Page 89 of Turn Up The Heat

“Hi, Mom. Sorry to barge in on you and Daddy like this.” Bellamy’s heart raced, and she hoped her mother couldn’t feel it as she returned her hug.

“Nonsense. You grew up in this house. You can barge in any time you want. Have you eaten dinner yet? Maybe we can talk your dad into ordering pad Thai.” Her mom grinned, moving through the living room toward the kitchen.

Bellamy followed, resisting the urge to start fidgeting again. “Oh, uh, I’m not hungry.” She thought of the tons of food she’d had her hands on in the last eight hours, none of which she’d been hungry for. “I actually came because I need to talk to you guys.”

In all of the strategizing she’d done over the last few hours, cutting right to the chase had seemed to make the most sense. After all, not even her trampled pride could make her a beat-around-the-bush kind of girl.

Her mother stopped short, a few paces away from the kitchen, and turned to stare at Bellamy with round, worried eyes. “What’s the matter?”

“Relax, Mom. I’m fine.” Eh. Mostly fine, but she wasn’t about to get into her ruined love life with her mom.

“You don’t look fine,” her mother protested, drawing her brow in tightly. “Bob!” she called, but Bellamy’s father was already in the kitchen doorway.

“She looks beautiful to me. Hi, baby.” He greeted her with his standard hug-and-kiss combo that could still take the sting out of any bad day. A little bit, anyway. Bellamy let him squeeze her a little extra, just for good measure.

“Hi, Daddy.” She blew out a sigh. Holy shit, this going to be hard.

“She has something to tell us,” her mother warned, her green eyes clouding over with concern as she motioned for Bellamy to sit next to her on the living room couch.

“Oh?” Her father’s glance darkened a shade, his worry matching her mother’s. He came in to sit in a chair next to her mother. “What’s going on, sweetheart? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she insisted, tugging at her gloves and sitting down.

Now or never, girlfriend.

“I, uh. I quit my job.”

Silence flooded through the room, and Bellamy counted a handful of deafening heartbeats before her mother finally responded.

“I don’t understand. Did you find a better position with another bank?”

“No.” Her nice, deep breath barely made it a fraction of the way to her lungs. “I’ve decided to switch careers.”

“You’re leaving real estate?” Her father drew back in his chair, eyes wide.

“I’m leaving business.” Bellamy sucked in all the air she could muster, opting for the blurt-it-out method so she wouldn’t lose her nerve. “I know that you guys have always wanted me to go into business like you, and I tried, I really did. I just don’t love it. I don’t even think Ilikeit, to be honest. Working at the bank drove me crazy. No offense,” she scrambled to add, trying not to trip on her words, “but I was miserable there, so I decided to quit.”

Her mother’s lips parted in shock. “But what will you do?”

The butterflies that had taken up residence in Bellamy’s stomach a few hours ago reminded her again of their presence. “I’m going to train to be a chef.”

“A chef,” her father repeated, sounding certain he’d misunderstood.

Bellamy nodded. “Do you know who Carly di Matisse is?”

“The Italian chef on that show with her husband?” her father asked, blinking.

“Yes. She’s the new head chef at the restaurant in Pine Mountain Resort, and she called today to offer me a chance to work for her as a line cook.”

“Is that why you went to the mountains? To get a job?” Her father creased his brow.

Bellamy gave her head a quick shake. “No, not at all. It just kind of happened really fast.” She proceeded to give them a condensed version of her unorthodox kitchen audition with Adrian and the meeting with Carly that had ensued.

“But you haven’t even gone to culinary school,” her mother said, confused. “Doesn’t that put you at a disadvantage?”

“It sure does. And I’ll probably have to do some formal training at some point in order to really move up in the ranks.” Truth rang in Bellamy’s voice, and it steadied her. “Chef di Matisse made it clear when she offered me the job today that she was taking a flyer on me and if I couldn’t hack it, she’d fire me without a second thought. I’m going to have to do a tremendous amount of work on my own time just to keep up, and the reality is that no matter what I do, I still might get canned. But I want this in a way that I’ve never wanted anything else. So, even if I screw it up, I have to be true to myself and give it a shot.”

A wave of relief washed over Bellamy at the words, but it mingled with the uncertainty on both of her parents’ faces, leaving her uneasy.

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