Recipe for Redemption--A Clean Romance

by Anna J. Stewart

  Exhaustion dried up her tears and cut through her desperation. “In hindsight I should have told you, but I was afraid you’d take off and I’d be stuck.” He wanted the truth? Better late than never. “It wasn’t as if we were on the best of terms starting out, and by the time I had something to worry about, it was too late. I didn’t have another choice, Jason! I had to win.”

  “Except you didn’t win, did you? And thanks to you and your lies, I’m right back where I started. No, that’s wrong. I’m even worse off. What a mess. I’m going to have to put Gary into major damage-control mode in the hopes we can salvage something before this story blows wide.” He paced in front of the window, the color on his face hotter than a wildfire in summer. “When the board hears about this, if they haven’t already, and the rest of the media picks up on me cheating again, that site is right—they’re going to rescind the offer and my father’s going to step right in and destroy what’s left of Corwin Brothers. It’s like David dying all over again.”

  “You can’t think this is what I wanted.” Abby’s heart broke at the thought of him losing his brother a second time. Was he right? Was this all her fault? “Jason, I know how hard you’ve fought to get back what you have, to find who you are again.” How had this all gone so wrong? How had she not seen... “You’re the last person I wanted to get hurt in all of this.”

  “You could have fooled me. You should have trusted me, Abby. Right from the start.”

  “I did what I had to do. With what few options I had then. You of all people should know about hindsight, how easy it is to see that you should have done things differently. The Flutterby is all I have to protect my family. Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same if our places were reversed. If you had the chance to save Corwin Brothers, or another chance to save David, tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

  He stared at her, those intoxicating blue eyes of his bright in the dim light of her living room. For a moment, she thought maybe she’d gotten through. That he understood. That he could forgive her.

  “I can tell you one thing, Abby,” he said finally. “I wouldn’t have used the one person who was on my side from the start, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have told them I love them. You know what it took for me to decide to go back to New York, to even think about opening those doors again. To fight for my company, and all the while this was hanging over my head like some giant invisible guillotine.”

  “I never would have—” His words stung. She’d never felt so low.

  “Stop. Just stop. I can’t believe anything you say right now.”

  “Jason, please. You’re wrong about all this. Let’s talk this out. I love you. I—” She would not break. She would not cry. Not as he turned his back on her. Not as he walked to the door. Not as she feared she’d never see him again. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Lose me?” He looked over his shoulder at her, the icy fury in his eyes knocking her back a step. “Abby, I don’t think you understand. Hearing all this? Knowing you lied to me? You never had me.”

  He closed the door behind him.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “AH, ABBY. WONDERFUL.” Alice beamed at Abby as she stepped into her grandmother’s private hospital room. She stacked a second empty lime gelatin container on her table. “Eloise and I were just chatting—” She broke off as she took in Abby’s red-rimmed eyes and strained face. “What’s the matter?”

  “Gran, I need to talk to you about some things.” Abby hugged her arms around her torso and squeezed. Maybe she’d run out of breath before having to deal with her grandmother’s disappointment.

  “Why don’t I go get some coffee,” Eloise said. She stopped next to Abby and touched gentle fingers to her arm.

  Abby gave her a weak smile.

  “Come. Sit.” Alice patted the bed. She reached her grandmother and the tears returned. Tears that had refused to fall. Tears that had lodged painfully in her throat as she climbed the stairs to Jason’s room this morning before being told by Lori that he’d checked out late last night.

  She’d had so much to gain it didn’t seem possible she’d lost everything. It was as if she’d been catapulted into someone else’s nightmare and she couldn’t wake up. She didn’t even have Roger left to rail at. He and the rest of the NCN gang had left early this morning to finish the festival in Monterey.

  “What’s all this?” Alice grabbed hold of Abby’s hand and tugged her onto the thin mattress.

