Javier watched her walk away and felt a pit open in his gut.
What the hell had he done? Why had he pushed her like that?
He glanced around and everyone was suddenly very interested in the work in front of them. Their heads were down, the perfect image of professionals, but they’d all witnessed what he’d done to her.
It wasn’t what he’d meant to do. He’d meant to play a long game. He’d brought in the cutting board. It was the first step. If he could get her interested in practicing the basics, she would figure out that she wasn’t as limited as she thought she was.
And then she’d stood there and told him he was babying Rafe. The accusation had rankled especially because he knew damn well he was babying her.
Fuck.
He had to talk to her. He started out the door but was stopped when Chef walked in.
“Excuse me,” Javier said, ready to walk around him.
Sean put a hand out. “Are you going after Jules? You the one who put that look on her face?”
Shit. Sean could be super protective of the women who worked for him. The men, too, but that came out in another way. When it came to a woman Sean felt a responsibility to, he could get downright mean. But he needed to understand that Jules was Javier’s responsibility and she was going to stay that way.
Unless she told him to fuck off and left town. Which she might after what he’d done to her.
“We had a disagreement. I gave her a direct order and she didn’t take it well,” he admitted.
One brow rose over Sean’s eyes. “You did? Over the cutting board? I’ve been waiting for you to do that for days, man. You’re not going to get her to try by easing her into it. She needs to be pushed into it. She’s not a weak woman. Treat her like she’s still in the military.”
“I tried. It didn’t go well.”
Macon cleared his throat. “There were other things said. Things no commanding officer would say to his inferior.”
Sean looked to the pastry chef. “Why do you know about it?”
“Because they threw down in front of the entire kitchen,” Macon admitted. “And it was a pretty spectacular fight. When she said she couldn’t do it, Javier showed her up. Put one hand behind his back and proved he could.”
Sean winced. “No wonder she looked like that. Well, you can’t go after her now. She’s had some unexpected company. It looks like the network sent out special invites to some of the bigwigs to tonight’s performance. Guess who took them up on it?”
He was confused for a moment and then a few things fell into place. The woman at Jules’s apartment had been looking for her, but not for nefarious reasons. “Her mother.”
“Yeah,” Sean admitted. “I think Linc nearly had a heart attack. That kid likes decorating way too much. How did he survive Army barracks? Anyway, she’s out there and I have Jules setting her up. Your fight’s going to have to wait. We’ve got less than an hour before the rest of the invitees show up. I need everyone focused. Where are we on the meatball sliders?”
Jaylen held a hand up. “Uhm, I kind of need those onions.”
Fucking onions. “I’ll cut them myself. I tried to get Jules to help out. It did not go well.”
“Apparently you were an ass,” Sean said. “If it helps, you were always going to have to be an ass about this. She needs the push. Face it, man. This is what it means to be in a relationship.”
“I’m not very good at it.” He had a sinking feeling. “Maybe I should go back to broom closet hookups. They don’t need anything from me. It’s a lot easier.”
He didn’t seem to be good at any of it. He was fucking up with Rafe. He’d just broken something inside Jules, and it hadn’t been his intention. Not at all.
She’d said something about not being ready for a relationship. Maybe he was the one who wasn’t ready. Maybe he never would be.
Sean sighed. “It might be easier, but empty hookups aren’t what will make your life worthwhile. I’ll go and ask Ally or Tiffany to help with prep. That said, our guest would like to introduce herself.”
He opened the kitchen door and a petite blonde dressed in a beautiful yellow sundress and cowboy boots walked in.
Every guy in the place perked up because that was one gorgeous woman. She had a bright smile and mischievous eyes, as though she knew her place in the world and sat back and enjoyed the ride. She was exactly the type of woman he would have tried to spend a little time with before.
And he couldn’t work up the will to smile at her because she wasn’t Juliana.
“Hi, everyone. I’m Emily Young and I’m going to be coming through town again in a few months with Luke Berry and I can’t thank you enough for hosting this little warm-up session for me. Everything smells like heaven. I can’t wait for supper, but I wanted to come back here and beg you to please come out and enjoy the show. I know you all have work to do, but I need a real audience, if you know what I mean. I can’t think of anyone I would like to perform for more than a bunch of American heroes who served our country proudly and who also happen to know how to cook. Chef Taggart, do you hire any men who aren’t incredibly hot?”
