Chapter 2
Tom
Ibreathe in. Then out. Slowly. Through my nose. Like a man who is absolutely fine and not one misplaced word away from being bodily removed from a newspaper building.
The security guard gets out of his chair.
That does not help.
He rises to his full height and I notice, with instant clarity, that he could pick me up and use me to clean the ceiling if the mood struck him. Six foot five, built like a wardrobe with opinions. I dial it back immediately. This is not the hill to die on. Not tonight.
Chloe turns properly to face me.
Chloe Ingram. She is not what I expected.
She isn’t flustered or defensive or doing that guilty little shuffle people do when they know they’ve upset someone important. She’s calm. Annoyingly so. Like she’s stepped into this exact situation before and already knows how it ends.
“Then you should probably start with your name,” she says.
“Tom,” I reply.
She waits, eyebrow lifting just enough to make it clear that will not do.
“Tom Philips,” I add. “I own La Cucina di Rosa.”
Something clicks into place behind her eyes. Not shock. Recognition.
“Ah,” she says. “Italian.”
“Yes.”
“And passionate,” she adds lightly.
“About certain things,” I say. “Particularly when they’re described as watery.”
Her lips part. Then she closes them again, head tilting slightly.
“Right,” she says. “That.”
I lift the paper. “This morning. Front of the food section.”
She glances at it, then back at me. “I was wondering why you looked like you might combust.”
“You called my tomato sauce watery.”
“I did.”
“That sauce,” I say, voice low, “is my grandmother’s. I cook it exactly how Nonna taught me. She fed half of Carlisle with it when she was still alive.”
“I’m sure she did,” she says. “But last week, in Carlisle, the sauce didn’t do much for me.”
That lands harder than the word watery ever did.
“What else did you have?” I ask, too quickly. The question is out of my mouth before I’ve decided whether I want the answer. “Because all you wrote about was the sauce.”
She blinks, clearly caught off guard. “I had…”
She trails off, eyes lifting slightly, like the information might be written on the ceiling if she just looks hard enough.
Before she can recover, a voice cuts in.
“What seems to be the problem here?”
A woman has appeared at my shoulder, immaculate in a way that suggests she runs things. Hair smooth, posture perfect, expression polite but sharpened by years of dealing with people like me. She offers a hand.
“Marie-Louise Buckett,” she adds, offering her hand. “Editor.”
I shake it automatically. My pulse is thudding now, anger and something like dread tangling together.
“Tom Philips,” I say. “I own La Cucina di Rosa.”
She nods once, waiting.
“I’m here because the article was unbalanced,” I say. “It focused almost entirely on the tomato sauce.”
Chloe turns towards her. “It was part of the overall experience.”
“It was one part,” I say. “So I’ll ask again. What else did you eat?”
Chloe opens her mouth. Closes it again.
The silence stretches. My chest tightens with it. I don’t want this answer. I can feel that already.
Marie-Louise looks at her. “Chloe?”
She exhales. “I had pasta.”
“What kind?” I ask.
There’s another pause. Longer this time. Too long.
“I don’t remember,” she says.
Something in my chest drops. Not a bang. More of a quiet thud. The kind that tells you exactly how this has gone wrong.
Because if she doesn’t remember the dish, it wasn’t memorable. And that hurts far more than the article ever could.
I feel something sharp and ugly spark to life. Anger, yes, but also a kind of wounded disbelief. Because surely. Surely when you write something that definitive about someone’s food, you know what you ate.
“You reviewed it,” I say. “You published it. You must have known at the time.”
Marie-Louise’s gaze slides to Chloe. Not accusing. Expectant.
Chloe’s shoulders lift a fraction and for the first time since I walked in breathing fire, her confidence wobbles. Just a touch. She pulls her tablet from her bag, unlocks it, and starts scrolling.
I lean in despite myself.
So does Marie-Louise.
There it is. My restaurant name. La Cucina di Rosa. One line underneath.
Watery tomato sauce.
That’s it.
Nothing else.
No sides. No pasta notes. No comments on texture or balance or seasoning. Just the one line, sitting there like a verdict.
I laugh. I can’t help it. It’s short and humourless and sounds nothing like joy. “You didn’t even eat there, did you?”
Her head snaps up. “Of course I did.”
“Because that looks a lot like you popped in, glanced at a plate, and made something up.”
“That is absolutely not true,” she says.
Marie-Louise clears her throat. “Chloe.”
“I was there,” Chloe insists. “I just…”
She scrolls again, frowning, then reaches into her bag and pulls out a folded receipt. She smooths it on the desk like evidence in court.
“See,” she says. “Spaghetti pomodoro.”
I look at it. Then back at her. “And?”
She squints. “And.”
“That’s it?” I ask. “Spaghetti. Pomodoro.”
“Well,” she says, “it’s a classic.”
Marie-Louise closes her eyes briefly.
I feel something loosen in my chest. Relief, sharp and surprising. “So you had one dish. One sauce. And decided that was enough to define the whole restaurant.”
Chloe straightens. “I was reviewing four places that day.”
“Four,” I repeat. “In one day.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re surprised you can’t remember mine.”
She bristles. “I remember plenty.”
