23. Ezra
“Chef, we have a problem,” a waitress—whose name I couldn’t remember for the life of me—said as she came back into the kitchen, carrying a plate with a beautiful ribeye she’d just brought out to one of her tables.
“And what’s that?” I asked, barely sparing her a glance as I worked on plating a mushroom and Swiss topped with a healthy helping of fragrant grilled onions.
My mouth watered, and with a low curse, I realized we’d been so busy, I hadn’t eaten in hours. My stomach let out a grumble of protest, and I mentally told it to shut the fuck up.
I didn’t have time to be hungry.
“The customer said this steak was undercooked.”
I froze in place, right in the middle of sprinkling bread and butter pickles on the side to help balance the heavier flavors and textures of the burger.
I straightened and stalked over to her, grabbing the plate and whirling to the prep counter. I grabbed a fork and prodded at the ribeye. The customer had already cut a slice off, and I was greeted by the sight of the perfectly pink inside.
“Can you pull up that order?” I asked the waitress. “Tell me exactly how he wanted it prepared. ”
“No need,” she said. “I distinctly remember him ordering it medium rare. His date even confirmed it.”
“Then what the fuck is the problem?” I shouted, whipping the towel from my shoulder and throwing it on the floor. I felt bad when the girl flinched, and I mumbled an apology. “What table?”
“Seventeen.”
With a curt nod, I headed out onto the floor to track down the fucker who got exactly what he’d asked for and still found something to complain about.
I was thirty-three years old and had been cooking since I was old enough to see over the counter. There was nothing fucking wrong with that steak. The customer had asked for medium rare, and that was exactly what I’d given him. I’d never under or overcooked a steak in my life, and today was no different.
When I pushed out of the kitchen and approached the mouth of the dining room at the end of the short hall, my eyes swept the space, mentally counting until I landed on table seventeen.
The man was on the taller side, probably around my height, wearing a black Polo shirt at least two sizes too small for him, clearly purchased purposely to make his biceps and pecs look larger than they were. I couldn’t see his lower half, but if I was a betting man, I’d put money on the fact he had on some form of khaki pants and loafers.
But the woman—my heart stopped dead in my chest despite the fact that I could only see the back of her head and the gentle slope of one, olive-skinned shoulder.
I’d recognize her anywhere, my body in tune with hers even when I didn’t want to be .
If Brie wasn’t mad at me before, she was about to be after I handed her date his ass.
I willed myself to remain semi-calm as I approached the table, barely sparing Brie a glance. Her eyes flicked briefly in my general direction before focusing on something across the room.
That was good. Eye contact between us had always been dangerous.
“Hello, sir. Ma’am. I’m Chef Ezra. Can I ask what exactly was wrong with the steak you sent back?”
“It was far too rare.”
“You asked for medium rare,” I reminded him in a tone I hoped was gentle but I was afraid came out more condescending than I wanted. “That’s going to come with pink meat and some juices.”
“I wanted it more medium than rare.”
Then you should’ve ordered it fucking medium , you asshat.
Outwardly, I grinned, which I knew was really more of a grimace. “Apologies, sir. I’ll make you a new one.”
As I stalked back to the kitchen, I willed myself to chill the fuck out. I’d spent my career in New York dealing with assholes far worse, and far richer, than this guy. There was no reason for me to be so pissed off.
Then again, my fury had nothing to do with the fact that this guy didn’t know how to order a fucking steak, and everything to do with the fact that he was on a date with my girl.
I had no intention of cooking him an entirely new steak. When I re-entered the kitchen, I picked up the now cold piece of meat and dropped that sucker back on the griddle in the center of my stove. My eyes glazed over as I watched the flames lick at it, and though my sous chefs asked me what I was doing, I didn’t move again until the fat along one side was charred to a crisp.
Then I stabbed it with a two-prong meat fork, turned and grinned at my staff—a bit maniacally—before stomping back into the dining room and dropping it unceremoniously on the prick’s plate.
“There you are, sir,” I said happily with a sarcastic bow. “A medium rare steak.”
