Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
STACI NEVER HEARD A MORE eloquent definition of a lie than the one that Remy had told.
She wanted to believe that he was merely trying to recover lost ground but there was a truth to his words, she admitted.
To some extent she even understood his reasoning.
But her heart was a lot slower to forgive.
Remy looked as if he’d been up all night and even though it had only been a few hours since she’d seen him, he seemed tired and tense. A part of her was worried about him until she remembered that he’d lied to her. He’d known what he was doing the entire time.
She didn’t have anything she wanted to say to him. She was following Alysse’s advice and focusing on cooking and winning. She’d go home and lick her wounds, not to mention celebrate.
“Why are you coming clean now?” Christian asked.
Remy cleared his throat and looked directly at him. “Staci and I ran into my parents while sight-seeing and the truth came out. I also had a feeling today that Chef Renard might have recognized me and I thought before this went any further I should step up and clear the air.”
“Did you know about this?” Whit asked under her breath to Staci.
“Not until his parents said their last name wasn’t Stephens.”
“Oh, man, I would have been pissed,” Whit said.
“I was.”
“Still are, if your body language is any indication,” Whit said.
“Ladies, please ask your questions to the room,” Pete directed them.
“Sorry, Pete,” Whit said. “My fault entirely. I don’t have any problems with him staying in the competition.”
“Good. Does anyone have any concerns?” Pete asked.
There were a few concerns but mostly everyone seemed to agree that by not using his legally registered name Remy had leveled the playing field.
Dave thought that it had given Remy an unfair advantage but since Christian and Erin both were executive chefs in well known restaurants everyone else agreed that Remy was fine.
“If that’s everything then we have a few housekeeping type items and then you can all go get dressed for dinner at Ramsfeld’s East tonight. Jack, do you want to handle that?”
“Yes,” Jack said. “Starting tonight please refer to Remy as Chef Cruzel, rather than Chef Stephens. We will reveal his identity as we film this week’s episode and each of you will be asked to tape a special entry in your private video journals discussing the news and how it affected you.”
“Will we have to do it now?” Staci asked. She didn’t think she was ready to talk on camera about Remy’s lie. Maybe once she had a few days to clear her head.
“No. When we get back to Malibu we’ll do it at the house. Any other questions?” he asked.
There weren’t any and they were all dismissed. Staci went immediately to the express elevator but the line was long and by the time she got on Remy was standing next to her.
“We have to talk,” he said.
“I don’t see why. I’m cool with everything for the show,” she said as they were squeezed together along with a large group of conventioneers and a family of four. Remy was pressed right against her.
Her heart started to beat so fast and it was all she could do not to reach out and hold onto him. But then she remembered he wasn’t the man she thought he was and no matter how she looked at it or how he tried to justify it, she honestly didn’t know Remy Cruzel.
She pulled back and wrapped her arm around her waist. And tried to put more distance between them in spite of the crowded elevator. Remy remained still.
Here, she’d made up her mind to ignore him and now he wasn’t letting her. Which just added to the anger building inside of her. When they reached their floor, she and Remy stepped off the crowded elevator.
“I’m being as civil as I can be right now, Remy,” she said. She had heard his explanation and while she could buy it, she didn’t want to. At least, and not right now. She felt betrayed and brokenhearted today.
“I don’t want you to be civil. We need to have this out. We need to get it all sorted so we can move on. I asked you to come and live with me,” he said. “That invitation still stands.”
She shook her head. “And I tried to console you because you didn’t have a job. Wow, that must have made you chuckle.”
“I’m not that kind of man, ma chère—
“Don’t. Do not use any endearments. We are competitors, that’s all.”
The elevator dinged and people got off the elevator. Remy took Staci’s arm, leading her down the hall to his room. “We need to be some place private.”
“Fine,” she said. Agreeing that she didn’t want anyone to hear the things she had to say to Remy. And now that she’d started talking to him, she had a lot to say to him.
She’d promised herself she wouldn’t get upset and she was determined to keep her word.
He opened his door and gestured for her to enter. His room was set up similarly to hers with a king-size bed and two chairs over near the desk. She sat on one of them as he took the other.