That had every man in the place chuckling. He would hand it to her. She was charming as hell.
So why was he stuck on a sarcastic, introvert of a woman who couldn’t see that she was holding herself back? Why did it have to be Jules?
“You know, my wife does a lot of the hiring,” Sean was saying. “I would say she has a type.” He clapped his hands. “So let’s get working. Don’t let the lady down.”
As Emily made her way around the kitchen introducing herself and asking tons of questions, Javier found Ally and they started the prep. Every time he looked up from his station, he wanted to see Jules there, glimpsing over and smiling at him, working with him, challenging him.
It couldn’t work if she wouldn’t try.
It couldn’t work if he wouldn’t face the fact that Rafe had a serious problem. He needed to focus on his brother. If he went out there and found Jules, he would do nothing but bring her into his hell, and she’d been through enough of that.
He went back to his dish, wondering all the while if it wouldn’t be better to let her go.
Two hours later, Javier watched Jules across the room. Emily launched into another song, her lovely voice filling the space with emotion.
Fucking emotions. He was having a million of them.
They hadn’t spoken through dinner service. Jules had come back into the kitchen a few times, helping Ally and Tiffany, but she hadn’t once looked at him. She stood at the back of the small crowd, across the restaurant from him, as though she was going to try to keep as much space between them as possible.
He glanced over to one of the tables nearer to the front. Annaliese O’Neil was seated there. She looked a lot like her daughter. Red haired and lovely and stubborn. Even listening to a country-western performance, the woman was sitting with perfect posture.
What the hell was he going to do about Jules?
“It’s hard, you know,” a deep voice said. Sebastian stood behind him. They were far enough back that with a low tone he wouldn’t disrupt the performance. “It’s hard to adjust to losing a piece of yourself. The world looks different than it did before. It can take time to decide to move forward.”
“I don’t think she wants to. I wouldn’t have a problem with that, but I don’t think she’ll be happy. I think she’s been running from this decision for a long time and she’ll never be content with a man who’s doing what she dreamed about,” he whispered back.
He knew she wouldn’t be happy on the sidelines of his world. He wanted to bring her in, to make her a partner. They could be a team. It would be one thing if she truly couldn’t manage it. Then he would sit down and figure out something else that would fill her soul, but he knew in his heart that she could do this. She could have this part of herself back.
“If it helps at all, Tiffany agrees with you,” Sebastian replied. “Tiffany says she talks about the dishes all the time, how it was cooked, what techniques were used. But you can’t make Jules try. I can, however, promise you that if you step away from her tonight, she won’t let you in again. I know because I would have done the same thing had Tiffany retreated.”
He’d always thought the seemingly uptight sommelier and the bright, vivacious waitress made an odd couple, but they worked. Sebastian smiled more now and he’d eased up on having to look and act like nothing had ever happened to him. There were days when Tiffany would push him in his wheelchair. That would never have happened before their marriage.
“She’s angry with me,” Javier replied. “And honestly, it might be best if I took a step back. I don’t know what’s happening with my brother and it could be dangerous.”
Except he did know. Deep inside he knew she was right. He simply didn’t know what to do about it.
“Best for her? I don’t know about that. I know that scene in the kitchen was bad, but at least she showed some emotion. You bring that out in her. No one else. I think if you leave her alone, she’ll close off that part of herself and won’t open it again. That would be a terrible shame.” Sebastian stepped back and turned to his wife, holding out a hand as the music changed to a slow ballad. “Dance with me, love. I’m not very graceful, but I’ll try for you.”
Tiffany went straight in Sebastian’s arms, swaying with her husband in the shadows.
And he knew that no matter what happened tomorrow, he couldn’t leave Jules like this.
Emily Young’s rich voice brought the crowd into her song.
Don’t tell me it’s too late…
He moved around the crowd, catching Juliana’s stare. Her eyes flared as though she finally realized he was coming for her.
Don’t call me darlin’ and tell me you’re leaving…
For a moment he thought she might run, but then there it was. The light of challenge. Her shoulders squared and she stepped away from the crowd, obviously ready to do battle.
Was Sebastian right? Would she fight with anyone else? Or would she treat all the others like she did life itself—something to amuse her but nothing serious.
Don’t walk away…
“Javier,” she began.
He shook his head. “No. No fighting. No talking. Dance with me. Just be with me for a few minutes. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I only know that I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you.”
