CHAPTER 6
Sebastian
“… MAKE SURE OUR EXPENSES ARE IN LINE WITH OUR financial goals…”
I twirled a pen between my fingers as Allen, the chief financial officer, droned on. I’d strategically picked my seat so I could stare out the windows while the rest of the execs went over last quarter’s numbers.
I hated these meetings, but as the CMO, I was required to attend them.
I held back a groan as Allen flipped to slide fifty-whatever of his PowerPoint.
It was a gorgeous day. Golden sunshine, seventy-three degrees with a gentle breeze, and the buzz of a city returning to life after Labor Day weekend.
I should be outside, soaking up the last bit of warmth in Central Park, or at least in a kitchen, perfecting my scallop recipe. Instead, I was wasting my time in an overly air- conditioned building, listening to shit I couldn’t care less about.
My recipe had to be missing an ingredient. I’d checked and triple-checked the rest of the ingredients. Their ratio was spot on, which meant—
“Sebastian.” My father’s sharp voice brought my attention back to the boardroom.
I dragged my eyes away from the skyscrapers outside to find the whole table staring at me. “Yes?”
“Please.” My father leaned back and laced his fingers together. “Share your thoughts on what we were discussing.
I’d love to hear them.”
I sighed, my mind still on the scallops, but I obliged.
“We’re spending too much on operating costs for restaurants in the red. One of the simplest ways to cut expenses is to reduce food waste. We can partner with local charities who could benefit from the extra food. We’ll emphasize the no-food-waste angle for marketing, get good PR for the charity work, help feed the community we’re part of, and reduce costs all at once. Four for four.”
I met my father’s gaze head-on, and the rest of the room held a collective breath as his brow furrowed.
He loved doing this shit—calling me out when I least expected it to see if I was paying attention (rarely) and, if not, whether I had the chops to land on my feet anyway (always).
I was bored to tears, but it didn’t take a genius to skim a PowerPoint slide, and whoever was sweating most profusely at the moment was the person who last spoke. That meant the topic at hand was related to their job. Today’s winner was the CFO, who’d been harping about operating costs for months.
“Good,” my father said. He nodded at his head of operations. “Corbin, put together a plan for implementing those changes. Now, talk to me about our supply chain.
What’s the latest…”
I tuned him out again and checked the clock.
How had it been only thirty minutes? I could’ve sworn I’d been trapped in here for at least three hours.
On the bright side, this was my last internal commitment for the day. Maya and I were scheduled to meet later to nail
down a plan for the product collab, but at least that
wouldn’t be boring.
Nothing with her ever was.
My mind wandered back to Friday night, its focus torn between the way she’d eviscerated me, her subsequent apology, and, strangely enough, Xavier’s insistence on setting her up with Killian. I’d had three nights to think about it, and it was still the stupidest idea I’d ever heard.
Not that I thought about it a lot. It just so happened to pop up now and then, like an annoying little gnat that couldn’t take a hint.
I lowered my hand and tapped my pen against the table until my father’s glare forced me to stop.
Half an hour later, the meeting finally, blessedly ended.
I pushed my chair back and headed straight for the door, but my father stopped me before I could escape.
“Sebastian. Let’s talk.”
Dammit. I eyed the exit with longing. “About?”
“Your proposal.”
My gaze snapped up to meet his, and it took all my willpower to keep my expression neutral. “And?”
I’d submitted my proposal months ago. This was his first time acknowledging it, so I wasn’t getting my hopes up. But maybe… “It’s not a good idea.” He stood and walked over. He was technically two inches shorter than me, but he’d towered over me my entire life, his shadow stifling my every attempt to break free. “You’re too valuable as CMO. One day, you’re going to lead this company, and you can’t do that if you waste your time toiling away in a kitchen instead of here.
Making the decisions.” He rapped his knuckles against the table.
A slow, bitter burn simmered in my gut. “Waste my time?
That’s an interesting way to devalue the work your entire company is built on.”
“I’m not devaluing it. Theactual chefs? They’re meant to
be running kitchens, not boardrooms. You’re the opposite.”
My father’s eyes flashed. “You have an MBA, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t pay for all that schooling only for you to chop vegetables and grill meat for the rest of your life.”
The burn solidified into a white-hot flash of fury. “I also went to culinary school. There’s more to the job than chopping vegetables andgrilling meat. You, of all people, should know that.”
