Chapter 2

I let out a breath and shook my head. "I can't agree to that."

"Grandpa's retirement house isn't for sale."

The room went silent.

Marina's face changed, and she stamped her foot, furious. "Vincent, all that talk about love, and this is what it comes to?"

"And what about you?"

I couldn't help throwing it back at her.

"Enough."

Nathan slammed the table and stood, staring me down. "Fine. Since you won't do it, the engagement's off."

"But I'll let you stay on at the restaurant. Eighteen hundred a month, and you cover your own benefits."

To me, that was nothing short of an insult.

I'd been pulling in thirty grand a month back in the city.

So I turned him down. "No need. I quit."

Nathan blinked, then his lip curled. "Ungrateful."

"Job market's brutal right now. Chefs like you are a dime a dozen. Who'd hire you? Go ahead and starve."

I stood there under all that sneering.

I wanted to say something, but I caught Marina beside him, silent again, her face cold, and suddenly nothing I could say seemed worth the breath.

So I turned and went to gather the few clothes I kept at the restaurant.

Without me.

Could the James family restaurant even survive?

I doubted it.

Besides, people had been trying to poach me for a long time now.

"Some people are just too full of themselves. They mistake the platform for their own ability."

"Watch me. I'll call up the head chef from a Michelin-starred restaurant right now."

Myra's voice dripped contempt.

But what kind of platform was the James family restaurant? I'd propped it up with my own money, and it was my cooking that kept the customers coming back, one after another.

Clothes in hand, I walked out of the restaurant under all their jeering stares.

"Vincent."

Then Marina came running out after me.

My chest tightened. I turned slowly and looked straight into her eyes.

Thinking maybe something in her had changed.

"Take off your shoes."

"I bought those."

The next second, her words turned my whole heart to ice.

Three years I'd given her.

And this was the fruit it bore.

Not worth it. Not any of it.

I didn't say a word. I just took the shoes off.

"Well, that was easy."

Marina frowned, grabbed the shoes, and dropped them straight into the trash.

"Can't even pass a little test like this."

"Guess all that good treatment you gave me was just an act."

An act?

Who spends three years subsidizing her out of his own pocket?

Who, the moment she mentioned wanting the blessing jade up on the mountain, spent that whole night kneeling and bowing to pray for it on her behalf?

Who remembered every single thing she liked?

I laughed at myself inside, then turned and stepped out onto the road.

The ground was still wet from the rain.

Slick, and scattered with sharp little stones.

They dug into the soles of my feet.

Beep, beep!

A car came speeding up and hit a puddle just as it passed.

Splashed me head to toe.

Then it stopped at the restaurant door.

A man in a sharp suit stepped out.

Nathan and Myra rushed out of the restaurant to greet him.

"Well, well, Otis is here!"

"Let me introduce everyone. This is Otis Gilbert, head chef of a Michelin-starred restaurant, winner of eighteen Chef God titles!"

"He'd wipe the floor with every chef in this city."

Their faces were creased with smiles.

Marina and Otis sized each other up, and in the end their eyes met and they both smiled, then walked into the restaurant together.

Not one more glance at me.

By rights, I'd traveled with my mentor and met Chef God champions from every era and every region.

A man who'd taken eighteen Chef God titles was no small name, and I'd certainly have known of him.

Yet I had not the faintest memory of him.

While I stood there stunned, another car pulled up beside me. The window rolled down, and a stunning face appeared.

"Get in."

She was Ella Harding, the owner of the restaurant on the next street over.

In the space of a year.

She'd tried to poach me a hundred times without success, and never once given up.