Chapter Sixteen
“Darling, come in,” Celeste Aquino said, opening the door to Kian.
Bastian’s mother’s house wasn’t the soulless modern box that his own was. It was painted French blue, with charming white shutters, and a proliferation of gardens surrounding it, from the start of the drive all the way up to the house.
“Thank you for inviting me,” Kian said, hating how stiff and nervous he sounded. Since accepting the invitation the night before, the only thing that had stopped him from canceling was the fact that he didn’t know her phone number. And he couldn’t exactly call Bastian and ask him.
“Don’t worry, he is not here. He is working, of course,” she said, leading him through the interior of the house, which was laid out just as open as Bastian’s own, but decorated in her own style.
Celeste took him out onto the back terrace, and they sat at a table and chairs for two, set with delicate china and a center serving tray filled with petit fours and tea sandwiches.
“See, isn’t this lovely?” Celeste asked and Kian nodded mutely. This shouldn’t feel like a test, but it was. He’d never imagined meeting Bastian’s mother without Bastian actually being present.
“It’s a beautiful view,” Kian added. “And your gardens are stunning.”
Celeste poured tea into his cup. “This ground is so fertile, I enjoy it so much,” she said. “When Bastian said he wanted me to come with him to California, of course I agreed, but I had no idea I would like it so much here.”
She handed him the cup, and then offered him a choice of sandwiches. Like Bastian, she was clearly a perfectionist, because everything was elegant and beautifully prepared.
“I taught him to cook, you know,” she said conspiratorially. “Though he will deny it now.”
Kian took a bite of smoked salmon, chewed, and then swallowed. “Why would he?” He didn’t add that she was hardly the type of mother that he could ever be ashamed of.
“You know Bastian,” she said with a little airy wave of her hand. “No doubt he wants everyone to believe he came out of the womb knowing how to cook. He lets none of that show through his armor.”
He’d let a little of it show, with Kian.
But not much, and not, Kian had realized during the last week, enough for Kian to feel comfortable showing any of his own weakness.
That was why he’d resisted telling him about Mark causing so much difficulty.
Bastian’s expectations of perfectionism were difficult to face, but even tougher because his own personal standards were so high.
You could hardly blame someone for expecting too much when they expected even more out of themselves.
“No, he doesn’t,” Kian admitted softly.
“I know it’s painful to talk about him,” she said, kindness echoing through every syllable of her words. “If you really don’t want to, I won’t blame you, but I think it would help if I told you a little of his past. I’m assuming he has never told you, non?”
“I know what’s on his Wikipedia page,” Kian admitted wryly.
“It would be nice for these conversations to come up naturally, for him to tell you himself, in his own time, but I think, I think he will eventually come to you, and you knowing these things will help.”
Kian knew he was staring incredulously at her. “Why would he come to me?”
She laughed. “Bastian, you know he does not let things go. He does not give up. He does not quit. He is searching for a solution to your professional problem, a place you will fit, a place you fit with him, and I know he will find one eventually. Because he is Bastian.”
Kian knew him well too, obviously not as well as his mother knew him, but he wasn’t so certain.
“I see you doubt,” she said, leaning forward a little. “But that is alright. Still, I would like to tell you, if that is alright?”
“Yes,” Kian agreed. “it’s alright.”
Celeste took her time, pouring more tea, popping a sugar cube into her own cup with a delicate pair of silver tongs, offering him another sandwich. Finally, she spoke. “Bastian’s father, I assume he has not told you of him.”
“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.”