by Beth Bolden
“If I call Derek or Michel in here, what will they tell me?” Since you, Bastian thought pointedly at Kian, won’t fucking defend your own ass.
“It just didn’t seem . . . fair.” Mark hesitated. “Sir.”
Bastian rolled his eyes. “So it is true. Well get this, life isn’t fucking fair. I can’t believe that even after all of that shit, you have the nerve to ask me for a reference. Like I would ever lower myself to even speak your name ever again. And don’t expect one from Michael Mina either, because he’s going to be hearing about this little stunt. Hope you have enough money saved for a ticket far, far away, because you’re never fucking working in California again, if I have anything to say about it.”
Mark chose that particular moment to flee the office, and Bastian was left staring at his chef de cuisine, his lover, who’d betrayed him as much as he could be betrayed.
He walked around the desk, until he was right in front of Kian, who looked suddenly, visibly nervous. He should have been nervous a hell of a lot sooner, as far as Bastian was concerned. Maybe Kian thought he’d neutered him over the last few weeks, but Bastian was still in charge.
“Anything to say for yourself?”
Kian actually glared. “What, you wanted me to roll on him? Why should I even bother? You never wanted to hear the shit he did, you told me to put up with it. So I did.”
“I sure didn’t tell you to punch him in the face.” A terrible realization was dawning on Bastian. He’d done this. He’d put Kian in charge of something he couldn’t hope to control—he didn’t have the experience or the will or the skills yet—and then he’d compounded the problem by hiring Mark.
Why had he been so blind? Was it really like Mark said? Had he promoted Kian because he was good at sucking cock? Or had it been because he loved him and wanted desperately to believe in a slightly different, slightly better version of Kian? A Kian that didn’t exist quite yet?
Regardless, this experiment was over, and Bastian didn’t know how to end it without ending everything else. His stomach twisted. Maybe losing Kian was inevitable. He’d always been too young, too vibrant, too goddamned sweet, and it was probably only time before he realized that he was too good for Bastian, who deep down, was just a mean old grump. But he’d believed he’d get more time first, more days, more weeks, that he could file away and pull out when he got too lonely to function.
“No, but you set me up to fail,” Kian said, and he sounded really pissed. Bastian wasn’t even sure he was wrong; but regardless of whose fault the catastrophe was, it existed, and Bastian had to fix it.
“I’m going to go upstairs, tell Nathan Hess that the deal is off, because I have shit to sort out of my own. You’ll be my sous, if you feel like you can possibly control yourself going forward.”
“And if I don’t want to take the demotion?” Kian demanded. Bastian wanted to believe he didn’t understand why he wouldn’t, but he did. Kian wanted so desperately to feel like they were on equal footing, but the truth was, they were never going to be able to exist that way. The situation had been prepped ahead of time to never be equal.
“You either accept the demotion, or you’re fired.” Bastian told himself that he wouldn’t take that awful step, but deep down, he knew better. Kian had his same pride, his same iron will, the same determination, the same inability to accept defeat.
Maman, you were wrong, Bastian thought bitterly as he saw the acceptance in Kian’s eyes.
“You can’t fire me,” Kian announced, breaking the heart that Bastian had never even believed existed until they’d met, “because I quit.”
“Fine.” The word made Bastian ill, but what else could he say? He couldn’t refuse to accept Kian leaving. He’d already ruined everything enough.
“I’ll be by later to pick up my stuff from your house.” The jut of Kian’s chin was so prideful, Bastian knew he recognized it from his own reflection. Don’t do this, he wanted to beg, to plead, don’t be the worst version of yourself. Don’t be like me. But he was Bastian Aquino, head chef of Terroir, and he didn’t beg anyone for anything, ever. Even the man he loved.
“Is that really necessary?” he finally asked, even though he already knew the answer.
Kian laughed without humor. “Did you really believe that we could keep this separate? Lovers at home, professionals at Terroir? It was doomed to fail from the beginning, and I know you’re not stupid. You warned me. You knew it would happen.”