He might only have a chance to say it once. She might not forgive him. God only knew what would happen with Rafael. But they had this moment and he had to say it because he wasn’t ever going to say it to another woman.
Stop pushing me when you know you want to hold on…
For a second he thought she would walk away, and then she was in his arms. Jules wrapped her arms around him, holding on like she wouldn’t, couldn’t let go.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.
His heart broke because that was their problem. He knew what to do, but she didn’t, and that meant she wasn’t ready. It was simple for him. She’d walked into his life and the world had become a brighter place. He merely confused her, unsettled her. He upset her carefully balanced life. He wasn’t good for her.
He held on to her, knowing what he would do at the end of the song. He breathed her in, trying to memorize everything about this woman, his woman.
She would be his in his heart, in his dreams.
It could be so easy for us, baby. I’ve been here but you don’t see me.
“Don’t worry about it,” he whispered. “You don’t have to do anything. I’m going to step away at the end of this song and we’re going to be friends, if you’ll forgive me. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to make things worse.”
“I don’t know what I want.” The words came out of her mouth on a stifled cry. She buried her head in his shoulder.
He’d never seen her cry.
He’d done this to her.
Javier held on, hugging her tight and swaying for comfort more than to find the rhythm. He finally understood what his parents had. They’d loved each other, wanting the best for the other person far more than they’d ever wanted anything for themselves.
But it only worked if they were both in it. That was the hell of it all. Her distance lessened his love not one ounce.
“It’s going to be okay,” he promised her. “I won’t ever hurt you again, sweetheart.”
She cried into his shoulder as the song played on.
He prayed it would never end.
* * * *
Jules opened the back door, leading her mother past the kitchen and out into the evening. She tried not to look Javier’s way. She couldn’t.
Not when that dance had felt like good-bye.
When the song had ended, she’d run to the bathroom because she couldn’t let her mother see her crying. She couldn’t let anyone see her crying.
“So you work here, but not in the kitchen.” Her mother sat down at one of the picnic tables behind the restaurant.
The employee break space consisted of a basketball net and two picnic tables so employees could escape during their breaks. It was a well-kept space, but more about function than form. It was a place where she’d started to feel comfortable.
After that incident with Javier, it might be a place she didn’t see again. It rolled in her gut even as she tried her hardest to look calm. The fight was right there. Even after he’d held her and promised that everything would be okay, something had been left undone. It felt unfinished, but then she should never have started at all. She’d known it deep in her gut. She should have kept it to one night because she was never going to be happy as the significant other of a man who would live the dream that should have been hers.
God, had she just thought that? How selfish was she?
Was that really why she was holding herself apart from Javier? Why she hadn’t told him the words that had been right there on her lips?
I love you.
He loved her and she held back. He’d actually said the words and she hadn’t been able to return them to him. She’d known in that moment she might never be able to even though she felt them.
When had she become such a fucking coward?
Her mother looked incredibly out of place in her Chanel sheath and Louboutin heels. Her hair was perfectly done and didn’t move even as the slight breeze blew through.
“Yes. I work here. I’ve been here for a couple of months. After I was discharged, I needed a job and one of Kevin’s friends came through with this one. Chef pays well and there are other benefits.” Ones she wouldn’t use now since there was no way she would be playing anymore.
Why had he been cruel to her in the kitchen? She got that he’d been upset she’d called his brother an addict, but he’d obviously been planning that show of his for a while. He’d gotten excellent with his non-dominant hand, proving himself superior in every way. How long had it taken him? A week? Two? She kind of hated him for that, for how easy it came for him. He was a golden boy.
“Yes, I saw a documentary on this place,” her mother said quietly. “I hear they offer a range of services for their employees. Chef Taggart is very interested in hiring veterans. He takes them in and teaches them how to cook. It’s a worthy endeavor.”
Something in her mom’s tone didn’t feel right to Jules. “Most of his recruits end up in culinary school. He takes the ones who show promise and he sends them to train. It’s a real restaurant, not a charity.”
“I know that. I didn’t say it wasn’t real.” Her mother looked older, as though the few years they’d been apart were more like a decade. Makeup and lighting did wonders for her on television, but in the late evening light, Jules could see how her mother had aged.
