“Jules.”
That was all Gus said, just her name, but she heard everything he wasn’t saying. She heard the affection and pride he felt in her; she heard the unshakable faith in her loyalty. And she wanted nothing more than to prove him right … but the problem was, she didn’t think he was right.
Not about this.
“Come on, Jules.” Max’s voice was low, intense. “You don’t have to follow along just because Danny always falls in line. You’re the team leader. We’ll go with whatever you decide.”
She looked at him helplessly, her shoulders hunching up in an instinctive defensive move that must have looked like a shrug, because his gaze went flat and opaque.
Gus said, “I taught Jules to be a team player, Max. Too bad you never learned that lesson.”
The satisfaction in his voice made Jules cringe a little. “I’m sorry,” she said, feeling ripped down the middle like a page torn out of a cookbook. “But I agree with Max. We need to know exactly what we’re dealing with, or our choices for what to make for the judges are way too limited.”
She couldn’t look him in the eye, so she turned back to Max. Triumph mixed with joy blazed across his face, making his eyes glow like moonstones.
“Okay, gang, let’s head out. I want to get this done in one hour so we have plenty of time to plot.”
It was a sad commentary on the state of things in the kitchen, Jules thought, that the oppressively wet heat of New York City in July was preferable to the atmosphere at Lunden’s. But everyone leaped at the chance to escape the thickening friction of the kitchen, gathering their things and heading outside, even Danny.
Everyone except Gus. Jules paused in the act of following Max through the dining room doors.
The executive chef of Lunden’s Tavern stood alone in his kitchen, looking somehow depleted. Smaller. It hurt her heart to see him that way.
“Chef? Aren’t you coming with us?”
Gus kept his gaze on the map of Essex Street Market, still clutched in his hand. “No need,” he said. “I trust you to report back to me, Jules. Besides.” He smiled faintly. “Someone’s got to hold down the fort and start prepping for lunch service.”
Guilt scoured her nerves. “I could stay with you and help out,” she offered, moving to put her bag back under her station. “The others can fill me in on what’s available at Essex Street.”
“No, no, you go ahead,” he said, snagging a clean apron off a hook on the wall. “I’m just going to butcher some steaks; kind of a one-man job, and I could do it in my sleep. Thanks, though. You’re a trouper, Jules.”
She nodded, turning to follow the others, but before she’d made it two steps, Gus’s low voice stopped her.
“You’re a good girl, too, and you’ve come to mean … well, you’re like family, Jules. And that’s why I’ve got to say this, as much as it pains me—but you need to stay away from my son.”
Chapter 21
Jules tried to breathe through the sucker punch.
I knew it, this was a mistake. The Lundens could never accept me as a real part of the family, I don’t even know what “family” means, or how to be part of one— Stop it! With an effort, she got a grip on her galloping emotions.
“I know it could be bad for the team,” she managed.
“No, no,” Gus protested. “Well, actually, yeah. It could really throw things out of whack when it all goes kablooey. Like when we had to fire Phil because he stopped following your orders in the kitchen! What a mess that was. But we got Beck out of it, so all’s well that ends well. My main point is, Jules—with Max, kablooey isn’t a maybe. It’s a definite.”
“What?”
Shaking his head, Gus said, “I love my son, but he’s no good for you. No good for anyone, at least not until he figures himself out and learns how to spend more than a month under one roof. He’s not going to stick around once we get picked as the East Coast team—that was the deal all along. He’s got the chance to learn the art of butchery from one of the greatest living masters, and he’s going to take it. Hell, if I were his age, I’d probably take it, too! But I hate that it means you could get hurt, kiddo.”
Jules blinked. Gus wasn’t objecting to her as a significant other for Max. It was the other way around.
This must be what it felt like to have a protective father, watching out for you and worrying about you. She smiled, because the other alternative was bursting into humiliating sobs. “Gus. Thank you. It means … more than I can say, that you care enough to warn me about Max. But believe me, I’ve got my eyes wide open. I see your son clearly, and you know what? I like what I see. He’s a good man, better than you give him credit for.”
