Chapter 11 Eliana
ELIANA
sear·ing: /?si(?)riNG/: verb
Day one of my million-dollar servitude begins with a bang. The test kitchen is already humming with activity when I arrive. Through the portholes in the stainless steel double doors, I can see Bastian. He’s showing Samuel how to mix a sauce.
I stand there and watch.
There’s this thing about watching someone who’s genuinely, transcendently good at something.
All the normal human awkwardness just falls away and what’s left is pure function, undiluted purpose.
His hands—those same hands from last night’s stupid dreams: tattooed and grease-scarred, capable and tan, beautiful, delicate, dangerous—don’t hesitate or fumble.
They know exactly where everything is without looking.
Muscle memory so ingrained it’s like watching someone breathe or blink.
The weird thing is how young Bastian looks when he’s not being a spoiled, stubborn tyrant.
Without the three-piece Tom Ford armor, there’s something frighteningly close to vulnerable about the way he tastes a sauce.
His eyes close for just a second and all the jagged lines of his face smooth away.
He adjusts something. A dash of seasoning.
He stirs. Lifts the spoon to his lips and tastes again.
For as long as that lasts, he is not LeBastard Hale, ruiner of days, causer of tears, manipulator of health insurance.
He’s just Bastian. A man doing something he loves. And doing it well.
I grit my teeth and push through the doors.
He doesn’t look up when I enter, but I know he’s registered my presence. There’s a slight tension in his shoulders, a pause in his movement that says he’s aware of exactly where I am in the room.
“Ms. Hunter.” His voice carries across the kitchen without him raising it. “We start at six. Not six-oh-three.”
I bite back the urge to tell him to eat shit and die. I’m gonna have to do this song-and-dance for the next ninety days, so I’d rather get started on a good foot.
“Sir, yes, sir!” I snap instead, with a sloppy salute and a click of the heels for good measure.
He sighs. “So it’s like that this morning?”
“It’s like this every morning, drill sergeant. I am waiting to jump just as soon as you tell me how high. And if you want push-ups, boy, have I got push-ups! Two to five on a good day, no prob.”
He sighs a second time. Then, as if deciding that ignoring my bullshit is the best way to deal with it—not necessarily a bad instinct on his part, though a decidedly unfun one—he turns away.
“Taste this,” he commands one of the younger chefs, holding out a spoon. The kid—he can’t be more than twenty-two—takes it nervously, his face cycling through concentration, consideration, and finally confusion.
“It’s… good, Chef?”
“‘Good.’” Bastian’s voice is low but taut. “Is that all?”
“No, Chef. I meant—”
“You meant nothing. Because you tasted nothing. You’re going through the motions without engaging your senses.” He turns to another chef. “Riggs. Same dish. Tell me what’s wrong with it.”
Riggs, older and more experienced, tastes carefully. “The balance is off. Not enough sweetness.”
“Better. But still not complete.” Bastian takes the spoon himself and tastes with his eyes closed. “The sweetness isn’t the problem. It’s the salt. We’re using Maldon when we should be using fleur de sel. The crystal structure is affecting how the emulsion hits the palate.”
He’s right, of course. Even I can see it in the way the other chefs nod.
“Ms. Hunter,” he calls suddenly. “Come here.”
Gulp.
I approach the counter, where he’s standing over a stunning dish.
It’s breathtaking—layers of color and texture that look more like abstract art than food.
There’s something that might be scallops, a sliver of I’m-almost-positive-that’s black truffle, and tiny green things that may or may not be beans.
“What do you see?” he asks. All eyes are on me.
I pretend the attention isn’t fazing me and I shrug. “Looks good.”
A few are brave enough to chuckle, but most don’t, and Bastian is definitely not one of them.
“This,” he says with the kind of pride usually reserved for new parents, “is what will set Olympus apart. Every item on the plate is the best of its kind in the world. The scallops are fished by hand off the cliffs in Okinawa. The white truffle oil is from a family-owned estate in Alba that’s been producing for fourteen generations.
The sea beans are hand-harvested from private tide pools in the Pacific Northwest and require individual skinning and prep to remove excess salinity. ”
I lean closer, inhaling the complex aroma. It smells… expensive. Unsustainably expensive.
“How much does each plate cost to produce?” I ask.
His jaw thrums, which I’m quickly learning is a telltale sign that there is a tectonic anger brewing inside him. “What kind of question is that? Who bites something perfect and thinks about dollar bills?”
“Project managers do.” I pull up my tablet and start typing notes.
“Japanese scallops sound to me like they require pricey plane tickets. White truffle oil from a specific estate in Italy means we’re locked into a single supplier.
