Chapter 12
Twelve
Kane healed quickly.
At an almost superhuman rate.
“Babe, my body is used to trauma,” he said when I commented on how impressive it was to have him moving around like normal in less than two weeks. “Healing physically, I’m fucking aces at that. Emotionally … I’m still workin’ on that.” His tone was teasing, but I didn’t miss the undertone to it.
He hadn’t been trapped in my apartment, per se. After the beer pilgrimage, we left every morning to get coffee together at my favorite café. The first few outings were a circus, paparazzi, strangers on the street recording us with their phones. I felt suffocated, trapped.
Even Kane, used to the attention, had a rigid jaw and an uncharacteristic scowl on his face. He’d almost gotten in a fight with someone who made it past Mike and got too close to me.
I hadn’t read the news since Kane’s accident, didn’t look at the articles about me. There were many. It was a phenomenon , according to Kiera. Us as a couple. It was now ‘lore,’ she said, whatever the heck that meant.
But the internet moved quickly. The story of our relationship died down, the focus on Taylor Swift being in town. I wanted to send her a box of chocolates to thank her.
We got to the point where Mike didn’t have to follow us everywhere. We could get coffee without being harassed, go grocery shopping together without camera flashes going off. We resumed benign tasks I either had avoided or didn’t do all together. But with Kane, I loved it.
I couldn’t take any more time off from the restaurant, despite Heidi’s understanding. The control freak in me wouldn’t allow it.
So I went back.
And Kane still came to pick me up. Every night.
Not on the bike, though. He drove an SUV and grumbled about it every night. He spent a lot of his days inside reading—he was cleared for the gym but certainly not the more extreme pastimes he enjoyed. We had more sex than ever. That took the edge off but didn’t help entirely.
I could see it in him, a restlessness. Kane was not one to be confined. He was not designed to live a normal life. He couldn’t be content getting coffee, grocery shopping, reading, watching me cook. Granted, we were having adventurous sex, a lot of it, but he needed more.
I understood it. It scared me. Because although I didn’t have a traditional life, I had a routine, roots here in New York. My restaurant was my home. It was what fed the beasts inside me. I couldn’t leave it. Not even for Kane.
And Kane couldn’t leave his nomadic, thrill-seeking life.
Not even for me.
Something I was unable to deny for much longer. It was growing between us, like a tumor, that truth.
On top of that, Heidi had been capitalizing on the restaurant’s fame. The constant paparazzi, the now three-year waiting list. It was already popular, but this was new heights.
So when Gerald DuBois was in America filming his documentary and wanted to come cook with his former protégé for a night, she couldn’t say no. She didn’t ask me because she assumed I’d be thrilled. I had said nothing but positive things about my time at his restaurant, the few times I was asked when I was younger. I’d done that because I thought that’s what I needed to do in order to escape his wrath, to prevent him from blacklisting me in the culinary world. That was then.
Now, I said nothing, feeling immense guilt over those lies, wondering if I’d influenced some young girls to want to work with a predator. It was a weight I carried with me everywhere.
I hadn’t told Kane about Gerald, there was no point. He was going to be here for one day, one night. In my kitchen. The thought made my vision tunnel. The kitchen that I had worked myself to the bone to earn. The place that I made safe for everyone who worked there. It was clean in every sense of the word, and I was proud of that.
His presence would sully it. Tarnish it in a way that I couldn’t wipe away.
If I let it, I reminded myself. I wasn’t some na?ve, powerless nineteen-year-old anymore. I had become somebody. And he knew it. Perhaps it pissed him off, but he wasn’t a danger to me.
If Kane knew he was here, there would be plenty of danger. He’d spoken about how hard he worked to contain the anger inside of him. He was intense about me. Possessive. Though he was progressive, a feminist, I knew that the primal side of him wouldn’t be able to hold back, wouldn’t hear reason if he knew about Gerald.
Safer and saner for all involved to keep this from him. I didn’t like lying to him—omission counted as lying in my book—but I felt like it was a lesser evil at that point.
I could survive one dinner service with him. Sure, I likely could’ve feigned illness or straight up refused to share my kitchen. It wasn’t unheard of in the culinary world full of egos. The staff who had been with me for years might’ve raised eyebrows, since I wasn’t known for overly dramatic behavior, but no one would’ve guessed the truth. The truth that felt bitter and rancid in my insides, the guilt of carrying it around with me a physical thing.