What could he say? He’d wanted so badly to believe otherwise? Wanted it so much that he’d believed he could hope it into reality?
“That’s what I thought,” Kian said bitterly, turning and leaving.
Bastian was left alone, again, inevitably, and this time he wondered, what the fuck am I going to do now?
Before, he’d always known. But Kian had demolished every structure he’d ever erected. He was a mess of crumbled rubble, all his walls demolished, his infrastructure blown to bits.
And still, if anyone asked him, which he hoped to God they wouldn’t, he still believed it had been worth it.
He pushed away from the desk, and feeling every one of his years, marched out into the kitchen to save Terroir from certain disaster. It was what he’d always been the best at, and now it was all he had left.
Chapter Fifteen
Kian didn’t start crying until he walked into the kitchen and saw the coffee mug Bastian had drunk out of just yesterday sitting in the sink.
It hit him then, like an inescapable blow to the head. He’d never pour Bastian another cup of coffee and tease him about liking it dark as mud. He’d never wake up tucked up next to him. He’d never kiss him again. He’d never smile at him over some boring prep at the restaurant. He’d never again set foot into the Terroir kitchen.
Because it wasn’t just one blow; it was a thousand, big and small and every size in between, and every single one fucking hurt. Kian stood there and felt each one as they hit him, hard.
Nobody was home, and there was nobody to see him cry. Xander would be at the Barrel House, Nate was probably at the winery, where he worked in the tasting room. He’d have hours and hours before anyone came home to bother him, and that seemed like both the best and the worst thing to happen to him.
He could go to Bastian’s house and get all the stuff he’d left there. He still had the code, and that way he’d avoid having to go over everything again with Bastian. But going to Bastian’s would be even worse than spotting his mug in the sink.
He’d been spinning fantasies in his mind, imagining someday moving into Bastian’s house and making it a real home, instead of the soulless box that Bastian had called it. He’d imagined a life they could share, where they gave and took in equal measures.
At the time, he’d wanted so desperately to believe that it was possible, but it wasn’t. He’d been blinding himself to the realities of their situation. They’d never been even remotely equal. The only equality that had existed between them were advantages that Bastian had willingly ceded to him.
There shouldn’t have been anything else but pain, but now there was the inevitable streak of humiliation winding its way through him. He’d been full of wishes and hope this whole time, but Bastian had only been pretending.
Kian stumbled into his bedroom, and lurched back, like he’d been burned by the lingering smell of Bastian in the air. It had been almost forty-eight hours since he’d been in here, but it didn’t matter. The whole room would need to be aired out, every inch of fabric washed, the walls scrubbed, the carpet cleaned. Even then, he’d never be able to eradicate the memories—and Bastian had only spent a handful of nights here.
Hours before anyone would be home, so many useless hours spreading out in front of him. He needed to do something, keep busy. Keep himself from thinking; if he could keep his mind blank, he thought as he dried his eyes with the edge of his t-shirt, he might not break down.
He pulled off the sheets, stuffing them in the washing machine down the hall. Next, he went to his closet to find the ot
her set he vaguely remembered having. Sorting through the random crap that accumulated, he accidentally nudged a cardboard box on one shelf, sending it careening to the floor, all its contents spilling out.
Kian groaned and righted the box. He didn’t have the energy to deal with this today.
Except one of the items that had fallen out was his old Institute apron. As he crumpled up the fabric, planning to shove it right back where it came from, he heard the crinkle of paper.
Shit.
It had been two years since he’d even considered any of the overseas job applications he’d sent, or the letters he’d received as a response. He’d never even opened them, too blown away and excited by the possibility of working for Bastian Aquino at Terroir. He hadn’t cared one way or the other if he’d been hired.
He’d shoved the responses away in a pocket of his apron and totally forgotten about them.
