Epilogue
TWO YEARS LATER
The kitchen buzzed with a low hum of life — pans clattered in the sink, someone was laughing in the back, and the sharp scent of citrus and fire lingered in the air, long after the last dessert had been torched.
It was just past midnight at Pygo.
We’d closed an hour ago. The guests were gone, the lights in the dining room dimmed to that soft golden hue we always said made everyone look ten percent hotter and twenty percent richer. And back here in the kitchen — this was our sanctuary. The pulse of the restaurant.
Finn moved behind the line like it was still mid-service, sleeves rolled up, apron smudged and messy, hair mussed from the rush. I leaned on the bar across from him, sipping a glass of red, watching him. Admiring him.
Over the last two years, I’d had the privilege of watching him grow Pygo into something more magical than I ever could have dreamed.
I knew he was a brilliant chef. I knew his food was special.
But I didn’t know what it was like when he was set completely free, when there were no guests telling him what they wanted or what they couldn’t have, when it was just his creativity leading the way.
What started with him and his sous chefs playing in the kitchen as I designed and decorated the front of house slowly transformed into what we had today: a sensory-rich culinary experience.
From the time the customers secured their reservation on our website all the way until they were escorted out of the restaurant, they were taken on an adventure.
It was mesmerizing to behold.
As I watched him now, I found my chest a little tight with longing.
I was so thankful I got to be a part of this journey with him, but I still longed to know what he’d been like at the restaurant in Dublin.
I wondered if this one was different somehow, or just a more polished version of what he’d already created there.
But those years we were separated allowed us both to grow. We endured heartache and pain, but we found our way back.
And that was where my focus would be: on the here and now.
Two years had flown by in a blur of designing and planning and dreaming.
If I’d thought being a chief stew was rewarding, it was nothing compared to how it felt to build Pygo with Finn.
Just like he had full control of the menu, I had full control of the experience — the mood, the atmosphere, the way every detail worked together to make someone feel as they ate.
From the forest green velvet booths and the mosaic of broken wine bottles and sea glass to the rustic light fixtures and local art, I put thoughtful care into every inch of space.
I curated the playlist, pored over fonts and linen textures for the menus, and selected each dish and glass like a stylist would choose everything to make up a red-carpet look.
Everything guests saw, touched, or felt — I touched first. I thought it through. I made sure it said what we wanted it to say.
Every service was a performance.
And Pygo was the stage I built.
If I were the set designer, then Finn was the main actor, the man everyone came to see. Our team of chefs and waitstaff were supporting actors of the highest caliber, but it was he who made the tickets sell.
“You seriously just made a duck confit croquette after a fourteen-hour shift?” Tobias asked Finn, blinking at the plate like it personally offended him.
Finn shrugged, flicking sea salt over the top like it was fairy dust. “If it’s wrong to decompress with luxury, I don’t want to be right.”
“It’s excessive,” Tobias muttered.
“Everything good is.”
I smirked into my wine glass.
Tobias turned to me. “You enabled this, didn’t you?”
“I’m his wife in everything but paperwork,” I said. “You’ll have to be more specific about which crimes I’ve enabled.”
I didn’t miss how the word wife made Finn’s ocean eyes flick to mine.
The corner of his mouth curled, the heat in his gaze enough to make me want to notch the A/C down a degree or two.
We’d been living together ever since the show ended, working side by side day in and day out, sharing every ounce of our lives with one another.
And somehow, I’d only fallen more in love with him. Maybe it was because our love was born in tight quarters, but it never bothered me, the fact that we were nearly always together. We thrived when we were connected.
Of course, Leah wouldn’t stand for letting me spend all my time with Finn and the restaurant. Blessedly, she’d moved her offseason home to Fort Lauderdale, and whenever she wasn’t on charter, she was dragging me out with her or kicking Finn out so we could rot on my couch.
After the reunion, we’d reconnected, both of us profusely apologizing and lamenting that we’d missed so much time together already. She was my best friend now — with Bernard edging his way in to be our third wheel whenever he was in the States — and I couldn’t imagine my life without her.
She and Cameron had never recovered from the chaos at the end of the season, but I knew she’d find her person one day. When she was ready.