It was too late now to ‘out’ Gerald.
Or maybe it wasn’t. This was the age of women coming forward and speaking about their abuse, bringing down powerful men and ending their reigns of terror.
Yes, plenty of brave women had done that. Not without attention, though.
And it was the attention I couldn’t stomach. Having to be the ‘face’ of it.
It was cowardly.
I hated myself a little for it.
Yet not enough to speak. Especially not after I’d gotten a taste of it with Kane. And that was by association. I couldn’t do it, have it all focused on me.
It was my rebellion then, to stay in my kitchen, stand my ground and refuse to let Gerald run me out.
Even though I was terrified.
Kane noticed it, as he noticed everything about me.
“Chef.” The word was gentle, tender, concerned.
I refused to meet his eyes in the mirror as he came up behind me, his arms wrapping around me.
In every other circumstance, Kane’s arms around me were comforting, grounding, safe. Yet that night, they made my skin feel too tight for my body and my stomach turn.
“Chef,” he said again.
Reluctantly, I looked up at him in the mirror.
“What’s happening?” he asked. His finger brushed the sides of my uniform open so he could stroke my hip bone lazily.
I sank my teeth into my lip until I tasted blood so I wouldn’t flinch away from a touch that would usually set my body alight.
“The restaurant,” I said, unable to lie to him. “Tonight is going to be a lot. Special guests who think a lot of themselves, making my life harder than it needs to be.”
There. Not a lie.
Yet I still felt the truth sticking to my insides like tar.
Kane smiled at me in the mirror, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He saw me, knew me, even after a short time. And I knew him too. I knew he was weighing whether he should push it, probe more.
But that wasn’t Kane’s style. He’d wait until I was comfortable. Or he’d accept that I wasn’t ready or willing to tell him something.
I did not deserve him.
“You want me to come in there, rough ’em up?” he teased, nuzzling my neck. “I can blow off this event; I’ve been looking for an excuse.”
My lungs seized at the thought of Kane in the same building as Gerald.
Kane had imprisoned his dragon when Gerald was a two-dimensional asshole living on another continent. I did not want Kane near Gerald. Didn’t want him to breathe the same air, and I certainly didn’t want to create any drama.
“No, it’ll only make things a lot more complicated with Kane ‘The Devil’ Rhodes in the building,” I replied. Again, not a lie.
It was a blessing in disguise that Kane had let Brax convince him to go to some event that night. I knew part of it was him going crazy, being stuck in the city, unable to do anything dangerous. I didn’t like that Brax was involved, but it would keep Kane from the restaurant.
Kane sucked his teeth. “Although I like to make things complicated, I don’t want to do it for you.” He brushed his lips against mine. “But I’ll come pick you up at closing time. We’ll take a ride. Then I’ll find a nice little alleyway where I can fuck you on the back of my bike.”
Technically, Kane had not been cleared to be on the bike. But he was on it anyway.
Although my libido was quelled at the prospect of the night ahead of me, a tiny ember burned at Kane’s promise.
There it was, something to focus on to get me through the night. Gerald would be long gone by the end of service. He’d be unable to keep himself from the front of house, the attention.
“That sounds perfect.”
I’d go into the restaurant early, prep, claim my space, and by the time Gerald sauntered in, I’d be myself, I’d have my power.
A few hours of service and this night would be nothing but a memory.
My skin was stinging as I stumbled into the alley, daylight assaulting me. I squinted against it, my eyes adjusting. My heartbeat was still in my throat, and it took me a couple of seconds to focus.
In those couple of seconds, someone had come rushing toward me. Though it made no sense, I thought it was Gerald—even though this figure was much larger and coming from the street, not from inside the restaurant.
Regardless, I let out a cry and flinched away from the strong hands curling around me.
“Chef.” Kane rubbed my arms, pulling me close to him. “Baby, it’s me.”
I relaxed instantly, my breath blowing out in one heave. I was safe. Kane was there.
It felt like moments prior I’d left him in my apartment, so sure, so confident that I was untouchable now with age, with the illusion of power.
Kane kissed my head and gave me a much-needed moment to find myself.
After that moment passed, he held me at arm’s length, eyes scanning over my body as if checking to make sure I wasn’t bleeding somewhere. His gaze lingered on my stinging cheek, and his face went blank. Utterly blank.