  “Gran.” Abby sobbed, unable to keep it inside any longer. “I’ve been trying so hard...” How did she tell her grandmother she’d failed? That she’d broken the promises she’d made to always keep Gran safe? “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Hush, now.” Alice’s soft command only added to the weight on Abby’s heart. “Come here.” She held out her uninjured arm. Abby couldn’t resist. She lay beside her, curling into her grandmother in the same way she had when she was a little girl. When her grandmother and grandfather could fix everything. Except Gran couldn’t fix this. Abby closed her eyes as Alice’s fingers stroked her hair. This was what she’d needed. “Now tell me what’s wrong. Is this about your young man?”

  “No,” Abby whispered. She didn’t want to think about Jason. Couldn’t think about him or that shocked look of betrayal that would haunt her. But how could she not when all that rang in her ears was the disbelief and disappointment he’d thrown at her? “Not only. There’s more. So much more.”

  “Then out with it. It’s not doing you any good keeping it inside. If anything, it’s breaking your heart.”

  It took her a good while to find the words let alone the courage to come clean. When she did, the dam cracked. “It started a couple of weeks ago when I visited Mr. V in the hospital.” The rest of the story spilled out, the floodgates open. Her panic, her determination, the stress of the contest, of paying the bills and keeping the secret about the Flutterby tumbled out of her, and as she released the details, the pressure on her chest loosened.

  Despite the regret and grief, she felt better for having purged herself of what had been happening the last few weeks.

  Her grandmother listened, still stroking her hair in the same controlled motion that made it impossible for Abby to understand what she was thinking or feeling. She only needed to know Gran, as always, was there.

  “I’m so sorry, Gran. I’ve tried everything I can think of, but there’s no way to save the Flutterby now. Mr. V’s going to have to sell, which means we have to move. But I’ll find us a place.” She clenched her fists. “I’m not going to let you go to a care facility or home. I don’t care what I have to do, where I have to work, but—”

  “Hush, Abby.” Alice’s hands stilled. “That’s a discussion for another time. I don’t know what got into you that you didn’t think you could come to me with all this.”

  “You sound like Jason.” Abby caught her lip between her teeth and struggled against a new wave of pain. “I lied to him, Gran. About so many things, and now he’s suffering the fallout that should have been mine. He’s so angry.”

  “What’s that?” Alice tucked her chin into her chest as Abby shifted her head. The stern look on her grandmother’s face surprised her. “Even knowing you lost on purpose to protect him?”

  Abby hesitated.

  “Abigail Marie Manning!” Sometimes her grandmother’s strength and vehemence astonished her. “You didn’t tell him? What is wrong with you?”

  “It wouldn’t have made a difference, Gran.” It wouldn’t have changed anything. He’d still have to scramble, to try to fix what she’d destroyed. Besides, she wasn’t sure he would have believed her. How could she expect him to? “He’s gone.”

  “Gone? Gone where?”

  Abby almost laughed. In spite of everything else she’d told her grandmother, Jason’s leaving was what outraged her? “Off to New Yor
k, I assume.”

  “And what are you going to do about it?”

  Do about it? What right did she have to do anything about it? She’d done the one thing she knew was unforgivable in Jason’s eyes: she’d betrayed him. “Right now there’s nothing I can do.” Maybe in time... Abby pushed herself up and wiped her face clean of the tears. “It’s my own fault, Gran. Some mistakes can’t be undone.” No matter how much she wished otherwise.

  * * *

  A KNOCK SOUNDED on the glass door of JD’s as Jason locked up. “We’re closed!” he called over his shoulder. He froze as he recognized that black hoodie. What the— He twisted the lock and wrenched open the door. “What are you doing here?”

  “I come in peace.” Marcus Aiken raised his hands as if in surrender. “I know I have no right to ask, but someone suggested I talk to you. May I come in?”

  Jason sighed. When was Gary going to stop meddling? It was bad enough he was playing Abby advocate, not that there was much time to talk about anything other than Corwin Brothers business the last few days. “I was just going to fix myself something to eat. You want?”

