Flambé: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romantic Comedy (Flambé Series Book 1)

by Elle Berlin

  My hand curls into a fist just thinking about it, my knuckles still tender from that punch. God, Ned’s an asshole.

  I get out of the Uber and hightail it up the stairs to Ned’s condo, releasing a barrage of fists into his door, which are a cheap excuse for knocking. I texted Ned ten times on my way over, but with no response. No, not even after making a scene am I worth a response from him.

  The image of my father at Flambé flashes through my mind. The frowning disappointment in his face was the mirror image of the last time I saw him, after the settlement. Why would Ned bring our father? Was that his plan all along? To get the old man to see what a fuck-up I still am?

  I pound on the door again, only this time I hear the lock on the other side click open. “Hey,” I start. “We need to talk about this so—” The door cracks open and I see the glimmer of Ned’s black eye and bruised nose, when—

  Bam!

  Ned clocks me in the jaw and pain blasts me through my skull!

  “What the hell!” I stumble, turning back to Ned, stunned.

  “Have I ever hit you in your life?” Ned barks, grabbing me by my collar. “Ever?” I flinch, certain I’m about to get the beating of my life, when Ned pulls me into his condo instead and slams the door. “No!” he continues yelling. “Not once! I’ve never had to stoop to your level!”

  Ned pushes me past the hall and into the living room where my father sits on the far side of the coffee table. The man is perched like the Godfather with his legs crossed as he leans back in a leather chair and drinks scotch out of a crystal tumbler.

  “Are you done with this spectacle?” my father hisses. “Or do I need to watch the two of you break all the furniture like animals?”

  His words are a razor flung through the air—meant for both of us—but it’s Ned who straightens up at the cut of his tone. Ned who is stung.

  “Sorry,” my brother apologizes, dropping me from his fists and stepping back. I quickly move to the side, out of arm’s reach from Ned, who shakes out his hand from the impact of pounding it against my cheekbone. My eyes flick between both of them, not daring to turn my back on either of the vipers in my sight. Yup, this is my family.

  “What are you even doing here?” I manage, my jaw aching as I turn to our father who hasn’t moved from his place in the shadow. “Is mom okay? There isn’t any good reason for you to be—”

  “Don’t use your mother as a shield for your behavior,” my father snips, and I almost laugh at how predictable he is. He expects me to get in line, to shut up, to listen. End of story. And I’d be lying if the shiver that runs down my spine doesn’t make the weak part of me want to give in to him. The kid inside me has spent his whole life bending to every rule in my father’s house, to his philosophies on the world, to his idea of the man I ought to be, to how I’m wasting my life. Flambé and Arie are so far out of my father’s version of the world we might as well be standing on different planets. Only, even then, my father sees himself as the center of the universe and if I’m knocked out of orbit, then I deserve to get burned by the sun, again and again.

  No questions.

  No chance to offer a rebuttal or defense.

  This is his universe—always has been, always will be—period.

  “She’s not—” I start, but the twitch in my father’s cheek silences me and I know this is fruitless. This man threw me out two years ago. He disowned me. He called me a disgrace. I don’t know why I should care about fixing our relationship when the price to pay is getting down on my knees and groveling at the foot of the king. Clearly, he thinks he’s absolved from all sin and doesn’t need to apologize to me for his two years of silence.

  The last time I saw him, that night when he said all those ugly things, my mother just turned her face away and wouldn’t look at me. My father’s gravity is a darkness that even she wasn’t able to stand in—not in my defense at least.

  In fact, I don’t even know how Ned managed to not be collateral damage while bailing me out in the first place. I don’t know how he didn’t get thrown in a land mine of my father’s unkindly words. I turn to look at Ned—his face bruised, his hand cramped in a mangled fist—and for the first time it hits me that maybe he didn’t. Maybe my father’s lack of communication with me extended to him. Maybe my father hasn’t been talking to Ned for two years either. Because … Ned chose me.

  Shit.

  Suddenly, the things Mason was saying the other night start to add up: a sacrifice, wanting his brother back. Hell, did Dad punish Ned for protecting me?