Gus’s expression closed down, locking her out. “You think so? I know my son like I know myself, and the way you’re looking at him lately, I’m pretty sure he’s not ready for that.”
Embarrassment scorched red hot down the back of Jules’s neck. She wasn’t used to being obvious. “Gus, we’re just starting this thing, whatever it is,” she choked out. “We’re paddling around in the shallow end, I promise. I’m not about to drown.”
“Bullshit,” he said bluntly. “You think I didn’t see you at the qualifiers? This ‘whatever’ with Max had you so turned around, you could barely talk. And the expression on your face…” He shook his head, pressing his lips into a hard line. “I haven’t seen you look like that since the first night I made you hot chocolate.”
Jules’s lungs knotted up like a tangle of overdone pasta. Through the pounding in her ears, she became aware of movement behind her, a slight shift of the dining room door that sent her pulse into overdrive.
Oblivious to Jules’s struggle to breathe, Gus went on. “You had the exact same look of fear behind those pretty brown eyes that you had up there on that stage yesterday. It’s the same fear I see every time you look at Max—and it sends me right back to that night when you wandered in here out of the cold and snow, alone, exhausted … and with the beginnings of the worst shiner I ever saw in my life.”
* * *
Max froze in place, his father’s voice going through him like a thrust from a samurai sword, so sharp he didn’t feel the pain for several seconds.
Stay away from my son.
His own father. God, he knew they had their problems, but for his dad to try to actually undermine the first real relationship Max had ever fought for—it hurt.
Max immediately wanted to burst into the kitchen and confront the man, demand to know how he could say something like that, but … what could he really argue? The pride in Gus’s voice as he reminded Jules of the apprenticeship in Le Marche warmed something deep in Max’s chest, even as the implications he’d managed to ignore for so long sank in.
He was leaving. Jules knew it, had known it from the start. She’d tried her best not to get involved, but Max, relentless as ever once he’d set his sights on a goal, had ignored her reservations. He’d pushed and prodded and cajoled and seduced—and now he had to face the fact that he’d done all of that for a relationship that could only last a few short weeks.
He’d convinced himself, believed down to his bones, that it didn’t take a promise of years together to create something meaningful between two people. That the connection he and Jules felt was good and right, even if it wasn’t destined to be forever.
Had he been fooling himself?
The conversation went on and Max paused, one fist pressed to his stomach. And when Jules defended him … a knot Max didn’t know he’d been carrying around in his chest loosened, and a flood of emotion surged into his heart.
His father’s next words ratcheted Max’s runaway emotions up to a new level.
What? Someone gave Jules a black eye?
“That was a long time ago,” she was saying. “Not everything in my life is about that anymore.”
“So I noticed,” Gus said, his voice tight with something that sounded like pain. “Since you went against me, after everything I taught you and did for you, to
side with your boyfriend.”
Jules sounded almost as short of breath as Gus when she answered. “I sided with Max because he was right, not because we’re … involved. And if you weren’t such a stubborn old ass, you’d be able to admit that you know it, too. I love you, Gus, but you’re wrong.”
The sound of footsteps nearing the doors had Max sidling back through the dining room and out onto the street mere seconds before Jules emerged.
She looked unbearably young, eyes snapping with darts of pain, dark gold hair streaming out behind her. He’d distracted her from braiding it back this morning, with a strategic openmouthed kiss to the side of her neck, and when she came to a stop beside him, her silky hair brushed his bare arm below the sleeve of his threadbare HELLO, KITTY T-shirt.
“Let’s go,” she said, all terse and commanding.
Max searched her face, trying to imagine how she’d look with bruises and fear marring her clear, perfect skin.
“Okay, gang,” Winslow cried, bounding forward. “Looks like we’re off to see the wizard!”
He led the crew down the block toward the West Fourth Street subway station. Jules dropped back to say a few quiet words to Danny, but within minutes, she’d reappeared at Max’s side.