“Why are you here, Mom?” She needed to get this over with so she could move on to the problem of finding another job and another apartment because she sure as hell wasn’t going back to watching the women come and go out of Javi’s love den. No matter what he’d said, if they weren’t together, he would find someone else. That was how the world worked. Men loved women, but they didn’t wait very long before finding another one to give them what they needed. He wouldn’t be mean to her, but she couldn’t handle it happening in front of her face.
“I wanted to see you and I needed an excuse, I suppose,” her mother replied. “When I got the invitation from the network, I thought I couldn’t put it off anymore. I’ve been talking to this woman, you see. Odd thing. She’s the star of a niche Internet cooking show. “Angel in the Kitchen.” You should watch it sometime. She’s very telegenic. I’m trying to talk her into coming on the show. Suzanne. Lovely young woman.”
Well, at least now she knew why Suzanne had hung around. She’d wanted an in. It shouldn’t surprise her. “I’m glad you made a friend.”
Her mother shook her perfectly coiffed head. “It’s more than that. She made me think about you, about mistakes I’ve made. Sometimes we do things for reasons that seem right at the time. But what they’re really about is fear and trying to stay in control of something I couldn’t. I tried calling you.”
She’d seen her mother’s name on the screen and known she wasn’t ready to deal with any of this. “You didn’t leave messages. I thought it couldn’t possibly be important.”
Her mother turned to her. “I didn’t know what to say.”
“Hello. How’s it going, Jules? Miss that hand much?” She’d noticed the one thing her mom hadn’t stared at was her hand. She’d seemed fascinated with everything else about Jules, but not once had her mother’s eyes gone to her missing hand.
“Stop with the sarcasm, Juliana. Please.” She looked away, staring out into the alley. “I tried to go to your place last night. You weren’t there.”
“I was out.” She’d been melting in Javier’s arms. “I didn’t get in until late.”
“Do you have a new man in your life?”
That was easy. “No. I was out with friends. You know how it can be after work.”
They worked hard and played hard. They kept late hours because they often didn’t start work until the afternoon if they were on dinner service.
Her mother’s lips curled up faintly, as though remembering some long-forgotten good time. “Yes, I suppose so. When I worked in your grandparents’ diner, I would sometimes sneak in the back with one of the short-order cooks. He could have been your father, if you’d been lucky.”
She felt her jaw drop. “Mother.”
Her mom shrugged slyly. “Well, I did have a life and he was lovely. All I’m saying is I do understand and I’m happy you have friends. Why are you a hostess? Does this Taggart fellow not hire female chefs? I can make him, you know.”
“I don’t think he’s had any apply,” she shot back. The whole conversation made her sick. Her life revolved around this conversation. “I don’t want to talk about my job. Why don’t you tell me why you didn’t bother to show up at my hospital bed? I would have thought at least you could have gotten a show out of it. I fully expected you to come barging in with a camera crew, but you never did. What’s wrong? Do you not need the military demographic?”
Her mom seemed to shrink a bit in the face of her bitter words. “You changed your next of kin when you got married. Did you know the Navy didn’t inform me when you were injured? I didn’t know you were injured at all until much later.”
She hadn’t known? That thought had never once occurred to Jules. Her mother knew everything. Her mother had always seemed to have eyes everywhere because she couldn’t stand to not know. How hard had it been to let go? To not know where her daughter was in the world for months and years at a time? “I thought Kevin told you.”
“Kevin didn’t call me for almost a month.” Her mother’s voice sounded ragged. “He kept that information from me for a month. I’m afraid he doesn’t like me very much. I wasn’t kind to him in the beginning, but then he was the enemy.”
“He was a kid, Mom. Like I was a kid.” Still, it felt good to know her mom hadn’t ignored her. Kevin had known how angry she’d been with her mom. He’d likely thought he was helping out.
So many good intentions gone wrong because no one had talked it out. No one had sat and made things plain. Relationships of all kinds were worth the work of talking and negotiating.
Why did she walk away so easily?
“But you were my kid and he was taking you away,” her mother said with a sigh. “In my mind, he was definitely the enemy.”
Jules felt years away from that arrogant girl she’d been. “No, it wasn’t Kevin’s fault. I would have left anyway. I hated college and you wouldn’t let me do what I wanted to do.”
“Did it occur to you that there were other places you could work? That you could have fought me harder? You didn’t have to throw away your future.” The words came quickly out of her mom’s mouth, as though she knew she had very little time to make her case.