  “Your brother says you’re ready to return to the firm,” my father states coldly, but I don’t look at him. Instead, I watch my brother, my eyes narrowing, as the pieces fall in line—the lack of holidays on the mainland, working over Christmas, avoiding every conversation about our father, never calling mom, not even on her birthday.

  Ned catches my eye and his posture slumps, noting the insinuation in my glare as I finally see what’s going on. Ned was excommunicated too. That’s exactly what Mason meant. Ned chose me and Dad disowned both of us. Only, Ned kept working. Ned kept his branch of the firm going, determined as always that he’d make it work and fix it—fix me.

  And tonight—

  Tonight was Ned’s big moment to show me I’d chosen incorrectly and present me with the option to come back and join him and Dad. Tonight was the night that he was supposed to be welcomed back into my father’s arms and be his son again. I wasn’t supposed to defend Arie. I was supposed to choose them.

  “Why the hell would you do that?” I’m looking at Ned when I say it, but the comment is meant for my father. I shake my head at Ned, a tightness in my chest twisting, wishing I could apologize. Wishing I could give him what he wants—this family, with me as part of the firm. Instead, I turn to glare at my father in the corner and repeat myself. “Why the hell would you punish Ned for something I did?”

  Ned stiffens.

  “Connor—” Ned warns, his voice tight, but I shake my head at him.

  “No, Ned, really,” I snap, angry now. “You of all people deserve an answer to that question.” I cross the room to stand in front of our father, who hasn’t moved other than to flick his eyes left and right as he watches us.

  “Are you returning to the firm?” my father asks calmly, waiting for me to finish my tantrum.

  “So, you’ll finally forgive Ned for being a good brother?” I hiss. “So, you’ll let him back into your graces when he’s not the screw-up you can’t stand to look at? Ned didn’t do anything to you!”

  “He bailed you out,” my father says with an iron lip. “He put you up. He—”

  “Treated me like a human!?” I scoff, realizing how unbelievable my father is. “Because he was kind and didn’t want me to go to jail?”

  “We all have to live with the consequences of our actions!” My dad’s voice is sharp, spitting his philosophies with laced venom.

  “So, I was supposed to go to jail?” I glare at him. “And live with the consequences of disgracing your firm’s good name?”

  “Connor,” Ned says, finally butting in. “We don’t need to re-hash the past. What’s done is done and—”

  “No, actually, I’m seeing this clearly for the first time right now.” I face off with my father, who looks up at me unmoved, like I’m the same child he’s known his whole life. The constant disappointment. “I was supposed to go to jail—not for stealing a car, but for ruining your reputation, huh?” My father doesn’t deny it. He only gives me a measured frown. “Right, and since I didn’t, since Ned bailed me out, you put Ned in the doghouse instead? Is that how this all went down?”

  “It’s fine,” Ned clips out, trying to get me to stop talking. “I made my decisions and I’ve lived with it.”

  “Ned,” my father says darkly, “understands consequences.”

  “Of course he does,” I snap at my father. “You spent your whole life making sure he knew exactly the cost of your affection—that we both did. No moment was free of
a lesson on how to be your perfect golden children. Only, I don’t fit that mold, do I? As you can see, I can’t stop proving that point to you. And that’s my choice. I can live with it. But since you can’t control me, you have to take it out on the one son you can control?” I nod to Ned. “You’re going to punish the son who actually tried to be the person you wanted?! Who is the son you wanted? That’s just messed up, Dad. It’s—”

  My hands are in the air, completely at a loss with this man. I turn and start walking toward Ned.

  “Don’t you dare say something like that and then turn your back on me!” my father hisses, but I’m not listening anymore. I’m done. Done with him, with Mom if she’s going to give him that power, with this whole fucked up family. Except—

  I walk straight for my brother. He’s white as a ghost and small, because this is who my father makes him. It’s how he makes him feel: a peon, a worm beneath his boot.