I’d convinced my parents to let me attend culinary school so I could “get a better understanding of the craft side of the business.” In reality, I’d gone because Iwanted to. Learning knife skills and different cooking techniques was infinitely more interesting than earning a boring MBA.
They’d agreed, as long as I graduated top of my class from business school first, which I had. I took more pride in my culinary degree than my MBA, but the former would be a waste if I didn’t use it.
“It doesn’t matter. No is no.” My father’s face hardened.
“Don’t forget what happened the last time you insisted on running a kitchen. It’s a miracle we survived.”
His words landed like a punch in the gut. A lifetime of practice kept me from visibly betraying my emotions, but inside, my chest tightened to the point of suffocation.
Years ago, I’d overseen the soft opening of one of our restaurants in the city. It’d been my first time taking charge of the food, and it’d ended with a high-profile guest literally dropping dead in the middle of dinner.
The coroner had attributed his death to anaphylactic shock from a peanut allergy. I was ninety-nine percent sure we hadn’t prepared his food anywherenear peanuts—he had to have been exposed elsewhere—but it didn’t matter.
The remaining one percent of uncertainty had sent me spiraling, and the resulting media frenzy had tanked our stocks until the public’s short attention span and our aggressive PR efforts dragged the company back from the brink of disaster.
It’d taken dozens of therapy sessions—plus a few less healthy coping mechanisms—to dull the horror of that night.
I’d put on a brave face for the world, but my father knew how hard I’d fought to step foot in a kitchen again without panicking.
Heknew, and he still used it as a weapon against me.
My hands curled into fists. I wanted to slam them into the table just so I had something solid to push back on, but if I did that—if I showed any outburst of emotion—he’d win.
“Seb.” My father’s frown melted into a sigh. “I’m not trying to be the bad guy here. You might hate me for this now, but you’ll thank me in the long run.”
“Don’t,” I said, my voice sharp. “If you don’t want me to be a chef because you feel it’s beneath the Laurent name, then stick to that. But don’t try to justify it as some act of benevolence. This has always been about your ego, nothing else.”
His eyes flashed again. “You have no fucking idea what this is about.”
“Then enlighten me.” When he fell silent, I barked out a rough laugh. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
I walked out. He didn’t stop me, but his words followed me down the hall and out onto the sidewalk, where even the sun couldn’t ward off a sudden chill.
Dots danced before my vision. A familiar knot coiled around my chest, and I had to force in several deep breaths to loosen its hold.
Don’t forget what happened the last time you insisted on running a kitchen.
With one cleverly aimed reminder, my father had torn off the Band-Aid and dragged my ugly, festering insecurities back to the surface.
I hated how easily he manipulated me. I saw it for what it was, but a small part of me wondered if he was right, and if my return to the kitchen would be a disaster waiting to happen.
I couldn’t even perfect fucking scallops, for Christ’s sake.
But I could whip together a marketing plan in my sleep, even if doing so inspired about as much excitement as a root canal.
If I really wanted, I could ignore my father and strike out on my own, my inheritance be damned. I had no doubt he’d cut me off if I went against his wishes. But at the end of the day, I was still a Laurent, and I held a deeply ingrained loyalty to my family, if not to my father himself. Besides, that big a rift would destroy my mother, who was fragile enough after my aunt died. I refused to cause her any more distress.
I sucked in another lungful of air until the dots disappeared from my vision. The conflicting voices in my head retreated, and not for the first time, I ignored the
restlessness stirring inside me.
I’d worry about the future later.
For now, I just needed to get through the day.
You’re late.
The Post-it note was affixed to the table in front of my seat when I arrived to my meeting with Maya later that afternoon.
We’d exchanged increasingly heated emails over the weekend regarding our weekly meeting spot until we’d agreed on neutral territory—the library at the ultra-exclusive Valhalla Club, where we were both members.
I’d cleared my head during the long, brisk walk to Valhalla, and I felt close to myself again as I took the seat opposite Maya’s. I didn’t touch the note.
“You’re early.” I tapped the face of my watch. “It’s three o’clock on the dot.”
“When you’re on time, you’re late.” She pushed a manila folder across the table. She was dressed in what I secretly called her get-shit-done outfit—crisp white shirt, diamond studs, and her lucky gold elephant pendant. Her hair draped over one shoulder in a thick, glossy braid.
Some things never changed.
I yawned. “Sorry, not everyone lives by your personal rules, Sal.”
