I lift one shoulder, unable to bear the sympathy in her eyes. “Not everyone has the picture-perfect childhood growing up.”
A weighted silence stretches between us. She studies my face with an intensity that makes me want to look away. Does she think I’m attacking her, throwing her supposedly perfect upbringing in her face?
Shit. Was I?
Possibly. Maybe a little. But it’s only because I still don’t believe our working together won’t bite me in the ass in some way. That she won’t find a way to screw me over in the end. With everything that’s happened so far, between here and back in New York, it’s still hard to let my defenses down around this woman. I need to make sure I stay one step ahead.
“I never knew my birth parents.” Her voice comes out flat, emotionless. “They gave me up at birth. My mom and dad adopted me a few weeks later.”
The words hit me like a sucker punch, my stomach plummeting.
“I—I’m sorry.” The words stumble out while I mentally kick myself. Here I am, making assumptions about her perfect life being all sunshine and rainbows, when she’s carrying her own losses.
She lifts her shoulders in an echo of my earlier gesture. “Guess we have that in common. We never knew our birth moms.”
“And food.” I find myself leaning forward. “We love food.”
A small smile plays at the corners of her mouth. “Yes. And we love food.”
Suddenly I’m aware of how close we’ve gotten. Her face hovers mere inches from mine, and the tropical scent of her shampoo—coconut and something floral—fills my senses. Her gaze travels across my face, and my pulse kicks up several notches.
I force myself to retreat, pulling back to my side of the table. “I went to culinary school. Got a certificate in Culinary Arts.”
“And then moved to New York?” She wraps her fingers around her coffee cup, those dark lashes fluttering as she takes a sip.
“No, not right after school. I worked on a cruise ship for two years.”
“You must have seen some interesting places.”
A laugh escapes me. “Interesting places that included the Baltimore Inner Harbor. The ship was a weekend dinner cruise that never left the area.”
Her grin transforms her face. “Oh. Gotcha. So after that you went to New York?”
“Nope. Still not yet. I got a job at a pizza restaurant through a friend from community college. And there I found dough.”
“Ah, so you two go pretty far back.”
“It’s been a long time coming.” My gaze drops to my coffee, long since gone tepid. “I was there for seven years, working up from kitchen assistant to head baker. Learning every secret that dough had to offer. Then one night a restauranteur came in, tasted the dough, and asked me if I wanted to open a spot in NYC specializing in Italian street food. Flatbread, ciabatta sandwiches, focaccia with toppings. Bombo?—”
The word catches in my throat. Bombolini. The same pastry Alexis tried at Street Cucina. The one she called “revolting” in her review.
I clear my throat, pushing past the moment. “I said yes. It seemed like a dream come true.” A bitter laugh escapes. “I didn’t know what I was signing up for, though. I thought I knew all about the stress of full-time cooking, but New York was a whole new story entirely. There were days when I slept two hours—and only because I crashed in the pantry, using a bag of flour as a pillow.”
Alexis catches her bottom lip between her teeth and I notice her tensing. Preparing. I can tell she knows her entrance to the story is about to happen.
“The reviews were amazing at the beginning,” I continue, my voice hardening. “And that was great, but it wasn’t enough. You know what New York’s food world is like. I had to constantly one-up myself. Every new thing needed to be bigger, better, flashier. It was the only way to stay relevant.”
Her eyes drift closed for a moment. “And then... everything else happened.”
“Yep.” The word comes out clipped. “The kitchen assistant messed up the new recipe, and I went out and bought the store shit. Then you came in... Then the health inspection... It all fell apart pretty fast after that.”
I spread my hands wide, encompassing the bakery around us. “Fast forward three years and here I am.”
“Why?” Her brows draw together. “After all the trouble you had with Street Cucina, why would you do it again?”
“How could I not?”
The air between us grows thick with mutual understanding. When you have something you’re passionate about, something you know in your bones is good, how can you not share it with the world?
