by Aly Martinez
I reached out and caught his hand. “Did you tell them you weren’t having sex with her?”
He looked away. “I shouldn’t have to offer an explanation to anyone about when and where I put my dick. Or in this case where I didn’t put my dick.”
My chest got tight. “But you’re telling me?”
He gave me back his eyes, a boyish grin pulling at his lips. “Yeah, because I would really like to continue putting my dick in you. Therefore, it’s absolutely your business when and where else I have or haven’t put it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Such a romantic.”
He released his hold on the towel at my feet and took my hand, intertwining our fingers and looking me right in the eyes, sadness and honesty blazing from within. “I would have told you, but I was scared that you’d think I was like Greg. And I know that’s no excuse. But I’m crazy about you, Rita. And I panicked that first night when you were hiding in the bathroom. I should have told you then. And I’m sorry you had to hear it from Douchebag Greg. But I swear to you none of this, including Shana’s baby, factors into our future.”
But he was wrong. So wrong. Because if it wasn’t Shana, it was going to be someone else. Every time those clouds entered his eyes, I was going to assume the worst. The jealous girlfriend was only cute for about…never. Eventually, he’d get sick of dealing with the broken pieces of me Greg left behind.
And then I’d lose him.
My stomach pitched as I stared back at him. “Okay.”
He blinked. “Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay. I wish you had told me sooner, but I believe you.”
He grinned. “That easy?”
I shrugged. “You promised me the truth. And I think that’s exactly what you gave me. So, yeah. That easy.”
He tipped his head back to look up at the ceiling, breathing, “Thank God, she’s sexy and rational.”
I giggled, but it was wholly sad. “Hey, why don’t you go fill up the bathtub? I think I should probably soak my feet for a few minutes and make sure they’re clean before we wrap them up.”
“Good idea.” He leaned in for a kiss.
I met him halfway for a lip touch, but that was all it was. Two mouths touching, as intimate as a handshake.
At least on my side.
He stood, gently guiding my feet off his lap. Then he made his way to the bathroom.
The minute I heard the water turn on, I jumped off the couch, silently screaming when my feet hit the wood. I tiptoed, wincing with every step to the bathroom.
His head snapped up, his eyes finding mine, just before I slammed the door shut.
“What the hell?” he said.
He twisted the doorknob, but I used my weight to anchor it closed. “I can’t do this. I can’t do us anymore, Tanner.”
“Rita, what the hell are you doing? Open this.”
Tanner Reese was my undoing. Call me a coward, but I never would have been able to say this to his face. His beautiful, handsome, smiling face.
But it had to be said. Even if it destroyed me.
“You told me you’d tell me the truth,” I croaked.
“I did tell you the truth.” He gave the door a tug, but I refused to let go.
“No. You gave me some of the truth. Greg used to give me some of the truth too. Stuff like: He was going to see a patient at the hospital and he’d be home late. What he neglected to tell me was that he was going to swing by Tammy’s on his way home.”
“I’m not fucking Greg!” he thundered from the other side of the door. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“But don’t you see? You will always be Greg in my head. He ruined me, Tanner. And, eventually, I’ll ruin you by making you pay for his mistakes.”
There was a thud on the door. “You’re not ruined, babe.”
My vision began to swim. “I am. I am. I so am. I’m always going to be suspicious. Everything you say. Every time your phone rings. Any time you need to work late. It doesn’t matter how innocent it is. I’m going to be Shana one day.”
“You are not fucking Shana. Far from it.”
“Well, I don’t mean exactly her. She sounds horrible. But if I don’t take care of myself and get my head together, I can guarantee you that I will be your ex one day.”
“Dammit, Rita.”
“We’re going to push each other’s buttons. Me being overbearing. You being aloof.”
He gave the doorknob another jiggle. “Get out of the way. I’m coming out.”
I didn’t move. I just kept crying, and talking, and dying inside. “You want an example? I could tell you didn’t tell me the whole truth about Shana tonight. And all I can think about is what you were hiding because I need to brace myself for when it explodes.”
“Rita!” he yelled, yanking on the door more roughly.
My feet were killing me, but I held my ground. “And if you want my truth, I never should have been with you.”
Everything on his side suddenly fell silent and the doorknob released with a loud click.
My chest was heaving, and my heart was simultaneously pounding and breaking. Everything hurt. And if I just opened that door and let him pull me into his strong arms, I knew he could make it stop. He was Tanner. And I loved him, regardless of whether I should or not.
“I found her book,” he announced.
“What?”
“You have to understand. I was at a place in my life where I was miserable. I hated Simmer. I hated smiling for the camera. I hated how fucking fake everything felt. Then I met Shana and she felt real. She didn’t do all the stuff you do. There was no tuna noodle casserole, and instead of yoga pants, she wore sexy lingerie twenty-four seven. I mean, that’s what men want, right? It never felt right with her though. Not like it does with you. There was always just something off about it. But I liked her. And I liked having her around because she made me feel real too. After that, things got better for me. I still hated my job, but at least I had something to look forward to when I was done filming. Then, one night, I was looking for something and I found her book. At that point, most of it was true. Details about our sex life. Details about my daily habits. Details about conversations we’d had where I bashed The Food Channel. It was obvious that it wasn’t a journal. She’d been taking notes on our relationship from the very start.”
