. I would never settle into it like my mom had, only to watch it crumble around me. Clara may have technically lived in the city, but Staten Island wasn’t Manhattan. It wasn’t the Bronx or Queens or Brooklyn, either. Everything about her screamed suburban. She wasn’t even inked.

  Besides that, I wasn’t a relationship type of guy. I didn’t want them, and I didn’t do them.

  Now was not the time to implode, nor was it the time to wallow. I needed to tie up a few loose ends and tell my mother where I was before she had an episode.

  My mom knew I’d been fired from Wagyu and went to rehab, but she didn’t know the depth of the blackballing. The owner of Wagyu had influence that ran deep, and he was pissed at the amount of cover-up from the incident he had to do. And the time, money, and talent it took away from his fucking bottom line. Because a bottom line trumps humans.

  My mom’s nurse picked up on the first ring. “She’s not doing well, so it would be helpful if you had some good news,” he said. “You can make it up. I won’t tell her.”

  I prickled at the insinuation, but I didn’t rise to the bait. “Just put her on.”

  My mom’s voice crackled to life next.

  “Liam! I miss you. When are you coming home?”

  Wincing, I murmured I loved her back. We didn’t have a home, but I wasn’t about to get into it with her, again.

  “Actually, I’ve got great news, Mom. I’m in Paris.”

  “Sorry, honey, but how is that good? I miss you. I thought you were going to visit me over the summer, but you never came.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. It’s good news because I finally made it into that competition I told you about. The one that goes around the world. I’m not supposed to talk about it, but I’ve made it past the first country.”

  I waited a beat for her to digest.

  Concern suffused her voice. “They let you take time off at… what’s the name of the new place you’re the boss at?”

  “Oh, the Kitchen Sink? Yeah. It raises the profile of the restaurant to have their exec chef on national television. They’re loving it there.”

  Pro tip: There is no place called the Kitchen Sink. If I used a real place, she might look it up and call it one day. Without a place, there is no phone number. You don’t get to be an addict without learning how to lie.

  Three hundred and forty-three days.

  “I’m so happy for you, Liam. Being a chef is what you were meant to do. Everything happens for a reason. Even getting fired. Look how strong it made you!”

  I kept my mouth shut. I hated when she spouted this inspirational crap. Humans weren’t blank little slates, destined for happiness. Sometimes, the love of your life died in a completely mundane accident, like my father. Sometimes, you became addicted and didn’t have middle class money to get into rehab. Sometimes, you died on the street like a dog. I was one of the lucky ones. We had insurance money from my dad’s passing, but I ate that up in drugs and treatment for drugs. So why did my mom still insist on thinking everything was going to work out? It was a delusional danger zone.

  “Be safe. Call your sponsor if you need to,” my mom said. “I love you so much, Liam. You make life worth living, my love.”

  I winced. “Don’t worry, Mom. Listen, I have to go. We’re taking a bus to Germany later today. Take your meds. I promise to visit after I win this competition.”

  “Of course, honey. I believe in you.”

  I hung up feeling worse than ever. Fortunately, I resisted the urge to put my hand through a wall, but only because I needed to cook with it tomorrow.

  Chapter Seven

  Clara

  Paris, France

  Even after doing well during the elimination challenge in Paris, I didn’t feel like I could do this ruthless competition thing. Jackson’s accusations sat heavy in my stomach, making me feel physically ill at times. My mom called daily, but I wasn’t allowed to tell her anything about the show. She could sense I was in over my head, though.

  “Mia formagginna, you don’t sound good. I knew this cooking show was a mistake.”

  “Mom,” I groaned. “I’m not your little cheese anymore.”

  I could picture my mom’s face as she prepared her retort, probably because it was the same one as always. “What’s wrong with mia formagginna? It’s cute! You loved it as a kid.”

  “I guess that’s the problem.” I sighed. “I’m not a kid anymore.” Why was it so hard to convince your parents you had grown up? Wasn’t that the point? “You know what, Mom? I’ve got to go. I need to do a little studying up on Germany before the challenges start today. Give kisses to everyone for me.”

  “Okay, but remember how much we love you at home, mia formagginna.”

