Chapter 28
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Madison!”
Leave it to Brooke to chase her down. She had that damn New Yorker power walking thing down.
“Leave me alone,” she called over her shoulder, ducking her head into her coat as she caught the force of a winter wind in her hot face.
“Don’t make me run in Louboutins,” her friend shouted back. “I will never forgive you.”
She would run too, if push came to shove. Whipping around, Madison put her hands to her hips, facing down her friend. So she saw Sawyer when he came running out after them. “I do not want to talk right now.”
“Too bad!” Brooke called out. “That’s what friends do. They talk. Especially after they shout and cry. Besides, Sawyer doesn’t plan on letting you get away either. I was just faster.”
“You’re lucky I don’t threaten you with my cleaver,” she snarled, fighting off the dark swell of emotion inside her.
She and Kyle had just smacked each other pretty good, and in front of everyone. Now she was supposed to rehash it? All she wanted to do was forget the betrayed look on his face. All she’d wanted was for him to stop torturing himself.
Brooke finally reached her, her mouth clamped into a tight line. “I know you don’t want to talk, but you were there for me in my worst moment.”
“Me too,” Sawyer added, puffing from exertion.
Worst moment. God, is that where she was standing? Because it felt like she’d been walking a line of worse moments ever since Rico had told her that her dream of winning a star at Nanine’s was dead.
She held up her hand as she walked backward. “The best thing you can do is leave me alone right now. Seriously!”
“Not on your life.” Brooke lunged forward and grabbed her wrist. “Let’s go to the restaurant and talk. Don’t try and escape. I’m serious. I’m not letting you go.”
Madison tugged on her wrist, but Brooke had a strong grip.
She’d really have to knock her back to free herself.
She couldn’t do it. This was her friend.
These people were her family. “God, why does everything have to be so complicated? Before I’d hole up in my apartment and kick some furniture without talking to anyone.
Now I have to talk to my friends and make up with… whatever Kyle is.”
Sawyer gently tucked her other hand through his arm. No one said a word on the way, and their mood must have been radiating from them, because people on the street gave them a wide berth. When they arrived at the restaurant, she used her key and let them in.
Nanine’s chandelier gave a sorrowful jangle, and pain shot through her chest. How much more could a person take?
Hadn’t she been through enough? She was getting up every morning with her insides as raw as meat, rallying every culinary atom inside her to not only do her job but do it with the excellence that was her standard.
Now her friends were hurting too, and Kyle felt betrayed because she didn’t BELIEVE.
“I’m making crèmes,” Brooke announced, shrugging out of her red coat and hanging it up. “If you don’t want one, raise your hand.”
She couldn’t have found the energy to save her life. Getting back to Nanine’s after that fight had taken all of the wind out of her. Sawyer hung his coat next to Brooke’s and then busied himself with cleaning his glasses.
Striding to the kitchen table, Madison thought about grabbing her cleaver for a little levity, but she didn’t have it in her. Now that was scary. She always enjoyed a good cleaver joke.
The coffee machine hissed. Today it sounded like snakes probably did when someone bothered their lair. Brooke’s heels made an angry rat-tat-tat-tat sound as she brought over their coffees and sat across from her. Totally Parisian civilized of her.
Madison couldn’t imagine drinking it. Her mouth was filled with sand, and not the nice kind from South Beach.
No, the kind from her old neighborhood, where she’d learned not to expect anything, where she’d had to fight every day to make herself into something she could be proud of, but in the end, there were things she couldn’t change.
Her mother leaving.
Her father being a drunk.
Men treating her like she was nothing but a piece of ass.
But in this kitchen, she’d started to believe more was possible.
First with Nanine and then with these two.
Her other roommates had made a huge difference in her life too, of course.
Jeez, even Pierre and Spike had to go on that list. And Kyle.
God, he’d opened up her world and made it so much bigger.
She wouldn’t say she’d been wearing rose-colored glasses, but she’d clearly borrowed a pair. Now it was time to get real.
Except how was she supposed to go back to a smaller and shabbier existence without them? Because she was afraid that was how she’d feel if she stayed and didn’t go for the Michelin-assured job in Barcelona. Would it also feel this way if she left and lost Kyle and her family?
Dammit—Nanine was right. Choosing between pursuing the dream she’d had since she’d been old enough to know what a Michelin star was and leaving her life in Paris was the toughest one of her life.
