I hugged my arms around my waist. If it were love, wouldn’t I know? The way Meg had, the first time she met John. “Love at first sight,” she had claimed, and I’d rolled my eyes. My feelings for Eric had come on more gradually, respect and infatuation mixed with a healthy dose of lust. And trust. All I knew was I’d never felt this way before, never been able to feel for Trey the things he claimed to feel for me. Not that I didn’t love Trey, in my own way. I certainly never wanted to hurt him. But I’d never been able to hear him say those three words without feeling panicky. Or suffocated. Or sorry. I sure as hell had never felt tempted to say them back.

“Whatever.” Frank exhaled a stream of smoke. “Boss wants to see you when you clock in.”

“Ray?”

“Chef.”

My heart bumped pleasantly. “He’s here?”

Frank pitched away his cigarette. “Just said so, didn’t I?”

I was surprised. Eric had left my place around dawn. More convenient for me, since I needed to be at work before he did. I’d been busting my ass all week, determined to pull my weight in the kitchen. With Frank back on the line and the weekend looming, I had a ton of prep to do.

Maybe, I thought, he wanted to talk about the cookbook.

He hadn’t mentioned it again. But the idea had stuck with me, like the smell of the kitchen that clung to my hair, sinking into my skin, gradually becoming part of me. I walked around with it for days. It rode with me on the subway and followed me to work. “You are a writer. Maybe you should write my cookbook.”

I tugged on the back door, releasing a gust of fat and garlic into the alley.

We needed to talk. This weekend, away from the restaurant. I didn’t even question anymore that we would spend Eric’s day off together.

Stupid me.

I ducked inside. The cooks were stocking their stations, slicing, chopping, joking, yelling, but as I entered the narrow work aisle, the kitchen fell suspiciously silent. A trio of back waiters nudged one another, one of them slipping his phone into his pocket in an elaborately casual gesture. I looked at Constanza for guidance, but our motherly garde-manger was deep in conversation with the dishwashing crew. Tomas caught my eye and winked.

“Chula!” Constanza bustled over. “How are you?”

“Fine. Why is everybody acting so weird?”

But I thought I knew. Gossip traveled like cockroaches through the kitchen. No matter how professionally Eric behaved, no matter how hard I worked, sooner or later word would get out I was sleeping with the boss.

“Not weird. No weird,” Constanza said. “Jefe, he wants to see you.”

“Thanks. I heard.”

I wanted to see him, too. Anyway, I needed to change into my chef’s coat.

I headed for the office, ignoring Lucas’s sympathetic look as I passed. Ray was just leaving Eric’s office. Ray handled routine staff matters—requests for overtime, advances, and days off. He was probably in there reminding Eric that women were trouble in the kitchen and I was a lawsuit waiting to happen.