The Wedding Gift by Lucy Kevin Read Free Book Online Page A

there’s still a way to go in getting you to take risks.”
    Julie knew he was probably still teasing. Nonetheless, she had to bite her lip to keep in a sharp retort.
    But while a part of her was glad he’d reminded her to be on guard again, The Glass Square ’s kitchen was too nice a setting to spoil with an argument. The kitchen was hot and noisy, filled with shouted instructions as the staff chopped vegetables and flambéed desserts. There was something so beautiful about it to Julie’s eyes, an underlying order in the chaos that said everyone there knew exactly what they were supposed to be doing.
    “Is this what it’s like in your kitchen when you’re not on TV?” Julie asked. Delgado’s had been so much smaller than this.
    Andrew shook his head. “It’s usually even more chaotic.” He grinned. “At least when it’s going well.”
    The first course arrived and Phillipe hovered behind them as they dove into wafer thin layers of crisp, thinly sliced ham over crab and cinnamon cakes with a bed of mixed vegetables and a tarragon reduction.
    She would have thought there would be too many ingredients all vying for center stage, but somehow everything blended together perfectly. Phillipe seemed genuinely pleased when Julie said so, though not as pleased as he was when Andrew praised his creations. The big man practically skipped off to start work on the main course.
    “You seem to have the knack of making people happy,” Julie said.
    “Not quite everyone,” Andrew replied, with a deliberate look at her.
    For a moment, Julie’s smile dipped. They were clearly at a point already where it was best to just be honest. Painfully so.
    “It’s hard, doing your best, only to have someone to say it isn’t good enough.”
    “I know,” Andrew replied. “It’s just…I can’t just stand by and watch someone wasting their talent the way you do, Julie. You cooked phenomenally well yesterday on set. Why don’t you cook like that all the time?”
    “Because I know how much there is to lose when it goes wrong.” She knew exactly what it was like to sink everything she had into a dream, a goal she’d been aiming for her whole life, only to watch it explode like an over-risen soufflé. “Better than you.”
    As soon as she said the words, Julie regretted baring herself to him like that, but Andrew wasn’t looking at her with pity. He wasn’t regarding her as he would a loser who didn’t deserve to run a successful restaurant.
    Instead, the look in his eyes was gentle.
    Almost as if he cared about her.
    “I know you lost your restaurant,” he said softly so that no one but she could hear, “and I’m very sorry about that. But that’s not all that this is about, is it?”
    Before she could respond, Phillipe presented them with a couple of delicate looking savory soufflés and a latticework of crisped vegetables. Despite the intense discussion she and Andrew were having, Julie couldn’t resist the incredible food before her. It was that good.
    She was halfway through it before she spoke again. “When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was cook. Anything for anyone. I’d gather up people around the neighborhood and I’d do all the stuff you seem to want me to do. I’d throw in crazy ingredients—”
    “Like hot sauce in quiche. Which worked.”
    “—and they…” She sighed and admitted, “No one wanted to eat it. My family tried so hard to help me fit in. They stopped speaking Spanish when I was around. They even made sure I took what they thought was typical American food to school—yellow processed cheese in plastic wrappers on white bread with Oreos for dessert. I don’t know how many full plates of weird food I cooked and threw away before I figured out that if I wanted to fit in, I had to stop trying things other people didn’t like.”
    She was shocked when Andrew’s expression turning rueful. “My family are doctors and lawyers. People with real jobs. Trust me, I know what it’s like to not