The Complete Langley Park Series (Books 1-5)

by Krista Sandor

  Was this all a dream?

  She glanced down at her bare feet. Jade had painted her toenails cotton candy pink before she left, but now her feet were caked with mud and earth. She pulled the sports coat tight to her body and ran toward the parking lot. She found her car and locked herself inside.

  That’s when it hit her.

  Her chest heaved with great sobs of fear and relief. She leaned her forehead against the steering wheel and tears trailed down her cheeks.

  A sudden knock on the car’s window shot a fresh surge of panic through her body. She whipped her head up and saw a bouquet of sunflowers. A man bent down. Monica couldn’t breathe. Was this one of the men from tonight? She wouldn’t even know. She hadn’t laid eyes on any of them.

  “Are you okay?”

  Monica used the back of her hand to wipe her cheeks. She nodded. The guy didn’t seem threatening, but she wasn’t about to roll down the window.

  “Do you need help?” he asked.

  She shook her head, but she didn’t make eye contact with him. She couldn’t pull her gaze away from the sunflowers.

  “All right, then,” the man said and walked toward the platform where another bus had pulled in.

  Monica kept her gaze trained on the flowers. The man gave the bouquet to a woman who had stepped off a bus. The happy couple embraced, and Monica’s hand went to her locket. A tornado of memories whirled through her mind. Her parents. Oma. Gabe. She thought of the black and white sunflower pattern on the dress Vanessa had given her, and she released another tight sob. Her fingers moved from the locket and slid up the chain. She stilled when she hit the bump in the links. The spot Gabe had bent back together all those years ago.

  She opened her purse, retrieved her phone, and dialed Jade’s number. The call went to voicemail. She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Jade, it’s Monica. Thank you for offering to let me stay at your place, but I’ve made other plans.” She paused. The silence stretched as she stared at the sunflowers. “I’m leaving San Francisco. I’m going home.”

  10

  “Gabe! Chef Sinclair! One more question!”

  Gabe surveyed the bevy of cameras and reporters crowding around him at the back entrance of New York City’s hottest Mediterranean bistro, Bread and Vine.

  His public relations rep, Corbyn Howell, raised his hands. “The chef won’t be taking any more questions. You’ll all have to stay tuned. We’ll be putting out a press release regarding his possible new show and public appearances. As you know, the chef’s book tour has just ended, and his bestselling cookbook is available everywhere.”

  Corbyn, who stood a good foot shorter than Gabe, held the door open as the press peppered them with questions.

  “What’s it like being named the culinary world’s most eligible bachelor?”

  “Page Six say you’re dating a Victoria’s Secret model. Can you confirm this?”

  He’d gotten back into the city after a whirlwind book signing tour and taping a spot in London for a British cooking show. He leaned down toward Corbyn. “Where do they get this shit?”

  “Who cares?” Corbyn whispered back. “It’s good to have the bees buzzing around. It means you’re doing something right.”

  Gabe had come to this city a nobody. A wide-eyed boy from Kansas who could knock out a strudel. A little more than a decade later, he was a certified master chef, had a bestselling cookbook, and was co-owner of the wildly successful Bread and Vine.

  The three years of his apprenticeship and the subsequent years working under acclaimed chef, Leo Russo, had gone by in a blur of blood and sweat. Working as an apprentice, he had put in thousands of hours in the kitchen. Chef Russo expected perfection and wasn’t shy about expressing his displeasure. Over the years, Gabe had weathered many tongue lashings from his demanding mentor. But as time passed and Gabe’s culinary skills bloomed under Russo’s expert instruction, he quickly rose through the kitchen ranks to sous chef and then to executive chef.

  He’d traveled with Chef Russo to Spain, France, and Italy. On these trips, he learned from the masters of Mediterranean cuisine. He could make pasta like an old Italian grandmother. He had mastered the delicate art of preparing a French Béarnaise sauce, and he could debone a chicken in under two minutes, blindfolded.

