I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes. I didn’t like the sound of that. “Tell me what?”
“Drake took off,” Beau said. “He has a doctor’s appointment.”
I blinked and stared at him. “What?”
Beau shrugged. “That’s just what I heard.”
“Today? Right now? Why didn’t anyone tell me this was coming up? He’s on the schedule for this service.”
“I think it was an emergency,” Beau said. His forehead creased. “Do you think he’s alright?”
I scoffed. “Yeah, I’m sure he’s alright,” I said. “He needs to duck out for an emergency doctor’s appointment on the very day that we all stop talking to him? I bet he’s just fine.”
A flicker of guilt passed over Beau’s face. “Maybe we shouldn’t do that when he comes back.”
I shook my head. “Just because you’ve been working closely with him as his line chef doesn’t mean you’re not still one of us,” I said. “Aren’t you?”
“Of course!” Beau exclaimed. “It’s just… well…”
“Well?” I prompted.
Beau flushed deeper, a bright red that made him look like he would be at home with the lobsters in my risotto. “He might be our boss soon.”
I blinked at him. It took me a moment to respond. “Right,” I said and looked back down at the mix I was stirring with a wooden spoon.
Beau had that little confidence in me that he really thought Drake would be taking the Head Chef job from under me?
It gave me serious pause. After all, Beau had worked closer with Drake than all of us. And Drakehadtaken Grey’s side over the whole Luca thing. But I’d proven I was right, hadn’t I?
Deep down, I knew one thing. That Grey was not as fair and even-minded as I would have liked him to be. The fact that I had stood up to him – perhaps even humiliated him – in front of the rest of the staff wouldn’t sit well with him. I would expect him normally to be snappish with me for a few weeks, but this was a different situation.
Right now, my job was on the line. Somehow, I’d become so confident in my role as the leader of this team, the person who they all followed and believed in, that I’d allowed myself to forget it wasn’t theteamwho would decide the ultimate Head Chef.
It was Grey.
And Drake had never forgotten that for a single second.
I lost myself in thoughts of how the hell I was going to make this up to Grey and make sure I could keep the job as I went through the motions of food prep, my hands taking over while my brain was otherwise occupied. I’d made these dishes so many times that it was all muscle memory by now, no need to concentrate properly.
The atmosphere in the kitchen was strange. It was only as I came out of my own head and started to think about the service ahead, while Beau called us all to family dinner, that I noticed it. We’d all been so cheerful when Luca came back to work, but having Drake leave meant we were all going to have to put in extra work. Then there had been my own introspective concentration, which couldn’t have helped the mood; Ainslie and Beau must have picked up on it.
When we sat down for dinner, I noticed that Grey was feeling it too: he was shifty, looking uncomfortable in his seat as though he wanted to be anywhere but eating with us.
Until Beau sat down at his right hand, flashed him a generous smile, and Grey smiled back.
I narrowed my eyes.
I didn’t like that atall.
“Dig in,” Beau said excitedly, directing us all to try the new recipe he’d tried for dinner, and the moment – whatever it was – was gone. I grabbed a fork and started to eat, but while the conversation moved in stilted and staccato bursts, I kept my mouth shut and my eyes on Beau.
Something was going on.
It became clear later, when we all headed back into the kitchen, that I wasn’t the only one to have noticed it.
“Okay,” Ainslie said. “What’s going on?”
Beau looked at him with wide eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