He glanced over at her, noting the lines of stress bracketing her wide, mobile mouth. “You okay, sweetness?”
She did a quick, full-body shiver, like a duck shaking water off its back, and Max felt slim, strong fingers twining with his. He looked down at their joined hands in surprise.
“I am now,” she said, a slow smile chasing the shadows from her eyes.
Max did a quick inventory. Humidity thick enough to remind him of Saigon and make the thin material of his shirt stick to his back. A five-course meal to plan that would make or break their chances to compete. The worst fight he’d had with his father since he left home six years ago.
Jules’s hand in his, her quiet presence a reassurance that, for once, someone had sided with Max.
He grinned and swung their hands in a high arc as they swarmed down the concrete steps with the rest of the commuters, entering the dim, oppressively hot confines of the subway station.
Max couldn’t remember ever being happier, even with the specter of his trip to Italy looming over his head. He should take his own advice and celebrate every precious second with Jules.
Now if he could just get her to open up and tell him exactly what happened the night she turned up at his parents’ house, and ended up as part of the family.
It took the entire hot, crowded subway ride for Jules to calm down from her confrontation with Gus.
The air-conditioning wasn’t working, which turned their subway car into a bullet-shaped oven, broiler going full blast. Jules’s fingers slipped on the metal pole as they swayed around a curve in the tunnel, and Max was right there to brace her.
When she leaned back, trusting some of her weight to his steady, spread-legged stance, Max couldn’t help but smile. Even in a heat that reminded him of the noonday Marrakech marketplace, he wanted nothing more than to press Jules close to his sticky, sweaty skin and feel her breathing against him.
The noise of the subway car rattling along the tracks made it hard to hear the conversation of the other chefs around them. It was almost as if Max and Jules were enclosed in their own isolated bubble. Private.
Somehow, that made it easier for Max to put his mouth next to her ear and say, “Thanks for what you said back there.”
“You were right,” she told him.
“Still. I know it wasn’t easy for you to go against Dad like that.”
She wriggled, and Max reluctantly loosened his hold to allow her to brace her back against the pole running through the middle of the subway car.
“No, it wasn’t,” she said, looking Max in the eye. He could see exactly how much she meant every word she said. “Because your father is pretty much the only father I’ve ever known, and his opinion means a lot to me. A whole hell of a lot.”
Max nodded. A spasm tightened the muscles in his jaw into a painful, molar-grinding knot. “Jules … you don’t have to tell me, but I know your mother had a lot of … male friends. Was your biological father around at all?”
The train lurched to the right, nearly sending them all toppling. By the time Jules righted herself, she’d covered the instant flare of pain Max had caught in her eyes when he asked the question.
Max regained his footing and hauled her up against him, steadying her as she replied, “Nope. Never met the guy. He left before I was born. Told my mom he had itchy feet, and wandered off for parts unknown, searching for something. Maybe the cure for athlete’s foot. Who knows? Anyway, he wasn’t around.”
He felt the impact of that description all the way down to his toes. Voice catching, he managed to say, “That must have sucked.”
She shrugged, a quick twitch of the shoulders that made him notice the tension in his own neck. “It is what it is. Not like I’m crying into my pillow every night for some loser who couldn’t be bothered to stick around long enough to see his kid born.”
Feeling his way, Max ventured, “It would be okay if you … I don’t know. Missed him. Or felt sad about it.”
Jules gazed at him, her whiskey-gold eyes as ancient and worn as an antique coin. “People leave. That’s life. All crying about it will get you is bunch of wet tissues and a headache.”
Max stared back at her, everything in his body suspended like a shipwreck survivor clinging to a life raft. He was afraid to blink, afraid to break the tremulous safety of their surface conversation and dive down into the depths of what they were really talking about.
“Anyway,” Jules said. Her smile wasn’t the least bit convincing, but he had to give it to her. She stuck with it. “Who has time to worry about ancient history? We should be coming up with ideas on this five-course meal we’re supposed to create.”
