Page 25 of Until August

The guy turned to face me and swept his gaze over me like he was trying to assess whether I was worth his time. There was a wariness there too. “You must be August,” he said. “Luca Benedetti, Nic’s brother.”

I shook the hand he extended. The family resemblance was strong. Luca had the same shade of chestnut brown hair, olive skin, and brown eyes. But he looked younger. Early twenties. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.” He jerked his chin toward the pan. “Taste this and tell us what you think.”

The challenge in his voice told me this was a test.

Nicola opened her mouth, probably to protest, but clamped it shut and handed me a spoon. While I tasted her sauce, she stood back and waited for my verdict. Blood orange. Fennel. Cream. White wine. Shallots. “Needs more fennel.” Her jaw dropped, and I tried to soften the blow. “Otherwise, it’s good.”

Luca gave Nicola a smug smile. “Told you.”

“Go away.” She swatted him with a kitchen towel. Then she tasted the sauce and pressed her lips together. “Ugh, you’re right.” She carried the pan to the sink and poured the sauce down the drain, her movements jerky. “Now I have to start over.”

“It’ll go well with seared scallops,” I offered.

“That’s the plan.” She turned to face me. It was the first time I’d gotten a good look at her since the day she came into David’s restaurant. Last night, I didn’t get a close-up view until later, when it was too dark to see her.

Today her hair was pulled back in an elaborate-looking twist that accentuated her high cheekbones and chocolate-brown eyes. Once again, I was struck by how beautiful she was. Classic, timeless beauty. The grown-up version of the teenage girl I’d met.

We stared at each other and the silence stretched out between us until Nicola averted her gaze, marched over to a station, and picked up her knife. “You can change in the locker room and leave your bag there.” She waved her knife toward the hallway without making eye contact, bent her head over the chopping board, and got to work.

“I’ll show you to the locker room,” Luca said.

I followed him down the hall I’d just walked through.

“Nic hates having her food criticized,” he said with a chuckle. “She takes it personally. She’s a perfectionist, so she’ll keep starting over with that sauce until she gets it exactly right.”

I wanted to get a feel for the people I would be working with, so I asked, “And how about you? Are you a perfectionist?”

“In the kitchen, yeah, I am. Runs in the family. We got it from our old man. It’s his way or the highway.” He pushed open a door at the end of the hallway and gestured for me to go ahead. “Nic’s a chip off the old block, although she’d never admit it.”

I’d never worked with Nicola, but I couldn’t imagine her being a tyrant. Although judging by Frankie’s reaction earlier, there was obviously a lot I didn’t know about Nicola.

I set my backpack on the bench and changed into my chef’s jacket. It was the only plain white one I owned without my restaurant’s logo on it.

Luca leaned against the doorframe, watching me. “Nic says you worked for Anton Renaud?”

“Yep.”

“Did you graduate from the Culinary Institute?”

Renaud’s alma mater. I made a wild guess that it was Luca’s too.

I stowed my backpack in an empty locker after I took out my knife roll and the gift I’d picked up for Nicola on the way over, then turned around. Luca was blocking the doorway with his body, his hands gripping the frame, and short of bulldozing right past him, I was trapped in the locker room.

“Nope. I’m a high school dropout.” I’d gotten my GED in the county jail, but I didn’t mention that.

His eyes widened in surprise. “Damn. How did you get Renaud to hire you?”

Good question. Renaud was a snob, trained in the classically French tradition, but he was a hell of a good chef.

“I’d gotten it into my head that I needed to work for him and wouldn’t rest until he agreed. So every morning, I waited outside Chez Anton’s service entrance. I did it for months until finally, one day, he let me in his kitchen. He’d just fired one of the line cooks and said I could have the job if I made it through the night without pissing him off or pissing my pants.”

Renaud was an old-school chef with a bad temper and a penchant for cursing everyone out and belittling them. In my time there, I’d witnessed grown men reduced to tears. Back then, my armor was impenetrable, so he’d never gotten to me.

We were more alike than I’d ever cared to admit. He used to call me ‘enfant terrible.’ “I made it through the night, and he took me on as an apprentice.”

Luca whistled. “You must have impressed him.”