Julian pushes to his feet and yells, “It wasn’t your fault, you ass!”
“I know. I’ve regretted leaving since the minute I closed the door behind me.”
“Good. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Jonas, I didn’t bring this up in front of Karlson because he harbors enough guilt as it is. Mom wasn’t supposed to work that day. She was called into work because someone had a baby. It had nothing to do with her being late; she was late already, you idiot.”
“A baby?” I repeat.
Exasperatedly, Julian asks, “When is Chelsea’s birthday, Jonas?”
“Oh, my God. The day after Mom died.” Suddenly a lifetime of justifications and fears—including the ones that irrationally sprung up in Trina’s apartment—suddenly cause my world to tilt on its axis. “Mom was covering for Aunt Lucy.” The words come out slowly as I piece together years of my life in a matter of moments. “It wasn’t the apple,” I repeat woodenly.
“I can’t believe you’ve been blaming yourself all these years.” Julian comes to stand next to me. His hands clamp down on my shoulders. “You are not to blame, Jonas. Bad things happen for a reason; we’re just not always privy to them. Especially not at six.” His voice is as sad as my face. Then it brightens. “But we had each other, we had Chelsea, Karlson, and Lucy. That’s so much more than other people had.”
I think back to what Trina told me about how lonely she was growing up with a mother who didn’t seem to care, and I manage to choke out, “You’re right.”
“What would happen if Trina didn’t come back into your life?”
I hedge. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”
“Jonas,” Julian warns.
Letting out a deep breath, I wander over to a framed picture of me, Mom, and Julian taken so many years ago. “She’s already made the first half of my life mean nothing at all. With her in it, the world’s a completely different place. The minute I met her, I began to change.” Without turning, I let the pieces of my heart spill out onto the floor. “On the surface, we’re so different, but that’s a good thing. I’m forced to find the similarities, and they’re the important ones—love of family and friends, dedication, and a willingness to work hard. Trina’s loving and kind, but not a doormat. She challenges me and makes me want to be a better man. And because I was afraid, I may have lost it all,” I spit out. “What would happen in the second half? I’m very much afraid it would be like the first—empty.”
There’s an oppressive silence in the room that lasts so long, I wonder if Julian slipped out during my tirade. When I turn around, he’s thoughtful.
“What?” I demand.
“From what you described, she’s strong.”
“The strongest woman I know.” My voice has more than a touch of pride in it.
“And you said she’s determined.”
“Very.”
“I think you’re screwed.”
I deflate like a balloon. “What do you mean?” I whisper.
“I think you’d better figure out a way to get her friends and family on your side, brother. Otherwise, there’s no way a woman who’s been hurt that badly is going to give you the opportunity to let you in enough again.” I gape at my brother when he merely shrugs. “I wish I had better advice for you.”
“You have better advice for the baggage handler from JFK who cheated on his wife,” I retort bitterly.
“This woman needs to know she’s going to get everything from you, Jonas. That includes trust and respect. Now, how are you going to go about showing her you’re ready to give her those?” he demands.
And like a flash, the words come. But not for a text.
For the article I’m supposed to type about the woman I’m falling for who has to bake for me in less than seven days.
“Get out,” I order hoarsely. “I have a few people to touch base with, and then I have work to do.”
“Did you figure it out?”
“Maybe.” Without hesitation, I pull my brother in close. “Love you.”
There’s a warm chuckle next to my ear. “I can’t wait to find out when you say those words to her for the first time. She’s a lucky woman.” Pulling back, he laughs when I growl in his face. Backing away, Julian holds up his hands. “I’ll just let myself out.”
“While you’re still breathing,” I retort, but even as I say that, I’m making my way to the bedroom to hit the shower.
I need to be clean and armored when I head to the Seduction kitchen.
“Are you crazy?” Elle screeches at me. “Do you really think I’d do diddly dick to help you? You…you…yellow-belly louse?”
