The One You Can't Forget

by Roni Loren

  The back of her throat burned. The words hitting her like pellets of ice. She hadn’t asked him the whole story, even when she knew better than most that there were at least three sides to every story. She’d just believed what she’d known from her client and what she’d seen in the photos. She lifted her head. “Was it you in those pictures?”

  “Yes.” His gaze met hers, steady and clear. “But my ex-wife was the one who took them because she was there, too.”

  She blinked, the words not lining up. “What?”

  “Two years before the divorce, we had a big fight because she’d racked up all this debt on our credit card without telling me, so to make it up to me, she surprised me with a threesome.”

  “A…” Rebecca’s words got jumbled in her mouth. “She… That’s…”

  “Screwed up?” he asked dryly. “Yeah, it was. That was the kind of fucked-up dysfunctional relationship we had. You get in a fight, so you surprise your husband with your best friend naked in your bed.”

  Rebecca’s face heated, the topic far out of her comfort zone.

  “And I was too young and too reckless to realize how epically messed up it was to use that kind of shit to try to fix something in a relationship,” he continued. “But it happened, there was a camera involved, and she apparently saved the photos of me and her best friend for a rainy day.”

  Rebecca stared at him, the admission knocking around inside her and bumping assumptions off-kilter. “She set you up?”

  He exhaled, a pained expression tightening the corners of his eyes. “I’d like to think that it wasn’t the original plan. But when the marriage went to hell, the pictures were convenient. She wanted me to give up the restaurant because I was obsessed with it and ignoring her—which was one hundred percent accurate. I refused and told her I wanted a divorce. So she decided to make me pay for that decision and figured out how to make sure I lost the restaurant anyway. It worked.”

  “Shit.”

  He crossed his arms. “Yeah. And you helped her do that. When my lawyer brought up the truth, you tore that apart. You got a fabricated statement from Brittany’s best friend. You painted my ex to be this fine, upstanding citizen who would never engage in that kind of lewd behavior. She was a good Baptist girl from a wealthy family who got swept up by this troublemaker with anger issues.”

  Rebecca wet her lips. The details of the case were coming back to her now. She vaguely remembered the other lawyer claiming the pictures were from a kinky night, but she’d gotten that dismissed so quickly that it hadn’t gotten any traction. And of course, it could all be a lie, a convenient story from Wes, but something about the empty tone in his voice and look on his face told her otherwise.

  “Wes, I—”

  But he was already talking again. “So, now you know. And no, I don’t blame you for doing your job and buying Brittany’s bullshit, but don’t sit here and act like you’re somehow morally superior or a crusader making the world a better place because you take down the big, bad cheaters. You’re just a lawyer who likes to win and feel better about taking people’s money. But you winning means other people lose. And not all of them deserve to.”

  “I—”

  “So, what’s on the menu, brother? I’m starved,” Marco said, walking into the kitchen and startling Rebecca.

  The dark look on Wes’s face disappeared behind a faux smirk as he took a step back. “Slow your roll, man. Art takes time. And I’ve been teaching Rebecca how to hull berries.”

  Kincaid glanced her way, questions in her eyes.

  Wes went to the fridge and pulled a tray from it. “But you can start on these spring rolls if you want.”

  “Ooh,” Kincaid said, leaning over the tray but sending Rebecca another questioning look and mouthing, You okay? from behind the two men.

  Rebecca didn’t have it in her to give her friend any kind of response. Her nerves were on a razor’s edge, and she couldn’t breathe in here. Wes’s admission had set her off balance, and her mind was sifting through too much. And what could she say in her defense? Not much.

  She did have a job that was focused on winning and making the most money possible. She believed in helping her clients, but knowing she’d possibly ruined someone who didn’t deserve it made her gut churn. She wasn’t supposed to worry about that. It wasn’t her job to protect the other side. It was the opposing lawyer’s job.

