Romance Impossible(80)

I sighed, pressing my fingertips into my closed eyelids. She was right. I had no other options. But the bile was rising in my throat regardless, and it was almost certainly just because I was being sued to kingdom come.

Not at all - not at all - because of Jillian Fucking Brown.





***



I saw the article online, before anyone had a chance to tell me. I saw her name, and my heart leapt into my throat.

"Chef Maxwell Dylan gave me a chance when I had nothing left. You don't know him, and neither does anybody else who thinks they have the right to judge him. Go somewhere else to dig up your dirt. I'm not playing this game."

Sitting here in the glow of my computer screen, I pulled out my phone and held it in my hand.

But what would I say to her? What could I say?

"Thank you for not throwing me under the bus?"

It was useless. There was too much bitterness between us.

I'd seen to that nicely.

The thought of her being chased down the street by one of those vultures, goaded and prodded, and though she hadn't been able to ignore them - not like I told her - she defended me like a cornered animal.

Thank you, Jill.

I fell asleep that night with my phone clutched in my hand.





***



Beckett and I were fighting.

Jordan Harris had accepted the settlement, and everything was going to be absolutely fine. So naturally, it was the perfect time to be at each other's throats.

I didn't know if it was the residual stress, or maybe just our usual pattern that led to us locking horns every six months or so. I mean serious, knock-down drag-out fights - not literally, most of the time, mind - but not the usual light bickering that defines most of our conversations.

"This could have easily been avoided, is all I'm saying," he insisted. "Just like the thing with Jill. Just like everything."

My hackles were up. "You don't know anything about what happened with Jill," I snarled.

"You're right," he said. "I don't have to, because it's always the same sad goddamn story with you, isn't it? 'Oh, I couldn't help myself, I'm just out of control with my roguish charms and my brutal honesty, and it's not my fault if people can't handle how genuine I am. I really don't know why she's crying, honest.'"

"If you're so in love with her, why don't you go ask her why she quit?" I stood up, abruptly, pacing the room. "Which she did, by the way. Quit."

"I don't doubt it," Beckett said, bitterly. "You always find a way to deflect the blame, somehow."

"She couldn't put up with me!" I shouted. "Just like Jordan Harris couldn't, just like all those other people - who cares? Some people just can't stand the heat. Get the fuck out of my kitchen, right?"#p#分页标题#e#

"No one can stand you," he said. "You're a fucking arrogant prick."

"Takes one to know one." It wasn't my best work, but at least I nailed the tone. I sounded deadly calm.

"What the fuck does that mean?" he snarled.

"You never grew the balls to say it out loud, but you always think you're right. So you hide it. You want a fucking parade? It doesn't make you a better person than me, and it never did."

He stormed out, after that, slamming my door so hard that it would have shaken the china on the shelves, if I had any china. Or shelves.

I realized, with a sudden sick feeling, that I would probably never see Jill again.

Beckett called later to apologize, as he always did. But I knew he was right, more than he was wrong.

I knew, for the first time, the extent of the damage I'd done. And this time, I was going to bear the brunt of it.

Because despite what I'd thought of her when we first met, Jillian Brown didn't need me. She didn't need anyone. She'd be just fine on her own.

But I wasn't sure the same could be said about me.





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Revenir





To revenir is to fry quickly in fat, just enough to warm through. No more. It also means to return - to come back to something, and I'll be the first to admit I don't understand what that has to do with frying anything. But there are some questions you just don't ask in French kitchens.





- Excerpted from Dylan: A Lifetime of Recipes





***





Jill





***





I still thought about him every day.

Maybe it was my work. I got a new job quickly enough, at another restaurant, lower rent, but that was fine by me. Just another step on the ladder. I'd never really upgraded my lifestyle working for Max, except for that sofa. Heidi and I would do just fine, with our '70s townhouse and our nuclear orange mac and cheese.

I'm kidding, of course. I'd never feed that crap to an innocent dog. Only myself.

The point was, working in a kitchen again, it was hard not to think about Max. I'd incorporated so many little tricks, so many things that I never thought twice about - until he was gone.