The next I’d seen Jacques he was chewing his salad boy a new one. “Leaves should make pretty hill,” he’d said, holding a plate in the air for the entire kitchen’s inspection. “Zhis is alps after earthquake. Feex it!” He’d tossed the plate onto the steel work table, where it broke in two.

Haute cuisine may be the only industry where the boss is encouraged to behave like a cranky toddler. They pay extra for that, especially if you’re a man and from France.

Strangely, the salad guy hadn’t looked as put out by his ass-ripping as I’d expected. Instead of leaping to clean up the mess, he pinched a salad leaf off the pile and shoved it in his mouth. Then he did it a second time.

I’d thought it was weird. But I still hadn’t guessed why.

“It was a busy night,” I told Burton now.

But when I’d stopped by the kitchen again, I could hardly believe my eyes. The salad boy had been slumped over his station, which was freaky enough. But Jacques hadn’t even noticed. He’d been busy screaming at the fish cook again, while the mega-horsepower exhaust system tried in vain to remove fish-scented smoke from the kitchen.

Jacques’s rant had been unintelligible. When he got angry, his accent thickened. I couldn’t make out a word of it.

I’d stood there with my mouth hanging open when the dishwasher stopped beside me, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Awesome revenge, Audrey. Seriously. You’re my fucking hero.”

Um, what? I’d almost missed what he was saying. As I’d watched, another line cook shoved hand-cut polenta medallions into his mouth. It was as if the whole kitchen lost fifty IQ points and then got the munchies.

“Doesn’t affect me, because I’ve built up a real tolerance. Looks like the salad boy can’t handle his weed, though. You should get out now, girl,” the dishwasher was saying. “Any second now Jacques is going to figure out who brought in the spiked brownies.”

“The spiked—” I’d bitten off the sentence as horror crept up my spine. “Oh my God.”

“I’m definitely inviting you to my next party. Those were killer.” Chuckling, the dishwasher had wandered off to have a cigarette.

And to think that I hadn’t even needed a lighter to burn my own career to the ground.

“So…” Burton sighed. “You’re saying you didn’t know the brownies were spiked?”

“I had no idea,” I whispered. “There are always baked goods in my apartment. I don’t, uh, usually steal them. And I really wish I hadn’t this time.”

He pushed the file folder away from him on the desk. “I could fire you for this.”

“I know that, sir,” I said quickly. “But I know I can do better if you give me a second chance.” Or a fifth chance.

He folded his hands onto the desk blotter and seemed to think it over.

I held my breath. Bill tapped his fingers on the expensive-looking leather blotter and sighed once again. “All right, Audrey. You’re heading to Vermont.”