She was right. Jules stood. “I think we’re done here. We’ve had this argument before. You know, I thought you would be thrilled. I mean, I finally did it. I proved you right. I went out into the big bad world and I lost everything. You should get an I told you so T-shirt. You could sell it to your fans.”
Her mother stood as well, blocking her path. “You think this is what I wanted? I spent my whole life working to protect you. I knew exactly what the big bad world could do to you. Why do you think I fought so hard? I worked day and night to pull us up out of the poverty your father left us in. Do you think I wanted you to have to slave away in kitchens? You were too smart for that.”
“I fooled you, didn’t I, Mom? And I didn’t think working in kitchens was slaving away. I loved it. I loved every minute we spent in that first restaurant you opened. I would come in after school and wash dishes because I wanted to hang out. You think you built an empire for me, but all I ever wanted was that little Italian place on the square. I cried my eyes out when you sold it.”
“You were fifteen, Juliana. You couldn’t run it and I needed the cash for something bigger.”
Jules held up her good hand. “I’m over that. I don’t blame you. It was yours to sell, but I wasn’t yours to keep. You didn’t get to pick my future. You still don’t. If you came here to get me back in college so I can count your cash, you wasted a first-class ticket.”
“I came here to see my daughter,” her mother yelled.
She’d never heard her mother yell. Not once. Not when her father left. Not when the bill collectors showed up. Not when the world had gone to hell. It was enough to make her stop.
Her mother seemed to flush and calm all at once, like an overfilled balloon that had finally popped. She leaned against the table. “I let the time slip by. I told myself you would be back. You would get out there and realize how terrible the world is and you would come home.”
“I liked the Navy, Mom. I liked feeling like my life had some meaning. I liked helping people. Hell, I wouldn’t change things. That’s the crazy part. I wouldn’t even go back and change it all. Getting my arm back would mean five people died. I sacrificed.”
She had. She’d sacrificed her arm. Did she have to sacrifice everything else? Did she sacrifice her dreams because they’d suddenly become harder to achieve?
Did she sacrifice her man because her pride meant more than he did?
Pride? Shouldn’t she be proud? She’d survived. Shouldn’t she try her hardest to thrive?
Her mother straightened up, coming to stand in front of her. “I prayed you would come home. I worried about you. But I never stopped loving you and I’m ashamed that I punished you for leaving me. I did it because I couldn’t punish your father or your grandfather or all the other people along the way who left me alone. I did that to you because you hurt me.”
Jules felt her heart break. “Oh, Mom, I didn’t mean to. I just had to figure out who I am. I couldn’t be a clone of you.”
Her mom reached up, touching her for the first time in years. “Look at me and if you don’t ever believe a word I say, you believe this: I am proud of you. I am so proud of you. Baby, if you want to stay here and find yourself, at least let me help. Let me upgrade your hand. They tell me it’s not very high tech. Can I please do that? You think what I do is shallow, but it has meaning to me if I can I help my daughter.”
If she upgraded her hand, she would likely be able to do more with it. Not everything. It wouldn’t be perfect. She wouldn’t be perfect. What was the point if she couldn’t be…
If she couldn’t be the perfect vision of who she’d been before, it wasn’t worth even trying?
Adaptation. She hadn’t been trying to adapt. She’d been trying to hide.
“I went into the water,” she heard herself saying. “I did it knowing I could die, Mom. I didn’t want to die. I just knew I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to save them.”
“Yes, my darling. That’s why I’m begging you to forgive me. I was the weak one. I was scared and instead of talking it out with you, I tried to control you. Instead of trying to understand, I punished you.”
But it was her fault, too. She’d skipped her mom’s calls, and slowly but surely the days had gotten away from her. It got easier and easier to sit back and make excuses for why she didn’t have to try. She’d moved to Dallas because she’d known no one would look at her with sympathy and talk about the good old days when she’d had two hands.
What had Suzanne said? There was a gift in everything. That people who had gone through a trial knew who they were.
She’d been trying to find herself. She’d gone into that water a woman who didn’t back down, who helped the people around her, who fought for what she wanted.
Because her mother had taught her never to back down.
She’d come out too afraid to even try in case she failed and proved her mother right.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” Something opened inside her, some piece of her she’d thought long buried.
Her mother rushed in, hugging her tight. “No. I’m sorry. I love you, baby, and that means supporting you even when I think you’re wrong. I’ve missed you, Juliana. I’ve missed you like I missed a piece of my soul.”
