They texted constantly but saw each other maybe twice a week.
"This isn't sustainable," Daniel said one afternoon, watching Lucy nearly fall asleep standing up.
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. Boss, you need help. You need to delegate. You can't run this entire restaurant by yourself."
"I'm not by myself. I have you, I have the line cooks—"
"And you're still doing everything. Menu planning, inventory, scheduling, cooking every service. Lucy, you're going to burn out."
Lucy knew he was right. But letting go—trusting others with her dream—felt impossible.
That evening, she had a rare night off. Jake picked her up at 6 PM, looking concerned.
"When's the last time you slept more than four hours?" he asked.
"I sleep."
"Actual sleep. In a bed. For a full night."
Lucy couldn't remember. "I'll sleep when things calm down."
"Lucy—"
"I know. I know I'm overdoing it. But Jake, this is my restaurant. My dream. I have to make sure it's perfect."
"It is perfect. Everyone says so. The reviews, the customers, Uncle Walter who's been there five times in three weeks—everyone agrees Margaret's is incredible. You've proven yourself. Now you need to trust your team."
They went to his apartment, and Jake made dinner—simple pasta with vegetables, the kind of food Lucy used to make for him.
"I miss cooking for fun," Lucy admitted. "At the restaurant, everything is high-stakes. Every dish has to be perfect. I miss just—making food because I want to."
"Then do that. Cook for fun. For me, for Uncle Walter, for yourself."
"When? I barely have time to breathe."
Jake set down his fork. "Lucy, I need to say something. And I don't want you to take it the wrong way."
"That's a concerning way to start a sentence."
"You're doing the same thing you did with your grandmother's bakery. Working yourself to death because you think that's what success looks like. But Lucy—success isn't killing yourself for your business. Success is building something sustainable."
Lucy felt defensive. "This is different. This is my restaurant, my vision—"
"Which makes it even more important that you don't burn out. Because if you burn out, Margaret's fails. Not because the food isn't good or the concept isn't right, but because you worked yourself to exhaustion."
Lucy was quiet. Because Jake was right. She was doing exactly what she'd done at the bakery—defining herself entirely by the business, sacrificing everything else for it.
"I don't know how to do it differently," Lucy admitted. "How to care about something without consuming myself with it."
"You learn. You practice. You set boundaries. Lucy, take one day off per week. A real day off. Let Daniel and your sous chef handle a dinner service. Trust them."
"What if something goes wrong?"
"Then they handle it. Or they don't, and you deal with it the next day. But Lucy—you can't be there every second. That's not sustainable."
Lucy leaned into him. "When did you get so wise about work-life balance?"
