Opposites Attract: The complete box set
Page 93
“You’re not going to run her into the ground,” he countered patiently.
“Fine. I’ll do something worse. Set her on fire. Blow her up. Send her to the freaking moon.” Hysteria clawed up my throat and jumped out of my mouth. “Ezra, I’m not qualified for this restaurant! Are you crazy?”
His smile finally fell, revealing his signature frown. “Dillon, are you? This is an opportunity of a lifetime.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Yeah, an opportunity to watch my career go up in flames. And I’ll never forgive you if you fire me. Which is bound to happen, since I’m not qualified for this job. And then we’ll be estranged. Do you want to be estranged?”
“You’ll do fine—”
“I’m not a good enough chef for Bianca, Ezra. I don’t want her. At least not yet.”
His eyebrows scrunched together in defeat. “I can’t wait any longer. Bianca needs a leader. And I want you. If I give her to someone else, they won’t only stand-in. I’ll find the best chef I can get my hands on. If you don’t take her now, she might never be yours.”
“Ezra, goddamnit. Let me get my feet beneath me before you start handing out jobs like this.”
He shook his head. “I wish I could.”
The kitchen door swung open and our friends burst out into the dining room. “Congratulations!” they shouted in unison.
I resisted the urge to cry.
Molly and Vera walked out, both hands laden with balloons. Kaya held a ridiculously expensive bottle of champagne. Wyatt walked beside her holding a stark white chef’s hat in his hand, marked with Bianca’s lily emblem. Killian followed behind all of them, pushing a cart with a monstrosity of a cake on it.
I blinked at the frosted eyesore. Congratulations Chef Dillon.
“Is that from Costco?”
The lot of them burst into laughter. Explanations of time constraints and nobody knew who exactly was in charge of it and what kind of cake did I like anyway were shouted back and forth.
It was hard not to smile when my friends filled this space and laughter rang through the air. It was hard not to take in the elegant décor and open design and the Bianca’s eyes, the mural that Molly had painted so perfectly on the long wall, and not want to make this place mine. It was even harder to remember Bianca’s sullied reputation and the difficulties she’d been through over the last several years and not want to bring her back to life.
I wanted this place.
I wanted her more than I wanted my next breath.
But what Ezra failed to see was that I just wasn’t good enough for her.
I was a newbie. Green at best. Hopelessly ignorant in my worst moments. I was still navigating waters of not even knowing what I didn’t know.
Sure, I’d worked in kitchens since I started culinary school. I worked as the maître d’ before that. My brother was a restaurant business genius. And my best friends were all chefs.
Just like most things in my picture-perfect life, I had the pedigree for this job. I just didn’t have the experience. Or the ability. Or the fucking know-how. And how dare Ezra dangle this in front of me when he knew I’d have to turn it down.
“She doesn’t want it.” Ezra’s sullen voice cut through the joy in the room and turned the atmosphere to ice.
God, he could be a true bastard when he wanted to be.
Killian was the first to speak. His disbelieving “What?” echoed through the room.
“She doesn’t want Bianca. There’s no reason to celebrate.”
Every gaze in the room swiveled to me. They looked at me like I was crazy. And maybe I was for turning down this once in a lifetime opportunity, as Ezra had so articulately put it.
But I would have been crazier to take it.
Their reaction churned in my stomach and my chest burned with the desperation to please these people I loved so much. They knew me as fine. Everything is fine. Everything is always fine.
Their expressions reflected utter disbelief. It would make sense for me to take this job, to take my place among them.
Each of them owning or running their own kitchen. Each of them career-oriented and relentlessly driven. These were the best of the fine dining best in Durham. These were the influencers that shaped culinary culture in our part of the world.
And why wouldn’t I want to join them in their quest to give the masses the best dining experience on the planet? Why wasn’t I part of the Durham, North Carolina Food Revolution?
Why didn’t I want to carve my name in the chopping block of who’s who in the holy, almighty food-dom?
But it wasn’t fair to compare me to them. Or even put my name in the same category.
They were experts at their craft.
And I was still learning from them.
How could I ever become one of them?
The room settled in tense silence. I opened my mouth to explain or excuse my answer or say something—anything—but nothing came out.
“We’re still eating the cake though, right?”
Everyone in the room moved at the same time, our bodies in complete sync as we turned toward the voice that had broken the frozen tension in the room. Vann Delane leaned against the wall next to the in and out doors to the kitchen, his arms folded over his chest, his legs crossed at the ankles, his shoulders slouched casually.
“Are you serious?” Vera snapped at him.
He shrugged, his smooth chin jutting toward the metal cart with the white-frosted Costco cake on top of it. “I’m just saying, it’s a good cake. We shouldn’t let it go to waste.”
I worked my jaw back and forth feeling irrationally furious with this veritable stranger in the room. Sure, everyone else was well acquainted with Vera’s granola-loving brother. But I wasn’t. And this was my party, damn it.
