I crash out as soon as I get home, sprawling out on the bed around midday and telling myself I’ll just rest my eyes a bit, then waking up at six pm feeling detached from reality and seeing a missed call from my sister that I’m too wrung out to return right now. It’s hard to recognize how busy and exhausted you are until you actually stop for a second.

Since I started working at Knife just over a week ago, I’ve been surviving on power naps and soup fumes. Even in a city of four million people it feels like we’ve served half of them. Add to that the emotional climax of thinking you got fired, the relief at finding out you haven’t, and the thrill of being invited out for drinks with one of the most famous chefs in the world. The whole city seems like a timewarp, where things happen on fast forward, and where everything can change in a moment.

It’s satisfying, in a way. More satisfying than lingering around the back of a kitchen watching your chefs chain smoke through another empty day. But the more I experience the craziness of L.A., the more I feel like I’m still just a girl from Idaho.

And then there’s Cole. I knew I’d meet him eventually, I just didn’t expect it to be on such charged terms, and to be honest, I didn’t expect him to be so hot. Sure, I’d seen his TV shows, and though I might work like a machine there’s enough human in me to feel a heat in my chest when his eyes get all focused—but there’s something more to him in reality. Those eyes are even more impressive, and all the masculine energy that made him the private fantasy of millions of housewives is still there, but that focus is even more intense when it’s directed at you. He listens intently, like he’s trying to read between the lines, and he never breaks your gaze, as if he’s holding you with them.

Or maybe there’s something about me that he…no. I’m not even going there. He’s my boss, and he probably can’t help the effect he has on women. No reason to think this is anything other than a slightly social but very professional business meeting.

Asha comes home around seven, while I’m in the bathroom moisturizing my face.

“Willow?” she calls from the doorway.

“I’m in here.”

I hear her drop her sports bag and come to the bathroom, where she looks at me anxiously and leans up against the doorframe. Her brown skin glistens with sweat, glowing with the exertion of teaching another kick-boxing class.

“So how are you feeling?” she asks, in a voice as tenderly cautious as a therapist’s. “Was he there this morning? Did you argue with him again?”

“Yeah, he was there. He didn’t fire me.”

She lifts a brow. “No?”

“No. We talked it over and I told him I knew I’d made a mistake, and he said he’d give me another chance. It’s all good now.”

“That’s awesome!” Asha says, beaming a pearl-white smile.

“Yeah. Actually we’re going out to get a drink together. Seeing as he didn’t get to interview me for the job himself. Maybe we’ll start off on the right foot this time around.”

“Great! When?”

I check my phone on the sink.

“In about forty minutes.”

Asha’s smile drops, leaving a stunned incredulity on her face.

“So why aren’t you getting ready?”

“What are you talking about?” I say, stepping back from the sink to show her my skinny chinos and tank top under the plaid shirt. “I am ready.”

Asha steps back and looks me up and down, an expression of utter disbelief on her face.

“Did you say you were going for drinks? Or that you were going apple picking with him?”

I look back at the mirror.

“It’s nothing fancy,” I say. “Just a drink at his friend’s spot. We’ll probably just be talking shop a little before he has to run off and do something more important.”

Asha steps beside me so that she can stare at me in the mirror.

“Girl, this is Cole fucking Chambers, everything he does is fancy. The guy’s had his own TV show, he’s been on the cover of GQ. You can’t go on a date with him looking like someone who works in a hardware store.”

“No,” I say, turning to look at her directly. “It’s not a date. This is just a work thing. Colleagues. There’s nothing date-like about this, no ‘dateyness’ at all.”

I don’t want to admit that I’d half-considered the idea myself before pushing it away—but I’ve got a feeling Asha is going to admit it for me.

“Oh please. You’re not in Kansas anymore, honey. Ain’t no gentlemen here. If he’s taking you out for drinks and it’s not daylight, trust me: he’s interested.”

“Why would he be interested?” I say, almost laughing at the ridiculousness of the idea. “Like you said, he’s ‘Cole fucking Chambers.’ He can—and does—date a different European supermodel every week. I’m just his new employee.”

“I guess we’d better get you looking like a supermodel, then,” Asha says, spinning so fast she almost whips me with her braids.

I follow her as she marches into my bedroom and yanks open my closet.

“Why do I get the feeling you want me to fuck Cole?” I ask.

Asha flicks through my outfits shaking her head and grimacing at each one.

“I just want you to get close enough to introduce me.”

“Even though yesterday it sounded like you wanted to get him in a chokehold?”

“That’s how all my relationships usually start. Here,” she says, pulling a tight sweater dress from the rack and jabbing it toward me. “Let me see you in this.”

