Her eyes fell on the notepad next to the laptop, the sick feeling growing to a crushing weight. The page was filled with Alex’s careful script, cryptic but all too understandable.
Rachel feature—check Sept/Oct issue
Perfectionism → addictions → workaholism?
Work success = self-worth = surrogate for meaningful relationships
Food = intimacy?
Need to expand proposal by 8/15.
Rachel stood there, her limbs locked in horror, unable to even draw in a full breath. Surely she was reading this wrong. The wording was so cold and clinical, like he was trying to take her apart piece by piece, understand her moving parts like a machine. Was Alex researching the effects of her stepfather’s abuse? Was he trying to fix her?
Her eyes drifted back to the e-mail, not wanting to believe the more-likely scenario.
She wasn’t his girlfriend. She was his subject.
Rachel stumbled away from the desk, her lungs tight and her head throbbing. This couldn’t be true. She had to be misunderstanding. She took her phone from her back pocket, returned to the computer, and snapped a photo of both the notepad and the e-mail. It was a complete invasion of his privacy, but she didn’t care. The idea that he had been picking apart her psyche in order to write about it was far more of a violation than her accidental snooping.
She was halfway to the elevator when she realized she hadn’t fed the cat, the stupid cat that had started this whole discovery. She darted back into the condo, overfilled the food and water bowls with shaking hands, and left without giving the watering can a second look. Let his plants die. She was a decent human being who wouldn’t let a pet suffer, but his trees didn’t get the same consideration.
Rachel took the ride down the elevator to compose herself, even though her thoughts were spinning, mad and incoherent. For a second, she thought she might throw up, but that too she forced down into the cold vault of pragmatism she held in reserve, the place in which she’d dwelt since she was fifteen, the place she’d begun to crawl out of when she met Alex. At least there she could accept his betrayal without feeling its full impact.
There she could forget how much of a fool she had been by letting down her guard and falling in love with him.
* * *
Halfway back to her house, Rachel’s phone beeped. She fished it out of her back pocket and held it up to see the message on the screen. Voice mail. She hadn’t even heard it ring. She punched a button to play the message over speaker.
“Rachel, this is Mitchell Shaw. I’d like to speak with you at your convenience about the possibility of investing in your restaurant. If you’ll put together a business proposal for me, we can meet to go over the details.”
He left his number at the end of the message, as casually as if he were ordering a pizza. Rachel stared at the phone for a second before she realized she should really be staring at the road and jerked her eyes forward.
He wanted to invest. It had worked.
She would have her restaurant again.
Despite the betrayal, despite what she’d learned not ten minutes before, her first inclination was to dial Alex. The realization that she couldn’t brought on equal measures of anger and shame.
How could she have been so stupid? This was why she didn’t trust people. This was why she didn’t let them see who she really was. As soon as you made yourself vulnerable, they turned on you, used you to get what they wanted. She’d trusted him completely, and once more she was left questioning what she had done to cause his betrayal, wondering what made her a target for liars and users.
Rachel drew the cold around her heart until the anger passed, engaged the methodical side that had made her a culinary success. She already had a business plan she’d been working on, but she’d have to tweak it a bit before she called Mitchell back. She was working through the changes in her head when she parked in front of her house, then realized she should probably ask Melody and Ana to come over and celebrate. She texted them with the invitation and then marched inside to start dinner.
She usually loved to cook for her friends, but tonight there was no joy in it, just mechanically executed steps. It would be perfect, of course. She could rely on experience and muscle memory to do this even if her heart wasn’t in the process.
When Ana and Melody arrived together a few minutes past six, Rachel opened the door, calm at last. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Ana shrugged off her suit jacket and hung it on the hook by the door. “Something smells good.”
Melody narrowed her eyes, not fooled for a moment. “What’s wrong?”
Where to begin? Rachel gestured for them to follow her into the kitchen where the table had been set, a mixed green salad with a lemon-and-shallot vinaigrette holding court alongside the other crusty loaf of bread she’d baked yesterday. She’d garnished a dish of whipped butter with fleur de sel and sliced citrus into their water glasses.
Melody was starting to look worried. “Rachel? What’s going on?”
“I made lamb cassoulet.”
“For a quick dinner?” Ana asked. “That had to have taken you all afternoon.”
“It did. We’re celebrating.”
Ana and Melody exchanged a look.
“Celebrating what?” Melody asked.
Rachel pulled out her phone and played the message for them while she moved the Dutch oven to a trivet on the table.
“That’s amazing!” Melody exclaimed. “Are you excited? Why aren’t you more excited?”
“I am. This is my excited face.” She took a seat across from them and lifted the lid from the pot in a plume of steam.
Ana narrowed her eyes. “I don’t believe you.”
Rachel sighed. Wordlessly, she pulled up the photos on her phone and handed it over.
Ana’s expression changed as she read the e-mail and notepad. “What is this?”
“I accidentally found it when I went over to Alex’s to feed Dina’s cat. I bumped the desk and his computer went off screen saver.”
Ana handed the phone to Melody, who read it, her expression pained. “Oh, Rachel. Maybe it’s not what it looks like?”
