Will’s dimple flashes. His eyes move from my face to my outfit, an oversized T-shirt dress and old white sneakers. “I cooked.” He shrugs. “I cook.”
“Sothat’swhat sets you apart from the other Equinox men in the West Village.”
“I live in Tribeca.”
“Close enough. Did you cook for the women you thoroughly dated?”
“Not a single one,” he says, grabbing the wine and turning toward the kitchen. “I don’t have the setup for it in my tiny apartment.”
It’s a hilariously juxtaposed comment as I follow him tothiskitchen, which might be the most stunning thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. The cabinetry is a forest-green color, the countertops a beautifully marbled off-white. He’s even got a range hood for his stovetop and an overhead cookware holder hanging above the kitchen island.
“This place is for sale,” Will comments innocently.
I raise my eyebrows as his implication lands. “That so?”
Will sets the wine beside a cutting board piled with soft, springy herbs. He stares at me, expression calculating. “Want to know a secret?”
I nod.
Will steps away from the counter and pulls open a drawer. I circle around the island until I’m beside him, eyeing a thick piece of paper he places on the counter.
“Is that a…culinary school diploma?”
“Mm,” he says.
“With your name on it?”
“Looks that way.”
Gaping, I turn my face up to his. “Explain!”
Instead, he hauls me into another kiss.
I melt against Will’s body as I remember the feel of him. It’s been a week since we returned from Bangalore, and with all the catching up we both had to do at work, neither of us has caught a break until tonight. Every atom in my body heats up to a boiling point at the physical contact. I want to fuse myself to his body, recycle his air through my lungs.
“I’m so confused,” I whisper when I pull away.
“You’re the only person from my personal life besides my family I’ve ever told,” he whispers against my lips.
“That you went toculinary school?” I ask through the haze of digesting what else he said:the only person from my personal life.
I am planted in Will Grant’s personal life.
Will pulls away, looking back at the diploma. “A couple years ago. I took night classes. It was around the time things at work started to get bad. I was miserable, and wondering if I was going to feel that way for the rest of my life,” he says. “I applied on a whim. But when I got accepted and started learning…” He looks back at me, his eyes feverishly bright. “Ilovedit. I used most of my consulting salary to pay off the tuition, so I’m debt free. I completed my credentials by working as a late-night line cook for a while, and even that was exhilarating.”
“I—” I glance around the kitchen. There are finished entrées warming on the stovetop, something baking in the oven. “Just for fun? Or do you want this as a career?”
“I didn’t know the answer to that when I signed up for culinary school,” Will says. “Part of me convinced myself I was only doing it for fun, as a hobby. But the point is, now I have the option to just…” His words fade off.
“Drop everything,” I whisper. “And change your mind.”
Will’s expression clears.
“You didn’t say a word,” I say. “I never would have known.”
But the way he picked restaurants abroad. The fact that he hates leftovers, that he canusually tellthe quality of a dish’s freshness. His obsession over meeting David Ortega, a lauded local chef.Thisexplains why Will almost failed a class in his major so he could focus on his nutrition elective, why he stayed at his day job even when he was miserable—so he could pay for culinary school.
All the signs were there.