Er, my pity party.
He could take the cake and shove it down his biker shorts.
(Not that he was dressed in biker shorts now. Unless they were hidden beneath his slim-fitting maroon pants.)
Vera spoke up before I could voice my opinion out loud. “Since when do you eat cake?”
“Why wouldn’t I eat cake?”
“It has sugar in it,” Vera reminded him. “And gluten. It’s jam-packed with gluten.”
He had the audacity to look offended. “I’m not gluten free.”
Vera raised her eyebrows.
He shrugged. “I avoid it when I can. But I’m not anti-gluten or anything. In fact, I rather appreciate it. In moderation of course.”
Was this guy serious?
“The cake looks good,” he continued. “I’m just saying, we shouldn’t let it go to waste.”
“Nobody’s going to waste it,” I snapped, unable to hold my tongue any longer. I needed this awkward string of moments to end. I needed these people gone. And for the cake to go. And me too.
Ezra and I probably needed a deeper conversation about why I had to turn down his excessively generous offer. I would need to curl into a ball and cry at some point. And there would be an existential crisis mixed in somewhere. I could do none of those things with all these people—especially the cake-obsessed moron in the corner—standing there taking up space.
Vann pushed off the wall and dropped his hands to his narrow hips. “I’ll get the plates,” he said, like it was the most brilliant idea in the world.
As soon as Vann disappeared back into the kitchen, my friends and brother snapped back to gape at me.
“Why don’t you want to run Bianca?” Kaya demanded, eyebrows bunched together beneath her vibrant purple hair—a recent change for her. She’d called the new, vibrant pixie cut Boss Bitch. The entire package, including the new hair, suited her and Sarita perfectly.
“I do want Bianca,” I answered patiently. “I’m just not ready for her yet.” At their immediate protests, I held up a hand and tried to explain. “You guys, I’ve only been in a real kitchen a little over a year. I’m not qualified for this place. I’m barely competent enough to work for Wyatt.”
“I would be lucky to have you,” Ezra echoed. “Come on, Dillon. I’m so sick of high maintenance chefs that can’t run my restaurants because their gigantic egos are in control and not their reason. Or their raw creativity. I need someone fresh. Young. Terrified of failing.” He took a deep breath and let the full force of his puppy dog eyes work their magic. “I need you, sis.”
There was a weighted pause before Killian said, “I think I’m offended.”
“I think I am too,” Wyatt added.
“That makes three of us,” Kaya grumbled.
Vera leaned forward, tottering on the balls of her feet. “I’ve never worked for Ezra,” she told no one in particular. “I turned him down actually.”
“I’m not ready,” I stated firmly.
Before anyone could argue, Vann stuck his head through the kitchen door and said, “I probably should have asked. But, where exactly are the plates?”
A collective annoyed sigh rippled through the room, but I saw the interruption as an escape. “Here. I can help you.” Shouldering my way through my friends, I scurried after Vann for a moment of quiet.
As soon as I stepped inside the kitchen, I forgot my entire purpose for being there. I walked over to the nearest counter and carefully set my palms on the cool stainless steel. The lights were still off and the only sound filling the empty space was the buzz of the refrigeration units.
“Son of a bitch.” I growled at my manicured nails. I closed my eyes against the spirit of this space, the living, breathing, tenacious something that inhabited this place and the chefs that worked here.
It seeped through my skin and caught fire in my blood. I took a breath, filling my lungs with the contagious hunger to stay here.
“I found these,” Vann announced, interrupting my solitude.
I opened my eyes and found him standing on the other side of the island with a stack of dinner plates in his hand. My muscles tensed out of instinct, assuming he’d manage to drop and shatter them before he made it out the door.
Fear and anxiety and a jumble of idiotic hope tangled in my throat and I was unable to give him better instructions. “What is your obsession with cake anyway?”
Setting the plates on the counter with more finesse than I gave him credit for, he eyed me across the distance with something like arrogant insight. “It’s why I came. Hell, it’s why you came.”
I shook my head, defiant and digging my heels in, set on my decision. My loose, wavy blonde hair dancing around my shoulders like Medusa’s snakes. “It’s not at all why I came. I had no idea any of this was going to happen. Ezra asked me to meet him here to get my advice on a possible new menu. The head chef offer was a total and complete surprise.”
I got the feeling he resisted rolling his eyes when he said, “But you knew it was coming.”
“Y-yeah, maybe,” I conceded, not willing to lie. Ezra had been hinting around about this position since I graduated school. I had known he wanted to give me this restaurant for a long time. And lately I’d realized he wanted to give it to me sooner rather than later. But that didn’t mean I knew he would do it today. Or even in the next five years. “But I was still surprised. I thought he’d at least give me a few years’ experience before he thrust an EC of a lifetime in my face.”
This time he gave into the eyeroll. “So be honest, you were never going to take the job. You should have told him from day one.”
