by R.S. Grey
She wouldn’t give me a second chance. Lily was too smart to waste her time on a guy who didn’t have his priorities in order.
I followed Julian up the stairs to their apartment and debated whether or not I should wait for him outside. I hadn’t seen Lily in two weeks and she’d made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want to see me. Her emails about being sick were obviously a ploy to get out of having to endure an awkward situation.
Julian knocked on their door, and I took a deep breath. My heart was racing from my bike ride. I’d pedaled fast and that’s why it was hard to breathe. That’s why.
Josephine pulled the door open and greeted us with a smile that faltered for only a moment when she saw me.
“Dean! I didn’t realize you were with Julian.”
Julian dipped down and gave her a kiss as we stepped through the front door.
“We were on a bike ride when you called,” I explained, scanning the apartment for Lily. It was a tiny space and it only took a second to realize she wasn’t there.
I hadn’t considered the fact that she wouldn’t be home and I hated the ideas that cropped up in my head for why she wasn’t there. Had she spent the night out somewhere? With the blind date guy?
I stepped farther into the apartment and caught sight of an enormous empty jar with my name on it on the countertop. Josephine caught my line of sight and bolted toward it, ripping it away before I could make out all of the words.
I smirked.
She cleared her throat and hid it as best as she could. “That was nothing. Just a…dumb game we were playing.”
I opened my mouth to reassure her that I hadn’t seen all of it as the front door opened behind us.
“Jo, I know I said I was going to run errands, but the bakery downstairs had a sale on croissants, so I had to stop and get some.” The three of us turned toward the door to see Lily walk into the apartment clutching a brown bag full of croissants in her arms. “And then I couldn’t keep walking around with a bag of croissants, right?” She dropped her keys in a little bowl by the door, dropped the bakery bag on the kitchen table, and then froze in place as her gaze met mine.
“What the ever-loving fuck are you doing here?” she asked, narrowing her eyes with a fierceness I hadn’t seen in weeks. I forgot how quickly her claws could come out.
I laughed and then quickly stole back the sound. Laughing wouldn’t make her less angry, even if she had just said something funny.
“He came with me—” Julian began, thinking he could throw me a lifeline.
“I came to help fix your dishwasher,” I said, crossing my arms.
She shook her head. “We don’t need your help.”
I stared as she waltzed over to the dishwasher to prove her statement. She locked the door, pressed a few buttons, and then the dishwasher emitted a noise that sounded distinctly like metal scraping against metal. I cringed as it echoed around the apartment.
She smirked and shot me a glare. “It’s supposed to make that noise.”
She paused the cycle, opened the door, and pulled out a fork bent into three different directions. “See? It’s clean.”
I held back my smile. I missed her so much. This. The fiery woman who wasn’t afraid to challenge me every step of the way. She infuriated me, but I’d trade it all to have one more fight with her, one more indignant glare from her bright brown eyes.
“Lily, do you want to, ah, come with me into the bathroom really quick?” Josephine asked with a clear strain to her voice.
Lily titled her head, trying to piece together what she meant.
Josephine cleared her throat and wrapped her hand around her neck, rubbing back and forth a few times. When I glanced back at Lily, her eyes were wide. Josephine’s warning clicked for her at the same time I noticed a familiar ribbon hanging around her neck. It dipped down into her black tank top, tucked away so that I couldn’t see the bottom. I didn’t need to; I recognized the medal right away.
“How did you…?” I asked, stepping forward and reaching out for it.
Lily stepped back. “I went. I was there at the ceremony. Not for you specifically,” she said, swallowing down her nerves and trying for a new approach. “I saw you leave the medal.”
I smirked. “You were in the bathroom?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “No. It wasn’t like that.”
This was it, the only second chance I’d ever get. Lily still cared about me. She cared enough to wear my medal around her neck.
The medal and that ridiculous jar told me everything I needed to know.
It wasn’t over.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Lily
I was doing my best to devour the entire bag of bargain croissants when Josephine set down two cups of coffee on our kitchen table.
“Did you check with the nunnery in Sweden to see if they had any openings?” I asked, shoving more of the flaky pastry into my mouth before I’d finished my question.
She studied me over her coffee cup. “You aren’t religious.”
“I could be, Jo. After this afternoon, I’m willing to try anything.” I shook my head.
“It wasn’t that bad.”
HA.
I glared at her. “HE SAW THE JAR. He saw me wearing his medal like a freaking crazy person!”
“He didn’t technically see the medal, only the ribbon…”
I dropped my head so that my forehead rested against the edge of the table. “Jo. He ran out of this apartment so fast I thought there would be a Dean-shaped hole in the door.”
She grimaced. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It was bad—really bad—but you still have a trillion guys in the city to date. Just because Dean thinks you’re psycho doesn’t mean every guy will.”
“I don’t want to date any other guys.”
I don’t want to date any other guys.
It hurt worse every time I repeated it in my head.
I wanted Dean.
