Very.
I wait for her to offer some sort of reply, for her to try to make some sort of argument about business ethics or what’s “right” and “good.” The kind of things someone who doesn’t understand the real world would argue to someone who knows what it takes to succeed.
But she just stands there, glaring at me, her chest heaving and her lips twisted into a sneer. Finally, she releases a heavy sigh. “It's not even worth arguing with you. You clearly haven't cared about anyone or anything but yourself for so long that you forgot how to.”
Her words hit me one by one, like arrows directed at the deepest parts of my soul. Then, she storms away, leaving the smell of something sweet—that I’ve finally placed as cinnamon rolls—in the air.
The door closes behind her, and I stand dumb for a few seconds, trying to grasp what just happened.
That woman doesn’t know me. Not at all.
How can she accuse me of not caring?
I care too much.
Apparently, explaining my relationship with Graham and how it might affect him if we fail wasn’t enough for her to believe I’m anything but a selfish prick. It can’t be further from the truth. Living with Mike Fury as a father taught me what a selfish prick is and how to recognize one instantly. I’m nothing like that man. I’ve made sure of that.
But Isabella will think whatever she wants to. That’s fine. I can’t let her anger or frustration with the situation derail me. Or the fact that I find her as attractive as I do frustratingly annoying.
I start to make my way across the restaurant floor toward the kitchen when the door pulls open again.
She's back for round two already?
I turn around to face her, but instead of Isabella, I find a pretty redhead with a brilliant smile.
“Hi, I have an eleven o'clock interview. I think I'm a little early.”
Oh, my…luck certainly is on my side today.
I chuckle to myself and divert toward her with my hand extended. “I actually think your interview is next door with Isabella. But since you don't have to be over there for another half an hour, why don't we have a chat? I'm Jameson Fury.”
She takes my hand in hers and shakes vigorously, her smile lighting up even more. “Oh, yeah. I know who you are. I loved your season of Prime Chef.”
Of course, you did.
I’m banking on everyone loving it and recognizing my face and name when it comes time to finally open this place. I grin at her and nod toward the bar. “Come on over here, and let's have a chat.”
Sorry, Isabella…but all is fair in love and opening a restaurant.
Chapter Five
JAMESON
“Are you sure you don’t need me to help with anything?”
The sincerity in Bash’s question drags a laugh from deep in my chest. Ever since I graduated from culinary school, he’s been offering me money that I keep refusing. He seems to think I’m going to change my mind if he just asks over and over.
“What would you be able to help with in opening a restaurant besides giving me cash, which I’ve already said no to about a hundred times? You can’t even boil water.”
Bash gives a mock gasp of indignation over the phone. “That's not true. I absolutely can boil water. I can even drop pasta into it and not overcook it at least a quarter of the times I try. Though that is about the extent of my kitchen skills.”
The sad thing is, he isn’t even joking about that. After having Mom, Rach, and me cook for him growing up and then being provided meals in college and when he played to ensure he was on a good diet, he never needed to learn to fend for himself in the kitchen.
“Yeah, well, if you'd spent any time with Mom instead of always out on the ice, maybe you would've learned a thing or two.”
Shit.
A twinge of regret hits the moment I say the words. It was meant to be a joke, but it didn’t really come out that way.
Things have been tense between Bash and me for so long that sometimes I forget he isn't the enemy. The man who is now buried six feet under back home in Michigan was, but the damage he did is etched deeply into the fiber of all of us.
Some more than others.
Silence lingers through the line for a moment before Bash releases a deep sigh. “You still blame me for that? For wanting to spend time in the one place that I actually felt like I had some control over my life?”
I grit my teeth, squeeze my eyes shut, and pinch the bridge of my nose. “That's just it, Bash. You didn't.”
None of us did. We were controlled by a tyrant who ruled with brutality and anger and ensured we knew our places and kept our mouths shut.
For some reason, Bash can’t seem to grasp that. “You weren’t in control because when you were out there on the ice, you were always worrying about what Dad was going to think. About how you were going to impress Dad by what you could do. It was always about trying to please him and wanting him to be proud of you so he wouldn’t lash out and beat the shit out of one of us.”
Saying the words out loud brings bile up my throat. It's a harsh truth I knew even at a young age, but this is the first time I’ve ever voiced it—the first time I’ve ever dared to discuss it with either Bash or Rachel. We’ve always danced around outright discussing what happened to us as children, but the older we get, and the more time that passes since that man left the world, things have started to change.
Though I’m not sure if it’s for the better or worse. What I’ve been doing is certainly somewhere in the gray zone from that perspective. One of the reasons I haven’t told anyone where I spend my Wednesday nights…
There are too many conflicting feelings about everything. About how we grew up. Mom loved the shit out of us and did what she could, but the only way any of us got any sort of positive reinforcement from Dad—typically no more than a kind word or a pat on the shoulder—was if we did something he could connect with, and the only way to connect with Dad was on the ice.
It's why the old man always hated me and I never give a shit what happened to him once I left home. He knew I had no interest in playing hockey despite showing promise as soon as I was big enough to get out on the ice. Unlike Bash, I wasn't about to bend over backward to impress a man who treated me like shit and beat us whenever he felt like it.
I might've been young—the baby of the family—but I know what everyone did to try to shield me from what was happening. Bash and Mom took the brunt of his rage, and Rach stepped in when she had to. But there was only so much they could do when the evidence of what took place was written all over their bodies and I could hear it happening.
Their screams and his raving echo in my ears even today, almost a decade after I left that house.
Fuck. This is not how I saw this conversation going tonight.
My free hand shakes, and I press the palm flat against the bar top to try to stop it.
Bash clears his throat like he’s trying to rid it of the same heavy emotion choking me right now. “You should've talked to him before he died.”
I tighten my hand around the phone so hard that it almost hurts. “Why the hell would I do that? The man never gave a shit about me when I was alive, so why would I care when he was dying? I don't think he said five words to me in the years between when Mom died and he did.”