“How else do I take that? He’s writing about me and he’s using his psychology background to . . . I don’t know, shrink me.” Rachel took her phone back and set it by her plate.
“Have you actually read what he wrote?” Melody asked. “Have you talked to him about it? Maybe it’s not what you think.”
“He’s in LA with Dina, helping her move her stuff back to Denver. This isn’t something I can discuss over the phone.” Rachel reached for the salad tongs and began serving them automatically.
Melody took the utensil from her. “Stop, Rachel. We should talk about this.”
“What’s there to talk about?”
“You love him. You’ve never gotten this involved with a man. Don’t you think you should hear him out before you throw it all away?”
“Throw what away? According to him, I use food as a substitute for intimacy. My feelings are nothing more than misplaced gratitude over his help in getting my restaurant back. I can only imagine how he’s going to spin this. ‘Our food-obsessed culture is looking for a replacement for Mommy and Daddy’s approval. We eat our feelings instead of dealing with our issues. Take this workaholic chef who is so desperate for love, she’ll believe anything a man tells her.’” Rachel took a slice of bread and buttered it with savage strokes. “Even though I’m getting what I want, I feel completely manipulated. I can’t even enjoy the victory.”
Ana placed her hands flat on either side of her plate. “As far as I’m concerned, if he was really using you, you’d better be getting something out of it.”
Reluctantly, Melody said, “Ana’s right. Why are you letting him spoil this for you? This is what you’ve always wanted.”
“Is it?” Rachel shook her head. “I don’t know. As much as I hate the idea that he’s been analyzing me, maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s not about cooking after all. Maybe
it is a substitute for the things I haven’t had. If I’m really honest, it’s been about proving I could do it on my own. That I could take care of myself without anyone’s help.”
As she said the words, they pierced with the ring of truth. She’d always known it, but as long as she moved forward, she’d been able to ignore it. And somehow Alex had come in and smashed her certainty to bits. Made her realize how much she wanted to share her life with someone. How much she needed to trust. How ready she was to move on.
She had simply picked the wrong man.
Melody reached across the table and squeezed her hand hard. “We’re in this with you, Rachel. No matter what you decide. Whether you forgive Alex or you don’t. Whether you go into business with Mitchell Shaw or you don’t. But you need to figure out what you want. What you really want.”
Rachel looked into the earnest faces of her best friends. She reached out her left hand, and slowly, Ana took it. “I love you both. I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t here.”
“You’d do exactly the same thing,” Ana said. “Conquer everything you set your mind to.”
“We love you, too, Rach.” Melody smiled at her and squeezed her hand again before letting it go. “So, can we eat now? I’m starving and that looks really good.”
Rachel gave a watery laugh and swiped at her eyes. “Who needs Saturday night for a supper club, right? We’ve got all we need right here on a Monday.”
“I don’t know,” Ana said. “If we’re all single again, we don’t have anything better to do on Saturday night.”
Despite herself, Rachel cracked a smile. “Maybe we should resurrect the supper club. My kitchen. We all invite a friend in the same boat. And we can all be pathetic together.”
“Not pathetic,” Ana said. “Independent. Determined. Willing to hold out for what we really want, whatever that is.”
“Hear, hear.” Melody raised her water glass and clinked it with Ana’s. “To the Saturday Night Supper Club, version 2.0.”
Rachel clinked her glass with her friends’, her heaviness ebbing a degree, though she had a feeling it would take a long time to disappear. She had been wrong about one thing. Thanks to the women sitting across from her, she had begun learning to trust long before Alex came along.
Chapter Thirty-Two
ALEX COULD BARELY CONTAIN his anticipation when he crested the Continental Divide and began the downward descent into Denver on Thursday night. He’d texted Rachel several times and called once since he and Dina had left LA, but his messages had gone unanswered. She was probably busy putting together the proposal for Mitchell. He’d called Alex on Monday to tell him he’d made contact with Rachel for a possible partnership.
Alex couldn’t wait to celebrate their victory.
When they finally left the steep downward slope of I-70 behind for the city streets, Alex pulled out his phone and dialed. Dina would go straight to his place with the bulk of her possessions, but he couldn’t wait even that long to see Rachel.
The call went directly to voice mail. “Hey, it’s me. I’m back in Denver. I hear we have something to celebrate. I can’t wait to see you. I’m going to drop by your house on my way home to see if you’re there.”
The thought of seeing Rachel, having her in his arms, eased some of the weariness from his trip. There was still plenty to do: find a storage unit for Dina’s things, break the news of her return to their parents, help her find a job. He’d have time—no doubt Rachel would dive into plans for her new restaurant with even more enthusiasm than she had shown for the supper club. He just hoped she left some room in her schedule for him.
When he pulled up in front of Rachel’s house, the lower-floor windows glowed with light. A smile came to his face as he walked up the path and knocked on the front door. Inside he heard movement, but saw nothing through the stained-glass window. He knocked again.
This time the blur of motion resolved into a familiar shape. Chains rattled and locks scraped as the door opened.
He exhaled on a rush of pleasure. “Rachel.” He moved forward, wanting nothing more than to have his arms around her and her lips under his. But her posture stiffened and she backed up half a step, putting the threshold between them. He froze in place. What was going on? Had something happened?