Right now, she was more focused on her first charter as chief stew coming up.
I knew she would blow them all away.
“I’ve seen drug cartels operate with less chaos than the two of you,” Tobias said, still assessing Finn’s creation.
“Speaking of crimes—” I set down my glass. “Show him the picture, Finn. The foie bao with the candied figs.”
Tobias winced. “God, the gold leaf—”
“Show. Him.”
Finn pulled out his phone, still grimacing as Tobias rubbed his hands together. “No way. Cheffy embarrassed about a dish he made? This ought to be good.”
“You have to promise not to—” The words died on Finn’s tongue, his brows pinching in. He glanced at me and then brought the phone to his ear.
“What is it?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
His body went still, the kind of still that always made my stomach flip. His eyes locked on the floor, mouth slightly parted.
“Finn?” I took a step forward. “What?”
He looked up at me, pale.
“We got a star.”
Time froze.
All movement in the kitchen stopped, from where the dishwashers were scrubbing away in the back corner to where the chefs were prepping for tomorrow. All noise died, save for the playlist that hummed quietly through the speaker. We never heard it back here in the kitchen. It was always too loud.
But it was silent now.
Until everyone lost their damn minds.
“WHAT?!”
“No way. No fucking way.”
“We got a star?!”
“You’re talking about the star?!”
“PLAY THE VOICEMAIL!”
Finn, still in shock, fumbled to put it on speaker. And then we all heard it — the smooth, unmistakable voice of a Michelin Guide rep, congratulating Chef Finn Pearson of Pygo on receiving his first star. Official. Verified. Real.
Tobias screamed. Casey, one of our hostesses, started sobbing.
Chefs were hugging, dirty cutlery and half-prepped dishes abandoned as everyone ran around like wild animals let out of a zoo.
Someone screamed that they were grabbing the most expensive bottle of champagne in our cellar as I blinked and smiled and tried to wrap my head around it.
A star.
“I’m calling my mom!” Tobias yelled.
“I’m calling my ex just to rub it in!” Casey called out.
And Finn — my brilliant, reckless, maddening, passionate Finn — just stood there, blinking, staring at his phone like he wasn’t sure if it was a bomb or a gold brick. The eye of the beautiful storm.
My wine glass abandoned, I ran to him, sliding across the cleared part of the stainless-steel island until I collided with that gorgeous man. He laughed in surprise, his phone dropping to the floor, but I didn’t give him the chance to reach for it again.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him into me, my lips caressing his with all the words I knew could never convey what I felt for him in this moment.
Finn inhaled the kiss, his hands finding my hair, the chaos around us muted as we leaned into that touch, into each other.
“You did it,” I whispered, tears stinging the corners of my eyes as we pressed our foreheads together. “I told you. I knew you would.”
“They called when we were prepping for dinner service,” he murmured, dazed. “I… I missed it. I missed the call.”
“You got the voicemail,” I said on a laugh. “And it’s real, babe. Somewhere in Los Angeles, they’re having a party and announcing your star. By tomorrow morning, the news will be in all the papers.” I shook my head, pressing another long kiss to his perfect lips. “You did it.”
“We did it,” he quickly corrected, his hands locking on either side of my face as his eyes searched mine. “I fecking love you.”
“I love you, too.”
And then we were torn apart, the team dragging Finn outside before I was hoisted up in the air to follow.
We tumbled into the street outside Pygo, where the light from the windows spilled across the sidewalk and the champagne became a weapon.
Finn was soaked with it in under thirty seconds, laughing in a way I’d never seen — wild and free, like something had cracked open inside him and let the light pour in.
This was what it looked like to witness a dream come true.
Through it all, his eyes kept finding mine.
Like no matter how bright the spotlight, he could still only ever see me.
ONE WEEK LATER
The restaurant looked like a fever dream.
Sunlight spilled in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, catching on gold accents and flickering across velvet booths.
The floor was a mosaic of tile — chaotic, colorful, magical.
Hanging plants dipped from the ceiling. The lighting fixtures were warm and strange and beautiful — all curves and antique brass, casting shadows on the lacquered walls.