32. Burnt To a Crisp
Burnt To a Crisp
S hit. Amelie’s here? Shit, shit, shit .
I lift Charlotte off the counter, setting her down as gently as I can while every nerve in my body screams at me to move faster. Before I can reach for her panties, her hand clamps around my wrist.
I meet her panicked gaze, her breath coming in quick, uneven bursts.
“It’s okay,” I reassure her. Fuck the panties—right now, fuck Ian and Amelie too. She’s terrified. “It’ll be okay, I promise”
I mean it. She has nothing to worry about. I, on the other hand, have already made peace with what’s about to happen. I’m going to lose my job. Amelie. Logan—everyone who matters. But no part of me regrets what happened between me and Charlotte. No part of me would take it back.
“I can’t do it.” Her voice breaks, tears pooling in her eyes. “I’m scared.”
“Whatever happens, we’re walking out of here together.” I press a kiss to her forehead, trying to soothe her even as it feels like my heart will squirt out of my ears. “I promise.”
And then Amelie’s voice rings out from the corridor.
“Hey, did you—” She steps into view with an easy step—until she sees Charlotte. Her expression falters, her confusion morphing into something really, really angry. “Charlotte?”
Oh, shit. She knows who Charlotte is?
Charlotte stiffens beside me, her fingers tightening around mine. “H-hi, Amelie.”
My gaze jerks between them, then to Ian, who looks just as blindsided as I feel—right up until his eyes widen in dawning horror. He knows about her existence too.
“What is she doing here?” Amelie’s gaze flicks to me. “With you?”
“She’s . . . We . . .” My throat is stuck together. “Her m-mom, Beatrice, is?—”
“No,” Ian says, stepping back like I’ve hit him. “She said her name was Beatrice Arnault . Not—not?—”
“It’s my father,” Charlotte explains. “She gave you my last name.”
Ian drags a hand through his hair before shaking his head like he already knows the answer but can’t bring himself to accept it. “Please tell me you’re not having sex with your first client’s daughter.”
And there you have it. The final piece of the puzzle.
“You sent him to work for my mother ?” Amelie asks, turning to Ian.
“I-I had no idea, Amelie. She never said a word about you. I’m—I don’t?—”
The silence in the room descends like a heavy fog we can’t escape from. Every inch of me is frozen, the weight of everyone’s stares pressing down on me harder than I ever thought possible.
Amelie’s eyes lock onto mine, wide with shock and betrayal. “ She’s the woman? The one you’ve been so mysterious about?” she asks, her voice a whisper of disbelief. “And you knew who she was? Who her mom was?”
I can’t speak, the words too heavy in my mouth. “Yes. I-I figured it out. I was going to tell you, but...”
Amelie’s eyes tear away from mine as if she can’t bear to look at me any longer. “Oh my god.”
This is the end, I realize. The beginning of the end.
And even while my heart breaks in my chest, I feel Charlotte’s hand shaking in mine. She’s scared, hurt, probably disappointed. Trying to figure out what this means for her, for us. I told her Amelie couldn’t possibly know about her existence, yet here we are.
“T-there’s a lot I need to explain, and I will. But before then, I...” I tug Charlotte closer, then give her an encouraging smile. “I’d like you to meet your sister. Properly. She’s very excited to?—”
“I’m leaving,” Amelie says, voice flat, before turning on her heel.
Her footsteps are quick, echoing down the corridor like gunfire. A door creaks open then slams shut.
Silence.
I turn back to Charlotte; steady tears streaming down her cheeks. Her hand is still wrapped around mine, clinging hard enough to hurt.
I don’t understand. Amelie recognized Charlotte immediately—she must have seen pictures of her. She definitely knows she has a sister. And for some reason, she doesn’t care.
Beatrice didn’t lie.
“Why—” I face Ian. “Why has she never gotten in touch? Why—why did she never say anything about Charlotte? Why keep her a secret?”
“Let me see if I’m getting this right. You expect me to explain myself?”
Charlotte, beside me, jerks backward, fingers sliding away from mine. “I-I have to...” She sobs. “I need to go.”
“Baby, wait,” I try, but she runs past Ian, and with a glance at him, I move too. “I should...” I point at the corridor, and he scoffs.
“Don’t let me stop you now .” His voice drops to an ominous tone. “I’ll be in touch.”
“It’s going to be okay, I promise,” I say into the phone as I approach the back door of Daisy.
“No, it won’t,” Charlotte counters with a sad voice. “Were you in the same room as I was yesterday? Ian set this meeting up to fire you, Chef.”
And there’s nothing I can do to change that. I made my decision, and though the last thing I wanted was for Ian and Amelie to find out the way they did, this was going to happen regardless. It just happened in the worst way possible.