She held her mother for the longest time and when they sat back down, they finally did what they should have done that day so long ago. They talked.
An hour later, she waved as her mom’s limo rolled out. They’d said all the things they should have said and the deep breach between them had started to heal.
So why was she so fucking angry?
Why was the rage stirring inside her?
She sat back down, the moon high above offering illumination to the small space.
The door opened and Macon walked out, a trash bag over his shoulder. He stepped gingerly down the stairs, something he would likely do for the rest of his life because he only had one leg.
Yet there he was walking along because she was wrong. He had two legs. One was natural. One wasn’t.
“Hey, Jules,” Macon said, nodding her way. “I thought you’d left.”
She spent all her time bemoaning her fate. Pretending that she wasn’t bemoaning her fate, really. She played a damn good game. She put on a happy face and deflected all those pesky questions about what she would do with the rest of her life.
She said she wanted to find herself. Well, she was learning that sometimes that didn’t happen in some fun, Hollywood, get-an-education, see-the-world-and-magically-land-where-you-should way.
No. Sometimes it happened with blood and sacrifice and loss. Sometimes the person we figured we were wasn’t the one we wanted to be.
But she could change that. She could fight that. She’d never allowed her mother to choose who she would be, what she would be, and yet she was sitting here allowing a circumstance to do the very same thing. Put her in a box. But there was one thing she knew—boxes could be busted open.
“Jules, are you okay?”
She looked up. For a moment she’d forgotten Macon was there. “Do we still have onions?”
Macon stepped back from the trash bin. “Uh, we usually have a bag lying around. I know Javier went to the farmer’s market this morning.”
She stood up, her heart pounding. It was an onion. A stupid onion. She could beat an onion. “Good.”
Jules turned and walked up the stairs and into the kitchen, her whole being focused on one task. One task that she was going to master. One perfect dice.
The kitchen was quiet but Javi, Sebastian, and Chef Taggart were talking quietly in the back. One of those men would have what she needed.
Tiffany walked through the double doors, menus in hand. She stopped, obviously surprised to see her. “Hey, I thought you’d left.”
“I need a knife.” She didn’t want to make small talk. She had to do this now or never.
Tiffany’s eyes widened. “I…you…I don’t know that a knife is the solution to your problems right now.”
“Jules?” a familiar voice asked.
She turned and Javier was standing there. “I need a knife.”
He didn’t hesitate. He got his kit and rolled it out. “What type, sweetheart?”
“Are we sure about this? Sean, have you looked at her? You’re the one who’s always pointing out the crazy eyes,” Macon said, walking in behind her.
“The chef’s knife,” Jules replied.
Sean shook his head Macon’s way. “No. I’m not sure about anything except I’d like to see what happens next. Sometimes crazy is the only way things get done. Let her have it.”
Javier passed her his beautifully kept chef’s knife. The handle felt a little odd in her right hand. She was so used to it in her left that it sent a wave of melancholy through her. Fuck it. She would always miss her damn hand but she couldn’t let it hold her back.
She’d learned it once. She could fucking learn it again. One door had closed and another had opened. She could choose to walk through the open one, to have another life. It would be an easy thing to do. Or she could bust that closed motherfucker down and take the life she’d always wanted.
“I need an onion.” She turned, knowing without a doubt that Javier would provide one for her. He would find one here or he would go out and scour the damn city until he could bring one back to her. Because he was that kind of man. The kind she could count on. The kind she could build a life with if she only believed she was worthy.
There it was. The cutting board built for her because there was zero question in her mind that this hadn’t been one of Javier’s plans. He’d been trying to ease her into practicing, into taking back this part of her life. There was no one-armed chef coming in. There was only one of those at Top, and she had to prove herself. She had to do the work all over again. Start at the bottom and work her way up. And she would do it because this life was worth it. Because he was worth it.
“Here you go.” Javier had a bag of plain white onions. There had to be thirty in there. They were likely meant for some ceviche or to flavor a sauce on the menu. It would be selfish to ruin them as she was likely to.
She took the first one because sometimes she had to be a little selfish.
“Let me show you, sweetheart,” Javier said.
Chef stepped in. “No, she’s not your sweetheart here and now. She’s a chef and she’s gotta learn.” Sean Taggart stared at her, as intimidating as any master chief she’d ever had to face down. “I want a medium chop on that onion and you will not leave your station until I am satisfied with your performance. Am I clear?”