“This?” I say, taking the dress from her and staring at it. “I’ve never even worn this before. My sister bought it for me before I left. I don’t even think it’ll fit. It looks like barely enough material to make a pillow cover with.”

“Should be perfect, then,” Asha says, as she starts foraging in the base of the closet for boots. “The heels on these are a little high, but you won’t be driving anyway. You’re taking a cab, right?”

I narrow my eyes. “Why would I take a cab when I have a perfectly functional vehicle of my own?”

Asha laughs, handing me the boots. “If this night goes the way I know it will, you’re gonna be so full of lust and alcohol that you’ll be in no shape to drive yourself home afterward. Trust me, you want the cab. I’ll call one for you now. Don’t argue.”

Knowing that I’m not going to win this battle, I retreat to the bathroom to get changed, more concerned about the idea that this is actually a date than I am about the dress. Did I miss something obvious? Am I so frazzled from work that I didn’t pick up on the signs? Surely if this was a date he’d have said so—Cole Chambers is not exactly the kind of guy who hides his intentions. He might be hard to read, but dating an employee you’ve only just met is too stupid a notion for anyone to entertain. Or maybe that’s the way things go in L.A.?

If this is a date, though, I’m not sure I should be going. Cole’s my boss, and I’ve spoken to him a grand total of two times. Plus, I’ve worked my ass off to put my failures behind me—the restaurant flop, the small town claustrophobia and overbearingly concerned parents, the ex-boyfriend who was more like an emotional leech than a romantic partner—so dating is not on the menu of things I’m looking for, and it’s completely against my current philosophy of starting fresh and taking things one step at a time.

But then again, there is a part of me that I have to suppress whenever I think of those intense eyes, the hard muscles of his tattooed shoulder, the way his forearms bulge when he crosses them over his perfect chest…

“You done?” Asha asks from the other side of the bathroom door.

“Yeah,” I call out.

She comes inside where I’m standing in front of the mirror again, turning this way and that to see how the dress looks. I glance at her and see that she’s smiling, a fairy-godmother smugness on her face.

“Ooh, yes! How does it feel?”

I shrug and pull the dress up a little over my cleavage.

“It feels ok, actually. I kinda like it.”

“Like it?” Asha says, as she steps forward to pull the dress down and re-expose the cleavage. “Girl, you should love yourself in this dress. That man is going to need an icepack when he sees you.”

I laugh a little and look back at myself in the mirror.

“Aren’t I a little overdressed, though? If he turns up in sweatpants and a T-shirt I’m going to die of embarrassment.”

Asha looks at me sternly, like a protective mother.

“If he turns up in sweatpants he’s the one who’s going to die, trust me.”

I laugh gently.

“He won’t though,” Asha continues, smiling with a lusty anticipation. “I’m sure he knows exactly what he’s doing.”

“Yeah. That’s what I’m afraid of.”

The cab pulls up at the address Cole gave me and I see him standing outside immediately. It’s hard not to notice him, the tailored lines of his suit lending him a striking silhouette in the fading evening light, all right angles and good posture. I step out of the cab and walk toward him, suddenly feeling like the dress is way tighter under the focus of his gaze.

When I draw close he leans over and air kisses me. I almost swoon from his nearness and his subtle, masculine scent. It takes every ounce of willpower I have not to leap into his arms and beg him to show me the back seat of his car. Maybe I haven’t been out with a guy in longer than I realized.

“You look amazing,” he says, stepping back a little to cast his eyes down and up my body with admiring frankness.

“Thank my roommate,” I say, before looking around at the long wall of solid brick behind us. “Where’s the restaurant?”

Cole smiles and steps aside, holding out his palm toward a discreet stairway that leads down to a mezzanine door.

“Down the rabbit hole,” he says.

I step forward, wondering if he’s staring at my ass as I descend the staircase, and push open the door. The second I do I’m greeted with the soft groove of hipster music, the chatter of a few dozen diners, easy, buzzing, second-drink laughter. Old fashioned Edison lightbulbs hanging from antique fixtures fight against the darkness of the large space, casting their soft glow against the exposed piping and metallic tables. Sweet aromas fill the air, and I immediately start picking out the flavors: sweet and sour sauces, teriyaki, barbecue sauce that uses whiskey as a base, fresh cilantro and red onion and guacamole.

I take a moment to soak it all in. The fashionable diners, the clean, angular, rustic-industrial aesthetic of the fittings. Something touches the small of my back and I turn to see that it’s Cole’s hand. He smiles and urges me toward an unoccupied booth, waving and calling out a few greetings to the chefs operating the open-plan hotplates.

