“Tell me. What’s bothering you?”
I leaned against the wall and popped a truffle fry in my mouth. I hadn’t eaten all night, and the first bite was like fucking nirvana. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Margaux took a deep drag of her cigarette. A perfect smoke ring curled into the cool night air. “You were distracted tonight,” she said. “You’re never distracted.”
“I wasn’t distracted.”
“Is that why you kept sneaking out to the dining room when you were supposed to be helping in the kitchen?” Her knowing gaze dug holes in my denial.
Margaux was one of the most lauded chefs in the world. She’d started her career scrubbing dishes and worked her way up to the top of the food chain (no pun intended). She’d seen a lot of bullshit in her life, and right now, she saw right through mine.
“I have a lot going on,” I answered vaguely.
“I’m sure you do.” Another smoke ring billowed between us. “Who did you send that free dessert to earlier?”
I sighed. Nothing happened in Margaux’s kitchen without her knowing about it.
The restaurant closed over an hour ago, but I wanted to catch up with her and take a quick food break before going home.
I already regretted my decision.
“No one important,” I said.
“If they weren’t important, you wouldn’t have sent them free dessert.”
I finished my fries and tossed the empty container into a nearby trash can. We were in the street behind the restaurant. It smelled like garbage and food grease, yet I felt more at home here than in my family’s boardroom.
“It was an old schoolmate,” I amended. Margaux had the tenacity of a pitbull, so I had to give hersomething, or she’d never let me off the hook.
“But not a friend,” she observed shrewdly.
“No.”
What Maya and I had was too complicated to classify asfriendship.
Friends didn’t compete as often as we did. They didn’t live to get under each other’s skin, and they certainly didn’t cancel guys’ night to crash the other’s date instead.
Every morning, I received a list of VIP guests who were scheduled to dine at my restaurants that day. The reservation was under her date’s name, but he’d listed Maya as his companion. She was the VIP, not him.
I’d told Margaux I wanted to shadow her in the kitchen tonight when I’d really wanted to see what Maya was like on a date. What did she order? How did she act? What did she wear?
They were questions I should’ve already had the answer to, considering we’d grown up together. The fact that I hadn’t until tonight bothered me for reasons I couldn’t name.
“Is your father still being a little bitch about you becoming a chef full time?” Margaux asked.
I smirked. She was one of the few people who knew about my ambitions, and she was one of theveryfew who was brave enough to talk about my father that way.
“Évidemment.”
She made a disgusted noise. “So corporate.T’as un don naturel pour la cuisine. Tu ne devrais pas perdre ton temps à suivre les conseils de ton père alors qu’il n’y connait rien.”You have a natural talent for cooking. You shouldn’t waste your time listening to your dad when he doesn’t get it.
“I have a natural talent for marketing too.”
“That’s not the same, and you know it.” She pointed her cigarette at me. “Do you know what your problem is? You ask too much and don’t negotiate enough. You’re his only son, and he needs you more than he lets on. Use that to your advantage.Makehim take you seriously.”
I was silent.
Margaux was right. I could force my father’s hand more, but doing so would require me to believe in myself one hundred percent. I had to wholeheartedly, unequivocally trust that becoming a chef was what I was meant to do, but I was only ninety-eight percent of the way there.