  Even so, she couldn’t get the image of Wes staring longingly at the food-truck park out of her head. She’d felt that yearning from him. She’d helped destroy that dream.

  She pushed her chair away from counter and stood. “You know, I just forgot that I was supposed to pick up a prescription before the pharmacy closed today. I’m not going to be able to stay. I’m sorry.”

  Everyone turned her way and Kincaid frowned. “Honey, I can go with you.”

  Rebecca waved a hand, trying to appear nonchalant. “No, it’s fine. We’re in separate cars, anyway. You stay and enjoy the food. Guys, thanks for the invite. I’m sure everything will turn out delicious.”

  Wes’s eyes met hers, a pointed look there, but he didn’t say anything.

  What else was there to say?

  chapter

  TEN

  “You okay, Chef G?”

  Wes blinked, his hands cold under the running water at the sink, and turned toward the small group of students gathered next to him in the classroom kitchen. “Huh?”

  Lola nodded at the stove behind him, pink lips pursed as if she were a seventy-year-old grandmother instead of a sixteen-year-old girl. “You’re burning the soul out of that French toast.”

  “What?” Wes turned and saw the smoke, the scent finally registering. “Oh, dammit.”

  He turned the faucet off and grabbed a towel.

  “Swear jar,” Xavier called out, his head in the large fridge on the far side of the student kitchen. “One dollar.”

  Wes groaned and hurried to the stove to pull the pan off the burner, the stuff formerly known as toast now a charred triangle. He flipped the switch on the ancient vent hood, and it rattled on. “Someone open the window so we don’t set off the fire alarms.”

  Keisha, one of his star students, hurried over to a window on the far side of the room and opened it wide. “I’m not sure it smells any better outside. Why they gotta put the Dumpsters right next to this room? Smells like something died. Twice.”

  Xavier sauntered over with a fresh carton of eggs, his loping basketball-player walk making him look even more pleased with himself. He pointed to the mason jar they kept on Wes’s desk. “Pay up, Chef G.”

  Wes pulled his wallet from his back pocket and tugged a dollar from it. He dropped the bill in, adding to the pile. When the kids cursed in class, he made them put in an IOU to do a chore in the classroom, but he held himself to that standard, too. Instead of chores, he put money into the jar to be used to get extras for the class.

  Wes went back to the stove and scraped the mess out of the pan and into the trash. Everything smelled of burnt sugar, and the bread looked fossilized. “Okay, everyone. Today’s lesson is how not to make French toast.”

  A few of them snickered.

  “You nailed that lesson, dude,” Steven said from his spot at one of the tables in the front of the room where he’d been flipping through an old copy of The Joy of Cooking to find some new recipes they could riff on. The class had decided that they should make something for a local fair to earn a little money and wanted to do something traditional with a twist, which was Steven’s specialty.

  But Steven flipping through the book was what had Wes distracted in the first place.

  “Sorry, guys,” Wes said, rinsing out the pan. “That’s why it’s important not to take your eyes off quick-cooking things. That was my fault.” He nodded at Xavier. “Go ahead and crack a few more eggs and add some milk and the spices. We have enough time to try
again. Maybe you should take over this time, Lola. Show us how it’s done.”

  A beaming smile broke out on her round face. “On it. I’ve been making this for my little brothers for years. Watch how it’s done, people.”

  Lola waved the kids over to the main counter while Xavier whisked the eggs. Wes headed over to Steven and grabbed a chair, spinning it backward to straddle it. Steven looked up from the cookbook and tugged down the sleeve of his oversized sweatshirt.

  “Any luck?” Wes asked.

  He shrugged. “Not yet. Who the hell eats snails?”

  “I don’t think escargot would be a big seller at the fair.” Wes nodded at the arm Steven had covered up. He’d seen the bandage poking through at the wrist when he’d been flipping pages. “What happened to your arm?”

  Steven’s gaze slid away, and he shifted in his chair. “It’s nothing.”

