I had been trying to get in touch with Maggie since returning from Arizona, even stopping by the loft once or twice to let her know I was back.

But my attempts to see her were in vain and I was getting the distinct impression she was avoiding me, although I hadn’t the faintest clue why.

We had shared an incredible night together before I left… or rather, we had an incredible sexual encounter, which had resulted in her slapping me and telling me to leave her the hell alone. But I knew Mags. She just needed time to cool off.

It wasn’t my fault she had misconstrued me going to rehab with a suicide plan. I hadn’t lied or even tried to mislead her. She just jumped to the wrong conclusion—something she’d done before about me.

It’s like she doesn’t know me at all, I thought with mild bemusement, if she thinks I would kill myself. But at the same time, it was damn touching that she had reacted so strongly to believing I was in danger.

She really does still care about me, despite her bad-bitch attitude. How could she not? We’ve been together half our lives.

We literally had been together that long.

In high school, we were the clichéd couple. I had been the star quarterback; she had been co-captain of the cheerleading squad.

I loved everything about her from the minute I laid eyes on her.

She was vivacious, a stunning mane of red waves framing her porcelain skin, with bright blue eyes that pierced into my soul. I thought she was playing hard to get when she rejected my awkward advances, but even as a junior in high school I had a hard time saying no or hearing it. Eventually I wore her down, until she admitted that she’d had a crush on me the whole time.

It was a classic love story.

Boy meets girl, girl supports boy through culinary school while working as a server, often double shifts to make ends meet.

Girl learns all she can about the restaurant business and networks, so boy can get a leg up. Girl finds boy catering gigs and sets up a YouTube channel on which he can cook. She strategically manages to find boy a spot on a local television station, which ultimately gets syndicated nationwide.

Girl sets the stage for boy to finally open his own restaurant, handling the books, inventory, staff and front of the house operations so boy only needs to worry about the kitchen. Girl had also, throughout all that, managed to acquire a bachelor’s degree in business by attending college part-time.

Boy, in turn, fucks up everything by gambling it all away, including girl’s trust.

Any other woman in her position likely would have killed me, but Maggie was cool and collected, so composed. She never let her emotions get the best of her.

Like I did.

I was the hothead to her calm, the time bomb to her Zen.

If Maggie were to open up and describe what happened between us, I’m sure it would have sounded a lot like what I just said. Except Maggie was never one to piss and moan about her life to anyone. She would only shut down, building her walls higher and tighter until she had nothing left of herself to give.

And once that wall was up, nothing was bringing it down or getting through it.

Let’s not forget that boy wasted girl’s best years while boy revelled in reckless self-indulgence, and hurt the girl whom he loved deeply.

During our divorce, Maggie had bitterly explained that she refused to go out with me at first because her gut instinct was screaming for her to run, even then.

“My dad warned me it was too soon, your mom…they knew, but I never trusted my sixth sense.”

She should have listened to her gut. Always trust your gut. You’d think that as a chef, I would know this credo, heed it.

Like now, for example. My gut was telling me that something was up with my ex-wife.

Sighing, I kicked aside the sheets and forced my body into a sitting position. It was almost noon, after all, and high time to get my day started.

Ever since I lost my contract with the Food Network, I had been flittering through life like a dust mote, there but not there and waiting for something to stick or get wiped away forever.

I holed myself up in the apartment I could no longer afford, seeing as I was unemployed, and watched endless hours of Netflix. Once I read an article that showed what happens to your brain if you binge watch television shows. Essentially, it turns your brain to Swiss cheese. I believed it. I was stagnating, absolutely.

Without anyone kicking me in the ass, I was simply waiting for the world to open up and swallow me whole.

I should be so lucky. The world just wasn’t interested in me any more, even as an amuse bouche.

I’d promised myself that things were going to be different now. The time away had been good and while I still had the urge to jump in my cream-colored Audi and head to Atlantic City, I also had the willpower to overcome the desire.

For now, anyway.

The first order of business was finding a job, which was harder than I thought it would be. Not a lot of first class restaurants were willing to take a chance on a former diva whose reliability was in question.

I burned with humiliation at the thought, but it was also the reason I had been trying to get in touch with Maggie. I wondered if she wouldn’t consider having me back in the kitchen, now that I wasn’t gambling.

She knew I could cook. In fact, she had always been my number one fan. Maggie was far too morally superior to endorse something she didn’t believe in.

And she used to believe in me.

I reached for my cell again and shoved my feet into a pair of slippers, padding out of the bedroom. Pausing in the kitchen, I threw on the Keurig and ventured down to the lobby to the mailboxes.

For a fleeting second, I thought I wanted a cigarette. And I’d never smoked a day in my life—unlike a lot of chefs I’d worked with. I never understood why chefs would ruin their palate by smoking, but the habit was rampant in the restaurant industry.

I’d been warned this would happen, the need to replace one addiction with another.

Still, smoking is a fuck of a lot cheaper than paying back the Russian mob.

A small shudder slithered through me as I recalled how close I had come to losing so much more than just a few bucks.

If it hadn’t been for Viktor…

I peered into the mailbox and withdrew the envelopes, rifling indifferently through the bills I couldn’t pay that month, until my eyes fell on a cream colored, handwritten piece.

I was still puzzling over it when I reached into a drawer for a shitty paring knife to slit open the envelope. I slid the blade across, my eyes widening with interest as I looked it over.

It was an invitation to a post-wedding reception at Settlement for that Saturday, hosted by Viktor and Anya.

I chuckled to myself.

Well she can’t avoid me in her own restaurant, I thought gleefully, sending a text off to Viktor.

• Just got your invite. Looking forward to it.

On a whim, I fired off another message to Maggie.

• I miss you. Hope you’re feeling better. xox

I peered at the screen, watching to see if she read the iPhone message but it remained in “delivered” status without a reply. After no more than, er, five minutes I gave up, placing the device on the island and reaching for my coffee.

Unbidden, I was brought back to the couch, and the memory of my face planted between her creamy thighs as she trembled above me.

My morning wood had still not completely subsided and the image of Maggie writhing before me brought my cock back to full attention.

I lowered my free hand into my boxers, stroking myself slowly at the thought. In my mind, I could hear her breathless sighs, her plaintive pleas as she begged me to fuck her. My pulse quickened as my dick pulsated in my hand, my strokes growing longer as my grip tightened.

“Oh Maggie,” I murmured, inhaling sharply as my balls began to recoil, a slow boil beginning deep inside me. “You are so sweet, so delicious.”

I could almost her respond back to me—her whispers in my ear, her small, firm tits rubbing against my chest.

But it was the thought of her sopping pussy, leaking deliciously over me, her body quivering as she mewled with pleasure, that was what did me in.

I groaned, releasing over my hand in ribbons of thick, white cream.

At exactly that second, my cell chimed with a notification.

“Of course,” I laughed, shaking my head as I rose to answer it, running my hand under the faucet.

• This is good news, buddy. See you Saturday.

It was Viktor and I admit—I was disappointed it wasn’t Maggie.

I looked to see if she had read my message and I saw she had but there were no digital bubbles to indicate she was responding.

Yep. She’s definitely ignoring me, I realized, wondering if I had blown it—again—with her.

I wanted her to see that rehab had changed me, that I was not going to hurt her again, but I knew that would take time. In the meantime, I just had to show her that I was not the same man who had almost lost everything we—rather, she—had worked so hard to accomplish.

But I had never been a patient man.