I grin. I can’t help it. Trina’s best friend is nothing short of priceless. Whomever ends up with this woman is going to be kept on his toes the rest of his life. “Elle, please listen.”
“I should go find a paddle to whack you upside the head before I do. Better yet, maybe I’ll go grab my sharpest knife,” she declares loyally. Her violet eyes shoot daggers at me before she leans forward to hiss, “You hurt her, Jonas. Give me one good reason why I should listen to your sorry excuses?”
“Because of the apples,” I say calmly, even though I’m anything but.
Elle rears back as if I’m insane. “Excuse me?”
While I realize Trina hasn’t shared anything about my avarice toward apples, either the professional challenge or the personal knowledge she shares, it makes my task that much harder. Pulling out an envelope, I slide it across the table. “Read and sign this. Then I can tell you everything.”
Slipping the nondisclosure agreement from the envelope, she hurls it back at me before declaring, “I’m not signing shit.”
Calmly, I stack the papers together before placing them, with a pen, back in front of Elle. “Read the damn document, Eleanor,” I recommend. Her eyes widen when I use her full name as Trina’s never used it in front of me.
Snatching the papers up, the pen rolls harmlessly toward the center of the table. I wait for the moment when Elle realizes the NDA isn’t between me and her, but, “It’s a special NDA between me and the Seduction Restaurant Group? Why?” Her voice is laced with confusion.
“I can’t tell you without you signing, Elle.”
“Where is the damn pen?” Quickly scrawling her name, she refolds the papers and slaps them down between us. “Now, what information is so secretive that I’m about to find out about the tasting menu for the night you’re reviewing the restaurant. Something I presume you already know, judging by the look on your face.” Just as I’m about to answer her, Elle aims true with her next words. “Furthermore, what the hell does this have to do with the fact Trina’s been crying herself to sleep every night since the accident?”
Taking a deep breath, I simply say, “Because I’m the reason behind the idea for all of it.”
Sitting back, she crosses her arms across her chest, glares at me, and barks, “Explain.”
Without further delay, I do.
Forty-five minutes later, Elle’s tough facade has cracked. At one point, she called Baptiste for a glass of water. At first, I thought she was going to throw it at me, but she turned away and drank it. “Sorry, I just needed a moment. Go on.”
So, I did. It got hard when I explained how the feelings I was having for Trina made me worry I wasn’t going to be objective, so we worked out this arrangement for the menu. Her hand clenched into a fist on the table. When I told Elle I just knew I caused Trina’s accident with the mixer, her whispered “Oh, Jonas” almost broke me in two.
“Then she was dreaming. She kept calling out all these recipes,” I whisper, tormented.
“She does that.” Elle’s voice is sadly amused. My head snaps up. “Used to drive me mad when we lived together. She’d be reciting recipes for these amazing dishes in her sleep, and I’d wake up hungry. I put on ten pounds when we lived together because I ended up baking that shit in the middle of the night.”
I bark out a laugh before her next words sober me again. “So
, you know what they’re making?” Elle pointedly asks me.
I shake my head. “Only the featured ingredients. I knew the talent in this kitchen could force me to reevaluate the way I perceived things. Trina has done that so often over the last month, from small things like places to eat to enormous things like apples. She’s constantly changing my misconceptions and making me a better man. And I hurt her and let her down.” My head is in my hands as soon as the words are out of my mouth.
There’s silence between us when I hear Elle’s chair scrape back. Overwhelmed, I realize this is it. I inhale sharply and am about to let it all out when her hand landing on my shoulder causes my lungs to constrict.
“I think you let yourself down. And that’s why you’re beating yourself up.”
What am I supposed to say to that? Standing, I hold out a hand. “I appreciate you listening,” I state formally.
“Jesus, you’re as much of a daft bat as she is.” The next moment, my arms are filled with a petite curvaceous redhead. Pulling back, I’m startled to find Elle wiping her fingers under her eyes. “She’s hurting, Jonas. You’re going to have to say a lot in a short amount of time to get through to her,” Elle warns me.