“You remember my sauce.”
“Because it stood out.”
“In a bad way.”
“In an honest way.”
I fold my arms. “Or,” I say, warming to the argument now, “you were full, tired, and rushing, and my food paid the price.”
She opens her mouth, then stops, clearly recalculating. “I am very good at my job.”
“I’m sure you are,” I say. “But you can’t even remember if you ordered anything else.”
“I must have,” she insists. “I don’t go to a restaurant and eat one thing.”
“You did,” I say gently. “You have the receipt.”
She glares at me. “I refuse to believe that I ate only spaghetti and left.”
I keep my voice level, mostly out of self preservation. “Yet here we are. One dish. One sauce. And an article.”
Marie-Louise exhales, slow and deliberate. “Mr Philips does have a point.”
I blink. So does Chloe.
“You can’t reasonably review a restaurant on a single plate,” Marie-Louise continues. “Particularly not when the piece focuses so narrowly on one element.”
Chloe opens her mouth. “I—”
Marie-Louise holds up a hand. “I’m not questioning your integrity. I’m questioning the balance.”
I feel a small, dangerous flare of triumph. “Thank you.”
She turns to me. “We’ll run a retraction the day after tomorrow. Brief. Professional. No drama.”
Chloe stiffens. “A retraction?”
“And,” Marie-Louise adds, already moving on, “Chloe will return to La Cucina di Rosa. She’ll sample the full menu and write a proper feature. Not a short review. A considered piece.”
Chloe’s head snaps round. “I never write features!”
“This time you do.”
“I have a schedule.”
“You’ll adjust it.”
Marie-Louise smiles the way people do when the discussion is over. “I’ll leave you to sort out the details.”
And with that, she walks off, heels clicking decisively across the floor.
Chloe stares after her, then looks back at me. “You’re enjoying this far too much.”
“I haven’t even started enjoying it yet,” I say.
Beckett coughs. I glance over and catch him grinning openly now, arms folded, clearly settled in for the long haul.
“So,” Chloe says, folding her arms. “Congratulations. You’ve won a rematch.”
“I don’t want a rematch,” I say. “I want a fair fight.”
She snorts. “You chefs are dramatic.”
“You critics are ruthless.”
“Occupational hazard.”
I tilt my head. “When are you coming?”
She raises an eyebrow. “I don’t tell restaurants when I’m visiting.”
“Not even when they’re expecting you?”
“Especially then.”
“It should be a surprise,” she adds, primly.
I watch her for half a second longer than strictly necessary.
The prim act doesn’t quite cover the fire in her eyes, green and sharp and very much enjoying the argument.
Her hair is pulled back into a tight bun, auburn and glossy, the kind that looks soft enough to sink fingers into, and I have to actively tell my brain to behave.
This is not the time to notice her curves, generous and unapologetic, or the way she fills the space like she belongs there.
Focus, Tom.
“You’re not coming to review me,” I say. “You’re coming to do a feature.”
She arches an eyebrow. “I know the difference.”
“Then you’ll need more than a surprise visit and a plate of pasta,” I reply. “You’ll need the story. Why the place exists. How we work. Where the food comes from.”
Her mouth tightens. “I don’t usually do kitchen tours.”
“You will this time,” I say. “You need to see that everything is made from scratch. The sauces, the pasta, the lot. No shortcuts.”
She considers that, head tilted, eyes bright. I get the distinct impression she’s used to being the one with all the power in these exchanges.
“Fine,” she says eventually. “I’ll put it in the diary.”
“When?”
She taps her tablet, far too casually. “Six months.”
Six months.
My blood starts to boil again, anger flaring, hot and immediate. “By then my restaurant will be dead in the water.”
She looks up. “That’s dramatic.”
“It’s reality,” I say. “People in this city are obsessed with your column. One bad line hangs over a place like a curse until you lift it. This is my livelihood.”
I don’t mean to sound quite that raw, but there it is. She studies me properly now, not as a problem or a nuisance, but as a man who’s put everything he has into four walls and a menu.
Something softens. Just a fraction.
She exhales. “You really believe that.”
“I know it.”
Beckett shifts behind the desk, clearly fascinated. “This is better than telly,” he mutters.
Chloe sighs and scrolls again, quicker this time. “Next week, Thursday.”
“Thursday,” I repeat, barely daring to trust it.
“Yes,” she says. “I’ll come Thursday. Early. I’ll eat properly. I’ll look at everything.”
“And the kitchen?”
She grimaces. “The kitchen too.”
Relief washes through me, followed immediately by something else entirely unwelcome. The thought of her in my kitchen. Watching. Tasting. Arguing. Those green eyes taking everything in. I shove that firmly aside.
“Good,” I say.
She meets my gaze, chin lifting. “Don’t make me regret this.”
I smile, slow and deliberate. “I’ll be gracious when you apologise.”
Her eyes flash. “I won’t be apologising.”
“No?”
“I know what I tasted.”
I incline my head. “Then I look forward to proving you wrong.”
She snorts softly and turns away, already dismissing me.
As she walks off, I realise two things at once.
Thursday is going to be a battlefield.
And I’m already looking forward to it far more than I should.