She didn’t want to have to choose!
She looked at Brooke, who was slowly stirring sugar into her café. Sawyer was seated at the head of the table, looking between them as if they were opposing players in a tennis match.
“If Nanine knows,” Brooke began, “and you know Nanine knows, that means you two have talked.”
“You been watching Sherlock Holmes with Axel?”
Sawyer was bobbing his head like a turtle now. “Which means Nanine has told you how she’d like you to deal with the situation.”
“My guess is she gave you her blessing to follow your dream somewhere other than Nanine’s,” Brooke continued, clinking her spoon against the inside of her cup before setting it aside.
Madison hadn’t opened her sugar yet, but she hastily picked up her spoon, knowing she’d blanched like a head of broccoli.
“Kyle doesn’t know!” Sawyer breathed, sitting back and running a hand through his curly black hair. “Oh God! No wonder you lost it.”
“Exactly,” she managed over her achy throat. If she didn’t know better, she would swear she had the flu coming on.
Silence descended, as hard to ignore as the smell of bad fish. Sawyer tore open his sugar, scattering crystals across the table. Brooke made no move to help him clean it up with his handkerchief. Neither did Madison.
“I don’t envy your situation,” Brooke said with complete neutrality. “What are you going to do?”
“No podcast advice?” She ripped open her sugar for the sheer pleasure of tearing something apart. “No what does your heart tell you bullshit? Because my heart has taken so many hits, I don’t even feel it.”
Except she did when she was with Kyle, especially when she was in his arms. Or with Spike, when he gave her those silly puppy kisses. Or cooking with Pierre by her side.
Sawyer laced his hands together in his lap and simply sat there, like he was listening even when nothing was being said.
“What?” she pressed. “No famous quotes from philosophy to illuminate my situation? Come on, Doc. Do your thing.”
God, were those tears in his eyes? “The only thing that comes to mind is that my life is better because you are in it. I’ll be sad if you leave, but I understand you wanting to follow your dream.
If I couldn’t become the painter I wanted to be here, I don’t know what I would have done. It’s a horrible choice you’re facing.”
“No one is talking about Madison leaving Paris,” Brooke spat out with one of her dragon breaths.
Madison busied herself with dumping her sugar into the cup.
Brooke reached across and grabbed her wrist. “God! You already have an offer.”
She lifted a shoulder. “I’ve had a few since the Le Monde review that put Doc on the map, but word has gotten around about us not getting a star. A really big chef got in touch with Rico. He wants to talk.”
Brooke swallowed thickly. “Who is it? Where is it?”
Speaking the words made it feel real. “Chef Joan Manuel Fort, and it’s for his restaurant in Barcelona.”
Her face went blank along with Sawyer’s. “Oh my! That’s… He’s got a ton of Michelin stars at his restaurants around the world. I’ve been to a few myself. Major player.”
“Yes,” she said quietly, wanting to hurl her stirring spoon against the wall.
“Barcelona isn’t that far from Paris,” Sawyer squeaked out before coughing loudly. “Oh… But Kyle is the head of The Paris Roommates Group. Paris—”
“Yeah, that about sums it up.” Madison pounded his back. “You guys are bound here too.”
“But we aren’t your soulmate, your life partner, your…” Sawyer wisely trailed off before she blew a gasket.
“No, but you’re my family.” She gripped the cup handle.
“Long distance would be hard with your job,” Brooke added, their eyes meeting head-on.
She’d already checked the distance when Kyle was still out with Spike.
Five hundred and sixteen miles. Nearly seven hours by train.
A couple of hours by airplane. Regardless…
A large part of the day would need to be spent traveling—and she’d be lucky to have one day off a week starting at a new place.
Because Los Cuatros Elementos also served lunch.
“When are you going to tell Kyle?” Brooke said hollowly.
“Hey! I haven’t even decided if I’m going to pursue it. I just heard today. Other offers might come in too.”
Brooke tapped the table with her fingernail. “There are plenty of restaurants in Paris to consider.”
“Except Dassault might be the kind of bastard who’d have you blackballed forever simply because of your relationship with Nanine,” the always-too-smart Sawyer interjected.
She finally curled over, knowing she couldn’t withhold the truth. “Nanine believes our association could be damning if I remain in Paris.”