I wanted the one man who now definitely wanted me locked up in a mental institution.
Lovely.
…
In a normal situation, I’d go through the stages of breakup grief and move on like I had from every other man in my life.
Stage One: Eat a bag of croissants. Done.
Stage Two: Try to land the role of next season’s Bachelorette. The producers never emailed me back.
Stage Three: Consider, but don’t actually make, a major life change…like a belly button ring or a tattoo. In the end, I parted my hair slightly more to the left.
All three stages were complete, it’d been three weeks since Dean had walked—no, ran out of my apartment, and I still couldn’t stop thinking about him. I no longer wore his medal, but I did sleep with it under my pillow. I touched it every night before I went to sleep, just to confirm it was still there.
With a usual breakup, we’d part ways and stop seeing each other. With Dean, that wasn’t possible. He was still my boss and I still had to see his name pop up in my email every morning. His messages always pertained to work and they always made my heart sink. I’d hold my breath, read through them, and then spend half an hour constructing a single sentence that I thought came off as equal parts bitchy and aloof.
Seeing him in person was the real danger, something I’d tried my hardest to avoid but could no longer put off.
He’d scheduled a meeting for early Monday morning. Zoe, Julian, and I were sitting in his office in the back of Provisions, waiting for him to arrive, and I swore my lungs weren’t working.
“Is it hot in here to anyone else?” I asked, waving a hand in front of my face to get some airflow. Why was it so hard to breathe?
Zoe glanced over at me. “You’re being weird.”
“Am not.”
Julian fired off an email he’d been typing on his phone and angled his body toward me. “You good, Lil?”
I didn’t look him in the eye. I couldn’t. It’d be like looking my dad in the eye when I was on the bri
nk of tears. The floodgates would open whether I wanted them to or not.
“Peachy.”
The A/C unit kicked on and I sighed with relief. At least I wouldn’t be sweating buckets when Dean arrived.
“Jo said you might still be feeling sick,” he offered.
We both knew sick was a euphemism and a poor one at that.
I shrugged. “I think I’ll be sick for a while.”
Zoe blanched. “What the hell do you have? Ebola?”
I laughed. “No.” I began to clarify, and then Dean’s office door opened so I paused.
He walked in…and I could hear my heart thumping in my ears…and I gripped the arm of my chair…and I inhaled his cologne. It’d been three weeks since I’d last smelled it and no department store sample could compare.
I knew I wouldn’t last another day working for him. Working with Dean had been a dream come true, but now it felt like living through a nightmare. His intensity would never dull. His dark eyes would never lighten. His sharp mouth would never cease to amaze me. It’d been a foolish fight from the very beginning.
“Lily,” he said.
I’d wanted so badly to fall in love with him. I’d wanted it so badly that I’d ignored the warning signs. I was the naive girl from Texas, swept up in a man who’d only ever thought of her as a stepping stone along the path to success.
“Lily,” Julian said, shaking my hand on my chair.
I blinked and glanced toward him.
“Dean’s trying to get your attention and you’re completely zoned out,” he said with a laugh. “Have we ruled Ebola out?”
I smiled halfheartedly and glanced at Dean, trying to guard my heart as best as I could. “Sorry about that.”
His dark gaze held mine as he leaned over his desk. His mouth was pulled into a thin line. He was a statue of a man, unyielding at his core. “I just need you to hang back after the meeting for a few minutes. Is that okay?”
I nodded, not because I relished the idea of having alone time with him, but because it would give me the perfect chance to put in my two weeks notice.
Chapter Fifty
Dean
Lily closed the door behind Julian and Zoe, but she didn’t turn to face me right away. We’d been there before, alone in my office. It was a recipe for disaster, and we both knew it. She rotated around to face me slowly, keeping hold of the doorknob behind her back like a lifeline. She rolled her lips together and I opened my mouth to speak first, but she beat me to the punch.
“I’d like to put in my two weeks notice.”
I took a deep breath, processing her request.
She wants to leave?
I shook my head, just once.
“No.”
Her eyes blazed with a new fury. “No?”
I glanced down and started to scroll through the calendar on my phone. I tried to focus on a specific date, but I kept scrolling through the months, right into the next year. “We need to plan a time to meet. The kitchen will be finished next week and I’m bringing Antonio out—”
“You’re not listening to me,” she argued, releasing the doorknob and stepping closer.
My gaze shot up to her and her eyes focused in, narrowing until I knew I had her undivided attention.
“Yes I am. I’m just ignoring you.” I glanced back down at my phone. “I don’t accept your resignation.”
“What the hell—”
“Now, what day can you meet for the menu sampling? Monday?”
She paused on the other side of my desk and put her hand over my phone, blocking next year’s calendar from my view.
“Dean. Let me go.”
“No.”
“Fire me.”
I shook my head and clenched my jaw to keep from saying something too soon.
She stepped back and threw her hands up in defeat. “What’s the point of this? Do you really want me working for you still?”
“Yes. I do.”