  “I owe you an apology,” I say, pointing at my brother, who’s surprisingly silent despite my father who’s barking behind me. “I’m sorry, a thousand times over, for everything you’ve had to put up with because of me, for everything he’s—” I point back at our father. “Everything he’s kept from you. It’s wrong. And I’m sorry you had to pay the price for my bullshit.”

  “Then come back to the firm and—”

  “You know that’s not going to happen,” I cut Ned off. “And deep down, you know even that won’t satisfy him. He’ll find some other reason to punish you for me.”

  “You see,” our father snips from the shadows. “He hasn’t changed. Connor is still going to choose some cheap slut over the business I built from scratch. The business I built with my own two hands for my sons. The legacy I left for you! Does he care? Oh no, Connor is still looking for every way he can to ruin me—and you, Ned! You indulged him and here he is picking that broad over—”

  I look at my brother and shrug. “Nothing I say or do will make that man happy. Ever. I gave up on him a long time ago. But I’m not picking Arie over you. I’m picking the job. Because, I love the job.”

  “See!” my father scoffs. “He’s—”

  “You were meant to be a lawyer,” I say to Ned. “I’m not. You know that. You knew that when you helped me through law school. You knew it every time I cut a corner at the firm. You knew it when you saw me serve drinks at the Gin n’ Lava. Hell, even Mason’s told you a hundred times that I was never meant to push papers. I love you man, but … you’ve got to stop holding out and hoping I’m going to come crawling back to that asshole.” I point to the man in the shadow. “And at some point, you’re going to have to realize you’re worth far more than him anyway and he isn’t worth it!”

  I move toward the door, ready to be done with this place, but Ned grabs my elbow.

  “It’s for the job, not the girl, right?” he asks, his grip hard. I meet his eyes and sigh heavily.

  “She isn’t Zariah.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I nod firmly. “I know you think I’m making a big mistake, but this doesn’t feel like it did with Zariah. You have to trust me on this. It’s completely different.”

  “How is it different?”

  “Cause, Arie’s in love with me and she told me to come here and fix things with the two of you.” Ned’s eyes waver at that, and my chest blossoms with the truth. I can’t believe I’ve said that out loud, and how scary it is to hear myself say it, to know it, and to understand she’s not the only one that feels this way. “It’s different because she wanted me to fight for my relationship with you and that asshole of a father who doesn’t know how to love. All Zariah did was tear you both down, poison everything I thought about you. That’s not who Arie is. She wants me to choose you—both of you.”

  The crease in the middle of Ned’s forehead softens. I don’t expect him to understand this, or to trust it. But I need him to know I’m not abandoning him; I’m choosing something for me. Truly, for me.

  “Are you—” Ned’s voice is small “—are you in love with her?”

  “Would you trust her more or less, if I were?” I ask honestly, turning the question back on him. “Because you already know the answer to that question. I think all twenty-seven bones in my hand can attest to it.”

  That makes Ned smile—truly smile.

  I look over my shoulder at our father, who still sits in the corner on his throne, a man unwavering.

  “If you need me to stay,” I say to Ned while motioning to our father. “If you think there’s anything I could say that he’d actually listen to. Or if there’s something you need me to be here for, I’ll stay. But if I do, I’m staying for you. The only one I care about in this room is you.”

  Ned nods, before motioning for me to head for the door. “Get out of here, before I punch you again,” he says, smiling. For the first time since maybe we were kids, I think he actually wants me to go.

  36

  Arie

  My bedroom feels stark and empty, despite the velvet duvet and mounds of pillows piled against my tufted headboard. My apartment, like Flambé, screams romantic decadence: dark corners and sinful trappings decked out Marie-Antoinette-style with overflowing textures. I don’t turn on the chandelier that hangs above the bed, leaving the crystals dark and filled with shadows instead of illuminated.

  It’s two a.m.

  The rest of the evening at Flambé went perfectly. Simon and I were showered with compliments. Patrons raved about the food and the spectacle, promising to bring their business associates in with them next time to “wow” them with our parade of tasty creations. Hamblin left with a woman on his arm and smiling from ear to ear like this was the best investment he’s ever made. We’re a success! The night was a marvelous sensation!

