Page 38 of Broken Daddy

“People stopping you on the street.”

For some reason, my body goes cold, and then very hot.

The room tilts oddly. I brace myself for—what?

“Not really. Here and there, a few times a year, maybe. It didn’t start happening until magazines wanted to profile me.”

“I’m sure the Michelin star helped.”

He offers me a lazy smile and I exhale, realizing just how tense I was for a moment there.

But why?

Will,the little voice in my head whispers.He never liked it when you got attention.

I go back to sipping my latte in silence, mind elsewhere as I remember what it was like with my jealous ex.

He was the brains of the operation, once I spilled my dream to him. Will was the one who made it all happen. He found the investors, interviewed and hired staff, and set up relationships with vendors.

Me?

Well, I cooked.

And I found the restaurant itself. That was an important part, one we argued about. Will didn’t like the old bank I wanted to turn into my dream restaurant, but it was the only thing I really pushed for. Hard enough that it almost broke us up.

Would’ve saved me a lot of trouble if it had ended then.

I sneak a glance at Nate as he flips through a real estate journal, making faces at the obscene prices of penthouse apartments and park-adjacent townhouses. It eases the rest of the tension from my body to see him so relaxed.

“You don’t think it’s weird?” I ask impulsively.

Nate looks up. “Think what’s weird?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Russ didn’t really believe it when my name started getting passed around. I think he thought I was just…so young.”

A blush colors my cheeks. I don’t want to sound vain, and I’m really not. It’s just something I’ve always been self-conscious of.

Nate looks at me long and intently, his green eyes like forests. He doesn’t realize it, but several women in the café have already done double takes when he caught their eye.

“No. It’s not strange. You’re talented; age has nothing to do with that.”

He says it so easily, I actually feel the sting of tears and press my lips together tightly to fight it. The last thing I want is to embarrass myself by crying in front of him, especially over something like this.

It would sound ridiculous, whining that I’m a recognizable, top-tier chef.

“Did Russ really give you that hard of a time about it?” He sounds genuinely curious, and I smile over the top of my cup.

“Not as much as my ex. I thinkhefound it even harder to believe. I found the perfect building for the restaurant, and he was convinced it wouldn’t get any traffic. But I knew it would if I attracted attention. And I knew my food would attract attention.”

Nate listens intently, the journal forgotten on the table. Eva has returned and climbed up into a chair next to her dad, but the exhaustion of the day seems to have set in. She leans against him, eyes half-closed.

“Your ex. At the gala, your brother mentioned that—sorry if this is private. But that you ended a relationship recently.”

I tip my head, considering. “You could say that. It wasn’ttoorecently. A few years. I was engaged, and…” What’s the best way to put it? “I think my ex was always a little intimidated by me. He was used to being the breadwinner.”

Nate’s brows rise. “That’s not surprising. I’ve run across a lot of men like that.”

“Mmm…but you don’t consider yourself one of them?” I can’t help teasing him a little, and that smile comes back.

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