Chapter Twelve
Cate
By four-thirty PM, I’d officially earned a medal for keeping a five-year-old with a broken arm alive and entertained for an entire day.
Actually, scratch that. I deserved a full military parade.
Megan had wanted to: climb the tree in the backyard... “But I can use my good arm!”, practice skateboard tricks... “Just watching, I promise!”, build a fort that required moving furniture... “I’ll supervise!”, and teach me a TikTok dance that involved way too much jumping for someone in a cast.
I said no to all of it.
Which meant I spent the last eight hours being the fun police, watching Megan’s face cycle through disappointment, acceptance, and creative problem-solving as she tried to find loopholes in my safety protocols.
The kid was relentless. I respected it. But also, my soul was tired.
“Can we make cookies?” Megan asked, appearing in the kitchen doorway with those big eyes that probably got her whatever she wanted ninety percent of the time.
“Nice try, but your dad said no baking without supervision.” I was sprawled on the couch, contemplating whether I had the energy to move ever again.
“You’re supervising.”
“I meant adult supervision. Real adult supervision. The kind that doesn’t result in emergency room visits.”
Megan giggled. “You’re an adult.”
“Debatable.”
“You’re older than me!”
“Again, debatable.” I sat up, my back cracking in three places. “How about we watch a movie instead? Something with minimal physical activity and maximum couch time?”
“We’ve watched two movies already.”
“Then we’ll watch a third. I’m thinking of something animated. With talking animals. Very low stakes.”
Megan flopped onto the couch beside me, her cast thunking against the cushion. “I’m bored.”
“I know, sweetie.”
“And hungry.”
I checked my phone. Four thirty-seven. Dr. Lyon usually got home around six, sometimes six-thirty if he had late appointments. Which meant I had roughly ninety minutes of Megan-wrangling left before I could hand her off and run next door.
Except.
Except I’d been thinking about something all day. Something that had been gnawing at me since Saturday, since the hospital, since I’d watched Dr. Lyon’s face cycle through worry and exhaustion and that bone-deep relief when the doctor said Megan would be fine.
I’d broken his kid’s arm.
Well, technically gravity and a skateboard had broken his kid’s arm, but I’d been the responsible adult.
The one who was supposed to keep her safe.
The one who’d encouraged the skateboarding adventure in the first place because I was trying to be the cool nanny, the fun nanny, the nanny who said yes to things.
And now Megan had a cast that she’d be wearing for six weeks, and Dr. Lyon had medical bills and follow-up appointments and a daughter who couldn’t do half the things she loved.
Because of me.
I needed to apologize. Properly. Not with words—I’d already tried that, and it had come out as a garbled mess of “I’m so sorry” and “I’ll never let her near a skateboard again” and “Please don’t fire me.”
No, I needed to apologize with food.
Because food was the one thing I was actually good at.
Food was the one thing that never let me down, never judged me, never looked at me like I was a walking disaster waiting to happen.
Food made sense. Food had rules and techniques and a logical progression from raw ingredients to a finished dish.
Food was the one area of my life where I wasn’t constantly tripping over my own feet.
Food was the thing I’d given up when I’d left Boston.
When Tracy had—Nope!
Not thinking about Tracy. Not thinking about the restaurant. Not thinking about the life I’d planned, the career I’d wanted, the dreams that had died the day my best friend had smiled at me and said, “I got the position! Can you believe it? They chose me!”
The position that was supposed to be mine.
The position I’d been promised.
The position that Tracy had swooped in and taken because she was better at networking, better at playing the game, better at flirting and showing her boobs, better at being the kind of chef that fancy Boston restaurants wanted on their line.
Water under the bridge.
Ancient history.
Totally over it.
Except I wasn’t over it, not really, because every time I thought about cooking—really cooking, the kind of cooking that made people close their eyes and moan—I thought about what I’d lost.
But that was fine.
Totally fine.
I was fine.
And right now, I had the chance to do something good with my skills. Something that didn’t involve culinary school politics or backstabbing best friends with enormous hooters or dreams that had curdled like milk left out in the sun.
I could cook dinner for Dr. Lyon.
An apology dinner.
A thank-you-for-not-firing-me dinner.
A please-forget-I-said-towel-situation dinner.
A dinner that would prove I wasn’t completely useless.
“Hey, Megan?” I sat up straighter, an idea forming. “What if we made dinner for your dad?”