The idiot sputtered as he stared at the hunk of blackened meat, and Brie gasped. I wanted to apologize to her for causing a scene in her family’s place, but someone need to knock this guy off whatever fucking high horse he fancied himself on.
I grinned when he turned rage-filled eyes on me.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Your steak, sir. No pink in sight.”
“You burned the shit out of it!” he boomed, rising to his feet and throwing his napkin onto the table. Only Brie’s quickness saved it from being caught on fire by the candle.
I shrugged. “Maybe next time, you’ll think twice before sending back a perfectly prepared steak.”
“I’m the customer, you imbecile. I’m always right.”
“Not in my restaurant, you’re not.”
“Oh, so you own this place?” he asked with a derisive snort.
“No,” I said, cutting a look at Brie. “But she—”
With a shake of her head, she cut me off, and I clamped my mouth shut. She rose to her feet, glaring at her date. It took all my willpower not to drag my gaze along the length of her body, knowing now was not the time. Her emerald eyes flamed with anger, and it was nice to, for once, not be on the receiving end of her ire.
“He doesn’t,” she said, nodding at me, “but I do.”
The guy rolled his eyes. “The boys are talking, sweetie. You don’t need to come to this poor excuse for a chef’s defense.”
“He’s the best chef I’ve ever known,” Brie said, stepping closer to him. I was pleased equally by the knowledge that this putz was only about an inch taller than her, so she looked him dead in the eye with her heels on, and that she thought I was such a great chef. It had been a long time since she’d last complimented me on anything.
“And don’t call me sweetie.”
The guy gestured to his plate and the ruined ribeye. I cringed, knowing I’d pay for that lost revenue and ruined inventory out of my own pocket. While the prick deserved what he got, I was mad at myself for destroying such a beautiful cut of meat.
“He can’t even properly prepare a steak!” he protested to Brie.
“He prepared it perfectly,” she countered. “You’re just an asshole who thinks he’s better than everyone else because he’s got over a million TikTok followers. Now get the fuck out of my winery. And while you’re at it, get a life too.”
“ Your winery?” He laughed disdainfully. “You own a little bakery . That you live above.”
Brie returned to her chair, though she continued to speak as she grabbed her purse and rifled through it.
“I live above my bakery because I like being close to my business. I own a forty-acre plot of land on this peninsula, about two miles from here, and a massive trust fund I could use to build on it whenever I want. A trust fund I gained access to last month but haven’t had to touch because my little bakery provides me more than enough.” At last, she withdrew her wallet and slipped a card free, then stepped back into Dumbass’s face and slapped it against his chest. “The name on the building is Delatou, right?”
The man studied what I realized was her ID, eyes darting comically from me to Brie to the ID to the Chateau Delatou sign on the wall and back.
“Get out.”
Brie’s tone left no room for argument, despite its low volume and evenness.
“Fuck you,” he hissed, and I stepped toward him, ready to slam my fist into his face if he made a move in her direction. But Brie held up a hand, and the asshat went on. “You can forget all about getting a feature on my social channels.”
Brie snorted. “I don’t need your help anyway.”
The guy’s face was tomato red, the vein pulsing dangerously in his forehead. Though he looked poised to explode, he only tossed Brie’s ID back in her face and stormed from the restaurant.
As he did, cheers and applause erupted in his wake, and I couldn’t help but grin.
But my good mood died quickly when Brie turned a glare on me.
“You. Offices. Now.”
Swallowing hard, I nodded and trotted after her as she stomped into the foyer. Off to the right was a doorway that accessed the Delatou, Inc. corporate offices, and Brie punched in the code, swinging the door open and breezing through.
It nearly smoked me in the face before I could follow behind her, but I caught it just in time. Our footsteps were painfully loud as we traversed the long hall. It was late enough that everyone, even the CEO, Brie’s workaholic older sister, Amara, had gone home for the day.
We could have this showdown in peace, though I had no doubt everyone in town would hear about the show we’d put on in the dining room before the end of the night.
I loved small town life for its familiarity and the tight knit community, but I hated it sometimes for the same reason.