After settling into the booth I shuffle a little, picking at my dress to make sure it’s still in the right place.

“Are you comfortable?” Cole says, leaning forward.

“Sure,” I shrug. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I was just wondering if you were a little too…‘down-to-earth’ for a place like this?”

His concern is obvious, so I don’t take it as an insult. Instead I look around as if checking something, then smile back at him.

“Seems to me the people here are eating and drinking just like they do in Idaho.”

Cole chuckles lightly then flicks a finger for a waiter to come over.

“You’ll like this place,” he says. “A buddy of mine set it up a couple of years ago. It’s already a staple of L.A. It’s a concept menu.”

I raise a brow. “Oh yeah? What’s the concept?”

“All the foods are hand foods. Continental fusion. Wraps, samosas. Sushi, antipasti. All of it’s good.”

I nod politely, quieting the voice inside of me that wants to express how much I hate the notion of a ‘concept’ bar. Trends like this come and go, but great food that’s made well—that’s something that lasts. I’m interested to see if this place is more the former or the latter.

When the menu comes I tell Cole to recommend a mix for us to share, and order a blueberry cider cocktail. Then I spend a while asking him about how the Vegas place is going, and what his plans are for the next time Chloe shows up for a lesson.

By the time the drinks come I realize that Cole isn’t entirely the difficult, uncompromising, and reserved person that I—and most people—make him out to be. Sure, he’s passionate about cuisine, but he’s also funny and thoughtful and charming as hell. By the time the food arrives, he’s actually telling me he agrees with what I said about the lemon thyme and that he’s considering altering the recipe. And when the second round shows up, I’m telling him the awful story of my failed restaurant back in Idaho. I can’t believe how at ease I feel, given how poorly our first meeting went and how turned on I am in his presence.

He listens intently, and I realize as I’m telling him how little I’ve actually spoken about my restaurant to anybody who wasn’t there. All the while he asks attentive questions about my business plan (I didn’t exactly have one) and day-to-day operations, nodding as he absorbs the information but never venturing an opinion, until I finish and find I’ve just recounted my spectacular failure to one of the most successful chefs in the country.

When I’m done he leans back and looks at me in a way he hasn’t done yet, as if from some deeper part of him, his narrowed eyes glistening with some new perspective.

After a pause that’s almost awkward, even after the second cider, he says cryptically, “I knew there was something about you.”

Cole picks up a cannoli, looks at it for a second, then holds it out in front of my face. “This is great. Try it.”

It’s an intimate gesture, feeding me like this, and yet somehow it feels natural to lean forward, toward those calloused hands, and take a bite from the creamy treat, our eyes never leaving each other. I swallow it and smile, deciding to change the subject before the heat inside of me makes me say something embarrassing.

“What do you mean, ‘something’ about me?”

“Something different. Something unfulfilled. Hungry. I noticed it when you walked out the other night.” He stops to spin his glass, frowning at it. “I’m curious though. What do you mean when you say you wanted to cook ‘real’ food?”

“Real food…you know, stuff that isn’t so overelaborate. Pretentious food.”

Cole turns his frown from his glass to me.

“Food like mine, you mean?” he says, a little challenge in his tone.

I hesitate for a second too long before saying, “What? No. No…I mean, Knife is basically a steakhouse at the end of the day, right? Forget I said anything.”

“Come on, say it.”

I look at him for a moment, my pulse racing under his gaze, like I just took a wrong turn somewhere and found myself trapped. Suddenly I remember that he’s my boss, that I’ve only worked at his restaurant for a week, and that I was already inches away from being fired.

“Go on,” he urges again. “We’re both adults. I can take criticism. I’m curious to hear what you actually think.”

I laugh a little nervously, hoping it’ll break the stiff look on his face, but his expression doesn’t flicker, and I know the only way out is the truth. There’s something about how he’s looking at me that makes it easy to forget he’s my boss, that I’m his employee. It’s easy to forget that he’s a household name who most people in the restaurant keep looking over at, and that I’m just a girl from Idaho with a failed restaurant behind her and not enough free time to figure out the next step forward. He looks at me, and I look at him, and we’re suddenly just a man and a woman, with all that entails. More intimate and trusting of each other than our brief introduction should make us, and somehow I feel like it’s the most natural thing in the world to speak my mind.

