I immediately let go of him and stumble backward, tumbling into the chair I was just sitting in. “Oh, no,” I whisper as I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees as I hold my head in my hands. “Isn’t Warner friends with Mario?”
Mario is one of our two current sous chefs. Ethan has assured me that neither Mario nor Shanice will have their hours or pay cut if I’m promoted to sous chef. But one of us—likely the weakest cook—may see some of our duties shift to those more in keeping with a garde manger, responsible mostly for charcuterie, cold soups and salads, and sorbets. Shanice seems okay with this prospect, while Mario has been heard grumbling about it on a few occasions.
Then, of course, there’s my father.
Ethan kneels in front of me, taking my chin between his thumb and forefinger to force me to look at him. “You don’t have anything to worry about. We don’t have any policies against fraternization.”
“I’m not worried you’re going to fire me,” I reply incredulously. “I’m worried about the appearance of impropriety when you eventually promote me, and…and I’m worried about my father.”
He looks stricken by this information. “You know about the promise I made your father?”
“What promise?”
His eyes widen. “Nothing.”
My stomach drops as I realize what’s going on. “My dad made us both take the same vow of celibacy.”
Ethan chuckles as he rests a hand on my knee. “I’ll talk to Warner. No one will find out about this. I’ll make sure of that.”
I look him in the eye. “We can never do this again,” I say, my chest aching at the thought of never again kissing his perfect lips.
He looks confused by my obvious disappointment. “I said no one will find out about it. I didn’t say we needed to stop.”
I smile as I throw my arms around his neck.
And just like that, it became Ethan and I against the world.
Chapter 12
ETHAN
It’s been days since I tasted Alice’s lips, and I’ve thought of nothing else since. Her mouth tasted of cinnamon and honey. I have no idea if she had recently consumed something with those flavors or if that’s the way she normally tastes, but I can’t get it out of my mind.
Not that I want to stop thinking about it, because whenever I do, I inevitably start imagining her and Edward together. I imagine him touching her hair and sniffing his hand. I imagine her watching him do that and then giggling to herself.
I shudder at the thought.
Pouring myself a large dram of whiskey, I carry the glass into the sitting room. Taking a seat on the edge of the sofa cushion, I prop my mobile up against the metal bowl on the coffee table. Then, I take a deep breath as I hit send on a FaceTime call I’ve been dreading since opening night.
My mother answers faster than she normally does, her eagerness only serving to ratchet up my anxiety. “Darling, what are you doing up so late on a Wednesday?” she asks in her British-Bengali accent. “Isn’t it, what, three in the morning in New York?”
She has an uncanny ability to calculate the difference in time zones between London and Manhattan with surprising swiftness.
“I was finishing up some paperwork,” I lie, already getting the conversation off to a rough start. “How are you, Mum?”
My father enters the kitchen, doing a double-take when he sees my image on my mother’s mobile. “Ethan? By God, I almost didn’t recognize you,” he says, his standard twin joke, which no one has laughed at in more than twenty years.
“Good morning, Dad.”
My mother pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “It’s three in the morning in New York. He can’t sleep,” she tells my father, as if the paperwork excuse I gave never happened.
“What’s wrong? Is it girl trouble?” my father says as he presses the button to turn on the electric kettle.
“Why does it have to be girl trouble?” I ask. “Why can’t it be business trouble or insomnia or something?”
Both my mother and father laugh at this suggestion.
I shake my head as I realize how foolish I was to think I could hide anything from these two.
They’re like two peas in a pod. Together nearly forty years, and they seem more in love now than they did when Edward and I were children. My inability to commit to anyone in the last decade cannot be attributed to their example. The blame for that rests solely on one person: Priya.
My mother stops laughing and clears her throat. “Sorry, darling, but it’s a bit more like you to have a problem with a girl. You so rarely have problems in business. Take it as a compliment.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, this time it’s more complicated. It’s… My problem is related to business…and a woman.”
“How is that different?” she replies as she accepts her cup of tea from my father. “I thought you only dated women you work with.”
My father chuckles. “Son, tell us something we don’t already know.”
“Brilliant. I ring you to have a serious chat and all I get is a comedy tag-team.”
My mother ignores my complaint. “Tell me what is going on. Maybe I can help. I also used to sleep with my coworkers.”
“Mum!”
My father is no longer in the video frame, but I can hear him guffawing somewhere nearby.
My mother takes a sip of her tea and smiles. “Okay, no more mucking about. Talk to me.”
I gulp down some whiskey before I continue. “Have you spoken with Edward?”
She purses her lips. “You know he only calls me once every few months. We haven’t spoken to him since…oh, gosh…shortly after the new year.”
I shake my head as I realize this was about five months ago. “Well, then, I’m glad I’ll be the one to tell you the opening went quite well last week.”
She claps her hands together. “That’s wonderful, darling. Not surprising, but quite wonderful.”
I smile at her enthusiasm. “But… Edward and I had a bit of a confrontation at the opening.”
“Oh?”
I wince at her curiosity. “Uh, yes, it… Well, it had something to do with the way he treated one of my employees. I had to eject him from the restaurant. It was…not pretty.”
“Eject him?” she says, looking somewhat confused. “You mean you booted your brother out of your restaurant?”
“Well, not quite so literally. I wasn’t wearing boots. But, yes, I chucked him out for something he said—did to one of my employees. It was bloody inappropriate.”
She eyes me suspiciously. “Are you two fighting over a girl?”
“What? No! I mean—” A thin layer of sweat sprouts across my brow.
“Now you’ve really done it,” my father chimes in from where he’s likely seated across the kitchen table.
“I haven’t done anything,” I lie again.
“Then why does your face look like that time when you were fifteen and I saw your browser history?” my mother asks.
I can’t hide anything from this woman.
“It’s his ex-girlfriend,” I mutter.