Page 188 of Kitchen Gods: The Complete Series

“He quit,” he finally admitted quietly, “probably because I drove him to it. I set him up in a position where he was doomed to fail.” Deep ragged breath, to try to suppress the tears that threatened.

He had yet to cry at Terroir and he was determined that it would not happen.

“I don’t even blame him for being pissed off at me. I was very stupid.”

“Oh, Bastian,” Celeste said softly. “I am so sorry. Will he not forgive you?”

Bastian thought of all the times he’d seen himself reflected in Kian.

“I doubt it.” He hadn’t tried, because he didn’t know what to say, and he definitely didn’t know how to fix the situation.

Kian would chafe as sous, that was something Bastian believed fully, and he wasn’t ready to be chef de cuisine. What else was there?

“You haven’t even tried,” Celeste said with damning judgement in her voice. “Bastian.”

“There is no way to fix this,” Bastian swore. “If there was, I would have thought of it. I would have done it already. I’m dying here.”

“I’m sure you are, my darling. Go back to work, and I will think on it.”

“Maman,” Bastian argued, because the last thing this fucked-up situation needed was interference.

But she had already hung up, and checking his watch, there really wasn’t time to call her back.

Frankly, there hadn’t really been time to talk to her in the first place.

He took one last breath of fresh air, and then went back inside.

He had a lot of work to do.

Working for Xander was like slipping back into a familiar position that he recognized—but the edges didn’t quite fit properly and they chafed.

The kitchen was too small. The fact that the diners could see everything they were doing in the kitchen was weird, and Kian didn’t like it.

He didn’t know how Xander stood it. He did understand why Xander had designed it that way; the chefs were held accountable for their behavior with so many eyes watching, and he could never lose his temper the way that Bastian did frequently.

The same devastating wave of pain swept over him the same as it did every time he thought of Bastian, but a week had gone by now. It didn’t hurt any less, but he was starting to get used to it.

“Chicken special,” Xander called out. “Three top.”

Xander ran a good kitchen. The food was delicious and high quality but a little more relaxed than Terroir had been. It was a good fit for Kian, but he already knew this was temporary. He didn’t really want to stay forever.

Xander kept telling him that eventually he’d feel differently, that when he finally got Bastian out of his system, he’d see how good it was to work for someone else.

He’d sounded so sure of this theory that Kian hadn’t wanted to contradict him.

But he was never going to get Bastian out of his system.

Even when he hated him—and there had been one or two or ten moments of that—he still loved him.

He didn’t believe that was going to change anytime soon, no matter what Xander claimed.

One of the waiters approached the pass-through as Kian put on three sauté pans, starting the chicken.

“There is a lady that wanted to send compliments to the chef,” he said, smile glimmering in the corners of his mouth.

Kian frowned. “She wants to send compliments to Xander, you mean.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “She was very specific about sending compliments to you. Kian Reynolds. She said you have a mutual acquaintance you both care about.”

Kian’s hand froze on one of the sauté pans. “How old was she?”

“Oh, maybe sixty? Beautiful. Distinguished.”

It had to be Bastian’s mother. The age was right. The description was right.

“Did she speak with an accent?”

“Yeah,” the waiter said. “How did you know? She’s French.”

Something everyone learned about Bastian Aquino at some point—his mother was French, his father Spanish. A conflagration of hot temperaments swirling inside him, fighting containment.

“Xander,” Kian said, “come take over these pans.”

Xander didn’t look happy but he came over anyway. “You already took a break,” he objected, but there was something to be said for working for your best friend.

“Yeah, and I’m sorry, but I need another. I just need . . . five minutes, if that’s okay?”

Muttering under his breath, Xander didn’t respond, but bumped Kian out of the way with a hip check.

“I’ll be quick,” Kian promised, and wiped his hands on a towel, unwinding his apron and hanging it on a hook before walking into the dining room.

Bastian’s mother was everything he’d been told, and sitting alone at a corner table, a half-drunk glass of one of Xander’s creative mocktails at her elbow.

“Hello,” Kian said, and she looked up. He could see hints of Bastian in her face, her dark hair, streaked with gray.

“You are Kian,” she said, clearly delighted, starting to stand up.

“No, no, please,” he said, sliding into the chair opposite her. “I only have a minute. I just . . . I wanted to meet you.”

“And I you. I am Celeste Aquino, but please call me Celeste,” she said warmly, reaching out for his hands. “You are just as Bastian described to me.”

Kian thought he’d been prepared, but he really wasn’t.

Bastian had described him to his mother?

Sometimes it was easier for him to believe that Bastian had never really been serious, that Kian had imagined the way Bastian looked at him.

But if he’d told his mother about him, then Kian hadn’t misremembered anything.

It had all been real, and that hurt worse than believing that Bastian had lied to him.

“Oh, darling, you are just as sad as he is.” She frowned. “He is devastated without you.”

Kian cleared his throat. “Sometimes things just don’t work out. He told me that it wouldn’t, the first month I worked for him. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that it all fell apart.”

“I would like you to come to my house, for tea. When are you free?” she asked, and for a second, Kian nearly turned her down.

What point was there in making this harder than it already was?

Sitting in Bastian’s mother’s house, wishing that he’d introduced them before everything had gone to hell?

Forming a friendship with Celeste, even though there seemed to be little point to it?

It was a bad idea, but Kian was learning that even acknowledging that fact didn’t always stop him. It sure hadn’t stopped him with Bastian.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “I have the afternoon off. Is that too soon?”

“No,” she said, clearly delighted. “You will come tomorrow. One o’clock.” She slid a piece of paper across the table. “My address.”

Kian stared at the paper, realizing that she had come here tonight with the express purpose of talking to him, and not for a few minutes that he could steal from the kitchen. She wanted to get to know him and knew he wouldn’t be able to do it during service.

His heart beat a little faster, even though he told himself firmly that he should not get his hopes up.

But it was too late, and hope was too addictive in the face of despair.