Serena: Did you threaten the hotel?
Diana: I made a polite request with implications.
Serena: So yes.
Diana: Maison Holt next week. Do not read profiles.
Serena: There are no profiles, apparently.
Diana: That is what makes him interesting.
Serena: Food makes restaurants interesting.
Diana: That is why you are there.
I smile despite myself. Then another message comes through.
Diana: Also, do not let Paris seduce you before the first draft.
Serena: That feels unreasonable.
Diana: Most necessary rules are.
I set the phone down. The light has shifted while I was texting her. The room is warmer now, the walls brushed in gold, the courtyard below softening into evening. Somewherebeneath my window, a man says something in French that makes a woman laugh. The sound rises, slips into the room, and disappears before I can turn it into language.
I have been to thirty-four countries. I have written about beautiful places my whole adult life. I have eaten breakfast in hotel robes overlooking harbors, taken notes in train stations, walked alone through cities that turned loneliness into something almost elegant if I stood in the right light. I know better than to believe a place is waiting for me. Paris always does this; it makes you feel like it was waiting specifically for you, which is either very romantic or very arrogant.
I’ve decided it is both…and I don’t care.
Chapter Seven
Damien
Maison Holt has started holding tension in its walls, the way a kitchen does before service when every surface is clean, every knife is sharp, every station is ready, and still, some invisible part of the room waits to see who will fail first. The dining room looks finished. The kitchen looks finished. The wine cellar is stocked, the linens are pressed, the reservation book is already an insult to reasonable human behavior, and Claire has informed me three times that anticipation is “exceptionally strong,” as if anticipation has ever cooked a fish properly. Strong anticipation is useful for people who sell tickets. I sell dinner. There’s a difference.
The staff is already in motion when I walk through the kitchen just after sunrise, and the air smells like coffee, citrus peel, fresh herbs, and the first low warmth from the ovens. Thomas is at the far station, checking the bones for stock with more care than fear now, which is progress. Inès has a towel folded over one shoulder while she picks through chervil with the kind of concentration people usually reserve for legal documents and loaded guns. Elise is at pastry, silent and severe, piping something pale onto a tray with enough precision to make unevenness feel morally suspect.
Julien stands at the pass with the service test schedule in his hand. He has already rewritten it. I know this because I wrote it last night, and what he’s holding has more underlines.
“You touched my schedule,” I say.
Julien doesn’t look up.
“I improved your schedule.”
“You added underlines.”
“I added clarity.”
“You added anxiety.”
Julien looks at me then, his dark brows lifting with the patience of a man who’s decided not to waste perfectly good contempt too early in the morning.
“Anxiety is already here, Chef. I organized it.”
I take the page from him and scan it. Final timing test. Eight-course tasting menu. Full room simulation. Forty covers, staggered seating, full beverage run, dietary substitutions, two intentional complications, and one unannounced delay Julien has no doubt planted somewhere to irritate me in the name of preparation.
I look at him over the top of the paper.