  Nothing. Right. Wes had heard that before—said that before. The kids that ended up at the Brant Street Youth Program came from all kinds of complicated situations. Injuries from fights weren’t out of the ordinary. But Wes also had to be on the lookout for more serious things, things caused by the adults in their lives. Wes had met Steven’s father, a local cop, a couple of times and had gotten that prickly feeling at the back of his neck at the way the man had looked at and spoken to his son. That survival instinct of Wes’s had picked up a whiff of a certain type of malevolence.

  Wes had been in that situation once upon a time. His father hadn’t been around much because he was busy running his drug business, but when he was home, he was usually angry. He used to put out cigarettes on Wes’s arm when he was pissed and knock him around even when he wasn’t. Until Wes had gotten big enough to fight back, he’d become a master of hiding the marks so he wouldn’t get looks from teachers or social workers. But now he knew the tricks and could spot them. Like the fact that Steven was wearing a thick, blue Texas Rangers sweatshirt on a warm spring day.

  “That looks like a pretty big bandage to be nothing,” Wes said.

  Steven grimaced. “It was stupid. I’m fine.”

  “What was stupid?” Wes tried to keep his tone casual. “Did something happen at home?”

  Steven closed the cookbook and fiddled with a ripped corner of the worn dust jacket. “My friend got a new dog, and the dumb-ass thing bit me.”

  Wes stiffened, the answer like a sucker punch. “A dog?”

  “Yeah. Thing nearly ripped my arm off. Had to get a few stitches. Then I had to hear it from my old man about how expensive emergency room visits are. Fun weekend.”

  A dog bite. Wes didn’t want his mind to go there, didn’t want to think it. But he got a flash of someone running away. White kid. Dark hair under a ball cap.

  A cold feeling crept through him. “When did it happen?”

  “Friday. It’s getting better, though. I’ll live.”

  Shit.

  “Chef G,” Lola called out. “Come check this out. Xavier cut out shapes in the French toast. Looks fancy.”

  Wes glanced back at the eager faces of his students, thoughts running through his head too quickly. Just because Steven had a dog bite didn’t mean anything. Wes couldn’t—wouldn’t—jump to conclusions. But as he headed to the front of the class to check on the students’ work, a cloak of dread wrapped around him, turning his skin clammy.

  Even if it turned out not to be Steven, Wes knew there was no getting out of the next thing.

  And it was the very last thing he wanted to do.

  * * *

  Rebecca put her sticker name tag on her jacket and read the numbers above each door. The hallway was unnaturally quiet for a building filled with children, but she could see kids doing different activities through the narrow rectangular window on each closed door—an art class, some kind of martial arts, a computer room. The building was showing its age with its battered bulletin boards and scuffed-up floors, but there were colorful posters lining the walls and student artwork on display. The place was trying to be cheerful even though there was a police officer parked out front and metal detectors at the doors.

  She knew most schools, not just these types of after-school programs, had higher security these days. Long Acre had helped launch that new era. Those measures saved lives. But part of her hated that these kids would never get to experience the blissful ignorance she’d had her first few years at Long Acre when the biggest threat at school was dealing with someone you didn’t like or getting a mean teacher or having your heart broken by first love. The ugliness of the world encroached far too early now.

  She rubbed the chill bumps from her arms and caught sight of the number she was looking for. She took a steadying breath and headed that way. She’d been more than a little shocked when she’d gotten a call from Wes late Monday afternoon. He’d been on her mind since leaving Marco’s on Sunday. She hadn’t been able to shake the things he’d told her or the thoughts he’d put in her head. She’d spent that night going through the file for his divorce, studiously ignoring copies of the illicit photos and reviewing how the case had shaken out.

