Page 31 of Sensuous

His anger hits me like a slap to my face, and I shrink back away from him. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I just meant that I’d love to have a kitchen like this in my apartment. Sadie and I barely have a range and a refrigerator. Our landlord doesn’t allow us to change anything in our place without a huge hassle. We wanted to fix up the bathroom because it looked like it was straight out of the nineteen fifties, but he fought us on everything we wanted, so we decided not to change anything more after that.”

He doesn’t reply to my attempt at conversation, and for a long, uncomfortable moment, we stand there in his gorgeous kitchen like two strangers. Well, one stranger feeling awkward and another giving off a look of pure hatred.

“What did you come here for, Kat? I’m a little busy, so if you can cut to the chase, that would be great.”

I know I deserve how difficult he’s being right now, but I can’t stop myself from feeling hurt at how much he clearly isn’t interested in my apology. I just want to make this better, but I keep fucking things up.

So I take a deep breath and look around at the beautiful kitchen Alex has before saying what I came here to say. “I’msorry. I didn’t know you were right behind me at the bar. If I did, I wouldn’t have said what I said.”

His face remains emotionless as I speak, and then he shrugs when I finish. “It’s how you feel. I don’t see why you’re apologizing.”

My defensiveness ratchets up a few notches, but I try to keep it in check. “Because it wasn’t nice and I want to be nice, okay?”

He stares at me, his dark eyes fixed on mine so long that I want to look away, but I don’t. “My cousin calls you a royal bitch. Or was it a bitch on wheels?”

His question hangs in the air like some lead balloon between us. I deserve that. I have been a bitch to him.

“I’m trying to make amends here, Alex.”

“Who asked you to? Did I demand an apology? This is for you, not me. You want people to think you’re a nice person, so you’re here to try to convince me that I shouldn’t think you’re a bitch. Right?”

“I’m sorry that I said those things, and I’m sorry for what I said the other day. I know you won’t understand why I said them, but I am sorry.”

“Why? Because I’ve been handed everything in life? Is that why I wouldn’t understand why you’ve been a bitch to me from the moment we met?”

Afraid tears might begin to well in my eyes, I look down at the hardwood floor. “Can you please stop calling me a bitch? And it wasn’t from the moment we met.”

He takes a step or two toward me and stops so his bare feet are in my line of sight. “Yes, it was. I mentioned to you where I worked when we met at Club X because I found out you worked as a chef and I thought we’d have something in common, and you walked away. Sounds pretty bitchy to me.”

Still unwilling to face him, I explain how he’s wrong. “No, that wasn’t the first time we met. I’m sure you wouldn’t remember, but I do. We met last year in the fall.”

Alex stands in front of me silent, probably trying to remember meeting me, but he can’t. Like at Club X, I got away as fast as I could that night too.

“Kat, I swear I think you’re mistaken. You’re pretty memorable. I think I’d know if I met you before Club X.”

I let out a heavy sigh as I stare at my feet. “It was a Saturday night. My parents were in from New York. We had seven o’clock reservations. My father had the veal, and he said it was the best he’d ever tasted. He loved it so much that he asked to see the chef, and you came out.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember,” he says, and all I hear is pity from him.

“He raved about that meal the whole night and into the next day until they flew out to go back home.”

“Kat, was I rude that night? Is that why you hate me?” Alex quietly asks.

I feel my emotions begin to unravel inside me, but I can’t stop myself from looking up at him now that I’m doing this. Shaking my head, I try to smile at how ridiculous it would be to hate someone for one moment in time over a year ago, but I can’t. I know what it must sound like to hear this tiny interaction bothered me so much, but I can’t help it.

“You were charming and considerate, and I got up from the table and left before you even got two sentences out of your mouth.”

Confusion colors his expression. I guess that’s to be expected since I haven’t told him the most important part of this story.

The part that hurts the most.

“My father is Andrew Truesdale. He’s been the head chef at some of the finest restaurants in New York. I became a chefbecause of him. The happiest days of my childhood weren’t when we went on vacation or swimming with my friends in the pool during the summer. They were when I got to go to the restaurant and see my father work. He didn’t let me often, but I loved it. The minute I walked into a kitchen when I was a little girl, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be like my father.”

Alex’s eyes light up with recognition. “Andrew Truesdale? I had a teacher in culinary school who used to talk about him. He’s famous in our business. But I don’t remember meeting him.”

“My father never tells anyone who he is when he asks to see a chef. He says someone did that to him when he was new in the business and it intimidated him for months, so he wouldn’t want to do that to anyone else. He thought you were the best chef he’d come across in years.”

I stop for a moment before admitting what bothers me the most. “The problem is he’s never said anything like that to me.”

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