She leveled me with a cool look. “Is this how you want to kick off our partnership? Because trust me, I’d be happy to argue with you all day long, but we’ll bemuch more efficient if we actually work together. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can go our separate ways.”
My eyebrows winged up. I assessed her, trying to gauge whether she was sincere or fucking with me.
I’d come prepared for war, and she was initiating a quasi- truce? Her apology was one thing. Her (albeit reluctant) willingness to work together without saying something snarky first was another.
Then again, the passive-aggressive Post-it note was classic Maya Singh, so maybe she hadn’t gotten a personality transplant. Perhaps she’d hit her head so hard her personality had split in two, and she was now forced to switch back and forth between them like Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde.
“You’re right,” I said. “Let’s get this done.”
“Thank you.” Maya gave me a sweet smile, and I had the sense that I’d somehow lost a battle I hadn’t known was being fought. “Our first task is the announcement plan. We have to nail the messaging from the start, or we’re fucked.”
“Language.”
“Fuck off.”
I laughed.Much better. Her niceness freaked me out.
Maya huffed out a sigh, but I swore her mouth twitched before she flattened it into a straight line. “Shh. You’ll get us kicked out.”
She tilted her head toward the librarian, who was indeed glaring at us from behind her desk. She was only here once a week since the Valhalla library operated more as a networking hub than an actual library, but judging by her scowl, you’d think I’d killed her cat instead of merely laughing.
“I’d like to see her try.” I smiled at the librarian. She didn’t smile back. “She’s what, eighty? I can take her.”
Maya shook her head. “Of course, you wouldn’t see anything wrong with tackling a nice old lady.”
“I didn’t say anything about tackling, and she doesn’t look so nice.”
“That means she has discernment. Unlike other people, she doesn’t fall for your Euro charm bullshit.”
A slow smile crept across my face. “Did you admit I have charm?”
“Bullshit charm. Don’t cherry-pick my words.” Maya’s cheeks appeared a shade redder than usual as she opened her laptop. “Now stop talking and start working. I don’t have all day.”
I chuckled, but I acquiesced and flipped open the folder she’d handed me. She’d printed out my response to her proposal and given me notes on my notes. Typical.
I skimmed them without analyzing every comment the way I would if she were anyone else. I didn’t need to micromanage her; I trusted her to get things right on her own.
That said, we did have a ton of work to do. A project of this magnitude involved a thousand moving parts, and our tight timeline meant we both needed to be at the top of our game.
“We need a big marquee chef to handle the recipes and be the face of this collaboration,” I said. “I emailed you some names. If you don’t have any objections, I’ll start reaching out to see if any of them are interested.”
“Perfect. I’ll draft the press release and leave a
placeholder for their name and bio.” Maya highlighted something in her notebook. “Can you finalize it by next week?”
“Of course.” It would take some arm-twisting, but the Laurent name went far in the culinary world.
We worked quietly for a while, our conversation lapsing into the scratch of pen on paper and the rhythmic clacking of our keyboards.
The library bustled with activity, but the noise seemed muted somehow, the other patrons barely noticeable despite their proximity to us. It was as if an invisible bubble insulated us from the rest of the room.
I glanced at Maya, who was typing furiously on her computer. Light streamed in through the stained-glass windows behind her, settling softly on her hair and highlighting the stubborn set of her mouth. A tiny crease dug in between her brows, and she muttered something under her breath as she paused typing to underline a sentence in her notebook.
We hadn’t worked side by side like this since college, when we’d kept getting thrown into group projects together.
We’d pulled countless all-nighters in the library, both of us refusing to be the one to bail first, but I’d forgotten how laser-focused she got. How she radiated intensity, and how she tackled every task with a military-grade precision that left little room for error.
I’d made a game out of trying to distract her. I’d succeeded a number of times, but I’d kept those victories to myself. They were a secret indulgence, and I hoarded them the way dragons hoarded treasure, away from the prying
eyes of those who wouldn’t understand.
Sometimes, I didn’t understand either.
“If you stare any harder, I’ll have to start charging you,”
Maya said without looking up from her screen. “I’m not here for your entertainment.”
I hadn’t said a word, and I’d already distracted her.One
point for Team Laurent.
I suppressed a smile. “Does my attention make you uncomfortable?”
“Everything about you makes me uncomfortable.”
“Yet here we are,” I drawled, taking great delight in the subtle flare of her nostrils.Two points for Team Laurent.