  I quickly hung up, trying not to let the guilt get to me. She had a billion of our closest relatives at home to help with her grief. I had six cutthroat contestants to keep me company, although Emma was hardly a throat cutter. Ever since Hawthorne had been announced as one of the judges, she’d been withdrawn. The amount of time she spent sleeping in our hotel room between challenges was slightly disturbing.

  If she was still like this after the next challenge, I needed to sit that girl down and shake some sense into her. She couldn’t let the ghost of Hawthorne West haunt her present. Not when she had a real chance of winning. Honestly, there was no one else I’d rather lose to than my best friend.

  That didn’t mean I planned on losing, however. Right now, I needed to focus on my dishes. I hadn’t lied to my mom about studying. If I could make it through Germany, Italy was next on the list, and I wasn’t going home in Italy. The longer I stayed in the competition, the more exposure I’d get, which in turn, meant bigger and better offers. Longevity was the name of the game.

  Unfortunately, all I could picture with much clarity lately was Liam. By day, he was tightlipped and focused, drawing the ire of the other contestants. Jackson especially hated the guy, for obvious reasons, but he kept it hidden behind a cool front, pretending he’d been so wasted he didn’t even remember what started the argument. By night, Liam was quiet and contemplative, brushing up on the next country’s cuisine. In short, Liam Long was a sexy enigma that I imagined unlocking every night before bed.

  I was the only one Liam didn’t seem to utterly detest. Not that he was chatty. In fact, he hadn’t said a word to me since the dinner fiasco, but he didn’t go out of his way to glare and frown. Once, he even nodded in my direction. Perhaps I’d done enough in the kitchen to make him want to defend me from assholes, which of course made it even harder to stop picturing him naked. Adding the strong, silent protector type to his bad boy image was simply unfair. If he owned a motorcycle, I was screwed.

  Focus!

  I needed to set an alarm on my phone to remind myself why I was here every morning. Something in all caps with a yelling, angry emoji face. I’d name the alarm: Papa didn’t raise a stewed tomato.

  I laughed, which Papa would have liked better than crying. Whenever anything went wrong—a poor grade or getting picked last in gym—he’d set me up at the kitchen, throw me some dough, and get me kneading.

  “I didn’t raise you to be a stewed tomato, Clara. You’re stronger than that.”

  “What’s stronger than a stewed tomato?” I’d asked the first time, a weepy four-year-old who’d gotten pushed on the playground at preschool.

  “A Romero, that’s what. Romeros don’t quit. Push the motherfucker down the slide tomorrow. That’ll scare him.�
��

  And Mama wondered where I got my mouth.

  Papa would’ve been so proud of this competition. He knew I was applying to culinary school, but he never saw me go, let alone graduate. He wasn’t like traditional Italian fathers who left the cooking to the women. He loved the kitchen, and he loved having me next to him, even when I was too young to do anything right. Before I could walk, I would stand at his side with a wooden spoon, listening to his stories about growing up as a Tuscan farmer near the village of Santa Lucia.

  He taught me the prized secrets of his nonna, my namesake. The most important lesson was about love and respect for the ingredients. He told me how whispering while whisking egg yolks into a garlic aioli could break the emulsion. They were that fickle. We’d stand silently, barely breathing as I streamed olive oil into a mortar and pestle while he whisked. Once the creamy beauty came together, we’d whoop and laugh, and he’d hug me to his chest, smelling like ashes and fire.

  He’d tell me stories about early Saturday mornings in the summer, hunting boar with his papa for Sunday stew and decanting the chianti while raking coals over the outdoor fire pit. I asked if we could go visit his family together in Tuscany.

  “Someday, mia formagginna. I have so much to show you.”

  The cancer came quickly. It took no prisoners and left no survivors.

  So, I would win for my father. Romeros didn’t quit. We pushed motherfuckers down slides.

  Chapter Eight

  Clara

  Kaiserslautern, Germany

  Emma handed me a coffee and a chocolate pastry. We said danke and left the shop near the town square of Kaiserslautern, Germany. The air had a murmur of fall and a bite of winter. It was completely cliché, but walking around this quaint town made it feel like I was finally in Europe.