Chapter 24
CLEMENTINE
It had been a week since Austin, and the tour was hitting its stride. Austin went great. Each city brought new challenges, new energy, and I was starting to feel like I belonged in this whirlwind of culinary chaos.
And now we were in Vegas, baby.
The dinner tonight wasn’t for the people in need.
It was a fundraiser. All the money would be going toward Dad’s passion project—his soup kitchen.
Vegas was all about high rollers and that was what we were going to be capitalizing on.
It felt like the last couple of weeks had been intense training for the Vegas dinner.
I was nervous and excited. I was so ready to prove my worth in the kitchen.
We had taken over a kitchen in the Bellagio.
Rhett had been coordinating the dinner with the manager of the hotel and the restaurant.
It was going to be a version of his restaurant back in Manhattan.
The tables were draped in midnight black linens that made the gold cutlery gleam.
Every tiny detail had been planned and coordinated.
A-list guests wearing designer gowns and thousand-dollar suits were in attendance.
It was the place to be in Vegas. Gordon Ramsay could eat his heart out.
Rhett Voss was in town.
Rhett Voss and team.
The kitchen was a different beast entirely. It buzzed with the kind of manic energy that only came when the stakes were impossibly high and the margin for error was nonexistent. Culinary students from the Vegas campus were busting ass to keep up with Rhett’s high standards.
I tied my apron tighter and surveyed my station.
Tonight’s menu was ambitious even by Rhett’s standards.
He was serving seared duck breast with pomegranate molasses, wild mushroom risotto that required constant stirring, and a dessert that involved seventeen different components.
It was the kind of meal that would make or break reputations.
I knew he was swinging for the fences.
“Hartley!” Rhett’s voice cut through the kitchen noise like a blade. “Your mise en place better be perfect because I’m not running a charity kitchen tonight.”
I nodded, my hands already moving through the familiar routine of checking my prep station. Everything was arranged with military precision. This was where I thrived, in the beautiful chaos of service where there was no time to second-guess yourself.
The first orders started trickling in around seven-thirty.
I moved like a machine, muscle memory taking over as I plated each dish.
I knew what Rhett expected. Every chef had their own little quirks.
I knew Rhett’s. I knew how to plate to his standards.
The duck needed to be sliced just so, fanned across the plate at the perfect angle.
The risotto had to be spooned with a specific wrist motion that created the ideal quenelle shape.
The microgreens were positioned with tweezers.
He did not fuck around. The whole eat with your eyes thing was very real to him.
I felt inspired tonight in a way I hadn’t in weeks. Maybe it was the Vegas energy or maybe it was the fact the whole tour was coming to an end soon, but it just felt like we were firing on all cylinders.
Rhett prowled the kitchen like a caged predator dressed in head to toe black, as was tradition.
He paused at each station, tasting, adjusting, occasionally exploding into profanity when something didn’t meet his impossibly high standards.
I had seen him reduce grown men to tears with nothing but a look and a few choice words about their knife skills.
When he reached my station, I held my breath.
The plates I just finished were, without false modesty, easily the best in the kitchen.
The plating was flawless, the portions exact, the colors vibrant against the white porcelain.
I even added a small flourish with a drizzle of pomegranate reduction that I put into a delicate spiral around the edge of the plate.
Rhett picked up one of my plates, examined it with the intensity of an art critic studying a Monet. He lifted it to eye level, checking the angles. He leaned in to smell the aromatics. For thirty seconds that felt like thirty minutes, he said nothing.
Finally, he set the plate down and gave me the slightest nod.
That was it. No acknowledgment of the extra care I had taken, no recognition that my plating was head and shoulders above everyone else’s in the kitchen. Just a nod before he moved on to tear apart Marcus’s attempt at the same dish.
“That’s it?” I asked, my voice barely audible over the kitchen noise.
Rhett paused and looked back at me, one eyebrow raised. “I don’t hand out compliments, Hartley,” he said, his tone as flat and professional as if we were complete strangers. As if he hadn’t had his hands on my body and his tongue down my throat in that Miami hotel’s hot tub.
The dismissal hurt. My cheeks burned with embarrassment, but I forced myself to keep my head in the game.
I threw myself back into the work, plating dish after dish with the same level of perfection The dining room was in full swing.
I could hear the murmur of conversation and laughter through the pass, the clink of expensive glasses, the scrape of silverware against porcelain.
But in the kitchen, time moved differently.
There was only the next ticket, the next plate, the next small chance to prove myself.
By nine-thirty, we were hitting our stride.
Orders were flying out of the kitchen in perfect synchronization.
The front of house was singing our praises.
Even Rhett seemed marginally less homicidal than usual.
I allowed myself a moment of satisfaction as I watched one of my perfectly plated duck dishes disappear through the pass.
Then disaster struck.
It happened so fast I almost missed it. Jeremy, one of the quieter culinary students working the dessert station, was carrying a hotel pan full of candied pecans. It was the crucial topping for tonight’s signature dessert. His foot caught on the edge of a floor mat, and the entire pan went flying.
Hundreds of perfectly candied pecans scattered across the floor, rolling under equipment and mixing with whatever kitchen debris had accumulated throughout the night. The sweet smell of burnt sugar and maple filled the air, but not in a good way.
The kitchen went dead silent for exactly three seconds. Then Rhett exploded.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” His voice pitched up an octave, the way it did when he was truly furious. “Are you fucking kidding me right now, Jeremy?”
