Yes, Chef (Sizzle & Burn Book 1)

by Linda Verji

  When they’d first started dating she’d thought that Greyson was perfection personified, but now that she knew him better it was beginning to hit home that he wasn’t. She couldn’t stand how he never said what was on his mind. He was a ‘think and come to my own conclusions’ kind of man, and it was irritating as hell. She, on the other hand, preferred discussing and airing out issues instead of letting them fester until boiling point.

  Intent on resolving the issue, she asked, “Are you angry at me because Oscar now knows too? It’s not my fault that he was at the theater.”

  His grip on the steering wheel tightened. “I know it’s not your fault.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” She reassured him, “If you’re worried about Oscar saying something about us, he won’t. I know him. He wouldn’t risk people finding out that he’s gay.”

  Greyson’s response was just a grunt as he kept his gaze firmly locked on the road. Obviously, he was still stewing.

  Snow didn’t know what more to say to reassure him. Maybe some food would ease the obvious tension between them. She asked, “Do you want to go for dinner?”

  “I’m not hungry,” he mumbled. “I just want to go home and think.”

  “Think about what?”

  Only silence met her question.

  She hated this. They were just getting over the Charlie debacle and now here was something else causing tension. The worst part was that she didn’t know what that something else was. Why couldn’t Greyson open up and tell her what the problem was? Why couldn’t he let her know what she’d done wrong so she could fix it? Snow sighed as she glanced at him through the corner of the eye.

  He’d said he was going home to think. Maybe that was exactly what he needed. If she pushed him too much, he might end up shutting down completely. Yes, she’d give him time to think. Hopefully, by tomorrow he’d be willing to discuss what was bothering him. She let silence fall between them, and he did nothing to break it. The drive home had never felt so tense or so long.

  Snow almost sighed in relief when they got to her place. Greyson opened the car door for her as he usually did, but tonight there was no kiss. With a simple ‘goodnight’, he sped off leaving Snow haunted by an undeniable sense of unease.

  * * * * *

  BY THE NEXT day, Greyson was done thinking, and he’d made a decision. Unfortunately, it was Snow’s day off so he couldn’t discuss it with her during the day.

  “Can I drop by your place after work?” he asked when he called her during the lull between lunch and dinner service. “We need to talk.”

  Most people would’ve balked at the mention to ‘talking’ but Snow sounded fine with it, even enthusiastic. “Sure. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Would she be that enthusiastic when he told her what was on his mind? Who knew? After all, what he had to say would greatly uncomplicate her life. He actually felt nervous as he drove to her place – almost turned the car around several times.

  It’s late right now. You can do this tomorrow, his softer side pleaded, after you’ve thought about it some more.

  What more is there to think about? his common sense retorted. It’s obvious what you’ve got to do. This is as much for her good as it is for yours, and the sooner you get it over with, the better.

  His common sense won. Steeling himself, he cruised into her complex. The lights in her apartment were alive and blazing. After exiting his car, he strode into her building then knocked on her door. It took about a minute for the door to fly open.

  Snow greeted him with a smile. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” He tried to smile back but couldn’t summon one. Instead, he said, “Sorry for dropping in so late at night.”

  “No problem. I’m just glad to see you.” She edged towards him and lifted on tiptoes as if to kiss his lips.

  Guilt driving him, he tilted his head to the side and touched his lips to her cheek instead. Clearly, he wasn’t smooth enough because Snow’s brow furrowed and her gaze lingered for an uncomfortably long time on his face. Thankfully, she didn’t question him – only stepped aside so he could get into her apartment.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked once he settled on the couch.

  “No, thanks.” Now that he was here, his mind and senses went into overdrive. Was he really going to do this? Had he really made the right decision? His heart started a fast nervous beat, and he had to swallow hard before adding, “I’m good.”

  Snow strode forward to take a seat next to him. “You said we needed to talk. What’s up?”