  Three years ago, Gabe had been invited to the Food and Wine Classic in Aspen, Colorado where the culinary best of the best worked their fingers to the bone cooking inventive, exciting, mouth-watering cuisine. Here, he was named best new chef, and his career skyrocketed. Offers from cooking networks and cookbook publishers poured in. Everyone wanted a piece of the handsome chef. An appearance on a cooking show multiplied into regular spots on television, and the New York Times did a piece on him that resulted in offers for him to cook all over the world.

  Gabe rubbed a hand over his chin and felt the scratch of scruff. He had come straight from the airport. With his erratic schedule, it had been a few weeks since he’d stepped foot into Bread and Vine. At first, Leo had been supportive of Gabe’s newfound fame. Bread and Vine was booked more than six months out. Celebrity sightings happened almost every day in their restaurant. But when he last spoke with his mentor, the call hadn’t ended well.

  Leo had accused him of losing his mise en place. Gabe’s hand went reflexively to his heart where he’d had those exact words tattooed onto his skin. The French culinary phrase means to put in place. To the casual observer, mise en place would look like a cook with all the necessary components to make a specific dish gathered neatly in front of him. But in the culinary world, these three words carried a sacred, zen-like quality.

  The best kitchens are run like well-oiled military machines. There’s a hierarchy. There’s an order. And you do not fuck with someone’s mise.

  In the kitchen, time is precious. Every minute must be accounted for. Every movement must be precise. From the moment the first order comes in, every person has a job, a function. You are no longer an individual but part of an entire collective, a hive, one single mind. There’s no room for horseplay or shooting the shit. Mise en place not only means having everything you need in one place. Mise en place is the focus. Mise en place is total concentration when executing a specific task. Mise en place is a way of life where order, precision, and perfection reign supreme.

  Mise en place was how Gabe escaped Monica Brandt.

  He took every drop of emotion, the agony and ecstasy, and put it into his mise. The drive he had for her, he shifted to the world of cuisine. The attention he’d given to the curve of her neck and the sparkle of her blue eyes, he’d funneled into hours chopping, sautéing, and plating. Anytime her face flashed through his mind, anytime a whiff of cinnamon caught his attention and brought him back to The Little Bakery on Mulberry Drive, he would double his attention to task. His mise en place, his intense focus, his unstoppable desire to perfect a dish is what had brought him the accolades and the success.

  A brazen photographer took a step forward and raised his camera. The flash went off inches from Gabe’s face. Streaks of white and pink and blue blurred his vision. He raised his hand to shield his eyes.

  “There are reports that due to your absence the quality of Bread and Vine has diminished. Do you want to respond to those comments?”

  Gabe blinked, and his eyes adjusted back to normal. “Sure, I’ll respond.”

  The jostling reporters stilled.

  Gabe squared his jaw. “You can all fuck off. Bread and Vine is the best because I made it the best.”

  Flashbulbs erupted into a frenzy of light. The reporters yelled out questions, and the sound of their voices blended into one loud rattling blanket of noise.

  Gabe turned his back on the melee and entered the kitchen with Corbyn on his heels.

  “That was lovely,” the PR rep said dryly. He didn’t even bother to look up from whatever he was doing on his phone.

  A muscle twitched in Gabe’s jaw. “Do you know how many charity dinners I’ve cooked for in the last month? Do you know h
ow many spots I’ve taped? Do you know how many fucking miles I’ve flown?”

  Corbyn’s gaze stayed locked on his phone. “Eight, thirteen, and that one you’re going to have to take up with the airline.”

  Gabe let out a tight breath as something sharp pricked in his chest. He couldn’t deny it. He liked the spotlight. He liked people chasing after him. He left Corbyn and headed inside. He washed up, donned his chef whites, and entered the kitchen. The familiar cadence of the call and call back routine heightened his awareness. The excitement of dinner service on a busy Friday night coursed through him like fire burning down a trail of kerosene.

  “Order in. Table of four. Please fire up four lamb chops.”

  “This table is doing four cauliflower and four quail eggs.”

  “Four lamb chops. Four Cauliflower. Four quail eggs.”

  Gabe surveyed the line. Sous chefs were assembling main entrées. Runners were taking plates back and forth as servers waited for their dishes to be cleared at the pass.