What happens when there’s a bad harvest?
Or when shipping gets delayed? And hand-harvested sea beans that require individual prep?
” I look up at him. “You’re talking about, what, fifteen minutes of labor per plate just for one garnish? ”
The kitchen has gone deathly quiet. Everyone’s watching us.
“The dish is perfect as designed,” he growls.
“‘Perfect’ doesn’t scale.” I turn my tablet toward him so he can see my hasty calculations. “At twelve locations, assuming even moderate demand—which, let’s hope we do a helluva lot better than ‘moderate’—you’re looking at sourcing issues within the first month alone. By itself, the truffle oil—”
He raises a hand to shut me up. “I don’t pay you to question my creative decisions. I pay you to execute them.”
“Bastian, you’re ignoring the fact that—”
“The truffle oil supplier has guaranteed me exclusive distribution for the next five years. The sea beans can be cultivated in controlled environments if wild harvesting becomes unsustainable. Every element of this dish has been tested, retested, and perfected over months of development. The salt is fucking salt.” He steps closer and lowers his voice to a snarled register that only I can hear.
“Don’t ever question me like that again. ”
The kitchen staff exchanges uncomfortable glances amongst themselves. No one will look at me except for Chef Rubio. With her hand still bandaged from last night, she gives me something that might be a sympathetic grimace.
For a split second, I consider doing the obvious thinking: the shrinking. The apologizing. The wilting-into-nothingness that everyone who works for Bastian Hale eventually masters like it’s part of the onboarding process. Yes, Chef. Sorry, Chef. Won’t happen again, Chef.
But then, unbidden, a memory surfaces.
I’m eight years old, standing in our cramped kitchen while my mother argues with yet another landlord.
This one’s name is Carl, and he has an angry, bristling mustache that looks like it’s trying to escape his face.
I don’t blame it—his face is hideous and purple with rage. I’d want to get away, too.
He’s telling her we need to be out by Friday. “And no more of yer fuckin’ sob stories, okay?”
“Please!” my mother begs. “Just one more week. I get paid on Monday—”
“Not my problem,” Carl interrupts. “Shoulda thought about that before you fell behind.”
I watch my mother shrink, apologize, wilt into nothingness. I witness her shoulders curling inward like she’d disappear into herself if she could.
And something in my eight-year-old chest hardens into a tiny pebble of rage.
“You’re mean,” I inform Carl as I step between him and my mother. “And your mustache looks stupid.”
Carl’s face turns even purpler. “Listen here, you little—”
“No, you listen!” I plant my hands on my hips the way I’ve seen the tough girls at school do. “My mom works two jobs. She makes your gross apartment smell like vanilla candles instead of old socks. And you’re gonna give us one more week because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Or what?” Carl sneers.
“Or I’ll tell your wife that I saw you kissing Mrs. Washington.”
A dumbstruck silence ensues. Carl’s mustache twitches. My mother’s hand finds my shoulder—not to pull me back, but to squeeze gently. A silent That’s my girl.
Carl gives us the week.
Standing here now, twenty years later, with Bastian Hale looming over me like Carl 2.0 with better facial hair grooming and a far more bloated sense of self-importance, I feel that same tiny pebble of rage harden up in my chest again.
“You’re right,” I say. “I shouldn’t have questioned you.”
His shoulders start to relax. So smug. So certain.
“… I should have pulled you aside privately to explain why your ‘perfect dish’ is a logistical nightmare that will hemorrhage money faster than you can say ‘molecular gastronomy.’”
Bastian’s face darkens. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” I straighten my spine, all five-foot-four of me trying to match his six-foot-whatever of tattoos and temper tantrums.
“Ms. Hunter—”
“I’m not done,” I snap. “You hired me because I see the things you don’t.
The boring, unsexy, utterly crucial things that determine whether your culinary genius actually translates into a functioning business that does wild, unheard-of things like ‘pay its employees’ and ‘turn a profit.’ So yes, I will question your creative decisions when those decisions threaten the very foundation of what you’re trying to build.
You can hate me all you want, but don’t insult us both by pretending my opinions aren’t exactly what you pay for. ”
Bastian stares at me like I’ve just grown a second head. Or maybe like he’s seeing me for the first time. His jaw works soundlessly for a moment.
“Walk-in,” he finally snarls.
“What?”
“Meet me in the freezer. Now.”
He turns and strides toward the cooler area, clearly expecting me to follow. The kitchen staff parts like the Red Sea. Everyone is suddenly very interested in their mise en place. I catch Chef Rubio’s eye as I pass—she gives me a look that’s half you’re so dead and half that was freaking awesome.
I gulp.
I steel myself.
Then I walk.