One by one, he pulled them out. Three in total. Still sealed. For the first time, Kian really faced what his sudden change of heart had cost him. He could be working and training in Europe right now, at restaurants far more prestigious than Terroir. Restaurants with decades of brilliance stretching behind them. He’d given all that up because Bastian had walked into his class, and he’d gotten an instant hard-on.
Why hadn’t anyone stopped him? Why hadn’t anyone pulled him aside and insisted that working for someone solely because you had a personal and professional crush was a terrible idea? He hadn’t told his mom why he’d changed his mind on Europe because he’d been sure she’d be upset. Later, he knew Xander and Wyatt had conspired to try to find him a job in LA, a misguided attempt to get him away from Bastian. By then it had been too late, he’d fallen in love and he’d refused to even discuss leaving.
But at the beginning? There’d been room then, even in the first, full-body flush of his infatuation. He might have listened to reason. He might have changed his mind.
He might not have wasted the last two years.
Right now, they felt like a waste. Yeah, he’d become chef de cuisine, but he no longer believed that Bastian had promoted him because he deserved it. Mark, as galling as it was, had been fucking right. He’d gotten the chef de cuisine job because he was sucking Bastian’s cock.
What did it matter, Kian thought bitterly, if you lied to yourself because you knew better or because you hoped for better? It turned out the same in the end.
He should have taken one look at Luc and not been horribly, terribly envious; he should have taken one look at Luc and understood he was a cautionary tale. Bastian was like a hurricane. He swept into a life and then out of it and left no structures standing in his wake.
Kian fingered the wrinkled paper of the envelopes. There was a part of him that was dying to open them, dying to know what he’d chosen Bastian over. But there was another part of him that dreaded facing the truth, and that actively didn’t want to know what he’d given up without a thought.
A voice in his head called him a coward, and Kian flinched because it sounded too much like Bastian. But then, he’d been an excellent mentor. He’d taught him never to be afraid of the truth.
That was ironic, Kian thought, and ripped one envelope open, and then another, and then the last.
They were all job offers. They’d all wanted to hire him.
A sob escaped his throat, and then another. He sank to his knees, crying over everything he’d lost today, and two years ago—before he’d even known better.
Kian sat there for a very long time. He stopped crying, eventually, but he still didn’t move. The house grew dark and he stayed right where he was.
Eventually, he heard a car pull into the driveway, and assumed it would be Xander. It was late, but not quite late enough for Nate to come home.
Footsteps echoed down the hall, and before Kian could brace for it, the hall light turned on, leaving him flinching into the sudden brightness.
“What’s going on?” Xander asked, kneeling down and taking in the situation. The sheet-less bed. The letters spread out on the floor in front of Kian.
“The inevitable,” Kian said dully. He couldn’t look at Xander. “I quit, and I guess we broke up.”
“You guess?”
“At the beginning, we told ourselves that it would stay separate. Work at Terroir, personal at home. But it didn’t, it couldn’t. It was all tangled together, from the very beginning.” Kian had never felt so bleak, so hopeless before.
“You didn’t know any better, but the Bastard did,” Xander growled, and Kian knew just how angry he was. He wanted to tell him that it wasn’t just Bastian’s fault; it was his own too. After all, he’d just punched Mark in the face and then refused to give any explanation at all. He’d lost control of the kitchen, and Bastian had been right to demote him.
But instead of explaining, Kian just shrugged. It hurt too much to try to explain, even if he knew what side Xander would inevitably be on.
“And all this?” Xander asked, pointing to the letters.
Kian glanced up, his eyes full of pain. “Did I ever tell you that at one point, I was going to Europe?”
* * *
Kian had been expecting the call all day, so it was easy enough to hit ignore half a dozen times.
When the unknown number started calling, Kian let it go to voicemail three times before he finally answered.
“Xander called you,” Kian said in an edgy, annoyed voice.
“How did you even know it was me?” Wyatt asked, mystified.
