it.”
Coming from Five-Star Faye herself, I couldn’t be happier to hear those words. When I last saw her three months ago, I gave her a taste test to end all taste tests. But then I thought maybe I’d ruined my chances after I let her taste-test me.
I’ve never been against mixing business with pleasure, but after three months of silence, I thought maybe that was all she’d come for to begin with.
“Happy to hear I left a memorable taste in your mouth.” I grin, and she lets out a throaty laugh, one that surely comes from years of casual encounters just like the one we had. That should probably bother me, but it doesn’t.
I’ve always had a thing for experienced women. Perhaps it’s the idea of relationships never moving beyond a fleeting encounter. No strings. No commitments. No broken hearts. It’s easy, fun, and safe—just how I like it.
“I’m actually here with a pitch,” Faye says. “Should we sit?”
The swift transition from sexual innuendo to business doesn’t faze me a bit. I knew that if she did ever come back, I would sacrifice the sex to give whatever opportunity she was handing me a real shot.
I nod toward the dining section of the restaurant that I keep reserved for private events. It’s set up like a dining room with two twenty-foot-long solid wood tables made from a vendor around the corner at Pike Place Market. They’re decorated with a long white runner down the centers and gray candles of all different sizes scattered across them.
One thing I will miss if it ever comes to firing Gretta will definitely be her decorating skills. She always knows how to sprinkle class around the kitchen and at events, which is probably why she’s been spending so much time at design school. The girl is talented, perhaps too talented for what I’ve been paying her.
Faye takes a seat on the bench opposite me, looking more businesslike than the last time she stopped by. She’s dressed in a crisp navy dress suit, and her hair is pulled up in a half ponytail.
“So, just as you guessed, I love your kitchen—the food, the ambiance. Even the location screams something I’d put on Five-Star Faye.”
For some reason, I feel like rejection is in my future, which makes no sense. Why would she come all the way here to let me down? According to Faye, she didn’t do that.
“But?” I ask.
She smiles. “But we decided on our lineup for next season, and Edible Desire didn’t make the cut.”
My heart sinks, and I’m surprised by my own disappointment. It’s not like I need Faye’s show. The kitchen does well on its own with zero advertisement, but I’ve started getting excited about all the potential growth a little extra money could give me.
Growth. It’s something that has been in the back of my mind since Zach and I opened the place. The initial idea was completely his, but the moment he handed me the reins, I wanted more. I still want more. Edible Desire can be so much beyond just a cooking school. I have more than enough recipes to open a restaurant and a full-scale catering business rather than the one-man-show catering services I offer now. We could even have a bakery department and open up a food truck at the public street market around the corner. But above all things, I want to hire more staff to keep the kitchen running without me working ninety-plus hours a week.
After meeting Faye, I started to believe all of the above could actually come true.
“That’s why you’re here? To break the bad news?”
Faye chuckles again. “No, Desmond. I’m not that cruel. After discussing some ideas with the network, the conclusion was that Five-Star Faye should stick to reviewing restaurants, not cooking schools. It just didn’t fit the show.”
Great.
“But,” Faye starts up again, “my pitch for Edible Desire gave us all a new idea for a different type of show. A spin-off of Five-Star Faye, if you will. One that embraces the challenges of running a successful business like yours. Farm-to-table is all the rage nowadays, and you execute that brilliantly here. You teaching your students how to cook from scratch is identifiable, which is exactly what our average viewer wants to tune in to see.
“Not only that, but you’re in a prime location, and the charities you support deserve recognition too. After the network and I talked, our ideas were endless, and we couldn’t see you slotted into one thirty-minute show,