Fucking military men. What the hell would she do without them? He was giving her a shot. “Yes, sir.”
“Proceed.”
No one was going to baby her. No one was going to help. Not this time. Later they would be all about family and friends and pitching in, but this first time it had to be her. She had to stand on her own two feet and acknowledge that while her world had changed, she could hold fast to what mattered.
She could find herself. She could know who she was. She could choose who she wanted to be.
A badass bitch who wouldn’t let a damn onion beat her.
This was what Javier had been doing. He hadn’t learned it all to try to show her up or be better than she was. He’d learned it because he loved her and wanted to know what she went through. He’d tried to force her today because he’d known she would never be happy without this.
She used the prosthetic to stabilize the onion and started to cut it in half.
It flew out of her fake hand and tumbled to the floor.
Everyone was watching her. She would look like a fool.
Or she would look like a fighter.
Juliana leaned over and picked up the onion and began again.
Onion number three. Jules winced as she damn near sliced off her prosthetic thumb. She looked around at the wide-eyed crowd. “No blood. No foul. I’m fun to play with.”
Onion number ten and the tears were rolling down her eyes. An hour and she’d barely managed a shit cut on the fuckers. She’d ruined ten of them, and everyone was still there. Still standing silent and watching. Her audience. She made the side cut and split this one, cracking it.
Onion number fourteen. Her hand was going numb. This was stupid. Her mother had offered to buy her a high-tech new hand and once she’d mastered that she might not even need the stupid cutting board. She groaned, her lower back aching as she made the mid cut. Not too thin. Not too thick. She had to get it right or the onion would fall apart when she started to chop it.
Onion number seventeen. Jules stepped back, presenting the veg to Chef.
Sean stared down. “Do you call that a medium chop? Would you want huge chunks of onion in your soup?”
She bit back a groan and tossed it all in the garbage.
Onion twenty-three.
Two o’clock in the morning and Ally was asleep on Macon’s lap, her head resting against her husband’s chest. Javier looked grim as he took the second to last onion out of the bag and passed it to her.
“You know Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he said.
“Chopping an onion isn’t building a city,” Sean shot back. “Do you think I want to be here at two in the morning? I do not. But I will stand here until she shows me a medium chop. She’s not done.”
She was. She wanted to cry because she was so fucking tired. Her eyes were dry from the fumes. There was nothing in the world she wanted more than to throw that damn onion in Chef’s face and let Javier carry her home.
But she wasn’t about to let Taggart beat her. No fucking way was she giving in. He thought he could stand there all night, well, she could show him.
Which, she believed, was exactly his point.
Press down. Hold. Center cut.
Press down. Traction. Begin midline cuts. Easy and slow because she wasn’t good with this hand yet, but, oh, she could be. She felt it now. Even when her every muscle wanted to give in, she could feel the habits reforming. Time. Effort. Work.
All even cuts. As uniform as could be. She started from the outside now and worked her way in until it was done. Until she had a beautiful pile of onions, ready to be used in one of the finest restaurants in town.
She turned to her boss.
Chef looked down and picked through the pile, looking for pieces that were too big or too small. He finally nodded. “Juliana, you’re fired.”
“What?” Javier said, his shoulders straightening as he stood up.
But she knew what Chef was doing and her eyes weren’t dry anymore. Everything hurt in the best way possible. “Yes, sir. When do I start my new job, sir?”
“Tomorrow. You’ll do the prep work for me and Javier. I’ll leave you with a list of what we’ll need. When you’re done prepping our dishes, you’ll work on salads the rest of the night. We’ll give it a few months and see where it goes.” Sean put his hands on her shoulders. “And welcome to Top, Jules. You always belonged here. You simply needed to prove it to yourself.”
Tiffany smiled as she popped open a bottle of champagne.
Ally sat straight up, her eyes flying open. “Did she kill the onion?”
Macon put an arm around his wife. “She killed it good, babe. Now we’re having champagne.”
“Ah, I woke up for the fun part,” Ally said with a smile.
This was her new family and they’d stayed to support her, to celebrate with her. But she really only needed one more thing to make the night complete. A kiss from her man.
“I’m happy for you, Jules.” Javier gave her a smile and started to step back. “You’re going to be a great member of the team.”
She frowned even as she was given her glass.
It looked like her fight wasn’t over yet.