Megan’s eyes lit up. “Like cooking?”
“Exactly like cooking. But you’d be my sous chef. Which means you get to help with the easy stuff, and I do all the dangerous knife work.”
“Can we make pasta?”
“We can make whatever you want.” I was already mentally cataloging the contents of Dr. Lyon’s fridge and pantry.
I’d done a grocery run, so I knew he had decent ingredients.
The man kept a surprisingly well-stocked kitchen for someone who probably survived on coffee and takeout. “What does your dad like?”
Megan scrunched up her nose, thinking. “He likes everything. But he really likes that chicken thing Grandma makes. With the lemon?”
Chicken piccata. Classic, elegant, impressive without being pretentious. I could do that. I could absolutely do that.
And if I happened to add a few extra touches—fresh herbs, homemade pasta, a proper pan sauce that would make him forget every mediocre meal he’d ever eaten—well, that was just me being thorough.
Professional.
Definitely not trying to impress my smoking hot boss who’d seen me at my absolute worst multiple times and somehow hadn’t fired me yet.
“Okay,” I said, standing up with renewed energy. “Let’s do this. But first, ground rules: you sit at the kitchen counter, you don’t touch anything sharp, and if you see me about to do something stupid, you tell me immediately.”
“Like what?”
“Like if I’m about to set something on fire. Or cut myself. Or accidentally create a situation that requires another hospital visit.”
Megan giggled. “You’re funny.”
“I’m serious! I have a track record.”
We headed into the kitchen, and I felt something shift in my chest. Something that felt almost like... excitement?
No, that wasn’t quite right. It was more like purpose. Like I was about to do something I was actually good at, something that didn’t involve me tripping over my own anxiety or saying the wrong thing or accidentally ogling my employer in a towel.
I could do this. I could cook a meal that would make Dr. Lyon forget about the broken arm and the skateboard incident and every other disaster I’d caused since walking through his door.
I could remind him—and myself—that I wasn’t completely incompetent.
Even if I was definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent not thinking about the way his shoulders had looked in that towel, or the way his voice had sounded when he’d said my name in the hallway this morning, or the way Fitz had looked at me like I was something interesting.
Nope. Not thinking about any of that.
Just cooking.
Just a simple apology dinner.
Nothing complicated about that at all.
Twenty minutes later, I was in my element.
The kitchen had transformed from Dr. Lyon’s sterile, barely used space into my domain.
Ingredients lined the counter in neat rows—chicken breasts, lemons, capers, fresh parsley, garlic, shallots, white wine.
I’d found a package of fresh fettuccine in the fridge (thank God the man had good taste in pasta) and heavy cream for a proper sauce.
Megan sat on a stool at the kitchen island, carefully zesting a lemon with her good arm while I prepped the chicken.
“You’re really good at this,” she observed, watching me butterfly the chicken breasts with quick, precise cuts.
“Thanks, sweetie. I used to do this for a living.”
“Really? You were a chef?”
“Almost.” I pounded the chicken flat between two sheets of plastic wrap, the rhythmic thwack oddly satisfying. “I went to culinary school in Boston. Was supposed to work at this really fancy restaurant downtown.”
“What happened?”
Good question, Megan. What happened was that my former best friend since freshman year of culinary school—Tracy ‘the backstabbing jezebel’ Anderson, with her perfect hair, perfect body and her effortless charm and her ability to make even the head chef laugh at her jokes—had taken the position that was supposed to be mine.
The position I’d been promised after my externship. The position I’d worked my ass off for, pulling double shifts and perfecting my technique and learning every station until I could work them in my sleep.
The position that Tracy had gotten instead because “she took the initiative and hadn’t bothered to cover her itty-bitty-titties” and “demonstrated her excellent ability to contort her body into any position that would shame any circus acrobat” and “really connected with the head chef in a way that would have had the health inspector issuing a red slip to the department of Health!”
Translation: she’d been better at schmoozing. Better at playing the game. Better at being the kind of sous chef that particular Michelin-starred restaurant clearly desired.
And I’d been... what? Too anxious? Too in my own head? Too busy actually cooking to network properly?
“It didn’t work out,” I said, keeping my voice light. “Sometimes things just don’t go the way you planned.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah.” I dredged the chicken in flour, seasoned with salt and pepper. “It really does.”
“Is that why you’re a nanny now?”
Out of the mouths of babes.