God. He knew about me being here for that long? And obviously didn’t want to employ my services. That stings. Though it shouldn’t. We parted as enemies, after all.

“Yes, it was successful,” I snap. Until I closed shop, I had a dozen employees and a full client list. I made good money, though with the crazy high-priced cost of living in LA, making payments on my house and on the little industrial kitchen I leased for business, I still lived on a budget. That’s all right. Everything is forward movement, inching up bit by bit. I’ll get to the top eventually. “My decision to close wasn’t financial.”

Macon doesn’t appear to believe me. “Were you short on overhead to keep it open?”

His tone implies all sorts of things that have my gut prickling.

“If you’re suggesting that I somehow worked with Sam to rip you off for the price of a watch—”

“Funny how your mind goes right to that.”

“Oh, don’t play coy. Of course it does when you’re sitting there giving me that raised brow and playing Mr. Detective.”

He simply stares. With that damn raised brow.

I roll my eyes. “I don’t need money. I offered you fifty thousand dollars, didn’t I?”

“Why did you close it, Delilah?”

“Because I’m moving on,” I blurt out.

Both his brows go sky high with that one.

Damn it, I sound like I’m skipping town. I stifle the urge to squirm. “I’m going on a tour of Asia to learn new techniques and recipes.” Unless he takes the money. Then I’m shit out of luck and going back to catering.

Macon sits back in his chair and continues to run the tip of his finger along his jaw. There are too many things going on behind those dark eyes. “How are you going to fund your trip?”

No way am I explaining that. Not a chance.

But he knows. It’s there in his expression, the way it softens just a bit before twisting as though he’s disappointed in me.

With a sigh, he rests his hands over his flat belly. “You don’t have a job, so you can’t pay me back.” Right. Damn it. I open my mouth to say . . . something, anything, but he continues. “Save your money, and take the trip.”

Despite knowing his refusal was coming, my insides plummet with dread. “Sam will return eventually. She always does. Just give her a little more time.”

A long-suffering sigh escapes him. “No.”

“Why this urgency?”

“Because I don’t believe she’ll return,” he snaps.

“There has to be a way.”

“There is—you just don’t like it.”

At an impasse, we both fall silent. The chair beneath him creaks as he shifts his considerable weight. Not that he’s hefty; the man is pure muscle and decidedly bigger than he was in high school. At seventeen, Macon had the physique of a model, lean and lithe. He’s still lean, but now he looks like he could play tight end in the NFL. I wonder idly if he built his body up to fit his character, Arasmus, the sword-wielding Warrior King.