A weight lifts from my chest. “You think I’ll have a chance of her forgiving me?” I manage to get out.
A watery laugh escapes. “I think you need to give her a few days to get through the worst of the pain. Both of you need to get through this review. Then get in her face.”
“Do you think it will work?” I ask anxiously.
“I think no one’s cared enough to try,” she says evasively.
It’s not the answer I want, but it’s better than I expected when I came down here. “You’re one in a million, Elle. Trina’s lucky to have you.” I turn to head out the front doors when I hear my name called out behind me. “Yes?” I stop and turn.
“I don’t suppose you have any single relatives,” Elle jokes.
I’m about to come back with a teasing comment when something strikes me hard. Standing there in the middle of the sexiest restaurant in New York, it strikes me how lonely the vivacious Elle Bruder truly is. So, instead of teasing, I call back, “I’ll work on that for you.”
Her eyes pop, before she tosses her head with a laugh and heads back toward the kitchen.
Meanwhile, I’m mentally adjusting small things I’ve already written for the article in my brother’s column. Later I’ll give some thought to him and the firecracker I just encountered.
Much later.
Chapter 30
Trina
It’s been days since I’ve received a text from Jonas. It’s well and truly over. As I ride the subway to work tonight, I curse my stubbornness for not answering him once, even if it was just to tell him I needed time.
That’s all I need, isn’t it? Time. Time to heal from the physical pain and the emotional pain I was shocked he could inflict on me.
Elle’s been over the last several days, showing up with CORE water, protein bars, and a hug. “Remember what the doctor said. You need extra minerals, protein every few hours, extra water, and lots of rest. This should do the trick.”
And the first time she stood at my door, I cried because I was thrilled to see her and distraught because I was hoping it was Jonas.
The next day, his texts started, but by then, I began to slowly close out the pain. “After all,” I rationed to Elle, “I have two kids who are my priority.”
“Annie and Chris will never not be your priority, darling.” Handing me a perfectly scrambled plate of eggs, she picked up her own and sat at my feet. “But what does all of this make you feel?”
“Like crying,” I blurted out. “He just walked out, Elle. I was hurting and he left me.”
Just before she shoved in a mouthful of eggs, she paused to ask, “Do you think he had a reason?”
I tossed her my phone. “Here. This is what he’s been saying.”
Reading it, she hummed before saying, “You’re new, T. And you haven’t said anything, but I suspect he has something in his past. Am I wrong?”
“No, but it’s not mine to share.” At least, I thought miserably, until after the cook-off.
“Then think about it. Get well. And when you’re ready, reach out.”
Now, as the train rocks back and forth, her words ricochet inside my mind when I should be thinking of apple recipes to knock his socks off. “We both made mistakes. Do they cancel each other out?”
An elderly woman squished next to me reaches over and pats my knee. “Most times they do, dear.”
I hold on to her words with all my heart as we pull into Grand Central Station. Bending over, I pull my emergency $20 from my wallet and press it into her hand. “Thanks,” I whisper, before I dash off the train.
She may need it; she may not. But somehow, her words mean more than the money.
They’ll help me get through the night ahead.
The kitchen at Seduction has never been this tense, even when Chef Spencer was still in charge. All of the executive chefs have the same gobsmacked look on their faces I do. It wasn’t real until the main ingredients were delivered to our stations a short while ago.
My stomach churns when I realize this isn’t a list of Jonas’s most hated foods. It’s life telling me we aren’t meant to be together in living color. With a horrified spin, I realized the items my coworkers are struggling to incorporate into a five-star meal had entered the life of Jonas Rice at least once while we were together.
Maybe it wasn’t strawberry jelly that Jonas ate in Central Park, but it was jelly nonetheless. And right now, the appetizer chef is turning the jar over and over in his hands, wincing.
The white bread on the salad station we fed to my kids at the zoo is causing a baffled look on the salad chef’s face.
And then there are, of course, the pounds of Gala apples to be peeled in front of me.
