Page 88 of The Chef

I hope he doesn’t follow.

I want to be alone.

He wants to sell Rockpool. He doesn’t want to wait and see how it goes? Now I know he was lying to me, that the place wasn’t a labor of love for him like he said it was. Instead, all this time he’s just been waiting around to sell it? Get rid of it?

Get rid of me.

And then he’ll run back into the arms of his former lover, forgetting all about our stupid little fling. I’ll be nothing to him but that silly little waitress he once fucked for a few days one summer. He’ll laugh about me at celebrity dinner parties in New York and London.

“Bay!”

He’s getting closer to me and I’m running out of places to run to. I reach the shoreline. The water laps at my shoes. With every step, I’m sinking into the wet sand. I can’t go any further.

“Bay, wait. Hold on a second.”

I finally turn around to face my lover. He’s caught up to me, his long strong legs able to leap further than mine.

He stands there, a few yards away on the white sand, his hand raised as if to reach out and stop me, his face solid and stern like a marble statue. His beautiful jaw clenched.

He stares at me with his brown eyes, and I know why I’ve fallen in love with him.

Damn it, Bay. Don’t let him get to you.

He’s betrayed me. He’s betrayed my trust in him.

He wants to sell Rockpool. He wants his ex back.

He doesn’t want me.

“What, Cliff? What is it?”

“Just stop running, Bay. Please stop, I’m getting exhausted chasing you.”

“I don’t want you to chase me. I want to be on my own.”

“I understand.”

“No, you don’t. Can’t you see what you’ve said, Cliff? You want to sell Rockpool.”

“She’s offering…”

“She? Your ex, Cliff. She’s come here, out of the blue, and wants to buy the place off you.”

“She’s offering a good deal, Bay. I’ve seen the financial records, and so have you. The restaurant can’t survive.”

“You need a little faith, Cliff. It might survive. We’re working hard at it. Have a little hope.”

“But faith and hope are too much of an ask when it comes to something like this. We need money.”

“You can always turn to your family, Cliff.”

“I swore to myself to never take a penny from my family when it comes to my business.”

“But you were more than happy to live off your inheritance holidaying around Europe,” I reply.

“That was the past,” Cliff says. “I was a different guy then. This is now. I don’t want my family to get involved in this. It has to be someone else to buy the place.”

“Someone like your ex?”