  Trust Snow to get right to the point. Greyson rubbed his suddenly sweaty palms together before finally saying, “I think we should cool off.”

  Surprise widened Snow’s eyes. “Cool off?”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “I think we need some time apart.”

  “Time apart?” She stared at him for a long uncomfortable moment before asking, “Why?”

  Lowering his gaze to his linked hands, he said, “I think we both need space to sort out our feelings and decide if a relationship is really something we both want.”

  “I don’t need time to sort out my feelings. I know exactly how I feel.” Folding her arms over her chest, she slouched back into the couch. “So unless you’re talking about yourself…”

  She let the sentence hang as she gave him a questioning look.

  He hadn’t put much thought into how Snow would react to his proposal, but he certainly didn’t expect her to go on the attack and flip the conversation over so it seemed like he was the indecisive one. He wasn’t. He knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted her. But if he’d learned anything in the past few days, it was that she wasn’t quite on the same page as him.

  “Are you sure you know how you feel?” In case she didn’t understand what he meant, he clarified, “About Charlie?”

  She eyed him steadily. “I have no feelings for Charlie. He and I are over.”

  This conversation was definitely not going how he’d expected it to go. He was losing ground to her by the second. It was enough to make him doubt himself. A thread of frustration in his voice, he insisted, “You definitely have feelings for him.”

  Denial glinted in her eyes along with annoyance. But her voice was even as she asked, “What makes you think that?”

  “Everything. How you let him run all over you. How hard you work to hide that we’re dating. Everything,” he insisted. “I get the feeling that I’m just a break before you go back to him.”

  “Are you serious?” Snow sat forward in the couch. “How exactly do I let him run all over me?”

  Was she serious? Greyson gave her a raised eyebrow. Anyone could see that Charlie was riding roughshod over her and doing exactly as he pleased.

  “And what do you mean I’m working hard to hide that we’re dating?” With a touch of bitterness, she complained, “You’re the one who didn’t want anyone knowing about us dating. Or don’t you remember telling me that we should keep our professional and personal lives separate?”

  He didn’t remember saying that. Okay, maybe he’d said something close to that. But, “I didn’t mean that we should hide that we’re dating. I just meant that we shouldn’t let it affect our work relationship.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?” she countered.

  To him it wasn’t. Besides, why was she turning this on him? She was acting like all the hiding was because of him, when he knew that she had other reasons to hide their relationship. Frustration biting at him, he confronted her. “Okay, fine! I understand keeping it from our work colleagues – but don’t deny that keeping it from Charlie and your family is about something more than just letting it affect our work relationship.”

  “I told you I’m protecting you from Charlie,” Snow explained, annoyance glittering in her eyes. “He’s not beyond causing drama at the restaurant.”

  “Okay, let’s say he never finds out on his own, what’s your plan? Will you hide us forever?” Greyson countered. “Or are you hoping that we’ll have broken up before he
finds out?”

  Hurt crossed Snow’s expression but she didn’t answer him.

  Her silence only increased his conviction that he was in the right. He pressed on. “What about your family? Will you hide us from them too?”

  “You want me to tell them about you?” She stared at him incredulously. “We just started dating.”

  “No, I just want you not to lie when they ask.” Sitting back in the couch, he confessed, “I heard what you told your stepmother when you were outside my office.”

  Snow’s brow furrowed as if she was trying to figure out what he might have heard. A second later understanding dawned and she said, “I only told Yvonne that there was nothing between us because I knew that she’d tell my father, who’d tell Charlie’s mother and eventually the news would get to Cha-” She stopped speaking because they both knew where that excuse was headed.

  Back to Charlie.

  They watched each other warily for a long silent moment, neither of them willing to back down from their position. Finally, Snow sighed. “So the bottom line is that you don’t trust my feelings for you?”

  Exactly! Now that they were clear on what the problem between them was, he felt calmer, more in control of the conversation. His voice even, he said, “I think a break will be good for us. It will give us time to think about us, sort out our feelings and decide what we really want.”

