Chapter 29
OLIVIA
Paris, late September
T he metro screeched to a halt, and I glanced anxiously at my watch. Great, I was going to be late again.
So far, in the three weeks since classes had started at Ferrandi, I’d already been late twice. Even when I did make it on time, I arrived bleary-eyed and exhausted and, as a result, hadn’t made a very good impression on my instructors.
I’d promised myself last night that I would arrive on time this morning, but as usual, I’d woken up again at three a.m. and started thinking about Jake and then couldn’t fall back to sleep.
I barely had time to down a cup of coffee this morning before racing out of the apartment I was sharing with Callie, which thanks to our meager bank accounts was as far away from the school as possible.
We lived in a vibrant working-class area on the Right Bank that I loved, but the forty-five-minute commute was torture when I was already running late.
Squeezed in the train with the other passengers like sardines in a tin can, I couldn’t even go over my notes.
It gave me plenty of time to stare at my reflection in the window though and notice my drawn face and the circles under my eyes.
Of course, I was grateful to be living with my best friend in Paris, learning to cook with some of the most incredible chefs in the world. But now there was something missing, like I was doing it all with one hand behind my back.
The only time I allowed myself to fully wallow in my heartbreak (besides the middle of the night) was on my miserable morning commute—shoved between strangers, my nose practically buried in some guy’s armpit.
The rest of the time I was too busy, or I forced myself not to think about him.
I couldn’t even really count on Callie to distract me.
We only rarely crossed paths in the hallway as she came home from her late-night shift just as I was shuffling off to bed.
I’d seen Lucie briefly my first week in Paris and she’d told me Jake was in China, and she didn’t know if he’d be back in time for her wedding.
A part of me was holding out hope that he’d call me when he got back.
I still couldn’t understand how the man I’d known so intimately, who had held me after making love to me like he couldn’t let me go, could now be so silent and distant.
People grumbled around me as the train slowly inched into the station. If I wanted to be on time, I’d have to run for it. As soon as the doors slid open, I elbowed my way outside, racing up the stairs like my feet were on fire.
I should have been in too much of a hurry to notice the fall issue of Vatel displayed at the news kiosk, but the front cover immediately caught my eye. I skidded to a halt on the sidewalk and nearly got run over by the man behind me who glared at me as his telephone went flying.
Before I could apologize, he huffed out in English, “Watch where you go!”
Pretty rich coming from someone who ran into me because his eyes had been glued to his iPhone.
Resisting the urge to respond, I turned my attention to the magazine cover that had nearly sent me flying to the pavement: a photo of Jake sitting in the Aston Martin with Reynaud’s vineyard in the background.
The first thing that struck me of course was how painfully beautiful the photo was. I played back images from that day a thousand times in my head, but seeing it in glossy print took me right back to the hot breeze in the vines, the heady anticipation I’d felt waiting for Jake to touch me.
And then I read the title of the article: “Les nouveaux dieux du vin” (The New Gods of Wine).
I cringed. Jake must hate this cover. I could imagine him seeing it for the first time and tossing it away with a disgusted huff.
My fingers itched to dial his number, but I’d promised myself I wouldn’t reach out to him first.
Hand shaking, I picked up a copy and took out my coin purse to pay the vendor. Then, shoving the magazine into my bag with my toque and my notebook, I dashed off toward Ferrandi.
Somehow, I managed to arrive at school with two minutes to change. I was just heading into the locker room when the door to the admissions office opened and the secretary came out brandishing a check in her hand. “ Mademoiselle !”
Merde. I stopped in front of the kitchen window where I could see my classmates standing around the stainless steel table. “ Oui, madame ?”
She handed me the check, the one I’d given her yesterday to pay the rest of my tuition for this trimester. “I don’t understand . . .”
“We don’t need this. Your tuition has already been paid in full.”
“What? How?” I had carefully saved up money over the last year. It would only pay a part of the tuition, but I had planned on taking out a small loan to pay for the rest. Everything had been carefully budgeted, so to find myself with an excess of money didn’t make any sense.
