by Beth Bolden
“No.” Before, he hadn’t really found that odd because they were still getting to know each other more personally than as just mentor and trainee, and Kian had believed they had all the time in the world to have those conversations. But then nothing had turned out the way he’d expected it to.
“He was . . . to put it mildly, a brute. Mean and cruel and rigid. Bastian has a terrible fear of being like him, while at the very same time, being very nearly like him.”
“He isn’t mean or cruel or rigid,” Kian protested. “He’s got a temper, yes, and he comes down on you if you mess up, but he’s not, he’s not really like that.”
“Vraiment,” Celeste agreed. “He is not. He has his father’s drive for perfection, his commitment to excellence, his need to be the very best at what he begins. He is neither cruel nor mean—but he fights it, every single day.” She took a sip of tea. “It is why he feels the need to control everything so completely. Even you.”
Kian nodded slowly. Hearing about Bastian’s father did help explain some of why he behaved the way he did.
“You love to work with him, yes?”
“I did,” Kian said. He thought about what Xander had said, how he would eventually want to move on, to work for someone new, but he knew he never would. He was always going to want to be somehow adjacent to Bastian. They understood each other, on a very elemental level, in a way that few others did. Their creativity echoed in one another, one side complementing the other.
Celeste eyed him steadily across her teacup. “Why did you not take the sous position then?”
Why hadn’t he? It wouldn’t have been a great fit—he would have felt shamed and embarrassed and like a failure if he had. But it also would have meant they could have tried to work things out.
“It was embarrassing to fail. And to fail that way,” Kian finally admitted.
“Ah,” she said. “So, ego. The first day you met, Bastian came to me and said you were alike, and I thought, there is no way this is possible, you are too young, you are much sweeter than Bastian, but I see now I was wrong. You want your personal and professional relationships to feel equal.”
“It’s . . . I know it’s impossible,” Kian said.
“This is why he struggles. He wishes to find you a place where you feel respected and not still his trainee, but also a place you deserve.” She winced. “It will not be easy.”
Kian finished his tea. It was one thing to know that everything with Bastian was over, it was another to hear his mother say it, in that sad, regretful voice. He stood. “Thank you for the tea,” he said, “but I really need to be going.”
“Of course, your new job,” Celeste said, her voice brightening. “And you will promise me to come by sometime, again?”
“Yes, I’ll try,” Kian promised as they walked through the house together.
As he went to open the door, she surprised him by placing her hand against it, keeping it only partially open. “You also must promise me that if he comes to you, and he tries to make it work, you’ll remember what I told you.”
Why this continued insistence Bastian would eventually contact him? It had been over a week since Kian had quit and there had been only silence. He didn’t expect that would change, not at this point. Celeste had even admitted that the solution was difficult, if not impossible.
“I will, though I don’t think he intends to contact me,” Kian said wryly.
“He loves you,” Celeste said. “He won’t let you go, I know he won’t.”
As he walked back to his car, Kian wanted to believe her, because she so clearly believed her own words, but instead, there was only doubt.
Bastian had never really wanted to love him; he’d only done it because Kian had finally forced him to acknowledge it by coming to his home and taking all his clothes off. He’d set them on this path, and maybe Bastian resented that; maybe he wished that they’d continued on as they were, loving each other from afar, and never doing anything about it.
At least then, he’d still have Kian at Terroir.
* * *
It was a week later that the recruiter called.
Kian nearly told her to forget it, because he already had a job at Barrel House, but she kept insisting that the offer was lucrative and promising and that he would want to at least listen to it.
“I’m nobody,” he’d said wryly into the phone, right before his shift started, “why would you even know to contact me?”
“Everyone knows about you,” she said with certainty, “and you’re who the client wants.”
Kian was not convinced but he finally agreed to hear the proposal. She gave him an address of a little café outside of town, and said they would be using a back room, for privacy.
Frankly, he thought the whole thing smelled fishy, but when he told Xander, he’d just shrugged.
“So, someone wants to interview you,” he said. “Word gets around. You dealt with the Bastard longer than most people. He personally trained you. You’re young and fresh and hungry. It’s not like I don’t want to keep you here, but I get the feeling you don’t intend to stay.”
Xander wasn’t wrong.
“I guess,” Kian said dubiously.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” Xander demanded. “It’s a shitty job and you say no?”
Kian wasn’t sure what he was afraid of, but instead of looking forward to the meeting with the recruiter, he dreaded it. He nearly called her twice to call it off, but then Wyatt had sent a text, wishing him good luck on the interview, and after that, it had seemed silly to cancel it.
Xander was right. All he had to do was say no if it was a job he wasn’t interested in.
The café was one he’d been to before, though he’d never been ushered by the hostess with such deference to the back room, where a young woman with auburn hair and black-framed glasses was sitting at the end of the long table.
“Hello, I’m Lindsay Frost,” she said, “and you must be Kian Reynolds.”
“Yes,” he said, reaching out to shake her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“The honor is all mine. Wow, Terroir. What a way to start your career.” She motioned towards the only other place at the table that had been set. He sat down, but still couldn’t shake the feeling there was something going on that he didn’t understand.