“Ok. Well…it’s not just your restaurant, I see it in a lot of places. Overcomplicating everything. Taking the simplest dishes and flavors, which are already great, and then dressing them up like they’re going to a prom. Using three different cooking processes on a cut of meat just because it looks good on a menu. Fifteen different herbs so that people can’t tell what they’re even tasting. Covering everything in sauces as if we’re ashamed of tasting something in its natural state. Using its French name, then sticking it on a menu with a five-times mark-up. Sometimes it almost seems as if the only way we can react to a culture of fast food is by going to the other extreme and making everything as difficult and as pretentious as possible.”

After a pause, one in which I can’t quite determine what Cole thinks of my emotional outburst, he says, “Is this the alcohol talking?”

“No. It’s all me,” I say, defiant with the sound of my own words.

“Even though you studied with Guillhaume?”

“Especially because I studied with Guillhaume.”

Cole’s blank face breaks into a laugh, and I watch him in confusion.

“You do realize that’s why your restaurant failed, right?”

Indignant, I say, “My restaurant failed because of its location.”

“No,” Cole says, with a cockiness that annoys me. Slowly, he leans forward. “You’re an idealist. You think too highly of the average diner—and that’s why it failed.”

I grit my teeth, genuinely weighing the option of telling Cole exactly what I think, and the alternative of keeping my job.

“You wanna hear a secret?” he says, taking my restraint as a sign to carry on. “I don’t tell this to many people. It took me too long to figure out for me to hand it out freely, but you…I think you should hear it.”

I fold my arms and ignore Cole’s eyes flickering down to my cleavage for a second.

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“It’s three secrets, in fact. Three secrets that can make any dish taste infinitely better. Doesn’t matter what it is. Starter, main, hell, even a fucking sandwich.”

“I’m all ears.”

Cole looks at me as if he’s judging whether I’m worthy, then, after a dramatic pause, starts to talk.

“First one,” he says, waving a finger, “make the dish look good. Lot of people underestimate how powerful the eye is, but the thing is…we taste with it. A great dish doesn’t start at the first bite, it starts when the waiter brings it to your table and puts it in front of you. You see those Titian reds and Cezanne greens of a salad and you already taste the freshness—even if it isn’t actually there. Never serve a potato that isn’t golden brown and you’ll never get a complaint. We taste with our eyes first. The way a dish looks is a promise, a prelude, it’s like foreplay—”

I almost spit out my drink.

“Foreplay?”

“Exactly like it,” Cole continues, without missing a beat. “Years ago, when I was starting out, working in catering with my partner, we perfected this recipe for ribs. Beer and honey cooked, just right. To this day I doubt anyone on the planet could do them better than us. But every time we put them out and waited for people to try them, all they’d say is ‘they’re good.’ That’s all. ‘Good.’ Well, ‘good’ wasn’t good enough for us. These things tasted flawless, but nobody seemed to get it. Then we figured it out—they tasted exceptional, but they looked like any other rack of ribs you’d find at a backyard cookout. Uneven tones, congealing juices, streaky grill marks.”

Cole shifts in his chair with the vividness of his story.

“So the next time we cook them, we fucking sculpt the things. We treated them like museum pieces, got those burn marks just right. Chopped them up a little to show off that texture, set them next to a chunk of golden cornbread and a pinch of cilantro to make those reddish-browns pop. And you know what happened the next time we brought them out?”

“What?”

“There were gasps,” Cole says, with a sense of aggressive satisfaction. “You bet your fucking ass people had more to say than ‘good’ after that.”

I sit back and look over at the waiter, pointing at my empty glass when he looks over.

“I believe it. What’s the second secret, then?” I say.

“The second one is simple: Charge ridiculous amounts of money.”

Now I’m the one laughing dismissively.

“Come on, seriously?”

Cole’s stern expression leaves no doubt that he is.

“Seriously. You’re right that there’s a problem in the restaurant business—but it’s not the cooks—it’s the diners. You seen people eat lately? They taste the first bite only, and the rest is just filling a hole. Doesn’t matter how good your food is, if you’re giving it away cheap it’s just fuel. You charge a hundred bucks a head for a couple of lamb chops, though? People are gonna savor every bite.”

“I get what you’re saying.” I nod, running my finger around the rim of my glass. “But is it ethical?”

Cole just grins. “Ethical? Hell, I’m performing a service. They’re gonna sit for an hour talking with each other about how complex the flavors are, how aromatic it is, how perfectly cooked it is. They’ll try their hardest to figure out the seasonings like they’re solving a jigsaw puzzle. I’m giving them an experience they’ll never forget. You see, you gotta make people work for something to appreciate it, and if you hit them in the pocket, they’re gonna make damned sure they find something to appreciate.”

My fresh drink arrives but Cole doesn’t tear his eyes away from me, lost in the momentum of his own arguments. He doesn’t even need prompting for the third secret.