The only thing I can’t lay claim to are the raw Rocky Mountain Oysters the entree chef is cursing over. But then, those might be the balls Jonas thought he might have handed to me. A crazed giggle escapes before I turn my back on the others.
Leaning my gloved hands on top of my station, I shove aside the mental and physical pain to rack my memory to think of any hint of how I can help out my team. “Can someone turn on some damn music in here?” I shout. “It’s so quiet I can’t think.”
There’s a murmured appreciation from those in the know. The rest of the kitchen staff just raises their brows as Taylor Swift comes through the speakers. “You were beginning to be all I wanted,” I murmur as I pick up the first apple and test its weight in the palm of my hand. I’m just about to slice it in half to determine if the seeds are dark, denoting its ripeness, when suddenly it hits me.
Jelly. White bread. Apples. “Country dinner!” I scream at the top of my lungs. I groan as I hold a hand to my aching jaw.
Immediately three chefs and Chef Sterling are in my space. “What are you yelling about?” Sterling demands.
Babbling, I point to each of the chefs. “All of our foods can be combined into one cohesive meal.”
Sterling’s eyes narrow to slits. “Walk me through it.”
I don’t take the time to argue.
“Mrs. McPhearson brought over a bunch of magazines while I was home last week. And one of them talked about Southern comfort foods.” I tick on my fingers. “Grape jelly meatballs. Cornbread salad. Jambalaya. And freaking all-American apple pie. We can’t cook something that’s not cohesive. We have to play to our biggest strength—the fact we’re an amazing team, something I’ve been bragging about to Jonas Rice in every interview I’ve given. So, let’s put our heads together and come up with a play off an old-fashioned country dinner that will send him scurrying back to his computer.”
By the time I’m done, there’s a pervasive relief among all of us. “At least, that’s what I’m thinking.”
Sterling is about to open her mouth when suddenly there’s a clamor at the back door. “Why i
s no one cooking? Isn’t Jonas Rice supposed to be coming here shortly?” A curvaceous brunette shrugs into a chef’s coat and twists her hair up before tucking it beneath a net and a tall white cap. When she turns, I gasp as the impossible beauty of her features. She might be one of the sexiest women I’ve ever seen. But what is she doing walking into our kitchen as if she owns it?
Then Sterling groans, “You just had to come, didn’t you, Mia?”
Mia? This woman is Chef Mia Palazzo? Suddenly my idea doesn’t seem quite as brilliant as it did just a few moments ago. Anxious, I wait for the introductions. Chef Palazzo doesn’t hesitate to shake my hand, nor does she shy away from asking, “Are you going to be at the top of your game with that bump, Chef Paxton?”
“Yes, Chef.”
“She’s more than at the top of her game,” Sterling comments wryly.
“Oh?” Palazzo queries with a raised brow.
Quickly outlining my idea, my stomach twists until Mia Palazzo barks out a laugh. “God, it’s brilliant. Jonas Rice is going to be buried alive by the food served tonight anyway. Why not send him on his way happily with a twist on dishes I’ve eaten at a few wakes?” She claps her hands together. “Carry on, Chefs.”
“This may work,” I murmur to myself as I gather the apples into a bowl to rinse them.
“Yes, Chef Paxton, it just might.” I’m startled when Chef Palazzo answers me. Her chin jerks up. “So far, I’m impressed. Keep it up.”
“Yes, Chef,” I answer automatically. But the night is still beginning. Just because I came up with the idea, I still have to execute my portion of dessert.
And while Jonas may hate the other foods, there’s a reason he despises apples—one he’ll never get over.
So far, there’s been no yelling from the dining room. The first course of bison and pork meatballs served over polenta with a grape jelly barbeque sauce was served followed by a lighter, but still in theme, tomato, peach, and white bread panzanella salad made with a light vinaigrette dressing. The third course of gumbo—featuring the Rocky Mountain oysters—is about to be served while I finish up dessert.
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