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“In a way, yes.”
“Why? This has got to be as life altering for you as it is for me.”
She had a feeling he knew exactly what she was going to say. That he wanted her to say it so he could contradict it. Fine.
She leaned forward again. “I’ll spell it out, Tom. Once upon a time I loved you. We were supposed to start a catering business. Papers were signed. We had a plan.”
His eyes flashed with sudden temper. “It wasn’t carved in stone.”
“Obviously,” Reggie replied, unfazed. “Since you took off for the north of Spain for a job that had no future.”
“It made one hell of a future for me.”
“Yes, it did,” she conceded. He’d taken a gamble and it had paid off. And, since he had such a valid point, she took the low road. “But which of us is still employed?”
“I will be employed,” he said coldly. “I don’t think Letterbridge is flying me across the country on a whim.”
“Okay…and forgive me for being blunt,” Reggie said, tossing the crumpled napkin past him into the trash, “which one of us will stay employed?”
He smiled. “Which one of us has had the more successful career?” he asked with exaggerated politeness.
“I rather like mine. At least I know I’ll be bringing home a paycheck. It may not be as big as yours, but it’s steady.”
Tom hooked an elbow over his chair back. “You’re still angry about me leaving,” he said as if making a major deduction.
Brilliant, Tom. “Believe it or not, it stung when you chose a shot in the dark over me and a fairly sure thing.”
“You could have come with me. Instead you gave me that fricking ultimatum.”
“Which you took.”
“It didn’t have to be all or nothing. We could have worked something out.”
“Look who’s talking, Mr. Compromise. I don’t think so. It’s all or nothing for you. If everything isn’t just so in your kitchen, you throw a fit. And now you’ve gone public with those fits.”
“I don’t throw fits!” Tom’s voice rose and then he clamped his mouth shut as several people at nearby tables looked his way.
“Tizzies?” Reggie asked innocently, not above driving a point home.
His neck corded as he fought to bring his temper under control. Finally he said in a low voice, “My tizzies aside, here’s what it comes down to.” He stabbed the table with his finger. “You could have come with me to Spain. The catering business had barely started. You wouldn’t because I had deviated from The Plan.”
“I didn’t come because you didn’t ask me.”
“Yes, I did.”
Reggie jutted her chin out. “No, you didn’t.”
Sweat broke out on her forehead, always a precursor to a surge of nausea, but she was not going to give in to it. Not in front of Tom.
Unfortunately, as totally pissed as he was, he noticed. “Are you all right?”
“Just a little queasy.”
“Are you taking care of yourself?” he demanded.
“Yes.” She got to her feet, gathered her purse, holding the oversize bag in front of her stomach like a shield. “I want to come to an understanding about the baby, Tom, but obviously this is not the time or place.”
“I agree,” he said with an obvious effort to control himself. “It seems as though we have some other issues to sift through first.”
Issues Reggie hadn’t expected to come screaming out of her so rapidly. But she should have known better.
She just hoped he hadn’t gotten his back up. The old Tom would have cooled off fast, seen the argument for what it was—a release of pent-up frustrations and unresolved anger. This new Tom…she wasn’t so sure what he was going to do.
“Yes. Maybe we can meet again—” she glanced around “—in a different environment.”
He gave her a you-picked-it-I-didn’t raise of an eyebrow, but simply nodded.
“Good luck on the interview.”
He stood. “I don’t need luck. I’m getting this job, and when I do, we’ll discuss our baby.”
“Call me when you get that job, Tom.” Reggie started across the lobby without a backward glance, thankful that the nausea was rapidly abating so she wouldn’t embarrass herself in the terminal.
She didn’t realize how rigidly she’d been holding herself until she reached the automatic doors. Her shoulders were aching. She rolled them as she started across the street for the parking garage, willing her muscles to relax.
Not the meeting she’d imagined.
She hoped she could repair the damage before it was too late.
THE AUTOMATIC DOORS CLOSED behind Reggie before Tom started back to the escalator. So much for catching a later flight. Going after Reggie would do no good. He’d have to nail this job and show her that, regardless of what he might have done seven years ago, he was more than capable of being “steady.” He had no idea exactly what his role would be, but his father had always been there for him, even if it had been on the other end of a phone line, and Tom would be there for his kid.
And suddenly it was important to him to prove that he wasn’t some maniac who threw fits in public—although every time he’d had a blowup, he’d been more than justified.
He got back into the security line, which was ridiculously short compared to the one in LaGuardia on the first leg of his flight. He pulled his crumpled boarding pass for the next leg out of his jacket pocket.
And what the hell was that about not asking her to go to Spain? Of course he’d wanted her to go. But she’d stuck with The Plan.
At the time he’d been stunned by her choice…?.
In a matter of fifteen minutes he and his belongings had been inspected, prodded and okayed, and Tom was seated alone in the one bar in the concourse, going over his interview notes. This deal with Reggie, the depth of her anger at him, was upsetting, but he would figure out how to handle it after he got this job. One challenge at a time. Surmount one, move on to the next.
Despite all the shit that had come his way, he’d never interviewed for a job and not gotten an offer. The only thing that had tripped him up over the past several weeks had been in not landing the interview. Well, he had one now and he was going to ace this sucker.
He was back.
CHAPTER FOUR
REGGIE HAD BEEN HOME BARELY AN hour when Eden showed up at the door. She knocked, then let herself in, carrying a bottle of sparkling apple cider by the neck.
“I thought you might need a belt after meeting Tom,” she said, lifting the cider. Reggie tried to smile. Couldn’t do it. “Bad?” Eden asked.
“I said some things I probably shouldn’t have.” Definitely shouldn’t have.
“He’s being unreasonable?”