  And yet, despite everything, I was off my game the second Connor walked out the door. Something snuffed out inside me like a sparkler doused in a champagne glass, and my heart wanted to crawl back into the dark cavern behind my ribs and start screaming.

  Not that I let on. I can fake a smile with the best of ‘em, flirting, batting my lashes, lighting martinis. But now—now that I’m home in this bleak cave of a bedroom—that tightness in my chest is a whole new breed of panic I never expected.

  I try to breathe. Shallow puffs of air wheeze down my throat, making me lightheaded. I’m still wearing the sequin dress, which hangs from my shoulders and over my curves with loose daring. My body wants Connor to knock on that door and walk into my bedroom with that wicked determination. I want him to drop these red straps from my shoulders, red from my hips and legs, then bend me perfectly beneath him and make me beg. I want his mouth and mirth, amusing me, teasing me, calming this panic that feels like it could shake the earth.

  I grab the doorway to keep myself upright, telling myself that there’s no good reason to be so affected by him. Being panicked about my restaurant—my dream, my future—being worried about whether or not my restaurant will flop, that’s a legitimate reason for heart palpitations. But Connor? He’s …

  I stumble ungracefully into the middle of my apartment and walk to the gold-plated bar cart. I fumble in the dark for something stiff and sharp. I need the perfect drink to knock me out of my own self-pity. Selfishly, I grab the whiskey, popping open the cork and tossing back the angry warmth straight from the bottle. It bites my throat with its liquid heat, reminding me of my first night with Connor when the two of us were strangers clawing at each other under the moonlight. That first night, when it was just a hot fling, without emotions and hearts attached, just physical need. Only, that too seems like a lie, because even our first night felt like a fantasy. We connected in a way that was pure flame and release, our chemistry an uncontainable alchemy that wasn’t to be believed.

  I take another swig, knowing I’m letting sentimentality get away from me. This is what happens when your heart gets involved: you read into everything and give it charged meaning. You look at each interaction with rose-colored glasses like it was somehow perfect or other
worldly. But in real life, I’m the one left alone in my apartment in the wee hours of the night wearing the sexiest damn dress I own and chugging a bottle of whiskey in the dark.

  Appropriate. Start with whiskey. End with whiskey.

  I take another long, hot swig, remembering the command of his hands and the taste of his mouth, letting the memory burn down my throat. My mind dances, the alcohol taking hold, lulling me toward mental obliteration and that warm, cozy bed I’ll sleep in alone.

  The doorbell rings.

  My heart jumps and I grasp the neck of the whiskey bottle to keep it from dropping. Liquor dribbles down my chin as my mental disorientation makes it hard to get myself to move toward the sound. Is that—? Of course it’s him. Who else could it be? The heat in my chest blossoms like a flower, too much hope bottled in this sudden rush of adrenaline.

  I open the door and try to keep my expression level—not too eager, not too pissed—but sexy and neutral, like I haven’t been sitting up and waiting and over-analyzing. The hallway light makes me squint as I stand with the doorknob in one hand and the whiskey bottle in the other, my mouth hot with alcohol. Connor stands in the light with a half-smile, looking me up and down in the darkness of my apartment. I can’t tell if he’s about to make a joke about my disheveled appearance or walk in and claim me in the way my body aches for him to.

  “Hi,” I say softly, stepping back and opening the door wider so he can come in, but he doesn’t.

  Instead, his hawk-like eyes search me—face, dress, bottle, messy hair—then his gaze flicks over my shoulder and through my apartment as if he isn’t ready to take this step with me. Something sad hangs in his eyes and it hits me that maybe he’s standing here and taking a last big look before saying goodbye.

  Weight lodges in my stomach, heavy and colliding like tiny meteors thrown out of orbit. I didn’t think of that—that he’d show up to end this. I grip the neck of the bottle, sure this sudden panic is draining my face to a new shade of ghastly. I can handle Connor not showing up and slipping out of my life gracefully. But showing up to try and create some sort of closure like a goddamned gentleman? Hell, I’d rather sit in the dark all night and drink. Closure is so … permanent!