“I’ve been very lucky,” Kian said.
“Bastian Aquino as your mentor? You sure have. And to be chef de cuisine, his appointed choice, at your age? Wow, I have a whole list of people who want to talk to you,” she said with a laugh.
Kian knew going into this that he’d need to be honest. He’d need to tell the truth about what happened and how he’d quit Terroir. He took a deep breath and tried to find a way to confess that didn’t make him look all bad.
“I only worked as chef de cuisine for a few weeks,” he admitted. “But I was fully in charge of the kitchen for quite awhile before that.”
She seemed completely unconcerned by his confession, and that made no sense. He wasn’t crazy, because he knew that most of the time, interviewers wanted to know why you’d left a job abruptly, after only a few weeks. Especially one as prestigious as the one he’d quit.
“And now you’re working at Barrel House?” she asked, consulting notes on a pad of paper in front of her.
“Xander Bridges is a friend,” Kian said. “I’m not sure where I want to go next, and that seemed like as good of a place as any to spin my wheels while I figured it out.”
“You’ve definitely been working with some exalted company,” Lindsay said.
Kian wanted to say that none of them really seemed all that exalted, especially Xander, who still insisted on wearing that awful chili pepper headwrap, but that wasn’t going to convince anyone to hire him.
“Can you tell me a little more about the job?” Kian asked.
“Oh yes, of course. Sorry. Just so excited to meet you.” Lindsay glanced at her notes again. “It’s a small restaurant, much smaller than Terroir, a
little more casual than fine dining, but still high-end cuisine. Dinner only. Approximately fifty seats. A five-person staff. You’d be in charge of developing the menu, though it was suggested that some sort of rotating small plates menu would be preferred, and in charge of the kitchen and the staff.”
On the surface, exactly the sort of position Kian was looking for. He hadn’t been ready to be chef de cuisine at someplace like Terroir, with three hundred seats, and catering events, and twenty people to manage in the kitchen, but he could do something small. It would be a great learning experience. And small plates, he loved those, and could very easily develop a menu around that concept.
Still, something held him back.
“I’m assuming there’s an owner or investor?” Kian asked. “When can I meet them?”
“Well, um,” Lindsay hesitated, which was so weird. “Yes. There is. They’re very busy, out of town a lot. Unfortunately they couldn’t be at this meeting, but they gave me the power to offer you the contract, if you’d like to take a look at it. It’s very generous.”
More alarms pinged in Kian’s head. They wanted to hire a head chef they’d never even met before? That seemed like a bizarre choice.
Still, Kian looked over the contract when Lindsay pushed it across the table. It was very generous. The salary was good. His decisions on menu and personnel were final, that was actually written into the contract. There was a business manager to oversee those choices, but if he wanted to do something, he could do it, immediately.
“Do they own other restaurants?” Kian wondered. The business manager position was odd, though maybe not so odd considering that the owner hadn’t even bothered to meet with him today. But then if they hadn’t, why was the business manager not here in their place?
“Oh yes,” Lindsay said, and it seemed like she was going to continue but she shut her mouth abruptly.
Xander had told him that the worst that could happen today would be for Kian to turn down the job. Simple enough, to just say no, and there was a part of Kian that was tempted, even though there were a lot of factors that made it seem like a perfect job for him.
Tailor made in fact. Like the job had been designed with exactly his skill set and his experience in mind. It would be a little bit of a stretch, but nothing he couldn’t handle.
“Could I meet the owner if I wanted to?” Kian asked.
Lindsay’s eyes grew wider, like saucers, and that was when he knew. There was something going on, and he wanted to know what it was before he signed anything.
“He’s not available,” she finally stuttered out.
“He, huh?” Kian asked.
Suddenly, he knew who was behind this mysterious new restaurant, this mysterious new job. Of course getting Lindsay to admit that wasn’t going to be easy, because of course, she was terrified of letting the secret out—and of him.
There was really only one person it could be.
“Who owns this restaurant?” Kian demanded.
Lindsay looked lost and decidedly out of her element, which jived with the rest of this charade, which hadn’t been anything like any interview Kian had ever heard of before. Which meant she probably wasn’t a recruiter, but only pretending to be one.
“I do.”
Kian glanced up and Bastian was standing in the doorway. He had the nerve to look sheepish, but Kian’s temper flared anyway. He knew he’d promised Celeste that he’d listen, that he’d consider what Bastian said when he came to him, but all he could think was, why the fuck was all this necessary?
“You own it,” Kian said flatly. “No wonder. The job seems perfect for me, probably because it was designed for me.”
Bastian shot Lindsay a single look and she fled, grabbing her purse and exiting the private room, shutting the door behind her.
Kian rolled his eyes. “You have it all figured out, don’t you?” he accused. “You even hired some random person to try to recruit me, because you didn’t want to recruit me yourself.”
Bastian sat down and Kian flinched. It hurt, having him so close, and knowing he was so far away. Even further than he’d been this morning.
“Please,” Bastian begged, and there were so few times Kian had ever heard that note in his voice that it was impossible not to at least listen. “Please, give this a chance. I’ve been tearing my hair out for the last two weeks, trying to find a way to do this with you, trying to find a way to work this out, and this is the only way I could find.”