  Surprise flashed on Marcus’s face before he nodded and stepped inside. “Who am I to turn down a Jason Corwin dinner?” He glanced around the empty restaurant. “New business hours? I thought JD’s used to be open until 1:00 a.m.?”

  “We’re working out some new kinks.” Jason locked up again and headed into the kitchen. “Thanks to some detrimental reorganizing by my father,” including getting rid of most of the JD’s staff who had remained loyal to Jason, “ten is as late as we can manage right now.” At least Edward had left the decor alone. From the elegant teakwood bar to the thin arches over individual seating areas, the draped tables were perfectly arranged for tomorrow night’s pretheater service.

  “Does that mean things are settled with the board of directors?” Marcus followed Jason into the spacious, orderly stainless steel kitchen that lacked that punch of character Jason recalled from the Flutterby. “They came around after all?”

  “After I pretty much promised them my firstborn.” Jason pulled out the beef patties he’d made earlier in the evening and slapped them on the grill top. The normally satisfying sizzle didn’t make a dent in his sullen mood. Nothing had in the week he’d been home. Nothing felt right. Nothing felt complete. The New York scene bored him. The office bored him, but the work had to be done. “The formal vote isn’t until tomorrow, but one thing riding out a national scandal does is prepare you for the next one. Apparently the board decided I couldn’t do a worse job than my father, so.”

  He shrugged. “In the meantime, I’ve been spending most of my days using what capital we have left to buy ourselves out of the contracts he got us into.” He’d spend a small fortune when all was said and done, but he would, once and for all, cut his father out completely. The future was too bright to put it at risk again. He was scheduled to meet with the CEO of Lansing Hotels, the same man David had been on his way to consult with the night of the crash. Apparently David hadn’t been their focus: he had. It was Jason’s cooking that interested them, his point of view, his dedication. And they were definitely encouraging about his farm-to-table idea, especially when it came to their smaller hotels.

  If only all of this didn’t sound so lonely.

  “Since you’re here.” Jason tossed two russet potatoes at Marcus. “Make yourself useful. Fryer’s over there.”

  “Some things never change.” Marcus took off his hoodie. “At your beck and call once again.”

  “Last I heard you were over at Clementine’s,” Jason said. The modern bistro had been getting good word of mouth since it opened late last year, mostly due to Marcus’s unique and enthusiastic take on classic fare. “Your night off?”

  “No.” Marcus grabbed a knife and hacked off the ends of the spuds. “I quit. Before I went out to California. I am officially unemployed.”

  Jason turned from the fridge. Now, that he hadn’t expected. “Except for your contract with the National Cooking Network. You’ve got a couple new shows in the pipeline, from what I hear.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Depends on how my meeting with the network president goes tomorrow morning. After what went down in Butterfly Harbor, he needs to be made aware of just how dangerous Roger is.”

  “You’re not going to convince the network brass Roger was behind that leaked story.” But Jason would go to his grave knowing he was.

  “Honestly? Falsely ratting you out to the press is the least of his sins, Jason. You never made a deal with that particular devil, did you?”

  “He did his best, but no. That’s where it helped being behind the scenes most of the time. He ran David ragged, though, and made some inroads, I suppose.” Jason set the vegetables and condiments on the counter. Where was this going, exactly?

  “The man should come with a warning bell. It took me a while, but I finally woke up. That’s why I’m here.” He took a deep breath. “It’s time to come clean with you.”

  “Clean about what?”

  “What really happened during that competition you went into for David.” Marcus set his knife down and gripped the edge of the counter. “Roger told me if I sabotaged your meal during the competition and then told on you, he’d give me my own show. I’d be his new go-to for emceeing and any other specials he produced. His new star.”

  “And you agreed?” Was there anyone who hadn’t betrayed him? “David and I gave you your first job. We even helped you pay off your tuition bills.” Hadn’t their support brokered any goodwill or loyalty?

