I gripped her hand. “Grand-mère, please forgive me.”
“For what?”
“For not being here for you when you needed me.”
“You are here now, ma chérie,” she said.
* * *
Midnight. I sat in the window seat, looking up toward the stars, wondering if my mother was up there looking down on me, wondering about the stars I’d always craved. My cell phone buzzed. I looked down at the caller ID, expecting it to be Walter, but it was a text from O’Shea.
Dug in a little bit more with my foodie spies. Found out Trevor Smith is one of Eric’s investors. He’s going down. Bad news—the Times isn’t going to write my retraction. Good news—they want me to write an op-ed. I’ve written it and it’ll run in a few weeks. Bad news—Eric’s restaurant opened to glorious reviews. Good news—Trevor Smith wrote the review. Everything is being sorted out. Think about my offer, Sophie.
I was thinking about his offer, and it pulled my head and my heart in different directions. I bolted to Grand-mère’s office and pulled up the review of Blackbird in the Times. On the home page, there was a picture of Eric, with the headline: MICHELIN WILL SOON BE KNOCKING ON ERIC ROMANO’S DOOR.
“What the hell?” I said, muttering to myself.
My eyes scanned the page, words jumping off the screen like “two-starred master chef,” “culinary masterpiece,” and “seasonal seductions.” But the slap to the face came when I locked onto the photo of the meal they were raving about. It wasn’t Eric’s recipe; it was mine, the one for the filets of daurade—every layer of every ingredient I’d used all exactly the same, the garnish complete with edible flowers like lavender. I seethed with anger. There was only one person at the château who could have been responsible for such betrayal, and she’d be returning in one week.
26
new york state of mind
It was hard keeping Rémi at a distance, especially when he smiled at me like a puppy dog waiting for a treat, his hazel eyes shining and expectant, like I’d race into his arms and say, “Rémi, I’m ready. I’ve had enough time to think. Take me into those strong arms of yours and carry me away!” As much as the notion tempted me, I wasn’t ready for a relationship. Far from it.
So I definitely wasn’t prepared to find Rémi in the kitchen with Lola, both of them covered in flour, a few days after I’d received O’Shea’s text. Lola had a bowl in front of her and she was whisking away—flour and milk splattering on her face, her mouth covered in chocolate.
“What in the world are you doing?” I asked.
“Making crêpes,” Rémi said, his voice not overly warm, but not exactly distant. “Today is February second. It’s la Chandeleur.”
“Crêpes, crêpes, crêpes,” repeated Lola. “Miam-miam.”
“It’s another French tradition—like the galette des rois—but better,” said Rémi by means of explanation. “In addition to being a religious celebration for Catholics, when Jesus was presented at the temple in Jerusalem, it’s also France’s national crêpe day.”
“Stop smiling at me like that,” I said, my eyes narrowing into a mock glare.
“Stop staring at me and help us make the crêpes. We’re making them for Grand-mère,” he said, turning his back to me and whisking the batter. “Ever done a pan flip?”
“Of course,” I said. “Just not with a crêpe, but I’m a quick learner.” I shoved him on the shoulder and gave him the stink eye. “You do realize I’m a seasoned chef?”
Rémi brushed by me and grabbed a pan. He placed it on a burner, turning the heat up to medium-high. I watched him rub the oil onto the pan. He ladled a spoonful of the batter, lifted it up, and swirled it around, coating every inch. He placed the pan back on the burner.
“The trick is to let the edges turn golden,” he said. “Then you take a spatula and lift the edges lightly, like this, see? Voilà! Then we flip.” He jutted out his arm a few times, the crêpe lifting from the pan. And then he flipped it. “Your turn.”
“Oh, I can do this. Easy peasy,” I said. I rubbed oil on the pan with a paper towel, as he had. I ladled the mixture, swirled it, and placed the pan on the burner. I waited for the edges to brown, and lifted them. I was ready for the pan flip. “One, two, three,” I said. “Flip.”
My crêpe didn’t land in the pan; it landed on the burner, the flames