“And the last one,” he says, leaning over the table now, his voice low and directed, as if uttering a conspiracy. “You wanna leave your customers wanting more. Now I’m not saying leave them hungry, but you wanna leave them a couple of bites short of completely satisfied. The meal lingers then, so they don’t just forget it and start thinking about work or traffic or their taxes. Think about it: people will love a single bite of caviar more than they’ll ever love a plate of it.”

I nod a little and take a slow sip of my drink. Cole sits back, satisfied.

“And there you have it,” he says, victoriously. “The three secrets.”

“Bullshit,” I say, calmly.

“Excuse me?”

“I could not disagree more with everything you just said.”

He laughs. “Really now?”

“Yeah,” I say, almost confrontational. “I think your secrets suck.”

The laugh dies away and Cole glares at me, his face flickering between confusion and offense, as if he’s never heard somebody speak to him about his craft this way before.

“Do they? How so?”

I take a deep breath, realizing that I’m well beyond the point of control, only my principles guiding me now.

“You talk about dishes looking good—well, what if I don’t agree with your idea of what’s attractive? What if I like my salads cut roughly and jumbled in a bowl instead of arranged and stacked like a flower arrangement? What if I like food that looks like food, and not post-modern art that’s trying to guilt trip me into liking it.”

“You don’t underst—”

“And as for pricing stuff ridiculously just so that people take their time eating—I think that’s awful. Maybe that works on the money-obsessed celebrities that go to Knife, but where I come from, people aren’t so good at lying to themselves and they can’t afford to purchase a plate of satisfaction. If a bad meal is expensive, well that just makes it worse. You wanna make people appreciate something you made, then you should make it with love.”

“Whether you like it or not, it’s the—”

“And small portions? Jesus! It’s like you don’t even know what food is for anymore! Great food is great food. It should make people feel happy and satisfied, not starve them into thinking it’s better than it actually is.” I gesture at the doll-sized tacos and one-bite samosas in front of us. “Look at this. It’s like a child’s portion size! Maybe that’s enough food for supermodels and decadent actors, but for somebody who’s drained after a nine hour shift, this is only going to leave them more hungry. What were these, thirty dollars a plate?”

I’m almost out of breath at the end of my rant, glaring back at Cole as if reflecting the dark irritation in his eyes. Before regret can set in, and the reality of where I am, before I remember who I’m talking to and how easily he can just hand me a pink slip. Before I start backtracking like crazy in order to still have my job tomorrow, he shakes his head, that infuriating grin back on his perfect face.

“You know that’s why your restaurant failed, right?”

“My restaurant failed because of its location,” I respond quickly, realizing I’m repeating myself. Instinct taking over again. “Nothing else. If I had half as good a location as Knife I’d have thrived.”

“You think it’s that easy, do you?” Cole smiles darkly, fully offended now.

“I never said I think it’s that easy,” I reply. “But I know that I’m that good.”

He doesn’t say anything after that. The silence is long enough for anxiety to set in, an awkward realization that I might have just fucked everything up—again. I sip my drink, looking around the restaurant to avoid Cole’s calculating stare.

“Prove it,” he says, eventually.

“What?”

“Prove it,” he repeats. “You think you’re so good, that you’ve got it all figured out, that I’m wrong—then show me.”

I put my drink down slowly.

“How?”

Cole shrugs.

“Cook for me. Something great. Something you think is ‘unpretentious’ and ‘real.’”

I shake my head. “You’re hardly the best judge. My point is what would work in a restaurant.”

Cole smiles, as if I’m balking at the challenge. I think hard, and eventually figure something out.

“Actually, you know what? I’ll do it. But if you like it, you let me put it on the menu at Knife. It could be a special—just for a week. See what your customers think. Then we’ll really see who’s right.”

Cole looks off into the distance for a second to consider it.

“Ok. Deal.” He offers his hand across the table and I take it slowly, waiting for him to laugh and tell me this is a joke. “But I have to try your dish first. I’m not just going to let you put anything on the menu. You’ll make it for me, and if I think it’s acceptable, we’ll add it to the specials menu and see if the customers agree.”

“Sure. Just tell me when.”

Cole throws me a look of confusion.

“Not when. Now.” He extends his arm to reveal his designer watch and checks it. “Knife’s been closed a couple of hours now. So we’ll have the kitchen to ourselves.”

I down my drink like I’m heading to war.

“You’re on,” I say, already sliding out of the booth. “Let’s go.”

But as I march confidently toward the exit, I can’t help wondering if this is the chance of a lifetime or the worst mistake I’ve ever made.