  “I’ve got six octopus.”

  “Six octopus.”

  “Food runner, please.”

  “Six octopus for table twenty-two.”

  “Twenty-two walks.”

  Gabe pulled a list from his back pocket. He’d made a few changes to the menu while he was away. He’d emailed his sous chefs, but when he looked at the plates at the pass, the dishes going out weren’t what he had planned.

  “Eddie,” Gabe said, addressing one of his sous. “Where the hell is the grouper?”

  Tall and wiry, Eddie kept his head down as he plated octopus wrapped in Serrano ham. “Chef, there was an issue with the grouper.”

  “Fuck, yes, I’d say there was an issue,” Gabe answered. “I specifically told you to put the grouper on the menu.”

  “Chef, I was at the fish market this morning, and I thought the salmon looked better. I emailed you. I didn’t hear back, so I decided to make the change.”

  Gabe gritted his teeth. He hadn’t looked at his phone since he’d gotten off the damn plane. He shook off Eddie and walked over to the saucier stirring something in a copper pot on the stove. “What’s this?”

  “Chef, it’s the lemon béchamel sauce,” the woman answered.

  Gabe frowned. Anger pulsed through his veins. “The butter is fucking burning. You cannot burn the butter on a béchamel. It will ruin the flavor. Throw it out. Start over.” He glanced around her station. “This is supposed to be lemon béchamel. Where are your fucking lemons?”

  The woman ducked her head. “Sorry, chef.”

  “Don’t waste time apologizing! Do it right! Where the hell do you think you are? Some truck stop in the middle of nowhere? This is fucking Bread and Vine.”

  “Yes, chef, I’ll get the lemons,” the woman said and scurried off toward the refrigerator.

  “Chef?” a petite server with tight blond curls called out. “Table sixteen sent the salmon back. They said it wasn’t cooked to their liking.”

  Gabe took the plate and assessed the dish. “I may not have wanted salmon on the menu tonight, but this is cooked perfectly.” He eyed the server. “Which table did you say?”

  Her eyes went wide. “Sixteen, chef.”

  Gabe grabbed the plate and passed through the door into the dining area.

  While the back of the house was all frantic motion and continuous action in the kitchen portion of the restaurant, the dining area or the front of the house, was relaxed and serene. Servers uncorked bottles of wine and waited to pour as guests nodded their approval. Hostesses dressed in black floated through the aisles, guiding patrons to tables clad in ivory and topped with a trio of candles. The hint of flamenco guitar hung in the air. Conversations flowed together in a melodic hum of voices that mingled with the clink of utensils.

  Gabe locked his gaze onto table sixteen. Plate in hand, he weaved his way through the dining area. He heard the familiar gasps as patrons recognized him. Several people held up their phones and snapped pictures. Most nights, he would have stopped and posed with the guests, but not tonight. After cooking a six-course tasting in London, hopping a flight to New York, and then heading straight to Bread and Vine for the dinner service, he was in no mood to play Mr. Hollywood Chef.

  He stopped at table sixteen, and a young couple smiled up at him. The woman had long black hair and bangs that swept across her forehead. Gabe blinked and stared at her. Of course, it wasn’t Monica, but that damn black as night hair and those bangs cut right to the dark edges of his mind.

  The bitter reminder that he wasn’t enough.

  The entire culinary community embraced him. He had a bestselling cookbook. He had producers clamoring to book him for guest spots. He had cooking networks pitching show ideas. He even had an underwear company asking him to pose for an ad campaign. He was more than enough for everyone in the entire fucking world. But not for her. She hadn’t even contemplated that he would have gladly dropped everything and gone with her to Paris so she could pursue her dreams.

  A shot of humiliation burned through him. He glanced at the woman’s companion. A round-faced, Midwestern looking guy, the bastard could have been a long lost relation of Chip fucking Wilkes.

  His pulse kicked up.

  He glanced around at the restaurant—his restaurant. Dishes he had perfected had been altered. Plating he had insisted on had been tweaked. Heat and fury burned inside him. In his pathetic boyhood desire to be adored, he had spread himself too thin. In his juvenile drive to show Monica he had made it big, he had lost his center.