Jeremy stood frozen in the middle of the wreckage, his face pale as paper. “Chef, I’m sorry, I—”
“Sorry doesn’t unfuck this situation!” Rhett’s voice carried across the entire kitchen. I saw several of the other students wince. “We have sixty covers going out in exactly—” he glanced at the clock “—four minutes, and you just destroyed the only component that makes this dessert work!”
I watched the seconds tick by on the kitchen timer, my mind racing.
The panna cotta was already plated, sitting in the walk-in cooler waiting for its final garnish.
Without the candied pecans, it was just plain.
Boring. The kind of dessert that would make food bloggers write scathing reviews about uninspired hotel restaurant fare.
“What the hell are we supposed to do now?” Rhett continued his tirade, pacing back and forth. “Tell me, Jeremy! What brilliant solution do you have for this clusterfuck you just created?”
I had to save the poor kid. I scanned the kitchen in hopes of inspiration.
Then it came to me. I grabbed a saucepan and turned on a burner. Pumpkin puree from tonight’s prep. A bottle of maple syrup. Cinnamon, nutmeg, a pinch of cardamom. Heavy cream from the lowboy cooler.
“Chef,” I called out, my voice cutting through his continued verbal assault on Jeremy. “I can fix this.”
Rhett spun around, his eyes wild with anger. He was about three minutes from a total crashout. “Fix what? There’s no time.”
“Trust me,” I said, already whisking the pumpkin puree into the warming cream. The mixture turned a beautiful golden orange. “Two minutes. I just need two minutes.”
I could feel every pair of eyes in the kitchen watching me as I worked. The smell that rose from the pan was pure autumn. I grabbed a piping bag from the equipment shelf and fitted it with a star tip.
“Hartley, what is that?” Rhett asked.
“Pumpkin spice mousse,” I said without looking up, transferring the mixture to the piping bag while it was still warm enough to pipe but cool enough not to melt the cold panna cotta upon contact. “With cinnamon sugar and toasted pumpkin seeds.”
I was already reaching for the seeds I’d prepped earlier for garnish.
“Plating now,” I announced, grabbing the first tray of panna cotta from the cooler. He stared at me and watched as I did my thing.
His expression was blank but he wasn’t freaking out. That had to be a good thing. I finished plating. The entire kitchen held its breath as we waited.
“Go, go, go!” Rhett shouted to the servers waiting at the pass.
The kitchen exhaled collectively. I leaned against my station, suddenly aware that my hands were shaking slightly from the adrenaline rush. Jeremy looked like he wanted to disappear into the floor, but Rhett had already moved on, barking orders about breaking down stations and cleaning equipment.
“Nice save, Hartley,” someone said.
If I was looking for praise, that was the best I was going to get.
I kept waiting and watching Rhett, waiting for some acknowledgment of what I had just pulled off. A thank you maybe. Or at least recognition that I probably saved the entire service from disaster.
But I got nothing.
Nada.
Zip.
We broke down our stations, cleaned equipment, and restored the kitchen to its pristine state while the guests in the dining room enjoyed their coffee and after-dinner drinks.
I could hear occasional bursts of laughter and applause filtering through the service doors.
It was the sound of a successful evening winding down.
Around eleven-thirty, just as we were finishing the deep clean, one of the front-of-house managers appeared in the kitchen doorway.
“Chef Voss?” he called out. “They would like you out front for the closing remarks. The emcee wants to do a brief interview, and the guests are asking to meet the chef.”
Rhett stripped off his apron and smoothed his hair back. It was part of the show. The mysterious celebrity chef emerging from his kitchen kingdom to accept the adulation of wealthy food lovers.
“You all did good work tonight,” he said to the kitchen staff, his first positive words of the evening. “Clean up and get some rest.”
I watched him walk toward the dining room. Through the service window, I could see him shake hands with the emcee.
The kitchen staff began filtering out, heading back to their hotel rooms or to whatever Vegas nightlife adventures awaited them. But I lingered, pretending to organize my knife roll while straining to hear what was happening in the dining room.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the culinary genius behind tonight’s extraordinary meal, Chef Rhett Voss!”
Polite applause rippled through the room. I could picture Rhett standing there with his characteristic confidence as he soaked up the attention.
“Chef, that dessert was absolutely divine,” the emcee continued. “Can you tell us about the inspiration behind that unique Thanksgiving flavor profile?”
My stomach clenched. This was it. This was where he would mention my quick thinking and my creativity. I held my breath.
“I wanted to create something that spoke to the season, something that would surprise and delight the palate. A combination of textures and temperatures that create an unexpected experience that still feels familiar and comforting.”
He was talking about my improvisation as if it had been planned all along. I listened in growing disbelief as he waxed eloquently about his creative vision and his innovative approach to seasonal desserts. Then he talked about some of the dishes he actually created.
More applause, more praise. I could hear guests calling out compliments, asking about his restaurants, requesting photos. And through it all, not a single mention of the young cook who had actually created the dish they were celebrating.
I knew I shouldn’t have expected credit—kitchen hierarchy was sacred. The executive chef always got the praise for everything that came out of his kitchen. But it felt different.
The worst part was the way he described the dessert. He wasn’t just taking credit for it but describing it with genuine appreciation for its nuances and flavors. He understood exactly what I created and yet he felt no compunction about claiming it as his own.
I finished packing my knives and left the kitchen. I caught a glimpse of Rhett through the dining room windows. He was posing for photos with a group of guests, his smile charming and professional. He looked completely at ease, basking in praise for work that wasn’t entirely his own.
I was so glad I had my own room. I was not in the mood for company. I made myself a promise. I would keep my head down, keep working, keep learning everything I could from this experience. But I wouldn’t make the mistake of expecting recognition again.