My only choice was to return to life. To return to my routine and keep living, knowing that now, at least, I'd be left alone. The hatred would simmer, the fans would calm down, and I could go back to somewhat normal.

Zane Rose was gone, and because of that, my reputation gradually returned to its pristine condition.

His name was still on some tongues; some still came at me with the same critiques he had. But their words didn't hold the same venom, they didn't affect me as much as when they'd come from Zane.

Some days, I brushed off the thought of him with a smile, knowing that in the end, I'd won. It wasn't a competition, it wasn't a game, but he'd twisted it that way, and ultimately, he'd run off, and I hadn't. I'd won.

But then I thought of all the hard work he'd put in to get here. On the days I couldn't get him off my mind, I researched him. I read about him, his background, his life leading up to this year.

Zane Rose was more or less an orphan. His parents had died when he was young, and he'd grown up in Italy, until he was fifteen and taken in by a distant relative in California. Some articles mentioned his impeccable American accent, never showing a single hint of his Italian, though he did speak the language fluently.

Strangely, knowing he was from Europe, from a country next-door to mine, brought me spiritually closer to him, even though I had no idea where he was.

About three weeks after Zane was nearly declared officially disappeared, I got a call from Luca. His voice was somber, not his normal bubbly timbre.

"I heard from him. From, uh, Zane Rose."

I'd been in the middle of chopping vegetables, and set my knife down promptly before I sliced off my own finger. "You what?"

"Well, okay, not from him directly, but from his...new agent."

"New agent?" I gawked at the bright red tomato I'd been planning on sneaking into my salad—something I wouldn't tell anyone until I'd convinced myself I could eat it. "Since when?"

"It's recent. They're going to do a press release soon to assure everyone Zane is alive and well. Well...alive, at least. He's taking some time to himself after the whirlwind of the past few months. Fame, uh...got to his head, they said." Luca sipped on something. "They contacted me in advance, since you and Zane have a...uh...weird history."

Weird history, cute. Luca didn't know the depth of it, thankfully. Though Grace and Archie knew of the first time we'd slept together, and the rest of the world might have remembered when Zane not so gracefully wrote about our second time, but no one except for Elliot and Nita knew about the third. The food-fight kitchen sex, I liked to call it in my head.

"They wanted me to let you know." Luca gulped.

"Let me know...what?" I gulped, too.

"That Zane is okay, that things will go smoothly from here on. Or something like that." He coughed. "This agent was...uh...a bit awkward over the phone, but promised me there'd be no more issues with Zane."

I gripped the edge of the counter. "Oh...then...cool, I guess?"

The call ended, and I resumed cutting my vegetables, and I ate a salad with tomatoes in it and didn't gag.

***

A few days after that, I got news that my Rose Rouge was up for some kind of award. In my excitement I rushed to the restaurant to share the information with my staff.

Their reaction was to whip up a huge meal for me and every patron in the place, free of charge. Nita sent staff to go buy expensive bottles of champagne, and I called Elliot to come join us for an impromptu celebration. I begged them not to bring Grace. The two of them had taken things further now, in a mostly exclusive dating situation, and I still didn't approve. Grace was evil.

We sat at the biggest table in the venue, splurging on champagne, eating from the exquisite cheese and charcuterie board Nita had put together in minutes—with all my favorites.

As I lifted my second glass of champagne, preparing to toast the amazing staff who deserved the nomination more than I did, someone tapped on my shoulder. The entire table went deathly quiet, Nita stopping with her cup's rim on her mouth, and Elliot's jaw dropping as they gawked at me from across the way.

My heart crashed in my chest as I put down my glass and slowly turned around.

My jaw dropped, too.

"Hey," said Zane, stuffing one hand in his jeans' pocket, the other ruffling through his longer than normal dark hair. He wore an untucked, navy blue button-up, and a few buttons undone at the top. No scruff on his face; he was clean-shaven, for once, but that didn't make him any less appealing.