I’ve been repeating this like a mantra since last night, when I caught up with Charlotte outside of the restaurant.
She was hysterical, barely breathing between sobs, her hands shaking so hard she couldn’t even get her phone out of her pocket. I had to hold her, had to press my forehead to hers and murmur over and over that I was there, that she wasn’t alone.
At least Josie was kind enough to take Sadie to her parents and give us the house for the night. Charlotte barely slept, and I with her.
“How are you doing?”
“I’m okay, seriously,” she says. “I didn’t have big expectations, so...I’m good.”
That’s not true. She feels like she just got proof, once again, that she isn’t worth fighting for, and I can’t stand it.
I wish I could see her, but Beatrice has been home the whole day. Hopefully Ian won’t talk to her just yet, because the last thing Charlotte needs is more drama right now.
“Are we still on for later?”
“Yes, of course. Beatrice thinks I’m going to Bonnie’s. I’ve got a whole four hours clear.”
Great. Or . . . not great , but I’ll take it.
“I better go in. I’ll text you, okay?”
“Yeah. I’m . . .”
“Stop saying you’re sorry.”
“Okay. But I am.”
“It’s been noted.” This is probably the worst time to bring it up, but her “I love you” has been ringing in my mind since last night, so I say, “We got...kind of brutally interrupted yesterday, huh? But about what you said?—”
“We can talk about it some other time.”
I pause. Is she scared I won’t say it back? Hell, maybe she’s scared I will too. “Charlotte, I...”
“Call me after, please?”
She hangs up before I can protest again, so I make my way inside, then knock on the office door, my heart hammering so hard it shakes my ribs.
I’m about to get fired. Ian has no other choice, I get that. But I still wish I could avoid the inevitable. It reminds me of being a kid, hiding in the cabinet under the sink after I’d fucked up, hoping Mom wouldn’t find me.
There’s no cabinet big enough to hide this mess, though.
“Come in.”
I push open the door and my stomach knots. Ian sits behind his desk, fingers laced together over his mouth, and beside him, Shane stands stiff, his glare sharp enough to slice through bone.
“Hello. Should I wait, or?—”
“No,” Ian says. “Shane was just on his way out.”
Shane doesn’t move. He’s staring me down like he’s got plenty of things to say, and I know him well enough to be thankful that Ian’s my boss and not him.
I swallow, keeping my eyes on the floor, waiting for the hit that might come—not physical, but something just as brutal.
“Yo, Mr. Asshole,” Ian says.
With a deliberate click of his tongue, Shane walks past me. It’s only when the door shuts behind him that I breathe again.
“Sit.”
I settle on the chair across from Ian. My hands are cold, but my skin burns hot. I’m a kid, curled up in that cabinet, waiting for my mother’s footsteps, for the inevitable fallout of whatever I’d done wrong. Only this time, it’s worse. This time, there’s no amount of apologies that will fix it.
He watches me in silence, his elbows braced on the desk. “So, Aaron...Explain to me why Amelie makes me drop everything and drive all the way from Mayfield on a Friday night to make sure your first dinner service went well, and I find you screwing her sister in her kitchen.”
I press the heel of my hand to my temple. “I’m sorry, Ian. Mortified, actually. I wasn’t aware of the relationship between Amelie and Charlotte until a few hours before you found us, and?—”
“Oh, okay,” he cuts in, his voice a blade, his blue eyes cold as ice. “Let’s talk about that.”
The muscles in my throat tighten.
“Would you have stopped if you’d known?”
I blink, caught off guard. “What—what do you mean?”
“Well, hurting your brother obviously wasn’t enough to stop you all those years ago.” His tone is eerily calm, but his eyes are anything but. “Would hurting my wife have?”
My response lodges itself somewhere in my chest, twisting.
Ian leans forward. “The woman who gave you a chance? Who tutored you? Who taught you everything she could, and made me give you a job, then offered you a second job, and?—”
“Trust me, I?—”
“Would you have stopped?”
I want to believe I would have. I want to say yes, swear up and down that I would’ve made the right choice. But the truth is...I don’t know.
Something that that feels so good can’t possibly be a mistake.
“You know I care deeply about Amelie,” I say, my voice hoarse.
Ian scoffs. “Yeah, I do know. Of course, you don’t care about me. My company. My work. And you don’t care about your job either.”
“No, I do. I?—”
“Chef & Tell is a new business, Aaron.” He presses his fingers to his forehead.
“Do you have any idea what this could do to us? We could lose everything. If Beatrice made this public and people found out one of my chefs was sneaking into her house to fuck her daughter, a woman fourteen years younger than him, I—” He pulls at his hair.
“Dozens of people could lose their jobs because of you, myself included.”
My chest constricts to the point of pain. “I know.”