“Your full tuition has been paid,” the woman repeated, leaving me standing in the hallway gaping at the check.
This had to be a mistake, but I couldn’t make sense of it now. I had to get to class.
I raced into the changing room, pulled on my chef’s whites and made sure my hair was still smoothed into a high ponytail before cracking open the door to the kitchen. All eyes turned to me. So much for trying to sneak into the room unnoticed.
“I’m glad you have graced us with your presence today, mademoiselle,” said Chef Daniel Bernard, a fifty-something Lyonnais with a nose that was just made to look down from.
“I’m sorry,” I managed to squeak out before he got back to explaining that morning’s recipe. I tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but my mind was too distracted by the magazine in my purse.
* * *
The rest of the day everything was off. I mixed up the sugar and the salt and ended up with flat croissants saltier than the Dead Sea.
The afternoon sauce class was no better; instead of a creamy sauce béarnaise , I created a yellow goop with clumpy bits of cooked egg and unsifted flour congealed at the top. Amateur mistakes, all of them.
As I was leaving, Chef Bernard called me back to his table. Meekly, I walked over to him, catching sympathetic glances from my classmates as they filed out, and pretended not to notice the disapproving expression on his face.
“Mademoiselle Peterson, where was your ’ead today?” he demanded softly, crossing his formidable arms and glaring at me as if I’d just punted a terrine of foie gras into the Seine.
“My head?” I tried to play dumb.
“Yes, this ’ead right ’ere on your shoulders. It was not in my kitchen. It was ailleurs ! Unacceptable. If you do not plan on cooking with all your ’ead and your ’eart, do not come to class. Is this clear?”
“Perfectly.” I gulped. “I’m sorry, I didn’t . . .”
He held up a stubby fingered hand. “Eh, eh, eh! I do not care for your excuses. When you are in my kitchen, they are outside the door. Yes?”
I nodded and slunk away. Back out on the bustling sidewalk with my too-heavy bag slung over my shoulder, I took a deep breath and headed for the small café across the street; there was no way I was going to make it all the way back to the apartment without breaking the magazine out of my bag.
I sat down at a table in the corner as far away from other people as possible and ordered a bière blanche , waiting until the server had placed the cold glass in front of me before pulling out the magazine. I placed it on the table, my fingers running over the letters of Jake’s name.
The cover photo was even more breath-taking on closer inspection, and once again every memory from that day came flooding back—the way Jake had filled out that expensive shirt, how his muscular chest was revealed as he slipped it off, the sound of his belt sliding off.
I was back on the kitchen table at the villa, panting with lust for him.
I hoped my face was not as flushed as it felt as I flipped through the glossy pages and pretended interest in the interviews with other food industry professionals—like the food critic and sommelier from Jake’s birthday dinner—before jumping straight to the interview with Jake.
There were half a dozen photos of the house—from reserve bottles glinting in the cellar to close-ups of the lavender I’d planted in the garden.
There was even a photo of the cat basking in the sun.
The familiarity of it all made my heart ache.
My French still wasn’t good enough to understand everything in the interview, but I did get the gist of it and even I could see Anne-Sophie’s obnoxious flirting coming straight off the page.
A note at the bottom of the article caught my attention, and, while I understood it grammatically, it didn’t make sense practically: “At the date of publication, VosCo Wines has joined the Sungate family.”
It had to be a mistake. There was no way Jake would have sold his company. And he certainly wouldn’t have gone back to work with Thomas Brinkley. The part of me that wasn’t angry with him, the part that still loved him—okay, all of me then—felt distinctly queasy.
I gulped down the rest of my beer and stuffed the magazine back in my purse. On the metro ride home, my mind was spinning, not only trying to make sense of what I’d just read, but also attempting to solve the mystery of the check that had been returned to me.
I was budgeting down to the last centime, so the mistake hadn’t been on my end.
There was no way my dad had done this; he was still holding out hope that I’d reconsider going to law school next year.
And if my dad didn’t pay for it, that left only one other person who would have done such a thing. Damn him!