“How was the trip?” Rachel asked.
Alex thrust his hands in his jeans pockets, perplexed. “Good. Dina seems happy to be coming back. After seeing the dump she was living in, I really can’t blame her.”
“I’m glad. Tell her I said hello and welcome back.”
He reached out to tuck a lock of stray hair behind her ear, but she jerked her head away. “Don’t.”
“Rachel, I . . . What’s going on?” She was acting like they were strangers, as if less than a week ago, she hadn’t told him she loved him.
“I saw.”
His eyebrows pulled together. “Saw what?”
“Your notes. The e-mail from your agent. It was an accident, but I still saw them.”
Guilt immediately coursed through him even though he had nothing to feel guilty about. The only e-mail he could think of was the one from Christine asking for more chapters. He couldn’t imagine what was so heinous about that. And the notes . . . What notes was she even talking about?
“I don’t understand.” He automatically moved closer, but she backed up another step. “What did I do?”
She shook her head, hurt and anger entwined in her expression. Tears glimmered in her eyes. “Are you or are you not writing about me?”
He froze. “Rachel, it’s not what you think.”
“It’s a simple question. Are you writing about me? Did you use the things I told you for material in your book?”
His heart was somewhere on the floor, one wrong move from being ground beneath her heel. “I did, but not in the manner you’re thinking. Rachel, before we met, I was stuck. I thought it was my guilt over what I accidentally did to your career that was holding me up, but I realized I was weary. Tired of my own cynicism. Meeting you changed everything. You inspired me.”
He’d heard many things in her voice to this point—anger, hurt, affection—but when she laughed now, it was the first time he’d ever heard bitterness. “Do you really think you can feed me some line, make yourself out to be the tortured artist, and I’ll just ignore what you did?”
“Rachel—”
“No. Now you listen. The first time you wrote about me and ruined my life, you claimed ignorance. You don’t get to use the same excuse twice. I trusted you and you betrayed me.”
The hurt and disappointment in her eyes were almost too much to bear. It made him want to grovel at her feet until she let him explain. But her walls were up again, locking him out. She’d made up her mind about him. Now she would never believe that he loved her, that he never meant to hurt her. In her eyes, he was exactly like her stepfather, using her insecurities to his advantage, making her heart the casualty of some twisted game.
Still, he couldn’t give up without one last try. “Please, Rachel, I’m begging you. Just read the manuscript. You’ll see what I intended. You’ll see I’m not using you.”
She held his gaze, a moment of longing surfacing before it disappeared again behind the hard mask. She wrapped her fingers around the edge of the door. “Good-bye, Alex. Tell Dina I hope she finds exactly what she’s been searching for.”
She shut the door in his face.
Alex stood there long after her shape disappeared beyond the stained-glass window, every bit of him sick and aching. He didn’t know how it had gone so wrong so fast. He only knew that he loved her.
And he’d lost her.
* * *
Alex let himself into his condo and dropped his bag inside the front door. It looked exactly as he had left it, and yet somehow the knowledge he would never see Rachel here again made it feel empty.
Sometimes it sucked being in touch with his feelings. Were he not a writer, did he not have his psychology background, he could go pou
nd back a few at a local bar and convince himself he was better off without her. Unfortunately, he couldn’t lie to himself that easily.
The sound of running water from the bathroom indicated Dina had already made herself at home. The last thing he wanted to do was face his sister right now. Instead, he went into his bedroom with a sense of dread. Where his laptop had gone back to screen saver. Sure enough, the screen still held the e-mail from Christine, which ended with the damning words, The stuff with the chef is GOLD!
Right beside it was his notepad—his reminder to check on the feature he’d negotiated for Rachel at the top; ideas for the last-minute articles beneath it, some of which had stemmed from the things Rachel had told him.
Alex stared at the notepad for a long moment and then swept his arm in one furious stroke across the desk’s surface, sending the contents crashing to the floor.
It always seemed to make people in TV shows feel better, but he felt just as miserable as before. And now he was staring at a mess he’d have to clean up.
Dina appeared in the doorway of his bedroom, wearing her pajamas and a shocked expression. “What happened?” She rushed to grab the laptop from where it swung in a slow arc, the plug’s position in the port as precarious as a climber’s grip in the pouring rain. A few more swings and it would be on the ground, possibly damaged, his files potentially unrecoverable.
“Leave it,” he snapped. What did it matter? He couldn’t publish the book as it was now. So much of it had been inspired by or centered around Rachel. He’d intended on letting her see it when the time was right, just like he’d intended to tell her that he loved her. He’d simply waited too long.
Dina ignored him and rescued the laptop, then swiveled to face him. “What happened? What did you do?”
“Why do you think I did something?”
She arched an eyebrow at him.
“It doesn’t matter. She made it clear she doesn’t want to hear my explanation and she never wants to see me again. It’s over.”
“I don’t believe that.”
Alex wiped a hand wearily over his face. “You know what? It’s fine. It’s not like I’m not busy. Now that you’re back, we need to find you a job and a place to stay—”
The Saturday Night Supper Club Page 29