She put her face in her hands and shook it back and forth, so defeated.
What did she think? That I would let her walk away from me? After everything? She kept my goddamn medal around her neck and she was going to give up that easily?
“Monday at 5 PM, meet me at the building where Hunter was going to open Ivy & Wine.”
She furrowed her brows, trying her hardest to keep her tears at bay. “Please don’t make me.”
Two taps sounded on the closed door and a moment later, Zoe’s head popped through the gap. “Boss-man, the Provisions staff meeting starts in ten.” Her gaze shifted from me to Lily, and then her smile faded. “Should I postpone it?”
I shook my head and rounded the desk, pausing as my shoulder brushed against Lily’s. “If you still want to quit after Monday, then I’ll respect your decision.”
Her fiery brown eyes turned to me. Her lips were the closest they’d been in weeks, red and swollen from her rubbing them together. It was painful to keep my distance, but I wouldn’t win her back with a half-baked speech in my office. She deserved more, and I was prepared to give her everything I had.
“I’m not coming,” she said, so softly that Zoe couldn’t hear.
I bent toward her, brushing my hand against hers and squeezing once before letting go.
“Please.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Lily
I spent the remainder of the week getting my ducks in a row. Dean would need to replace me and I didn’t want to make it harder on him than it had to be. Everything I was working on—seasonal cocktail menus, wine lists, menu ideas, and potential pairings—was now neatly typed up and saved to a thumb drive. I wasn’t nearly finished with any of it, but I tried to condense my ideas as sensibly as possible so that his next consultant could pick up right where I left off.
I had no clue what I would do for work. I would have loved to find another consulting job, but I knew it wouldn’t be possible without more experience. I could have asked Dean for a letter of recommendation, but I was too prideful. I’d scrimp and save and focus my energy on my blog for a little bit. If web traffic to my reviews started taking off, that would generate a little bit of income, and in the meantime, there was always bartending. It wasn’t stimulating work, but the tips would help sustain me until I figured out what I would do.
“So what are you doing tonight?” Josephine asked as she came out of the bathroom decked out in a killer dress. The smooth material was breezy and swayed side to side as she walked toward the kitchen table. She reached for a pair of dangling earrings, sliding the first one in as she assessed me on the futon.
I held up my laptop. “Working.”
She arched a dark brow and then nodded. “On restaurant reviews?”
I nodded, glancing back down at the blinking curser on my laptop. I’d started typing a sentence thirty minutes ago and had yet to finish.
La Patisserie is…
Is what?
A good restaurant?
A bad restaurant?
Apparently, I couldn’t even get that far.
“It’s going really well,” I lied.
She nodded, indulging me.
“So you aren’t going?”
She didn’t even need to clarify where. The night before, she’d talked my ear off about why I should give Dean another chance. I didn’t agree. Dean and I weren’t a couple. I’d worn my heart on my sleeve and I’d gotten burned. End of story. No epilogue, no encore, no second chances.
“I love you, but I think you’re making a huge mistake,” she said, tucking her clutch under her arm.
I let my head fall back against the futon.
“You look really pretty.”
She rolled her eyes, annoyed with me for ignoring her protests. It wouldn’t do any good for her to keep badgering me. The more she told me to go, the more I wanted to stay.
“It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s already 7 PM. He’s not there any more.”
“So you stood him up?” she asked, a sour expression marring her pretty features.
“Don’t make it more dramatic than it is, Jo.”
She shook her head, but I could see the sadness there. I could tell she wanted to ask me more, to push me to fight for him, but she stayed quiet as she packed up her clutch. She was heading for the door, off to meet Julian for a date, when I realized something.
“You know, Jo, I always thought I wanted a relationship like you and Julian’s, but I don’t. I don’t want it to be that easy. I hated Dean just as much as I loved him. How twisted is that?”
She pressed her lips together and her sad gaze hit the floor before she glanced back at me. “In the beginning, I thought you two would tear each other apart.”
I stared at where his medal sat on our coffee table. It was always near me, always reminding me of what I’d almost had.
“I guess I wasn't that far off.”
I never replied and she left for her date. The door closed, leaving me in silence, and I settled back on the futon. There was no point in second-guessing my decision. I hadn’t lied to Josephine. Dean had asked me to meet him two hours earlier, I’d stood him up, and that was that.
I picked up a magazine and covered his medal, tucking the ribbon underneath so that it was completely out of sight. I grabbed my laptop and pulled up my favorite restaurant blog. It was useless to try and force myself to work. I just wanted to distract myself until I was tired enough to sleep.
The blog, New In New York, highlighted up-and-coming restaurants, breaking foodie news before anyone else. Usually, the posts interested me, but I was nearly halfway down the front page before a post caught my eye. More specifically, a photo caught my eye. It was a street view image of the building Dean had purchased from Hunter. The construction was further along, but it was definitely the same place.
I scrolled back to the top of the post and started from the beginning.
Manhattan’s Finest Set to Open Lirio