  “Yeah. Time to think about what we really want,” she agreed mechanically, her gaze still glued to him.

  “Exactly.” He nodded. “And if you decide that Charlie is who you want to be with then I won’t hold it against you.”

  It would certainly hurt as hell, but that pain would be much easier to handle than the pain that would come if she changed her mind when their relationship was more serious.

  Her gaze was indecipherable as it rested on him. “The thing is I don’t need any time to think. I know exactly what I want and it’s you. Not Charlie. If I wanted to be with him, I would be with him. I wouldn’t even have started dating you.”

  He didn’t know how to respond to that so he kept quiet.

  “You know what I think?” she asked. “I think you’re pinning this all on me when you’re the one with the problem. You don’t trust me.”

  “I trust you,” he protested, but the protest rang false even to his own ears.

  “I don’t blame you. I’ve certainly given you enough to misunderstand.” She studied him carefully. “But that’s just it – misunderstandings. If you’d been clearer about what you meant by not letting our personal lives affect our work relationship we wouldn’t be here. If I’d waited to completely cut off things with Charlie before starting this with you, we wouldn’t be here. But you know why I did that?”

  She waited for his answer. He simply watched her.

  Frustration evident in her stiff posture and the straight line of her mouth, she continued, “I jumped both feet in without looking left and right because I like you so much. I like you so much that I didn’t want to spend another second waiting or thinking. But obviously you don’t feel the same way. You’re too scared to trust me. So yeah! If you want to cool things off, then fine. I won’t stop you or beg you to trust me. Take all the time you need to think. Call me when you’re done. Or don’t call.”

  There was nothing more to say after that.

  Greyson should’ve left feeling like he’d properly explained his position and resolved the situation, instead all he felt as he entered his car was confusion and dissatisfaction. Snow’s last words echoed incessantly in his mind as he drove home.

  Was he really the problem and not her? he wondered. He couldn’t deny that some of her accusations hit uncannily close to the truth. If he’d been clear about how he wanted them to handle their relationship, some of their problems wouldn’t even exist. And it was true that he didn’t trust her. But who could blame him? He’d been bitten enough times to figure out that living on trust alone was a recipe for heartbreak. Trust was earned not deserved, Snow hadn’t done anything to deserve it.

  No deflection could change the fact that Charlie was a major factor in their issues. He was the thorn constantly poking at them and opening festering wounds. Only Snow could eject him from their lives, but she was taking her sweet time doing it. And Greyson wasn’t sure that he could patiently wait any longer.

  CHAPTER 19

  Time to think. Snow tossed the duvet over her bed with unnecessary force. Time to think. She shook and punched the pillows a couple of times before throwing them vigorously after the duvet. Time to think.

  Even after two night’s rest, she still couldn’t get Greyson’s words out of her mind. She still couldn’t believe that he’d broken up with her – or cooled off as he preferred to put it – simply because of a misunderstanding. The ridiculousness of it all was astounding.

  Yes, she hadn’t dealt with Charlie in the most ruthless way possible and yes, she’d denied hers and Greyson’s relationship – several times. She was willing to take the blame for that. But it was all explainable, and she’d tried to clarify her reasoning to Greyson. Unfortunately, he’d already made up his mind about what her actions meant and to him her explanations were just excuses. All it really boiled down to was trust.

  He didn’t trust her.

  And there was nothing she could say to make him trust her.

  Well, screw him! As much as she liked him, she wouldn’t beg him to be with her. There was no point in going after a man who didn’t trust her. The rational part of her knew that part of his mistrust stemmed from his abandonment issues. But most of her didn’t care. She wasn’t his mother, and she was unwilling to pay for the sins of that woman. If Greyson wanted time to think, then he could go ahead and do it. Without her.