“That’s the problem…I think he was trying to be reasonable. Reasonable for Chef Gerard, that is.” She took the bottle and headed into the kitchen, Eden and Mims following. Her sister went to the cupboard and pulled out two glasses, while Reggie opened. She poured two healthy amounts of cider, then looked down at her stomach with a wry twist of her lips. “Somehow I don’t think sparkling cider is going to take the edge off.” She raised her eyes. “I don’t think anything is going to take the edge off. Tom and I trigger each other.”
“That’s to be expected,” Eden said, sitting at the table. “You guys have got a ton of unfinished business to work through.”
“I think that we both need more time. This meeting…not a good idea.”
“How much time?”
Reggie shrugged. “I don’t know. A decade, maybe?”
Eden smiled and raised her glass in a salute, then changed the subject. “What’s with Justin?”
“In what way?”
“He’s been really quiet. You haven’t noticed?”
“I’ve been kind of preoccupied,” Reggie said with a significant lift of her eyebrows.
“Yeah. So’s he.”
“Do you think it’s…me?” She frowned as Mims got up on the chair next to Eden and put a tentative paw on the table. Her cat was pushing the limits, perhaps as a reaction to Reggie’s constant tension.
Eden gently moved the chair back while Mims hung on, her eyes going a little wild on the short ride. “Maybe. Or woman trouble.”
“He’s a big boy, Eden. We need to let him face the world on his own.”
She laughed. “I asked him if he was dating and all I got was a sour look.”
“Woman trouble,” Reggie said. She hoped so, anyway. Justin saw himself as the man of the family—still—and she didn’t want him losing sleep over her.
“And speaking of woman trouble,” Eden said, “I ran into Candy.” The owner of Candy’s Catering Classique, who had hired Justin and Eden in high school and had never forgiven them for starting a competing business.
“She was sweet as always, while shooting daggers at me. She wished us luck in the Reno Cuisine. She even added a ‘bless our hearts for trying.’”
Kiss of death coming from Candy, who always took one of the top honors at the event.
“And Julie is working for her now.” Their prep cook who had quit so suddenly.
Reggie paused, her glass halfway to her lips. “Figures. Welcome to the cutthroat world of catering.”
“Well, she’d better keep her hands off Patty.” Eden’s jaw set. “I know we won’t win, because Candy will have a booth that would put a Hollywood set to shame—”
Mims took a flying leap at the table from her chair just then, didn’t quite make it and would have hit the floor if Eden hadn’t caught her. “Have you been ignoring your kitty?” she asked as she set her on the floor. Mims instantly started a bath.
“Not on purpose.” Reggie went to pick up the cat, but Mims walked away, tail held high, before Reggie could scoop her up. Maybe she had been ignoring the cat.
“Anyway…” Eden reached for the cider and topped up her glass “…I thought I could take the helm of the Reno Cuisine, since both you and Justin are so busy.”
“Please,” Reggie replied. They had just booked a big wedding on short notice—three weeks—and that would consume most of Reggie’s time, particularly since they already had a business dinner booked that same week. “Take the helm, take the entire ship, because right now I have to make amends with my cat and battle plans for a big-ass wedding reception.”
HUMILIATION SUCKED.
Numbly, Tom took his seat on the flight back to Reno. Not only had he not gotten a job, he hadn’t even gotten to interview or cook. In fact, he was going back to New York sooner than he’d expected. Days sooner.
He didn’t know if Jervase had gotten hold of these guys or what, but after a very short, very terse and uncomfortable meeting with three members of the Letterbridge cuisine vision team, one of them had taken him aside and explained that rather than put him through an interview for a job he had no chance of getting, they were simply going to come clean. Inviting him had been a mistake. Literally a mistake. The associate in charge of contacting the top candidates had pulled his file in error. Tom had no chance of working for Letterbridge.
“None?” he had asked, flabbergasted. Two years ago they’d offered him a damned handsome deal.
“None,” the guy had said flatly.
Tom felt as if he’d just swallowed a chunk of cement. How in the hell had he gotten to the point where he was disappointed—no, make that devastated—at not being a candidate for a freaking corporate kitchen job?
The man babbled about public opinion and image, and how all members of the kitchen staff and management had to be team players, because Letterbridge was a team, from the top on down. Then he looked at Tom and said, “You have to see how we cannot possibly have someone like you on our team.”
And that was when Tom, despite his vow in the Reno airport not to indulge in public fits of temper, told the HR guy exactly what he could do with his team and how.
Shortly before security showed up, Tom left the building of his own volition.
He was screwed. Royally. Just as Lowell had said.
Worse yet, he was beginning to suspect that part of it was his own fault.
So what now?
Letterbridge had arranged for an earlier flight back to New York, but he’d booked his own on their dime. He wanted to stop in Reno again. Had to stop in Reno, since he had no idea when he’d get another chance to meet with Reggie face-to-face.
What was he going to tell her after his assurances that the job was all but his?
As he stared morosely out the window, waiting for takeoff, he became aware of the woman across the aisle staring at him. He glanced at her, she looked down, then when he shifted his attention back to the window, she started studying him again.
“I’m not him,” Tom said.
“Not who?” the woman asked, perplexed.
“Whoever you think I am.”
“Right now I don’t think you’re anyone,” she said curtly.
“Sing it, sister,” he muttered, looking back out at the tarmac.
Right now, he wasn’t anyone. And being someone—in the cooking world, that is—had become a huge part of his identity.
Shit. He let the side of his head rest against the cool glass of the window, closing his eyes. There was a commotion across the aisle and he glanced over to see that the woman who’d recognized him had scooted over to the window seat to let a woman with a baby sit on the aisle. A baby.