At last, Brie stopped in the middle of the lobby-type area, where a number of secretarial and other support staff desks sat, and whirled on me, resting her fists on the gentle swells of her hips.
God, she looked fucking stunning tonight, and I couldn’t keep my eyes to myself as they dragged up and down her body—that dark orange dress with lace details that accentuated all my favorite parts of her body, her tan booties, showcasing her lean arms and miles-long legs. Fuck . Being in this building and seeing so much of her flawless skin only served to remind me about the first time.
The day she’d first let me taste her.
The day I’d first felt her come around my fingers.
The day she tilted my world on its axis.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked, pulling me from my fantasies. Her expression had grown impossibly darker, those eyes the color of winter pines telling me she hadn’t missed my perusal of her body.
Then again, I hadn’t exactly been trying to hide it.
“That guy was a prick,” I said simply.
“You’re jealous.” It wasn’t a question. It was a simple statement of fact from this woman I hadn’t been able to get out of my head since I met her over three years ago.
And I wasn’t about to deny it.
Well, maybe I was, if only so I wasn’t lying my bleeding heart at her feet, giving her the opportunity to stomp on it.
I snorted, an ugly sound entirely at odds with the emotions swirling inside me. “No, I’m not.”
“You have no right,” she pressed, stepping forward and driving her finger into my chest.
“How could you bring him here of all places?” I asked quietly.
Brie deflated a bit. “I didn’t have a choice.”
I scoffed. “You always have a choice. Your name is on the door, Brie.”
“He…he didn’t know who I was. You saw. It was nice to be wanted for me and not what he thought I could give him. That guy…”
“Who the hell was he, anyway? I’ve never seen him around here.”
“A really popular TikTok food blogger who wanted to do a segment on the bakery. And he was great when it came to work. Seemed to genuinely care about me and the shop, as well as the town. But I saw a different side of him tonight, and I hated every second. Still, by the time I realized you’d be working, we were already walking inside.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I took nights off here and there, but they were few and far between. Brie knew that, so it was a weak excuse.
“I think you wanted me to see you with someone else,” I said. “I think you wanted to make me jealous. ”
“In case you forgot,” she started, backing up a bit, “I’m not the one who ended things. That was all you.”
“I did what I did because of Hansen,” I argued.
“That’s a cop out. I know you love him, and I don’t begrudge you that, especially with Shannon gone, but it didn’t have to be one or the other. I know Shannon hurt you, but…God, Ez. You hurt me . And now you don’t get to go all caveman and have some pissing contest with another guy because he asked me on a date. That’s not how this works.”
“It’s not the same as it was with Shannon, and you know it. I spent nearly three years with her, knowing she didn’t love me or our child, nor did she particularly even want anything to do with either of us. Our marriage was over long before the accident, and Hansen was without a mother long before she got sent away. But then you waltzed into my life and…fuck, honey.” The old nickname slipped out unbidden, but being here in the place where I’d first used it had the veil between past and present blurring until it seemed like every iteration of us and our relationship stood in the room with the people we were now. “I’ve been trying so hard, but I’m so fucking tired.”
“Tired of what?”
“Of fighting this.”
And then, I did the dumbest thing—or maybe the smartest.
I closed the distance between us and crashed my mouth to hers.
God, kissing her again was like coming home. Everything in me settled then ratcheted up again as she met every greedy swipe of my tongue with equal fervor. I wanted to consume her, to mold our bodies together until we didn’t know where I ended and she began.
She fisted her hands in my chef’s coat, I thought to pull me closer.
But she tore her mouth away and shoved me backward. I was caught so off guard, I stumbled a step. Brie’s hand flew to her mouth, eyes wide with shock as she stared at me.
A whole slew of emotions crossed those emerald depths, and I waited for one to settle in place, bracing myself for whatever came next.
But they shuttered quickly, and with lethal calm, she said, “Don’t ever do that again.”
And then, she disappeared, and I was left wondering why I couldn’t seem to stop fucking up where Brie Delatou was concerned.