The truth is that the purpose of the internship is to secure me a position with either Le Cordon Bleu or the partner who is sponsoring me. In my case, I’m being sponsored by Lazare Brasseries, a French eatery who is counting on the possibility I will choose to work with them after my internship is over.
One third of my internship hours will be spent working at the brasseries and the other two-thirds will be spent at Le Cordon Bleu. In exchange for my labor and creative contributions, Lazare pays my stipend and any room and board expenses. I managed to negotiate a raise in my stipend from 600 Euros per month to 1200, but the compromise was that I have to start the internship in June rather than August.
I know I should feel happy that the executive chef at Lazare is so excited to work with me. And I should be grateful that, unless something goes horribly wrong, I’m pretty much guaranteed my choice between a sous chef position at Lazare or an assistant instructor position at Le Cordon Bleu. But neither of those options end with me returning to New York to be with Minka and my family.
Or Ethan.
I wince at the thought of him. Just imagining his gorgeous face fills me with an unbearable physical longing, which the French refer to as la douleur exquise. The exquisite pain. There’s nothing exquisite about alternating between nausea, crying jags, and numb indifference.
The fact that Ethan has made zero attempts to contact me over the last few weeks only solidifies my resolve to leave New York. He and Edward can have it. I’m tired of fighting to survive in a place I once considered home.
Exiting my DuoLingo app, I open Spotify and turn up the volume as I tap on the going-away playlist Minka made for me. I scroll past the more upbeat songs and put on “Je Rêverai à Toi” by Kate Bollinger. But the longer I listen, the more I realize the lyrics are about a person who’s dreaming about someone who left them.
I tap the skip button and I sigh as the song changes to “my future” by Billie Eilish. Hitting the button again, I land on “A Soulmate Who Wasn’t Meant to Be” by Jess Benko. This time I don’t skip the song, but only because my hands are too busy wiping tears.
Jess Benko sings about looking at their soulmate who wasn’t meant to be and seeing a stranger, and I lean forward to hold my wet face in my hands. As I try to conceal my emotional breakdown from my fellow passengers, my heart leaps into my throat as I spy a pair of familiar sneakers through the spaces between my fingers.
Ethan kneels before me as I raise my head to look up at him. “Hey, love,” he says softly, his voice tender, his eyes full of trepidatious hope. “You going somewhere?”
I shrug as I’m instantly overcome with guilt at his reference to the internship I kept hidden from him. “What are you doing here?” I whisper.
I don’t want to assume I know his intentions, but my heart is beating out of my chest, spurred on by the same hope I think I see in his eyes.
He takes my hand in his and my stomach flutters at the sensation of his warm skin on mine. “What I should have done the moment you walked into Forked. I’m offering you a job…as executive chef and full partner. Fifty-fifty ownership. I just came from your father’s office. They’re ready to draw up the papers.” He squeezes my hand as he gazes into my eyes. “Please come back. Forked isn’t the same without you. We need—” He stops short and an uncomfortable expression washes over his face as he steels himself for what he’s about to say. “I need you, Alice.”
“You need me?” I say, unable to hide my grin. “The great Ethan Thorne needs me?”
“Like a hole in the head,” he says, chuckling briefly at the glare I shoot in his direction. “I need your laugh. I need your beautiful smile,” he says, reaching up to brush his thumb across the ledge of my bottom lip. “I need your big heart. I need you as my partner, and not just in the kitchen. I need you everywhere. I need you more than anything and everything I’ve ever needed.”
“Everything?”
“Everything. Everywhere.”
My insides fill with warmth as all my doubts disintegrate into nothing. Ethan loves me more than he ever loved Priya.
My smile disappears, and I’m overwhelmed with guilt. Minka repeatedly pointed out to me how Ethan must have felt the same discomfort when thinking of Edward and me together.
“I’m sorry I didn’t—” I shake my head when he tries to interrupt me. “No, I need to apologize for this. I…I should have told you about the internship. It’s no excuse, but I was so afraid you’d fire me… But I’m so tired of being afraid.”
“I can relate to that,” he says with the most charming smile I’ve ever seen. “Come back to Forked, love… Come back to me… Paris can wait.”
I sigh and lean into his hand as he brushes a tear from my cheek. “I still have one question.”
His eyes are wild with hope now. “What?”
I take his free hand in both of mine and smile as I ask, “Fifty-one forty-nine split?”
He laughs softly as he shakes his head. “I’ll give you a hundred percent, if that’s what it takes.”
“Fifty-fifty sounds perfect.”
As his mouth falls over mine, I lose myself in the moment. I’m unaware if anyone is watching us, nor do I care. All I know is Ethan’s kiss is very much like his love: passionate and risky, but also tender and sweet, with zero bittersweet aftertaste.
Chapter 21
ETHAN
Thirteen years earlier
It’s been more than three days since I found out about my grandfather’s death. Three days since I booked an urgent flight to Bangladesh, which leaves tomorrow night. Three days since I sent an email to my development training instructor asking if I’ll be able to take the exam on food-borne illnesses before I leave for the airport. Three days and still no response.
It also doesn’t seem as if Garrett—Chef Garrett Evans prefers we call him by his first name—has checked his voicemail since the beginning of the term, seeing as his inbox always says it’s full and cannot accept messages. I’ve gotten bad vibes from Garrett almost from the get-go. Though I’m not looking forward to it, I have no choice but to visit his office on campus.
As I exit the tube at Oxford Circus and head in the direction of Chef Academy London, I think about how I came to choose this culinary school. I hesitated when I found out the campus was less than a year old. My hope was that the extraordinary reputation they’d acquired at their Italian location was an indication they’d worked out the kinks in the administrative aspect.
Acceptance to the advanced chef program requires all students successfully complete a rigorous seventy-five-hour development training course. The class requires HACCP—Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point—certification for food and fire safety as well as an extensive list of other requirements: knowledge of mise en place, knife skills, flavors, techniques and presentations. All this before I can even begin the chef program.
Honestly, I’m beginning to question my choice to seek a career in the culinary arts. I’m more interested in doing it than studying it. It doesn’t help that Edward decided, at the last minute, that he also wanted to pursue a career in cooking. But he insisted we attend different schools.