“Only because we have to be.” Her eyes flicked up to meet mine. They were dark with exasperation. “Have you looked at the draft I sent you yet? I’m meeting someone downtown in an hour, so I need to leave soon.”
“Yes. It’s fine.”
“Fine?” Maya looked like I’d told her she had a terminal disease and only two weeks left to live. “Our marketing timeline can’t befine. It has to be perfect. What—”
“Who are you meeting later?” I interrupted. “Killian?”
Maybe Xavier had finally gotten a hold of the elusive bachelor and introduced them after I’d left the Vault. Killian did love his downtown haunts, though he was typically allergic to Monday-night gatherings unless they involved a bottle of whiskey, a pair of supermodels, and a threesome.
Maya gave me a strange look. “Killian Katrakis? Why would I be meeting with him?”
A twinge of heat crept over my cheeks. “No reason,” I said, silently kicking myself for the slip-up. Why thefuck was I bringing up Killian first? “But I talked to him earlier, and he said he had a meeting downtown tonight too.”
Fortunately, she was too distracted by my lukewarm assessment of her marketing plan to notice my blatant lie.
“What’s wrong with the timeline?” She flipped furiously through her notebook. “I guess we can move the ad campaign up a month, but if we do it too early, it’ll lose steam—”
“Maya.” I placed a hand on her wrist. “Relax.Fine is just a word. The timeline is perfect.”
She froze. Her eyes dropped to my hand before traveling to my face, and I realized a beat too late that I’d fucked up.
The invisible bubble around us shrank. My skin stretched too thin and too tight, like it wasn’t an adequate shield for the sudden blaze of panic inside of me. My pulse thudded hard enough for her to feel it through my fingers, and I would’ve yanked my hand away if doing so wouldn’t have made things worse.
Instead, I lingered, even though I’d sworn I wouldn’t, and the light contact rekindled emotions that were best forgotten.
Her skin was softer than I remembered, and a pit opened in my stomach before I slowly withdrew, careful to keep my expression neutral.
“If it’s not Killian, who are you meeting?” I asked casually.
I glanced around the room, trying to calm the irritating patter of my heart. “Some other poor sap your mom convinced to go on a date with you?”
Maya unfroze. She retracted her hand from the table, keeping it well out of my reach, and busied herself with packing up. I had the distinct feeling that she was avoiding looking at me. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m meeting Vivian. She’s helping me plan my birthday party.”
Her birthday was in two and a half months.
“So youare having a party.”
“Of course.”
“I haven’t received my invitation yet.” I placed a hand over my chest. My heart rate was starting to return to normal, thank fucking God. “I’m hurt.”
“Maybe you’re not invited,” she said, the picture of innocence. “Maybe I decided our competition isn’t worth having to share my favorite day of the year with you anymore.”
“Your birthday wouldn’t have much meaning without me, Sal.”
We’d been inviting each other to our birthday celebrations our entire lives. It was the perfect chance for us to one-up each other, and I looked forward to seeing her
different themes—and planning ways to beat her—every year.
Maya snorted. “You think way too highly of yourself.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “But tell me I’m wrong.”
“You—”
“Mr. Laurent. Ms. Singh.” I didn’t realize the librarian had left her station until she popped up next to us with a disapproving frown. “Please. Keep your voices down. Other people are trying to work.”
Those “other people” were chatting at the same volume as us, but neither Maya nor I argued. We apologized, our gazes locked as the librarian huffed and left.
Without taking her eyes off me, Maya scribbled something on a Post-it note and slapped it on the table.
My mouth curled when I read it.
You’re wrong.
“You’re a bad liar, sweetheart,” I said, my voice soft enough for only her to hear.
Maya’s jaw tightened. The air pulsed between us, and I saw the indecision warring inside her—should she take my bait and respond, or should she walk away and let me have the last word?
I got my answer a minute later, when she hitched her bag onto her shoulder and brushed past me with a terse “See you next week. Don’t be late.”
I didn’t watch her leave, but a hint of her perfume trailed behind her. It smelled like a mix of amber and florals.
My smile faded, and I waited until the scent fully evaporated before I folded her note into neat thirds and slipped it into my pocket.
I stood, my gaze lingering on her empty seat for an extra beat before I, too, left.
Eight months, three weeks. That was the amount of time
we had left in our partnership.
It wasn’t a lot in the grand scheme of things, but I had the unsettling feeling that it was just enough to drive me insane.