The fire inside me turned into a furious dragon. “Excuse me?”
“We’re here for the cake,” he repeated. “You and me both.”
“What exactly are you saying?”
He pushed the plates to the center of the island and walked closer, dragging his hand over the cool metal surface. “I don’t even know you and I can see this job isn’t for you.”
“And why is that?”
“It’s hard work, for starters. And from what Vera says, the chef that takes over is going to have to be a badass both in the kitchen and in real life. This place needs someone to resuscitate it. Whip it into shape. You’re too soft.”
“Too soft?”
He smiled, but it was teasing… smug. “You’re a good girl, Dillon. Gentle. Delicate… Afraid to hurt anyone’s feelings. This place would chew you up and spit you out. And you know that.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I could have sworn my nails stretched into talons. It was all I could do to keep from launching myself across the counter and wrapping my hands around his throat.
But I didn’t.
I was a lady after all.
Which only doubled my desire to choke this man out since it went along exactly with his accusations.
“I’m not taking this job as a favor to my brother,” I hissed, needing him to understand I wasn’t any of the things he said I was. “If he’d have waited another year, or three, I would have been happy to accept the position. But, the hard facts are, I need more experience. It has nothing to do with how nice of a person I am.”
He shot me a tightlipped smile. “That’s a good line. I guess you need a good line though if you’re going to have to feed it to yourself for the next thirty years.”
He started to walk by me, but my hand shot out and I dug my finger into his bicep before he could get away. “And what the hell do you know?”
Turning his head to face me, he pierced me with gray eyes that were far too observant and volatile for my liking. “I know good girls.” His explanation came out with notes of pure and unfiltered disgust. “And you Dillon Baptiste are a good girl to the core.”
Pulling his arm from my slackening grasp, he left me alone in the kitchen with his words echoing in the air.
Now that I was alone with my thoughts and the abandoned stack of plates, I realized two things.
First, Vann Delane was a complete and total asshole and I was grateful I hadn’t had to put up with his shit prior to today.
And second… he was right. These were excuses I would feed myself for the next thirty years. I knew Ezra was serious about hiring someone permanent. I knew he would search until he found someone suitable for this place—someone who would stick it out till the bitter end. Or at least for a good chunk of the next decade.
If I didn’t take Bianca now, this opportunity might never cross my path again. We might crisscross through life, never aligning, never finding each other, never getting to work together.
I touched the edge of the plate on the top of the stack. Could I live with myself if I walked away today? Could I get over the disappointment of never running this kitchen?
For as long as I’d wanted to be a chef, Bianca had been the carrot I’d chased, dangling at the end of the stick. My gastronomic journey had led me to this exact moment.
Fine, I would have preferred it if this moment had happened a few years down the road. But that was no longer an option.
And Ezra believed in me. That counted for something right? It wasn’t like he could fire me either. If he talked me into this position, he’d have to deal with the consequences.
Good or bad, we were in this together.
Plus, the staff had been running the kitchen without a captain for nearly a year. There was a rumor floating around that sometimes even Ezra filled in. If he could manage this kitchen without a formal education or any real experience, so could I. Right?
Also, my friends meant a lot in the decision-making process. The dining room was filled with competent chefs kicking culinary ass all over Durham. And those same superstar chefs believed in me. They’d come here to celebrate me.
So why was I getting in my own way?
Why was I shrugging off the same dre
am that had gotten me through countless grueling nights working for psychotic egomaniacs? Why was I abandoning the hope that had nursed me through ugly, horrible memories and a life I never wanted to return to? Why was I walking away from a gorgeous kitchen and stunning restaurant with a relatively wonderful reputation? Because I was afraid?
Why? Because I always picked the wrong thing.
For all my pedigree, I had terrible taste.
Six years of celibacy and years of memories I wanted desperately to forget were a testament to that.
I picked up the top plate, my fingers curling around the edges of white porcelain. Bringing the dish to my chest, I hugged it tightly to me, my heart thrumming against it.
Bianca was mine.
She belonged to me.
And I would be a fool to let her go to anyone else.
Spinning on the heel of my studded Sam Edelman bootie, I pushed through the in and out doors again and, still clutching the plate, announced. “I changed my mind. I want Bianca.”
Two
“That was quick.” My brother was huddled together with Killian and Wyatt, no doubt trying to figure out a way to do just that—change my mind.
“I thought about it,” I explained, ignoring the sickening feeling of nerves as they flooded my body, “and I realized this really is a chance of a lifetime. I’m worried if I let it go now, I’ll be walking away from the dream I’ve had since I started out.”
“I’ll always have a place for you—”
“I know you will,” I assured Ezra, cutting him off. “But I want Bianca. I have always wanted Bianca. Besides, I’m holding all of you accountable to make sure I don’t screw this up.”
“You’re going to be amazing,” Vera assured me at the same time Kaya said, “We won’t let you embarrass yourself, don’t worry.”