"Uh, hi," I said, getting up from my chair, unsure what to do with my hands, my legs, myself.

The last time I'd seen him, we were naked and fucking on my kitchen floor. Then he'd gone rogue, and he'd gotten a new agent and was basically cleansing his life of bullshit.

I thought I was part of that bullshit, so why was he there?

"I'm sorry to interrupt," he said, sighting my friends, my staff as they all gaped at him. "Didn't realize you had a party going on."

"Oh, this?" I flipped and gestured at them all to resume whatever they were doing and stop staring. "Just an award nomination thing, no big deal."

Zane's eyebrows lurched up. "An award? Nice."

"Yeah." I squinted at him. "So...uh...what's up?" I cringed, immediately regretting my attempt at sounding chill about everything.

"Do you have a few minutes?" He licked his lower lip and winced. "Can we talk?"

I knew the dangers of talking with him. Things ended in naked arguments rolling around in sheets. But there were no sheets here, and way too many people to go fuck in the kitchen. My office upstairs was the best place to be alone, and it was far from comfortable enough to...do anything.

"Sure." I motioned for him to follow me up the crooked stairs that led to my tiny office.

Inside, he took a whiff of the stuffy scent and smiled as he sat in the chair across from mine. "This is weirdly enough exactly where I pictured you working. Some cramped office with ominous books in rickety bookshelves and a desk cluttered by paperwork."

I snickered down at my mess and covered my eyes with my hands. "I'm more organized in my kitchen, I swear."

"I know," he chuckled, "I saw it."

I flushed at the tiny nudge towards that night—the food on the walls, the floor, dripping from the counter, dripping from us. I hoped he hadn't taken me aside for that; to discuss that night, to rehash all our mistakes, to apologize for making me climax too many times.

In reality, I didn't know what I hoped he'd come for. But he looked good, relaxed, no angry lines across his forehead, no pinched lips that inferred his annoyance with me. No luster of desire in his eyes, no hunger for tearing me down and rocking my world.

Sitting near him was...different. No glowering, no hurling insults. The heat that usually spread between us when we were close was there, but milder. A gentle warmth instead of an insufferable lava that scorched through me.

We'd slept together three times now, with no resolution. No explanation. No conclusion. Twice we'd walked away from one another without even a word, and there we sat, isolated from the party, silently waiting for the other to start talking.

Zane cleared his throat. "I have so much to apologize for."

I twisted in my seat to better see him; not to scrutinize him and demand that apology, but to watch him, to get to know him, this new him who didn't burn me with every look, every word.

"I realize sitting here and saying it won't be enough, but it's a start."

I cocked my head. "What's going on? What happened? I don't know you, but I never thought you'd...run off? Hide? I was so confused. The world was confused."

He rubbed his chin. "It's...not that unusual, actually. Not out of character for me to...run and hide. But this situation...there's a lot more to it than I ever let on."

I signaled for him to keep going; I wouldn't interrupt. Out of curiosity, but also because I thought I deserved an explanation, and I wouldn't stop him from giving it.

"The thing is...I'd been working on a book deal for a while, you see. Before you and I met. My former agent...he found me, and though I told him I wanted to stick to the indie publishing venues, he insisted he had all kinds of resources to get me traditionally published, but make it seem indie. He needed me to write some outrageous stuff, and he'd take care of the rest.

"I didn't have anything outrageous." Zane swallowed, peering into his lap. "Until you and your team walked into my restaurant that night. He was there," he frowned, "my agent. And after you left, after your producer approached me and discussed the show, Isaac—the former agent—was thrilled. Like, over the moon. Go after her, go party where she's partying. Hook up with her, get to know her, collect more shit on her for the book."

My eyes rounded, then narrowed. "Wow, you forgot to mention how much of a prick Isaac was."

Zane scoffed. "Oh, there's more." He shifted in his chair. "I reminded him my book was supposed to be about my life and getting into cooking as therapy, but he wanted to go in another direction. He wanted something scandalous, more raunchy material." He paused, taking a deep breath. "So when your producers were interested in me, and Isaac got involved..."

