Everyone here is the same. All of them walking around in their own glass cases—everyone in on the lie. I hate it. Hate that I have to trail behind, acting as though the most important thing in the world to me is Macon’s image and what people think of him.

I am a chef, not an assistant. I want to learn how to make noodles in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Shanghai. I should be taking wok lessons with my friend Sammy in Beijing. We met in cooking school and exchanged emails when he took a job at a luxury hotel in China. Visiting him was my first stop.

The invitation is open ended, but the wait chafes. Sam’s texts chafe. She’ll come back soon. Great. Wonderful.

I miss my kitchen, miss the rhythm and flow of it when my staff and I were preparing a big dinner. I miss the scents of good food sizzling in hot pans. I miss the alchemy of food. Cooking for Macon is challenging in that I have to come up with health-conscious meals that taste so good he doesn’t know what he’s missing. So far, I’m only half-successful because the man wants his desserts, and he wants them badly.

Sitting with other assistants at a table in the back of the room, I try to suck it up. I shouldn’t complain; I signed up for this, begged Macon for a chance to make amends. And Macon hasn’t been the asshat I expected him to be. That’s part of the problem. I like him. I’m attracted to him—that’s an understatement. My body is not my own anymore. He’s taken control of it, made it fluttery, overheated, wanting, needy. I’m a strange mix of giddy and anxious all the time.

Worse, my mind isn’t my own either. I think of Macon when I go to sleep, and I think of him again when I wake up. And for once, thoughts of Macon aren’t haunted or angry but of things that make me smile—his ridiculous jokes, the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles, even the way his jaw works when he eats an apple.

“Lord,” I mutter, taking a sip of white wine. I disgust myself. I’m sitting here all . . . moony. While he’s up at the front, chatting with a tableful of equally beautiful people.