Yet his eyes were cerulean fire.
“What happened?” Two words. Cold. Demanding.
Dazed, I just blinked at him for a bit. I should’ve asked him why he was there, how it was that fate had intervened to have Kane there at that moment. Eventually, the words seemingly came out on their own. “I, um, it’s… Gerald. He’s here for an event at the restaurant tonight. He wasn’t supposed to be here. No one was. And…”
The events of this afternoon mashed together like a lucid nightmare. Me thinking I was claiming some sort of power by getting there early to prepare. Gerald obviously thought the same thing.
I turned because I felt him rather than heard him.
He was the reason I was always on guard, even in my own kitchen.
“Avery,” he drawled. “It’s been a long time. You look ravishing.”
I wanted to gag with his eyes on me. My hands froze from where I’d been chopping herbs, the knife in my hand clattering onto the cutting board.
He strolled around the large kitchen, making a show of cataloging the appliances, dragging his finger along counters to check for dirt. He grinned, holding up a finger. “Sparkling clean,” he reported in his thick accent. “I’m not surprised. You’ve earned, what, two Michelin Stars since you’ve taken over this kitchen? I’m so proud of you.”
The words rang in my ears as I tried to adjust to the reality of seeing Gerald in my kitchen, my safe place. My success. My powerhouse.
He’d aged. Obviously, he had. It had been over a decade since I last saw him in person. Of course, I hadn’t been able to avoid seeing his smug face in magazines. But those pictures had been airbrushed and retouched.
Now he looked … old. The drinking, the late nights and the stress of the restaurant business had taken its toll. His hair was still peppered with gray but mostly dark brown. Which meant he likely got it colored to look just the right amount of sprinkled with gray. He’d obviously had Botox since his skin looked overly tight and shiny, his dark brows just a little too manicured.
Conventionally, he was attractive. The perfectly-trimmed mustache, full lips, structured jaw, broad shoulders. He was tall and trim, except even his exquisitely tailored suit could not hide how the paunch of his stomach was hanging over his belt.
I’d been captivated by him. Not by his looks or the accent or the way he carried himself. No, by his food. By the way he’d redefined cuisine, the flavors he married, the flavors he created.
I’d been so enamored by the flavors he created that I’d missed how rancid he was on the inside.
But I would not make that mistake again. Not in my restaurant.
Or that’s what I’d told myself.
Until I’d frozen, like a deer in headlights, letting him corner me. In my restaurant.
Acid churned in my belly at the memory.
“He touched you,” Kane bit out, jerking me out of my trance. He brushed his hand over my cheek with a featherlight touch, but somehow, there was force behind it.
My hand lifted to my cheek.
“He, um … slapped me. When I told him I wouldn’t be letting him rape me.” It wasn’t quite that simple, in my brain I knew that, but I couldn’t pin down the subtleties of the conversation, how it had gotten to that point … again. It was like my mind was shielding it from me already.
I quite obviously didn’t have my wits about me when I’d said that, because if I had, I would’ve worded it differently. Or I would’ve waited until Kane wasn’t in the same vicinity—or country—as Gerald before I told him.
As it was, I wasn’t thinking. And it ruined everything.
There was a pause after I uttered those words. A split second. One I would think of often afterward, after everything fell apart.
The pause was a knife cutting through the life I’d been living up until that point, a clean slice where I’d be able to pinpoint the last moment Kane was mine and I was his.
Kane’s face contorted, turning him into someone—something I didn’t recognize.
“Stay here,” he growled, sounding barely human before he let me go and ran into the restaurant.
My ear was still ringing from the slap, from the shock of the encounter and then from Kane’s transformation, so I hesitated, standing in that side alley holding my cheek and staring at Kane’s bike.
I couldn’t say for how long. But it couldn’t have been more than a minute. Surely not.
It was a crash that mingled against the faraway city sounds at the mouth of the alley. The crash and what sounded like a roar coming from the kitchen. The sounds that wrenched me out of my trance.
I ran, my heart trying to escape my chest and my cheek smarting as I rushed back into the restaurant, looking for the cause of the clamor. It was coming from my kitchen. My solace. My domain. My sanctuary.
Where, once again, Gerald had tried to victimize me.
Where Kane had Gerald on the ground, hitting him. The sounds of knuckles against flesh were a dull, wet thud.
And he didn’t stop hitting him.
Not for a long time.