"Wait." I gritted my teeth. "My producers met Isaac? They knew him and everything he wanted for your book?"

Zane shrugged. "I guess. More or less? I wasn't there for those meetings. Big red flag, right?"

I wrapped my hands around the arm-rests, so tight I couldn't feel my fingers. Fucking Grace. Fucking Archie. Of course they were the instruments in all this, the ones who'd cornered me into this awful position of being berated by another chef and the whole story being misconstrued and turned around. Of fucking course.

"Anyway, I never meant for us to sleep together, that first night. But in my rage towards Isaac, I drank too much. I...saw you, on that stool, I remembered seeing you at the restaurant, I remembered...and, well, my libido took over. And the more you showed disgust towards me, the more I wanted to know if there was maybe some lust under all that."

I groaned. "There was, goddammit." I tipped backward and glared up at the ceiling. "I remembered you from the restaurant, from when you'd yelled at me. And I was so strangely turned on by it all..." I readjusted myself, and sucked my lips in as Zane fidgeted in his seat. "Sorry, I'm taking over your story. Continue."

"I didn't mean for the sex, but of course, it drove Isaac wild when he found out. He was..." Zane hissed. "Violent. He thirsted for drama."

Remind you of anyone, Béa?

Fucking Grace. Fucking Archie.

"I was so green, Béatrice. Isaac...he owned me. I'd sold my soul to him, basically, and I didn't know anyone who could help me get out of all the bullshit contracts I'd signed with him. He owned my book rights, my restaurant...he put in more money to keep it open when I couldn't afford payments. He was...he is the devil."

A different light shone over Zane at that moment. No longer red and dangerous, but a soft blue, a sad blue. He was...well, shit, Zane wasn't a bad guy at all. He was manipulated. He walked into the wrong room and signed with the wrong guy, and fuck, I understood that so well, he had no idea.

"Isaac was mentally abusing me. Abusing me into abusing you...for money. For fame. To topple your empire would be monumental, he kept saying." His fists bunched in his lap. "He had all my money. Every penny I'd invested was his. And if I didn't release the book he wanted, I'd be destitute. He'd take all my ideas and give them to someone else who'd destroy you instead."

I couldn't stop myself from reaching out and taking one of his hands, easing it out of a tightened fist. "Zane." I squeezed, his warmth shocking to the touch.

"I truly never meant for things to go this far. I was...a character. A caricature. The angry chef who held some dumb grudge against you for no reason at all. That peace treaty?" He sighed, his entire being seeming to deflate in the chair. "I wanted it, so bad. I was so, so tired of pretending to hate you, of playing by Isaac's rules. But of course, he orchestrated the whole thing—he wanted more material for another book to write."

"Isaac...what's his last name?" I pursed my lips. "Because he seems to have some personal grudge against me, with how he's been forcing your hand against me in particular."

"Miller, but to be honest, I don't even know if Isaac is his real first name. My new agent—a real agent—looked into things and said this Isaac dude was an absolute scam artist and pulled off shit stuff like that to other chefs in the past. No one knows where he is now." Zane scrubbed his face. "And it's my fault. I should have questioned his interest. It was...too weird. Too soon."

"Zane," I cautioned, worried he was about to start doubting himself.

"No, for real. I was a nobody, Béatrice, and this guy shows up out of nowhere with all kinds of contracts and ideas? It's fishy as fuck and I'm an idiot for not catching it." He puffed his cheeks with air and blew it all out; I smelled mint and cinnamon on his breath and it tingled my insides. "But what he offered...I couldn't refuse. I was weeks away from losing my restaurant, my apartment...I'd have been on the streets. My friends...none of them knew of my failures, and my family is gone, so...I had no choice." He glanced at me, eyes sharp, mouth in a straight line. "I thought I had no choice."

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