“Tanner,” I whispered so softly that I wasn’t sure if he could hear me. Doing that kind of thing to any man was messed up on so many levels, but doing it to one as sweet and kind as Tanner was flat-out repulsive.
“You know what I did, Rita? I shut the book, put it back where I found it, went out to my kitchen, and finished making her dinner like nothing had happened. I didn’t want to believe that someone I cared about would do that to me. But, most of all, I didn’t want to go back to being miserable. So I did the one thing I was with her to escape. I faked it. I went through all the motions for two months, but I couldn’t bring myself to have sex with her again. Not even I could fake that. Shit. This sounds so fucking ridiculous. Trust me, I do realize how grossly unattractive and desperate this makes me sound. I won’t even tell my mom about this crap.”
His words seared through me, burning and twisting as I imagined how he must have felt sleeping in bed at night next to a liar. And then I thought about all the nights I’d done the same thing next to Greg. Maybe I hadn’t known about the affair when I’d done it. But I had known I didn’t love him.
Tanner’s hugs eased my pain like a drug; maybe mine did the same for him.
Twisting the knob, I gave it a push, but it didn’t budge.
“Not yet, Rita.”
My heart couldn’t take much more. “Honey, please.”
“She wasn’t happy about me not having sex with her anymore. I don’t think she could figure out what was happening, and it made her desperate. I still don’t know if she thought she could convince me that the baby was mine or if squeezing money out of me was her plan all along. She wants three million dollars not to publish her piece-of-sh
it book. That’s what her attorney has valued it at.” He paused and drew in a long breath. “I’m not doing it. I don’t give a fuck what it costs me professionally anymore. But I’m not giving her a single cent more than I already have. She used me and played me for months. I should have seen it coming. She went out of her way to make sure the public knew we were together. She got mad at me once because I didn’t introduce her as my girlfriend at an event. Hindsight, I think she just wanted to make sure there were enough people who knew about us to believe her story. I hate her for all of that, Rita. But I hate her more than I ever could have imagined because I think she’s going to cost me way more than a few million dollars. I’m terrified she’s going to cost me you.”
I closed my eyes, reality washing over me.
Shana wasn’t our problem. Honestly, neither was Greg. Our problem was that neither one of us had any business falling in love with another person when we couldn’t even love what we saw in the mirror.
“Why do you keep doing Simmer if you hate it so much?”
He laughed sadly. “I don’t know. I don’t hate it…completely. I love being in front of the camera, but all the acting and none of the cooking… It sucks the passion out of me. And, currently, I’m doing it because I’m supporting a woman who is making my life a living hell. You have no idea how expensive not having a baby can be.”
“If you’re miserable though, why not give yourself a chance to be happy?”
“Pride, I guess. If I quit, I’ll look like a failure and, worse, I might actually be the failure everyone predicted I would be when I signed on to do the show. You have no idea how much pressure there is to always be bigger and better. A step down might as well be stepping off the map. Trust me, I am not the only chef in the world with a six-pack who knows how to take his shirt off.”
Failure. Seven letters that could strike fear in even the strongest of wills. That was not limited to one-named Rita or two-named Tanner Reese. No one was safe from the fear of failure.
I gave the door another push, and this time, it swung open.
He was standing there on the other side, all tall, blond, and mouthwatering. A staggering dichotomy to the insecure man who’d just been pouring his soul out.
“Hey,” I whispered.
“Hey,” he replied.
“We really have a thing for doors, huh?”
“I love you,” he blurted.
I stumbled back, my foot landing wrong, causing pain to explode. I hadn’t gotten the first ouch out before he caught me, lifted me, then sank to the floor in the middle of my hallway with me secured in his arms, my ass in his lap.
“I love you,” he whispered again. “And I think you love me. Our timing sucks, but I don’t want to lose you. This is the first real thing I’ve ever felt with a woman.”
“I don’t want to lose you, either.” I brushed the hair off his forehead, allowing my finger to trail down the curve of his strong jaw. His blond stubble was barely visible, but it prickled against my touch. “And I love you too. But I need some time because I don’t love me.”
His whole face screwed up tight as he dropped his forehead to mine. “What does that mean? Are we breaking up or just taking a step back? What if we go back to slow again?”
“We suck at slow. I spent the night at your house on our first date.”
“So this is it, then? I’m supposed to walk away and forget we ever happened?” He gave me a squeeze. “I can’t believe this shit. I finally find the right woman and I’m going to lose her.”
“Look at me, Tanner.”
His eyes flicked open.
“I need to figure out who I am. And then I need to forgive Greg.”
The curl of his lip was so priceless that it almost made me laugh.