  She’d spent most of her relationship with Charlie being the clingy, groveling partner, and she wasn’t about to go back to that life. Never again. If Greyson wanted to pick apart everything she did and attribute it to lingering feelings for Charlie, then that was his prerogative. She wouldn’t waste any more of her time trying to convince him that she was done with her ex.

  ‘I don’t need you to pick me up today,’ she shot him a text message before heading to the bathroom for her shower. Ten minutes later when she re-emerged in the bedroom it was to find a missed call and a text message from him.

  His message said, ‘I don’t mind picking you up.’

  Yeah, right! Like she was going to ride in the same car with him when things were so awkward between them. She quickly typed. ‘But I mind.’

  After that there were no calls or texts messages from him, which was okay because she wasn’t sure she could talk with him without sniping. Unlike him, she wasn’t the type to bottle her thoughts and emotions – they were always right there on her sleeve.

  She took the time during the bus-ride to work to rein in her emotions. It was a given that Greyson would be the picture of indifference and professionalism in the kitchen. Well, she could do it too. She had too much pride to be the one to show how much their ‘cooling off’ was affecting her. Today, she’d show how mature and evolved she could be.

  By the time the bus halted at her stop, she was confident that she could act like an emotionless robot too. That confidence shattered the moment she walked into the kitchen and saw Greyson. All the emotions she’d been working to suppress rushed at her like a flood; annoyance, hurt disappointment. They drowned her until she could barely breathe.

  “Morning, Snow,” he greeted her coolly.

  She wanted to pretend that she was cool too, that she was quite capable of compartmentalizing her feelings too. She wanted to smile at him and give him a flippant ‘good morning’ too. But tears suddenly pricked at the back of her eyes and her throat closed. All she could push out was a grunt before she rushed into the pantry to collect herself.

  I won’t cry. I won’t cry. She closed her eyes and sucked in a deep, calming breaths. I won’t cry.

  Slowly but surely, the pressure in her eyes eased and the fist that had its
grip around her throat loosened its hold. She almost had full control of her emotions when the pantry door suddenly swung inwards. Her eyes flew open and she spun to face it. Greyson? Was her immediate guess and with that guess came hope. Maybe he was here to tell her that he’d made a mistake last night and that he wanted to make up.

  But she was due for disappointment. Oscar walked in, sending her heart plunging into her belly.

  “Oh, it’s you!” She didn’t bother hiding her disappointment.

  “Yes, it’s me.” Oscar’s gaze searched the pantry as if to make sure that they were alone then he shut the door. “Our deal is still on, right?”

  There was no point to the deal now, especially because Greyson had been clear yesterday that he didn’t mind their colleagues knowing about their relationship. Then again, that relationship was no more. So why spark rumors over something that was already a corpse? To Oscar, she nodded. “Yes, it’s on.”

  “You won’t tell anyone about Leonardo, right?”

  She sighed. “I won’t.”

  “You know, he and I aren’t dating.” Oscar leaned against one of the shelf-pillars. “He’s the one who’s hitting on me. It’s not like I like him or anything. I’m not gay.”

  Snow rolled her eyes so hard she was surprised they didn’t fall to the floor. “Okay, Oscar.”

  “I’m serious. I’m not gay,” he insisted.

  “Sure,” she retorted sarcastically. Who was he trying to convince? Her or himself? With a shake of her head, she swept past him and out of the pantry. Greyson glanced her way and his eyes lingered on her, but he didn’t say anything or even ask her if she was okay. Her annoyance with him rose a couple of notches and kept rising the more unemotional and business-like he was.

  The worst part was that she couldn’t even rant to anyone. Today was Vina’s day off, and April was a no-go zone since Snow still suspected that she was Charlie’s informant. Thank God for lunch service; the rush of orders kept her occupied and away from thoughts of Greyson.

  She’d completely forgotten that she and Charlie’s mother had a lunch date today. So it was a surprise when April popped into the kitchen at around one to let her know that Marlene was in the dining-room.