By the time I reached the apartment, my blood was boiling.
This was fucking typical: ignore me for a month, and then surprise me by doing something so extravagant it made no sense.
He was paying me off to appease his sense of guilt, when all I wanted was for him to admit that he missed me and that what we’d had over the summer had been real.
Slamming the apartment door behind me, I threw my bag on the ground and stalked over to Callie, who was lounging on the green velvet sofa staring at her phone.
“Hey, poulette, want to go get dinner somewhere? I’m sick to death of cooking.
Maybe we could invite Olivier?” She was still trying to set me up with our downstairs neighbor, a fireman who could pass for Henry Cavill’s French twin.
Then she finally noticed my murderous expression.
“Whoa, did Chef Bernard get under your toque today?”
“Yes, I was late again because of this!” I snatched the magazine from my purse and shoved it at her.
“Holy shit!” Callie stared at the photo on the cover and nearly spit out her water. “Sorry, Liv. I mean, this is hideous! Thank God you don’t have to look at this ugly mug anymore.”
She threw the magazine face down on the armchair and faked gagging. It was so over the top, I almost laughed.
“Then to make matters worse,” I continued as I walked back to the tiny kitchen, “I found out that someone paid my full tuition.”
I filled a glass from the tap and gulped it down.
“That sounds like good news to me.” Callie walked over to the counter and perched on a stool. “Was it your dad? I had a feeling he wouldn’t be able to completely butt out of your life.”
“No, it wasn’t my dad. It was Jake.”
“Oh, wow!” Her eyes widened and her red mouth turned up into a smug smile. “See, I told you that the cutting-all-ties method works.”
“Huh! Then maybe you should try it sometime.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them.
Callie’s current on-again-off-again relationship (if you could call it that) with Gaz Greystone was on again because she was incapable of cutting the guy off.
“Sorry, Cal. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just really frustrated and hurt.”
“Hurt that the man you love paid for you to live out your dream in Paris?” Callie crossed her arms. “This is clearly a move for you to contact him. He’s probably waiting by the phone.”
“You said I shouldn’t make the first move.”
“You’re not. He did.”
I hesitated. Hearing his voice might push me over the edge, but I was angry and wanted him to know it.
I picked up the phone and dialed his number. He answered after the first ring.
“Hey.” His sleepy voice sluiced through me like a shot of whiskey. “How are you?”
“I’m okay.” I knew it was rude not to ask how he was, but I couldn’t handle it if he told me he was doing great. “So I just found out that my tuition was paid. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
A few seconds passed and I thought he might deny it. “I wanted to help.”
I let out a deep sigh. “The thing is, it’s important to me that I pay for my classes myself. To prove that I’m capable of doing this on my own.”
“Of course you’re capable. I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t. Listen, the money’s yours. Do you know how much I would have had to pay a consultant to have created that app?”
“You already paid me,” I reminded him. “I insist on paying you back. With interest and everything.”
“I don’t charge interest. In fact, I charge negative interest.”
“That’s not how it works,” I said, flopping down on the bed, my anger defusing. How could he still make me smile despite how much he’d hurt me? “And I’m only agreeing to accept the money now because it would be too complicated to reverse engineer what you’ve done.”
“Okay.”
He was silent for a minute. I wondered if he’d tell me about selling his business. If he didn’t want to share that with me, then I was at a complete loss on where we stood. Finally, my curiosity got the better of me, and I asked, “Where are you?”
Another pause. “Shanghai.”
So far away. The back of my throat started to ache.
“It’s late then. Didn’t mean to wake you up. I should go. I’m going out for dinner.” I didn’t specify that I was going out with Callie. Let him think I was going on a date. “Will you be at Lucie’s wedding?” I held my breath, hating how desperately I wanted him to say yes.
The line cut up and there was silence again. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay, well, I guess I won’t say ‘see you later’ then.” This had been a very bad idea. I was a nanosecond away from tears.
“Olivia,” he said and paused. “I . . . It was good to hear your voice.”