“Since you feel you can upstage me, maybe you should teach the next Make-It-Monday series.” Louie’s hand flicked the air. “If this happens again, you’re gone.”
Zach sighed. “Yes, Chef.”
Louie spun on his heel and stalked out.
“Chef Louie really has it in for you.” Jamie carried the empty dishes to the sink.
“My first night here some big shot complimented my cooking, and Louie was offended. He’s made it miserable ever since.”
“Dude. What are you doing staying here and taking his mistreatment?” Jamie ran water over the plate. “Make-It-Mondays are like his idea of punishment. He only assigns them to someone on his hit list. Those classes are brutal.”
A room full of people who didn’t know how to cook coming in and thinking they could master it in a night? Yeah, the classes could be difficult, but he’d done them before. Shouldn’t be a big deal this time either. The hardest part was being in front of all those people. “It’s fine. I’m paying my dues.”
“It’s really not fine. He just totally stole the credit for your dish. And what dues? You’ve been a chef for a long time.”
“His kitchen, his recipes. We all signed on to that when we came.” He raised a shoulder. “And I’ve only been here less than two years. I’m still the new guy.”
“It’s not right, man. He’s not doing it because you’re the new guy.” Jamie shook his head. “But whatever. It’s your life.” The big man patted him on the shoulder. “I’m taking off. See you tomorrow for another round of non-crime and punishment.”
Except, maybe Jamie had a point. With Chef Louie in charge, his job was a dead-end.
He thumbed a text to Dani.
Zach
Fine. I’ll come to Flavor Fest. Sign me up for the contest.
Because maybe he could wow Paul or Anne and land himself a new position.
He needed to get out of this job.
Chapter Two
Ava had made a big mistake not researching the staff at Escargot. As she pushed through the doors to the kitchen after walking through the fancy French restaurant, she reiterated the reasons she was even here for the night. First, Judson had pretty much required her to go. Second, she needed these cooking classes if she was going to boil water without burning it and have any chance of her secret staying safe. Third, a distant third, if she ever wanted to cook half as well as her famous parents, she needed to stop microwaving frozen dinners and start preparing meals from scratch. She was thirty-five, for crying out loud. She should be able to cook something.
After Emily had mentioned that Escargot offered classes on the nights they were closed, and then “accidentally”—Ava heard the air quotes even if Emily didn’t actually use them when she told Ava the story—shared that information in front of their boss, it was only a matter of time before Judson signed her up. He’d called her into his office when he broke the news.
“Harper. Good. I’ve gotten you into that cooking class tonight at Escargot.” Her boss’s hair appeared as though he’d stuck a knife into a power outlet. She’d always respected Judson. Butshe hadn’t always appreciated his rule over her life. “I figured you could use the practice.”
This didn’t sound good. “Why do I need the practice?”
He looked up from the paper he was covering in red ink. Someone was going to have a bad day. “The editorial team decided to let you go to Jonathon Island for the Flavor Fest as a trial run.”
She suppressed a squeal of delight.
“We also decided that you should definitely take part in that charity competition, so we signed you up for that.”
“What? I can’t do the charity competition.” Seriously, she didn’t think she was a big enough celebrity for the charity competition.
“We talked about this. You begged me to let you go to that festival, so I figured you should be in on the action and not just reporting on it. The editorial board agreed. Signing up for that competition is not optional.” Judson had looked back at the paper in front of him and crossed out another line. “You’ll be cooking for the good of mankind. Make us proud out there.”
So, yeah. She needed to learn how to cook. And fast.
Still, all her reasons fled as she spotted the chef for tonight’s cooking class. Zachary Sullivan. The same Zachary Sullivan she’d met years ago in Seattle before giving his restaurant a terrible review in her column.
This was the part of her job as restaurant critic and food reviewer for the newspaper that she hated: meeting the chefs in the wild. She valued honesty in her work, but she still cringed when she had to say that some recipe or another just wasn’t working. It wasn’t exactly the case with Zachary, but she still didn’t like the idea of coming face-to-face with him. Besides, he didn’t know that her review was…a mistake.
The scent of garlic cooked in butter wafted over her as she stood in the doorway, half in, half out. Ava looked around thekitchen. Gleaming stainless-steel cooktops lined the back wall. Several island workbenches stood in a neat row in the middle of the room. On each bench rested an assortment of cooking implements.