Max seized on the change of subject with a gasp of relief, as if he’d been holding his breath for the last five minutes. “I’ve got about a zillion ideas. That’s kind of the problem, narrowing it down…”
But even as he relaxed into the familiar excitement of brainstorming a menu and planning what exciting techniques he could showcase, Max couldn’t keep his mind from drowning in the knowledge that when his four weeks were up and his post in Italy came available, Max would be doing to Jules exactly what her father had.
He’d leave. Like he always did.
And for once in his life, Max wished, with a fervent passion that felt like fiery hot peppers burning through his chest, that he’d worried a little more about the future.
Maybe a life lived with only a thought for the present wasn’t enough anymore.
Chapter 22
Claire Durand absently smoothed a hand over the knife-edge crease down the front of her crisp white slacks and very deliberately did not think about the fact that she’d chosen to dress casually for the judges’ meeting she’d called that morning.
Bon. She shrugged. Casually for her, at least.
Very possibly, her cojudges wouldn’t find linen pants and a red and blue striped bateau-neck top to be terribly casual. Kane Slater probably thought ripped denims and scuffed cowboy boots were appropriate dinner wear.
She pursed her lips, annoyed at herself. Kane Slater had been popping into her thoughts with alarming frequency since she’d met him. It was unacceptable, and more than a little embarrassing, to find herself unable to control her wayward thoughts of the golden young man.
Straightening in her seat, Claire crossed her legs and checked her watch. If Monsieur Cartier was to be believed, her cojudges were both late.
Even as she rearranged her brows—their tardiness, while aggravating, was no reason to suffer the indignity of wrinkles—she spotted the object of her recent musings making his slow, slouchy way across the crowded café toward her table.
Yawning hugely, Kane Slater dropped into the chair opposite Claire and gave her a sleepy smile. His golden hair stuck u
p in improbable tufts all over his head, except for the left side, where it was mashed flat.
She blinked. Either she was not as au courant as she thought when it came to style, or he’d neglected to prepare for this meeting in any way other than to roll out of bed and throw on the rattiest pair of madras-patterned shorts he could find. Paired, naturally, with the same black sweatshirt he’d worn the day before. This time he’d left the hood down, however, perhaps to better display his impressive bed head.
There was no logical reason why the sight of those messy blond tangles should make Claire’s lower body swim with warm desire, but then, who could claim to be purely rational when it came to attraction?
Evidently not Claire Durand.
“Morning,” the boy slurred, the music of his voice gone rough and deep, like the throbbing tones of a double bass.
“It’s one o’clock,” she informed him frostily, emphasizing the word “one.” She’d called the meeting for twelve-thirty.
“Man. No wonder I need coffee so bad,” he groaned, twisting in his chair and holding up a hand to call over the waitress.
They were at Café Noir, Claire’s favorite coffee shop on the Upper East Side, a short walk from the Délicieux offices. She liked it because it reminded her of the places she used to go in Paris, with lots of little round tables crammed together, brisk, no-nonsense wait staff, and bracingly strong espresso.
Claire was distracted from watching the way Slater’s wide, dimpled grin charmed a grudging smile out of a waitress who’d never even nodded hello at Claire in all the years she’d frequented the establishment, by the trilling of her cell phone.
Thumbing it on, she scanned the text message from Devon Sparks’s wife and newly appointed keeper, Lilah, and pursed her mouth in annoyance.
So sorry for sched mixup, DS doing live interview w/NY1, can’t make meeting. DS says sorry, promises to dock my pay. :)
Well, perhaps it was for the best. Claire had wanted a chance to speak to Kane Slater alone.
Alone? Mais oui, her inner seductress purred, but Claire cut the ridiculous thought short in time to blink innocently at Slater when he turned back to the table, having secured a double-shot cappuccino with extra foam, a croissant, and the undying devotion of the waitress. And quite possibly her panties, as well; Claire hadn’t been watching closely enough to know for certain.
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