  “Yeah, well, it’s a little hard to shine in a room full of stars. And Roger can read people.” He snapped his fingers. “He saw I wasn’t happy, that I was ambitious. And way too cocky. I wanted to get to the top, but wasn’t interested in paying my dues to get there. I also didn’t want to be under your and David’s thumbs for the rest of my life.”

  “You wouldn’t have been.” Jason couldn’t believe this. Yet another person who had lied to him. Someone else who had used him. “But I guess it’s too late to convince you of that. Come on.” He waved his hand. “You’re in this deep. Might as well come out with the rest of it. What did you do to me at the competition?”

  “Replaced the all-purpose flour you were supposed to use for the popovers with pastry flour.” Marcus flinched and returned his attention to the potatoes that could now be considered slivers. “When they didn’t rise, I made the suggestion you use what I cooked. I am so sorry, Jason. I know I have no right to expect your forgiveness—”

  “You made the suggestion?” Jason frowned. Truth be told, he didn’t remember a whole lot about that night. Only that he’d defended himself against the indefensible. The evidence was right there. In full color on the internet. “I don’t remember it that way.”

  “Of course you don’t. You’re not a cheater, Jason. I’ve never met anyone with more integrity than you. Everyone knew your mind wasn’t in the game. How could it be when David hadn’t even been gone two months? That made Roger’s plan all the easier,” Marcus said. “Even Shelly Sengal went to the producers and suggested they postpone the telecast, but Roger and your father convinced the network brass—”

  “Wait.” Jason’s voice snapped like a whip. “What does my father have to do with this? He was there?” That he definitely didn’t remember. “During the competition?” That wasn’t right.

  “Sure.” Marcus nodded. “He was in the sound booth most of the time. I saw him myself talking off and on all night with Roger. You didn’t know your dad and Roger are friends?”

  “No.” Suddenly so many things made sense. Beginning and ending with that Roasted&Skewered story. “No, I did not.”

  “Well, like you said. Competitions have never been your forte.”

  “Don’t make excuses for me, Marcus. And while I’ll happily give you grief for putting the plan in
motion, the outcome doesn’t change,” Jason said. “Your idea, Roger’s or even mine, when push came to shove, I lied. But.” He gave Marcus a few extra seconds to suffer. “I appreciate you telling me the truth.”

  “Yeah, well, Abby was the one who suggested I talk to you about it. I didn’t buy into it at first, but after what Roger pulled on her, and what she did for you at the festival, I couldn’t very well not follow through.”

  Jason’s ears roared. He could smell burning meat on the stove, he couldn’t seem to move. “What do you mean, what Abby did for me?”

  “Ah, man.” Marcus squeezed his eyes shut. “I’ve probably said too much already.”

  “Oh, no. Don’t you dare back down now. What do you think you know about Abby?”

  “That depends,” Marcus hedged. “What do you think you know?”

  “That she fraudulently signed that contract and then threw the competition to protect herself.” And the inn. And Alice. And Mr. V... “He was going to out her and the entire town on TV.”

  “That’s what she told you?” Marcus looked as if a feather could have pushed him over. “No, no, no. I was there, Jason. I heard most of what he said to her. I heard enough to know it wasn’t Abby that Roger threatened. It was you, Jason. She threw that competition to protect you.”

  Jason opened his mouth to demand more information, only to have it slam shut again as the smoke alarm blared.

  “Come on, David!” Jason blasted and grabbed the mop. “Stop it, already! I get the message.” He rammed the handle at the detector until it dropped from the ceiling.

  Marcus stared at him as Jason waved his way through the smoke and threw the burgers in the trash. He aimed his metal spatula at his former sous chef and pinned him with a deadly stare. “You. Start over. From the beginning. And don’t leave anything out.”

  * * *

  “WHAT DO YOU mean your parents’ rings are gone?” Holly set a pot of tea on Abby’s coffee table and sat next to her on the sofa.