“Don’t worry. I’ll never tell Greg I forgive him. I just need to do it for me. And while I can’t speak for you, I think there’s a lot of crap you need to figure out also.”
He nodded.
I brushed my lips over his. “So maybe we don’t look at it like we’re breaking up. Maybe we’re just shifting our relationship to the back burner to let it simmer while we work on ourselves.” I winked, proud that I’d been able to come up with a cooking analogy.
He didn’t seem so thrilled. “You know what happens when you let something simmer for too long, Rita? It reduces into nothing. How long are we talking about here?”
My heart sank, and my throat got thick with emotion. “I…I don’t…” I didn’t get anything else out because he kissed me.
Slow and sorrowful.
Soft and filled with apology.
And still quite possibly the best kiss I’d ever received.
That is until I realized that Tanner Reese was kissing me goodbye.
He broke the connection of our mouths and climbed to his feet with me still held securely in his arms. He carried me to the couch and set me down. “If I don’t leave now, I may never find the courage to walk out that door.” He put his hands on his hips and swallowed back whatever emotion was trying to escape, and in true Tanner fashion, he covered it with a joke. “It would be awkward as hell if I was still stuck in this house when Greg moves in next month.”
I laughed, but it only caused a tear to spill from my eyes.
“Promise me that the minute you’ve got your shit sorted, you’ll come find me. Two weeks, six months, fifteen years—it doesn’t matter.”
I swiped under my eyes. “It’s not going to be fifteen years, Tanner.”
He stabbed a hand into the top of his hair. “If it’s a day, it’s going to feel like fifteen years to me.”
“Honey,” I breathed.
He cleared his throat. “Listen, do me a favor. Call Sidney and see if she’ll come over to help you with your feet. I hate leaving you like this. But I can’t stay.”
“Okay, I’ll call her,” I whispered.
He stared at me for a long minute, dread hanging in the air between us. But it was the only way. No matter how much it hurt.
“I love you,” he said. “And if you need anything—”
“You will be the very first person I call.”
He blew out an exasperated and resigned sigh that said it all.
And then a pain far greater than even the day I’d found out about Greg’s affair struck me like a million arrows falling from the sky as I watched Tanner Reese walk out my front door.
* * *
My chest felt like I’d been beaten as I walked into my empty house that first night. Rita had been right. I had a lot of stuff I needed to work through. I’d been naively hoping she and I could work through our shit together.
It was stupid.
Almost as stupid as falling in love with a woman in the middle of her divorce. But she was Rita. Beautiful, kind, generous, smartass extraordinaire. I hadn’t stood a chance after meeting that woman.
And it wasn’t just her divorce that made our relationship the recipe for disaster. I had issues stacked a mile high that I’d been neglecting for entirely too long.
Could I live with myself if I did another season of Simmer?
Why I’d settled for Shana in the first place.
Why I’d pretended for so long with her to keep from being alone.
And the million-dollar question: What I wanted to do for the rest of my life?
I fell asleep in my hammock that night with a highball of Belvedere at my side, a myriad of regrets swirling in my head, and sad, green eyes on the backs of my eyelids.
I didn’t feel much better the next morning, but as I stared at a pack of cigarettes, I couldn’t bring myself to smoke one. It was a vice that had numbed me through a lot of stressful situations, but it had fixed exactly none of them.
I needed this one to be fixed. Because if and when she came back to me, I needed to be ready.
For the next few days, I went through all the motions: Eat. Sleep. Work. Fuck with Porter. Wash, rinse, and repeat.
But I missed her.
The way she smelled.
&
nbsp; The way she felt curled into my side.
The way she smiled at me when our eyes would meet.
Most of all, I just missed talking to her.
I must have typed at least a thousand texts to her. I deleted them all.
She wanted space, and I wanted her to figure out her life in under fifteen years, so dammit, I was going to give it to her.
Simmer was thriving.
The Porterhouse was thriving.
The Tannerhouse was thriving.
TV personality and celebrity chef Tanner Reese was thriving.
Yet I was floundering.
I thought Porter was going to fall out of his chair when I showed up at the restaurant one night after a long day of filming and told him to go home. He blinked at me for several seconds before sprinting past me without a single word spoken. Between the kids and the restaurants, he was burning the candle at both ends. And now that he had a girlfriend, he probably wanted a little more time to use that newfound wick. We really needed to hire someone so he could have more time off.
Or maybe if I freed up, say, fifty hours a week, I could step in and help him more.
That night, after he left, I stood in The Porterhouse kitchen, watching the chefs work. Most people wouldn’t understand it, but there was a thrill unlike anything else to be found in a kitchen. Sure, the hours and unforgiving nature of the job were brutal, and by the end of a shift, I was exhausted beyond explanation. But in my chef whites, with sweat beading on my forehead and chaos all around me, the calm I felt combining raw ingredients into a masterpiece with the flick of my wrist was intoxicating. It was easy to become addicted to the hunt and the high of the perfect dish.