  Reading through the notes had brought a lot of it back. His ex, Brittany, had gotten a monster settlement. Wes had been a few months away from opening a farm-to-table restaurant in a hip area not far from Rebecca’s house. There’d been write-ups about it, lots of buzz, slick photos of Wes looking edgy and gorgeous in his chef’s coat. He’d been considered the hot new chef on the scene. But he’d built up too much debt getting the place ready and had apparently been counting on the grand opening to pay it back. Losing so much in the divorce had probably meant bankruptcy for him. Rebecca had looked it up, and the original property had been bought by another chef and was now a high-end barbecue joint.

  While Wes worked here, teaching in an after-school program for at-risk youth, which probably paid less than a line cook’s salary at one of those places.

  He hadn’t broken his marriage vows, but he’d lost everything anyway. Rebecca had helped crush his dream. Even though she knew she’d only been doing her job and working with the information she had from her client, the knowledge that she’d played any part in that had kept her tossing and turning the last two nights.

  So when Wes had called her, she’d almost wondered if she was imagining it because she’d been considering calling him. She didn’t need more debts on her conscience. That bill was already long enough. But he’d told her he needed to talk to her about something, so she was going to take the opportunity to say what she needed to say as well.

  Before knocking, she caught sight of him through the window in the door. He was in a black chef’s jacket, pen clenched between his teeth, and his attention was focused on a notepad in front of him. She let herself take a moment to stare. He really was unfairly good-looking. She usually veered away from that type. Sure, men like that were nice to look at, a glossy page in a magazine. But she’d learned that being too handsome often meant an entitled personality to match. She didn’t get that vibe from Wes.

  The man from the photos was still in there. If he looked up and smiled like the world was his, it’d be those newspaper photos in the flesh. But the world wasn’t his anymore. That world had beaten him down, and she’d been in the attacking crowd. With a sigh, she raised her fist and knocked.

  He glanced up, his gaze colliding with hers. Her heartbeat picked up speed, as if her body couldn’t decide if there was danger present or if this was something to get excited about. The moment hovered between them for a long second. Friend or foe? She had no idea what awaited. All she knew was that it was suddenly warmer in the hallway.

  Instead of calling for her to come in, Wes got up and walked to the door. When he swung it open, his somber expression looked anything but welcoming, answering her question. “Thanks for coming.”

  She hiked her purse up higher on her shoulder. “Yeah, sure. Sorry I couldn’t get here until today. I’ve been in and ou
t of court since Monday.”

  “I understand. I know you’re busy. Come on in.” He stepped back and let her inside. The office was small with cream-colored cinder-block walls and a window that looked out onto a scrubby patch of grass and a graffitied wall of another building. He had a bookshelf in one corner that was stuffed with cookbooks, old and new. And on the wall next to his desk were a certificate from a culinary academy and a photograph of him, Marco, and two older people she assumed were their parents.

  She took the seat across from the desk and folded her hands in her lap. “I’m glad you called, actually. I’d planned to get your number from Marco so I could call you.”

  “Call me?” Wes lifted his brows as he settled behind the desk. “About what?”

  “About what happened Sunday,” she said, not wanting to dance around what needed to be addressed. “I’m sorry about the things I said to you. Regardless of what I knew about you from the case, you’d been nothing but kind to me up until that point. You helped me. You made a horrible night not so horrible. I had no right to judge you or make assumptions.” She concentrated on plucking a piece of lint off her pants. “I have…strong feelings about cheaters, and I’m not so good at hiding that.”

  “You’ve been on the other end of it?”

  She smirked despite herself. She’d never had anything serious enough with a guy for that to matter. Friends with benefits arrangements didn’t come with commitment clauses, just a don’t ask, don’t tell policy. “No. But my mom left my dad—and me—for someone else, for another family, when I was a kid and never looked back. And in my job, I get to see people tear apart their marriages all the time for a quick thrill.” She looked up and met his gaze. “The whole idea of infidelity makes me seethe. I don’t understand why people who want to keep their options open don’t just stay single. Why destroy other people and families in the process? But it wasn’t fair to make it personal, especially without hearing your side.”