“Xander has a method,” Kian retorted. “He offered me another bottle of Nate’s wine last night. I’m not sure he has any other comforting methods in his repertoire. He’s run out, so he called you.”
Wyatt sighed on the other end of the line. “This is Xander we’re talking about. Not exactly the most comforting person in the world.”
“Right.” Kian knew he didn’t sound convinced, and he found he didn’t give a fuck. There was a huge number of things piling up that, in the last two days, he’d discovered that he didn’t give a fuck about.
Everyone had always thought he was sweet and naïve and a little blind. The truth was, he’d just stupidly, optimistically, believed in the best in people, and in the world. And now he knew he’d been so fucking wrong, this whole damn time.
“Xander called me because he’s worried about you,” Wyatt soothed.
“I’ve got money saved, I’m good for my share of rent.” Kian dipped his sponge back in the bucket of soapy water at his feet. He’d already finished airing out and cleaning every inch of his bedroom, and he’d moved on to the living room because doing nothing wasn’t acceptable, and he didn’t have anything else to do.
If he stopped, he’d think, and thinking was so wretched Kian was determined never to do it again.
“I don’t think that was what he was worried about,” Wyatt said wryly.
“I’m fine,” Kian said, not giving a single shit that he didn’t sound fine. “In a week or so I’ll look for a new job.”
He’d do it, because he was bored and there was only so much cleaning to do, even though the thought of another kitchen—a kitchen without Bastian at the head of it—made him sick to his stomach. He could do it because he was a goddamn professional. That was what Bastian had trained him to be, even though he’d failed at the end.
“I know Xander is desperate to hire you,” Wyatt said.
“Did you call for any actual purpose or just to make yourself feel better?” Kian demanded, inexplicably furious all of a sudden. “Because you’re not making me feel any better.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. Kian pinched off the disappointment that Wyatt didn’t really care either and tossed it away. He didn’t need that on top of everything else.
When Wyatt finally spoke again, it was slowly, like he was carefully picking every single word. “Xander told me about your European jobs. That you think you’ve wasted the last two years.”
“I did,” Kian retorted bitterly.
>
“Actually,” Wyatt said and then hesitated. “I really don’t think you did.”
“You don’t really believe that.” The only reason Wyatt would say that would be to try to talk Kian out of feeling that way. And Kian wasn’t dumb, not anymore. His eyes had been forcibly opened wide.
“I do. Do you love him?”
“I don’t see why that matters.” Kian swallowed back the unexpected tears lingering in the back of his throat. Suddenly it didn’t matter if Wyatt did care about him, he just couldn’t talk about this anymore.
“You might as well just tell me, because we all know you do.” Wyatt sighed. “Does he love you?”
Kian nearly hung up the phone. It was only the impossible kindness in Wyatt’s voice that kept him from doing it. “He said he did, but I’m not sure I believe him anymore.”
“He must love you, because he gave you a job you weren’t really qualified for, but that you wanted a lot. He didn’t give it to you because you guys were fucking; he gave it to you because that’s what you do with someone you love—you give them what they want, even if it isn’t always good for them.”
Kian hated the sob that escaped him. Even more than he hated that Wyatt was right. He’d been ill-prepared, even with all of Bastian’s training, and he’d known that when it had been offered to him. He should have turned it down, but there’d been that irresistible glow of living up to the man on Bastian’s pedestal.
That had turned out so well, too.
“I’ve fucked it all up,” he cried. “I knew it was too soon, I knew it was a mistake. I should have told him.”
“You can’t go back and change the past,” Wyatt said softly, “you can only change the future. So what are you going to do with it?”
“I guess . . .” Kian took a deep breath. “I guess I could contact these restaurants in Europe again. See if they’d consider hiring me still.”
“Do you want to go to Europe?”
Truthfully Kian didn’t know what he wanted. No—that wasn’t true. He wanted things to not change, but Wyatt was right; he could only change the future, not the past.