Siobhan.
She has lost the smile. What sits on her face now is cleaner. That alone makes the hair on my arms lift. We are so close I can see where the pins pull her hair a fraction too tight at the temples. She looks like a photograph taken with the clarity turned up past kindness. The coupe in her hand is empty. “Lovely party,” she comments.
“Very generous donors,” I answer.
Her eyes move past my shoulder as if she expects him to appear out of the air. He does not. It is just us in the hall. She steps a fraction nearer, enough for her perfume to find my throat. It is something floral that wants to be expensive and succeeds by being loud. “You know,” she says, voice subdued and pleasant, “some things never change. You still like your men powerful and broken.”
20
DECLAN
Morning after the gala comes dressed like glass and salt. The light through the front windows of the Green Hearth is winter-clear, a white wash that makes the copper pans look newly minted and the tiled floor shine as if someone breathed on it and wiped away the city. I stand just inside the door and let the heat from the ovens find my bones. Aoife is already moving—sleeves rolled high, hair pinned in a low twist with a pencil speared through it, apron cinched tight. She is all velocity and small corrections, the kind of focus that swallows yesterday whole.
She has the gala filed. I don’t. When she reaches for a pan and the cuff of her shirt slides to show the sweet inside of her wrist, I see again the flash in her eyes when she spotted Siobhan by the champagne fountain—curiosity, then something that wasn’t quite fear, then a shutter dropping. She does not let things linger. I do. It’s a weakness that serves me most of the time and destroys me the rest.
“Coffee,” she says, not looking at me, as if I’ve been claimed by the inventory. “No foam. You behave better without it.”
“I behave perfectly.”
“You behave like a storm in a suit.” She taps the espresso handle with a knuckle and pours two shots into a chipped white cup. “Same difference.”
I carry both to the end of the pass and nurse mine while she sets about making the place look like it woke up glamorous by accident. Bread out of the oven, a sound like snow settling when loaves touch each other. Butter scored with a fork into a field. Bright coins of lemon lined up like saints. She tastes the chowder and adds something I don’t see, then nods to herself. Benny on salads gets a look and a clean towel without a word. When she catches me watching she lifts an eyebrow, half challenge, half amusement.
“You’re blocking traffic,” she says.
“This is my favorite traffic jam,” I answer, and that gets me the corner of her mouth.
The first rush hits. Plates move. The bell at the pass rings like a small, insistent prayer. She calls pickups in a voice that makes men twice her size stand straighter. She never raises it—she just folds authority around each word and it falls into place. When a new server panics and spills a glass of water, Aoife swaps in with a joke about the house specialty being hydration and her hand on the girl’s shoulder is as good as a second chance.
I exist at the edge of her weather. She slips me a tasting spoon with trout and herbs and a sauce that makes me briefly religious. “Too much lemon?” she asks.
“Not enough,” I say, and she hums as if she already knew.
By late afternoon the cook line breathes again. Staff meal lands—stew with barley, a pan of greens sautéed in garlic, bread torn by hand, a bowl of pears that look like they grew old happily. We take our bowls to the back garden where the rosemary hedges hold their shape and the twinkle lights pretend it’s summer. Cold air carries the smell of mint and damp brick.We are halfway through mocking the senator who said “far-oh” like it owed him money when the gate opens.
Siobhan steps in with her coat over her shoulders and a clutch tucked tight in her hand. Crimson mouth, careful hair. She stops when she sees us and then smooths her face like a sheet on a bed.
“Chef,” she says brightly, a little too loud for the garden. “Declan.” The way she says my name has no air in it. “Just wanted to say—about last night—don’t worry about me. I’m… dating someone new.” She laughs, a quick metallic thing that sounds like it scratched her throat on the way out. “You don’t have to—” her eyes flick to Aoife and stick there “—you don’t have to worry. He understands how hard I work.”
She holds the clutch like it might run away if she loosens her grip. The skin over her knuckles goes white. She is a woman walking a line with a smile painted on.
“Good,” Aoife says softly. “You deserve ease.”
“It’s different when it’s right,” she adds, then seems to realize she has confessed something and reels it back in an untidy motion. “See you tomorrow.” She half reaches toward Aoife’s arm and doesn’t touch, then slips out into the alley, the gate clicking shut behind her.
The garden exhales. The rosemary stops bristling. Aoife watches the door a breath longer and then looks at me.
“She’s lying,” I say.
“She is.” She rubs her hands together for warmth and huffs at herself for doing it. “Find out if she’s safe. No noise.”
“Eyes only,” I say, already dialing. “Seamus. Our sous from the gala. Follow, daylight and dusk. I want to know the shape of her days and who tries to change it.”
“Copy,” he says, and the line goes quiet.
We finish the pears leaning against the wall in a silence that isn’t heavy so much as dense, and then she glances at the kitchendoor, checks her watch, and flicks me a look that says go away but don’t go far.
“I’ll be back after last checks,” I say.