“You don’t even own a restaurant of this description,” Kian said, tossing the contract in front of him.
“Yes, I do.” Bastian’s voice was steadier now. Surer. “They broke ground today.”
“What?”
“It’s an expansion of Terroir, sort of. A more casual, friendlier version, right next door. The kitchens are being expanded.” Bastian’s gaze on him was warm, so warm. Warmer than he’d ever seen before. “We’ll share initially, but we’ve shared before.”
“But I’m still in charge.” Kian still felt incredulous. “I’m in charge of my part of that kitchen.”
Bastian nodded earnestly. “You’d be completely in charge of your kitchen. You’d call all the shots.”
“But you’d still own it.” Kian didn’t know how that was going to make this slightly different version of what they’d already tried any better.
“Technically yes.” Bastian sighed. “Your immediate boss would be my business manager. But yes, I’d still own it.”
“And if I turned this down?” Kian demanded. “What would happen then?”
“I love you. Whether you work with me or not. I want you to be in my life. If you keep working at Barrel House, we’ll figure out a way to make it work—if that’s what you want.” Bastian paused, like he was trying to come to terms with the possibility that Kian wouldn’t, and it was hard.
Kian felt a pulse of satisfaction that this whole fucking situation didn’t just feel impossible for him, that at least Bastian was right there in the trenches with him.
Did he want to keep working at Barrel House? Work with Xander and date Bastian? It would fix the professional and personal messiness that had caused their breakup the first time around, but Kian wasn’t sure it would fix the gaping hole in his chest. He wanted to learn more from Bastian; he’d left and it had felt wrong, all the way, and he still didn’t feel right.
Maybe Xander was right, and with time, the hole would heal and ache less. But Kian really didn’t think so. He’d always believed that when the time came for him to move on from Terroir, he’d know—and while he’d still quit, none of it had felt right.
“I don’t know what I want,” Kian admitted softly. “I liked the sound of the job, and then I found out you were behind it the whole time . . . fixing everything without even giving me a chance to tell you what I wanted.”
Bastian’s eyes grew wide, and then wider. “I . . . I guess I did, didn’t I?” He sounded so ashamed, and Kian couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. Bastian had been trying, and that was what Kian had wanted, wasn’t it? When his mother had promised Kian that he’d be in touch eventually, he hadn’t believed it, even though he’d desperately wanted Bastian to make the effort.
To come to him. To want him. To tell him that he couldn’t live without him.
“You did,” Kian said, and tried to soften his voice. It wasn’t entirely Bastian’s fault, not after what Celeste had told him, that he wanted to control everything. It was his natural inclination, and right now, he was fighting it, all for Kian. What else could he really ask for?
“I’m sorry. It was my fault you failed, and all I wanted was to go back and fix it. But I couldn’t. All I could do was try to make it better going forward, and that was what I focused on. Making it better. Making it work; making us work.”
There were worse things, Kian realized, than a partner who tore themselves apart trying to fix a problem that had made you both miserable.
“This is always how it’s going to be, isn’t it?” he asked, even
though he already knew the answer. “Neither of us have really changed. I’m still going to challenge you and you’re still going to hate it.”
“I don’t hate it,” Bastian claimed, even though Kian knew it was a lie.
“It makes you uncomfortable,” Kian corrected. “I know it does.”
Bastian actually squirmed in the chair, like he was uncomfortable now. “Not always.”
“I’m not talking about when we’re at your house or my house or in bed. I’m talking about when we’re working. Because that’s what we’re talking about right now. How to fix our professional relationship.”
Bastian’s face fell, devastation filling his eyes, and Kian realized what he’d just said.
“No, no,” he said quickly, reaching for Bastian, and cradling his big hands in his smaller ones. “No. I don’t know what’s going on between us, not professionally, but I know I love you, and I know that you love me. We fit together, which is why our personal relationship is so much easier to figure out.”
“I’m not sure what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying you can’t leave me, because I won’t let you,” Kian promised, squeezing his hands. “How does that sound?”
Bastian choked out a laugh that actually sounded a lot more like a sob. He hadn’t said, because that wasn’t Bastian’s way, but Kian knew instinctively how much he’d been suffering. Being apart was like living without a limb, and on top of that, he’d been working nearly nonstop—while also trying to figure out a way to give Kian exactly what he wanted and needed.
“It’s good. Good. I . . .” Bastian took a deep breath. “I missed you so fucking much.”
Kian pulled him in for an embrace and felt Bastian’s full-body shudder. “It’s okay,” he soothed. “We’ve got each other again.”
When Bastian finally pulled away, his eyes were damp, and Kian’s own weren’t exactly dry either.
“I tried to control you,” Bastian admitted after a long silence. “I tried to control the restaurant through you.” His voice grew rougher. “I’m not a perfect man, Kian, as much as I want to believe otherwise. I make mistakes. I made a big one, but it wasn’t this. I wouldn’t change that for the world. I should have known we couldn’t keep everything separate. It’s too messy, and it’s messy because it’s real.”