“Staci, I want you to know that everything I said to you was the truth. All of it.”
“Really, Remy?” she asked. Feeling that wave of emotion roiling up inside of her only this time instead of shocked tears it came out as anger.
“Do you have a job?” she asked.
“Yes, but—
“Is your last name Stephens?” she interrupted to ask him. Hurt overcoming her patience.
“No, but—”
“Would you really give it all up and move to San Diego to live with the co-owner of a cupcake bakery?” she asked. And this was the one that bothered her the most. The one she knew he’d hate to have to answer honestly.
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“So you kind of proved my point,” she said. “You lied about the important things. The foundational things. And you said things to me that you never should have. Not until you were free to be who you really are,” she said.
“If you’d give me a chance to explain then I will. I didn’t lie to you per se I—”
“That’s not helping,” she said.
“Truthfully,” he said. “I wasn’t sure I would go back to Gastrophile. What if I’d lost all the challenges and had it proven that I wasn’t the cook I thought I was. Then I wouldn’t go back there and take over the restaurant. Technically, I was out of work.”
“It’s not the same thing and you know it.”
“I do know it, which is why I’m sitting here trying to explain. I knew from the first that you were trouble.”
“Don’t do that,” she said.
“Don’t do what?”
“Make it seem like I was special. I was just gullible and bought every lie you told,” she said.
THIS WASN’T GOING AT all the way that Remy had hoped it would. He saw that Staci was trying to mask her pain over his betrayal. It should have made him be more conciliatory, instead, it frustrated him.
He’d fallen in love with her. He’d invited her to come and live with him and she acted as if it were all for nothing. That he’d done it just to make a fool of her.
“If I could go back and do things differently, I would. But I never planned on what happened between us. And you’ve got to believe me, I never lied to you about my feelings.
In fact I was more honest with you than I have ever been with a woman.
Since I couldn’t share my real last name with you I wanted to share everything else. ”
He didn’t think she’d ever understand how badly he now felt about the entire situation. Their flirtation had started out so intensely. “I never meant to make love with you that first night, but there has been this overwhelming attraction between us, and I’m not sorry I didn’t ignore it.”
“Why not?”
“Because then I would have missed out on you and me. And I wouldn’t have wanted that. Deep inside I hope you can forgive me.”
“I don’t know,” she said.
Staci had left behind a promising career once and reinvented herself because of a doomed love affair. More than likely she’d do it again.
But he could only say he was sorry so many times and then the rest was up to her. Could she forgive and forget? Could. Staci get beyond the things he’d said and done to see the man he was underneath.
“I know that saying trust me isn’t going to win you back, but if we can move past this—”
“I can’t. I might be able to at some point but today I just can’t do it. I’m sorry, Remy. I wish we’d come into each other’s lives at another time. Though to be honest I can’t imagine it ever happening.”
She stood and he knew she was leaving. There would be no getting her back now and no chance of working things out any further. This was it.
And so it seemed that his vacation affairs had been the smart way to go. He had thought that this romance when he was rediscovering his love of cooking and who he was, and finding this woman were meant to be.
“Before you leave, will you answer one last question for me?” he asked her.
She was standing in front of the door with her back toward him but she turned to face him. “Sure.”
He looked right into her eyes and took a few steps closer.
“I know that you will never believe this, but I was taking you to my cousin’s cooking school in Manhattan to show you the truth about me. I wanted you to see it and I wanted to do it in my own way.”
She stepped back and reached for the door handle.
“Remy, by your very silence you took the easy way out. I’ll admit I’ve made some bad decisions in my life but this one has cost me the most.”
“I care about you, Staci,” he said. “We can figure this out, make it work.”
“Maybe it was because we were trapped together in the house and there was that spark between us,” she said. “Because both of us should have remembered that lust isn’t love. And we’re both adult enough to know that affairs like this do end.”
“It wasn’t being trapped with you in the house. I know my feelings a lot better than that. Please believe me that I didn’t set out to hurt you. The only thing I’ve wanted for you was a chance at happiness.”
“I’ll remember that,” she said and then opened the door and walked away.