"Ha, so youhaveseen it."
"Of course I have, everyone has seenDirty Dancing," Theo says. "Listen, just please, for once in your life, resist flirting with anything that moves. In other words, don't act like yourself."
"You make it sound like I don't have standards," I protest.
"I should go," he says, and I can hear him moving around his kitchen, a cabinet opening and closing. "I'm making a mushroom risotto tonight and I want it ready before Emma gets home from work. Parent-teacher conferences today, so she's probably had a long one."
I smile at that. Theo's love language has always been cooking for the people he loves, making sure they're taken care of,showing up in all the ways that actually matter. And no one gets more of that than Emma and his daughters.
"Go, go. Make your risotto. Tell Emma and the kiddos I said hi. I'll let you know how it goes."
"Alright. And Alex?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't be an idiot and hit on his daughter."
"Sorry, Theo, you're breaking up!" I say, pulling the phone away from my ear. "Can't hear you! Bad signal out here in wine country!"
"Alex, I swear to?—"
I hang up laughing, set the phone on the arm of the chair, and finish my wine while the first stars come out over the valley. Theo's right, of course. He's always right. That's the annoying thing about older brothers who have their lives together.
Jean-Pierre's warning echoes in my head.I expect that someone I am doing business with does not in any way pursue her.
But rules have always felt more like suggestions to me, especially when something interesting is on the other side of them. And Isabelle Beaumont, with her rapid-fire French cursing and her impeccable walk-in organization, and her menu that made me genuinely jealous I had not thought of it first, is very interesting indeed.
And Jean-Pierre is not here. He is back in New York doing whatever it is multi-millionaire restaurateurs do with their evenings. And Iamhere, in wine country, with the weeks stretching out ahead of me and his very intriguing daughter right next door.
CHAPTER 4
Isabelle
I set my notebook on the center island and wait for the room to settle. My team is assembled at their stations: eight cooks of varying experience levels, all borrowed from Solstice's regular kitchen staff and promised back unharmed at the end of the pop-up.
They're watching me with expressions ranging from curious to skeptical to carefully neutral, the way kitchen staff always watch a new chef on day one. Sizing me up. Deciding if I'm worth following or just another entitled brat with a famous last name who'll flame out by week two.
I know exactly what they see. Jean-Pierre Beaumont's daughter, twenty-six years old, Le Cordon Bleu trained, here to play restaurant in wine country before going back to daddy's empire in New York. Another nepo baby with a knife kit she's never properly broken in and a fragrance collection that costs more than their rent.
I've seen that look my entire career, in every kitchen I've ever walked into. It doesn't bother me anymore. I stoppedcaring about their assumptions somewhere around year three of culinary school, when I realized I could either waste energy trying to convince people I was serious or I could just show them with my food. And my food has never let me down.
What bothers me is the man leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, watching me like this is dinner theater and he's got front row seats to opening night.
Alex Midnight. My father's spy. The babysitter I didn't ask for and absolutely do not need.
He's wearing a fitted gray t-shirt that does genuinely unreasonable things to his shoulders, forearms tan and distractingly well-defined in a way that suggests he spends time doing things outdoors. There's an ease to the way he holds himself that I find deeply irritating, the kind of comfort in his own skin that makes my own rigid posture feel like a character flaw I should be working on in therapy.
He catches me looking and gives me a little wave, fingers wiggling, the corner of his mouth quirking up in that infuriating way he has.
I look away immediately and flip open my notebook, pretending to review notes I have memorized. When I glance back at my team, I catch Sofia near the pastry station sneaking a look toward the doorframe where Alex is still standing, and she's not the only one. Lucy is also looking, trying to be subtle about it and failing completely.
Wonderful. My first day running this kitchen and half my staff is more interested in my father's oversight project than in the menu I've spent three months developing. This is exactly what I need. I clear my throat with more force than necessary.
"We have a sold-out house every single night of the pop-up." I tap my pen against the notebook, scanning the room until I have everyone's full attention. "Industry insiders, food critics, people who flew in from New York and Los Angeles specifically to stay at Solstice Estates and eat the food we’re going to create.Which means we are performing at the highest level from night one."
I move around the island to where I've laid out the tasting menu, each course photographed and annotated in plastic sleeves. I spent three hours on these last week, and looking at them now I feel the familiar calm that comes from knowing exactly what needs to happen and when. My father taught me that meticulous preparation is what separates the good from the great.
I lay out the photographs across the center island so everyone can see the plating. "This is a seven-course tasting menu, and I expect every single plate that leaves this kitchen to look exactly like these photographs."