  And worst of all, he had neglected his mise.

  “Is this my fish? Did you fix it?” the woman asked.

  Lost confronting the ghosts of his past, Gabe dropped the plate onto the table at the sound of the woman’s voice. It clattered. A loud, jarring bang that echoed throughout the bistro. Gabe stared at the plate, anger building in his chest. A stalk of asparagus fell limply onto the white tablecloth as the fish sat pink and guilty on the plate.

  The woman gasped, and the restaurant stilled.

  Gabe crossed his arms. “The salmon is cooked perfectly. I checked it myself.”

  “No, it’s not,” the woman said. Her voice was thin but firm.

  “Yes, it is,” he barked back.

  Gabe had never quarreled with a guest. Restaurant 101: the customer is always right.

  You want that steak cooked within an inch of being edible? My pleasure.

  Do you want seven ice cubes and two lime wedges in your club soda? Your wish is my command?

  Tonight, however, something had overridden his sensibilities. Tonight, nobody got to reject him. Tonight, it was his way or the highway. Take it or fucking leave it!

  “I like my salmon cooked very, very well. I told the waiter that,” the woman replied.

  “If you wanted dry salmon there are about a hundred chain restaurants you could go to,” Gabe growled. “At Bread and Vine, we prepare salmon the way it was meant to be cooked.”

  The young woman’s lip trembled. “But that’s not what I wanted.”

  The woman’s date stood up. “We’ve waited months to eat here. This is an important night for us. I’d like to see the manager. This is unacceptable!”

  “I’m the chef, and I’m the owner. The salmon is fucking perfect. She can eat it, or you both can leave.”

  A collective gasp enveloped the restaurant.

  Gabe glanced around the room. Nobody moved a muscle, but everybody was holding up their phone, recording his tantrum.

  A waitress tapped his shoulder. “Chef, you’re needed in the kitchen.”

  He looked down at the young server with her tight blond curls.

  Jesus, what was he doing?

  He stared blankly at her.

  She gave him a weak smile. “I’m told it’s quite urgent, chef.”

  Gabe glanced back at the couple. The woman was sobbing into her napkin while her date tried to console her. A ring box sat open and empty on the table, and a gold band with a tiny chip of
a diamond glinted on the woman’s finger.

  The young man looked up at him. His eyes burned hot. “You have ruined this night for us.” He grabbed the ring box and helped his fiancée to her feet. The couple stormed through the bistro and out the door. A harried hostess looked back and forth between Gabe and the entrance as more patrons filed out the door, shaking their heads in disgust.

  Gabe leaned over a stack of invoices as he worked his way through the mountain of papers and inquiries that had landed on his desk while he was away. He rubbed his neck, sat back in his chair, and glanced out his office window into the kitchen. The clink of pans and the whoosh of the industrial dishwasher hummed as the staff cleaned up after the dinner service. A quick knock on the closed door caught his attention.

  “Come in.”

  After his outburst, he had retreated here, surrounded by schedules and vendor lists.

  “Congratulations,” Corbyn said. He glanced at his phone then tucked it into his breast pocket.

  Gabe sat back in his chair and folded his arms. “Let me guess. That couple returned and apologized for sending a perfectly cooked plate back to the kitchen.”

  “No, my friend, believe it or not, you don’t always walk on water.” Corbyn’s lips curled into a wry grin. “But you’ve gone viral.”

  “Fuck,” Gabe said on a tight breath.

  Corbyn retrieved his phone and held it out for him to see. “Hottie Chef Throws Hissy Fit. That one’s got to be my favorite.”

  Gabe shook his head. “I’d like to reach out to the couple. We should at least have an email from when they booked.”

  “Leo’s already talked to them. He comped them a bunch of dinners at his other restaurants. They had just gotten engaged right before your special delivery to their table. Leo said the kid was polite when he spoke with him. The story is, he’d been saving up to bring his girl here because you were her favorite chef. He thought he’d make it extra special by popping the question.”

  Gabe ran his hands through his hair. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

  “Don’t use up all your fucks, handsome. There’s more.”