Leo looks at me a little nervously, as if performing a dozen calculations at once. He glances back into the hall, looking each way, then steps inside the office, leaning forward so he can lower his voice.
“Of course you’re going to fire her. Right? I mean, she fucked up a main dish and made a scene in front of the customers, then bailed in the middle of a dinner shift. We were a man down for half the night.”
I look at him for a few seconds and he waits expectantly, oblivious to my intent.
“Come see me after your shift, Leo,” I say calmly, returning my attention to the computer screen.
I don’t want to hear anything else—and Leo’s just about smart enough to realize that, so he turns on his heels, rubbing his bald head as he leaves the office.
Shortly after that I hear another light rapping on the door, and look up to find Willow there. Except this isn’t the Willow from last night, a pretty face poking out of that shapeless chef’s uniform—there’s nothing shapeless about her now. Tight, ripped jeans hug her toned legs, her shirt struggling with the combination of her round breasts and that tight stomach, leaving a mouthwatering strip of flesh around her navel that reveals itself only a little as she moves.
“Shut the door,” I tell her, growling the command, then watch with focused eyes the balletic movements of her body. Delicate fingers on the door handle, swish of her hair against the nape of her neck, turning just enough for me to study the jeans-filling roundness of her ass.
She turns back to face me, big, brown eyes looking up from that angelic face, and I stand up to walk in front of my desk. I need to move, partly because I’ve been sitting down for too long, and partly because the sight of her in street clothes has got my blood pumping a little too hard, a shot of adrenaline unexpectedly slamming through me.
“I’m surprised you came back,” I say, leaning back onto the desk and folding my arms.
Her cheeks color a little but her gaze stays fastened on mine. “I came to say I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have used the lemon thyme. I get it. And you’re absolutely right. That’s not acceptable for Knife, and I hold my hands up to that. I shouldn’t have changed the recipe. It was a momentary lapse of judgment, and I thought I could get away with it. But I’m not here to make excuses. I just wanted to explain and to say I’m sorry.”
I nod at her. There’s something down-to-earth and genuine about the way she talks, the way she looks me in the eye. Perhaps I’ve spent too long in the upper echelons of Los Angeles’ nightlife, but her straightforward manner disarms a little of my anger.
“You don’t get to make mistakes when you work for me,” I say firmly.
“Which is why I wanted to apologize.”
“Apologies don’t change the past. I don’t make them, and I don’t accept them.” Willow simply nods before turning back to the door, that gentle hand already on the handle. “Did I say you could leave?”
She turns back to me, the regret in her eyes replaced by a hard pride. It’s the kind of look people usually build up for decades before they feel they can direct it at me.
“Am I supposed to just stand here so you can shoot negative platitudes at me before I get fired?” she says. “Because I can watch one of your shows if I want to see you cut somebody down.”
If those tight jeans made me second guess whether I should fire her, the way she stares me down like I’m not the best chef in the country, and she’s not just some new hire, is piquing my interest enough that I want to keep her around at least a little longer. She’d make a hell of a poker player.
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t fire you,” I challenge.
“I’m not going to beg you for my job.”
“Most chefs would, in your position.”
“Well, I’m not most chefs.”
“Clearly,” I say, allowing myself a little smile as we stare each other down.
Willow breaks her gaze, hanging her head a little, but I don’t miss the way her eyes flicker over my body, lingering for a half second on the biceps of my folded arms.
“Neither are you,” she says, though her tone (and my rampaging imagination) makes it more innuendo than retort. Our eyes lock.
The electricity crackling between us is almost audible. A charge less like that of manager-employee relations, and more like the sexual ambiguity of two people swapping looks across a bar. There’s no doubt in my mind there’s something between us—and the fact that I wanna find out what it is makes it almost impossible for me to fire this girl out of my life.
“It’s your first week and Michelle tells me you’ve been handling it like a champ apart from this…faux pas. We’ve had chefs who couldn’t even make it through a second shift.”
Willow shrugs, and I can see she’s relaxing a little now, her hand no longer on the door handle.
“Well, I won’t pretend it was easy. But I’m not afraid of working hard.”
“Obviously not,” I say, picking up her resume from the desk and waving it. “You don’t make it through Guillhaume’s course without having some steel in you.”
“Oh yeah,” she grins. “I think I actually learned more about my emotions than about cooking under him.”
I glare at her intensely once again, freezing her with a look.
“Regardless. That was the first and last time you walk out on a shift. If I give you another chance, are you gonna fuck me over?”
There isn’t even a flinch, not even a quivering lip as Willow looks right back at me and shakes her head, “No. I won’t. You’re the boss.”
“That I am. And you’ll do well to keep that in mind.” I nod and smile a little, making it clear that the issue’s settled for now.
Willow seems to relax, and I find myself calming in her presence.
“So what did Guillhaume call you?” I ask, in a more easy tone.
Willow lets out a quiet laugh; she knows what I’m talking about. Everyone who studies under the Frenchman gets a specific nickname, an insult designed to demean and break one’s spirit through repetition, but which most chefs carry like a badge of honor—that is, if they’re able to survive the boot camp that is his training course.
“Well, as soon as he found out where I was from he stuck me with ‘the Idaho Potato.’ Said my talent was making everything taste as lifeless as mash,” she says, smiling wistfully at the memory. “‘Curse ze farmer zat pulled you out of ze ground!’”
I smile along with her. “You got off lightly. He used to call me the Hollywood Assassin. Said I cooked like I was trying to poison somebody.”
She laughs again, gently. Her face showing a few more phases of beauty. I let the moment settle, enjoying the sight of her a little more, that smile, those eyes…
“Well,” she says, glancing at the clock above the desk. “I really should get on the lunch shift.”
“No you shouldn’t,” I say, stepping out from behind the desk. “I had Mark come in to take your spot. Wasn’t sure if you’d even show up today.”