Playing with Piper (Menage MfM Romance Novel) (Playing for Love Book 3) (26 page)

T
he next day
, the three of us are on tenterhooks. Every time someone walks into the restaurant, we brace ourselves, thinking they’re from the Health Department. But the hours tick by, and an inspector doesn’t appear.

The format of the final is different from the prior rounds. The good news is that there’s no public vote. The bad news? The final round is about being able to cook under pressure. In forty-five minutes, the kitchen must make as many dishes as they can from their menu, and they’ll be judged for speed as well as taste.  

I’ve eaten at the two restaurants that are Piper’s competitors today.
Katsura
is a Japanese restaurant that has one of the best tasting menus in the city, and
Cava
is an eatery with Spanish and Central American influences. At both places, the chefs are top-notch, and they genuinely care about their food. Win or lose, Piper is in very good company.

The cameras have been set up in the kitchen and on the restaurant floor. Josef, Kevin, and Salim are doing some last minute prep. Piper walks back and forth, her nerves impossible to conceal. I’m not worried. The moment the cooking starts, she’ll snap into the zone.

The front door opens. I look up, thinking it’s one of the judges, here to start the countdown. Instead, Piper’s parents enter.

Both Wyatt and I walk toward them immediately. Wyatt’s face is a mask of anger. “You’re not welcome here,” he says to Piper’s father. “Didn’t you do enough damage last night?”

He flinches, but doesn’t waver. “I want to speak to my daughter.”

Fuck. I’d happily throw the two of them out on the street, but there’s no guarantee that they won’t come back when the cameras are running. As much as I’d like to spare Piper the trauma, I’m helpless. “Stay here.” I glare at them. “I don’t want you anywhere near the kitchen.”

Going to the back, I signal to Piper. “I’m sorry, baby,” I tell her in a low voice when she nears. “Your parents are at the front. They say they want to talk to you.”

I should have known this wasn’t over.

I count to ten to calm myself, and follow Owen out. I’m still angry. Sleep hasn’t lessened my bone-deep rage at the extent to which my parents would go to sabotage me.

“What do you want?” I ask them bluntly as soon as I see them. I note with faint satisfaction that they look terrible this morning. Guilt does not suit my mother’s complexion.

My dad speaks up. “Piper,” he says, looking uncomfortable. “I want to apologize.” He continues hastily, as if he’s afraid I might throw them out at any moment. “We went too far, your mother and I. We were so concerned about your life in New York that we forgot that it is
your
life to live.”

My mother nods in agreement. “I saw Angelina and Janice plan the wedding, and I wanted that for you and me,” she confesses. “I went a little crazy.”

“You salted the gravy when you played hostess, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she confesses. “Before these two,” she says, giving Owen and Wyatt a withering look, “you would have come back home when your restaurant failed. Merritt Grant gave it four or five months. Then you met these men and you started to turn things around. I thought I was going to lose you to New York forever, and I panicked.”

Bile rises in my throat.

My dad takes a step forward. “We were wrong,” he repeats. “We shouldn’t have interfered. I’m sorry, Piper.” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t approve of this relationship of yours.” He glares at Wyatt and Owen.

My voice is hard. “I don’t care whether you approve.”

“I can understand that.” His lips twist into a grimace. “I know we haven’t behaved very well, but you’re still our daughter. I hope you can find your way to forgiving us one day. Good luck tonight, Piper.”

I watch them leave, frozen with shock. Wyatt puts his arm around me. “Are you going to be okay?” he asks, his voice gentle.

“You guessed it was my mother from the start,” I reply quietly. “I didn’t want to believe you.”

His hand rubs my back, up and down, in a soothing, comforting stroke. “I didn’t want to believe me either,” he admits. “I wish I could have spared you the pain.”

Owen’s head swivels toward me. He’s been keeping watch for the judges. “Anita Tucker is walking up the street,” he warns. “She’ll be here in a minute.”

The hurt I feel will take a while to fade, but for now, I have to refocus. I’ve endured one act of sabotage after the other. The best revenge would be to win
Can You Take The Heat?.
And tonight, I intend to give it all I’ve got.

T
hree hours later
, we’re lined up in the boardroom of Yelp’s Manhattan office. In true reality-TV fashion, Maisie’s assembled the friends and family of each chef in the audience. In my corner, I have Owen and Wyatt, Gabby, Dominic, Carter and Noah, Wendy, Daniel, and Sebastian.

“Bailey sends her love from Argentina,” Daniel tells me when I give him a questioning look.

Sebastian grins. “And she told us we had to be here.”

I chuckle. “You know Maisie Hayes is going to gush over you? It isn’t every day we have a two-Michelin star chef in our presence.”

“Will you knock that off?” Sebastian says, aggrieved. “In any case, you appear well on your way to your first star.” He gives Wyatt and Owen a dry look. “Feel free to thank me when that happens, you two.”

Wyatt snorts. “Don’t hold your breath.”

We’re just chatting to ease the strain. The crew is setting up the stage. Each of the chefs will have a long table in front of them, with each dish they made during the forty-five minute time frame. Right now, a couple of guys in black t-shirts are arguing over lighting.
Tell me who won,
I want to scream.
Just get the suspense over with.

Of course, if they did that, they wouldn’t have much of a show. Maisie has some pretty sharp showbiz instincts. I’m willing to bet that in six months, she’s going to have her own show on TV.

“Alright,” Maisie calls out after about ten minutes. “Chef Jackson, Chef Garcia, Chef Nakamura, will you please get in position? We’re ready to get going.”

My heart beats faster.
It’s only a silly contest, Piper,
I tell myself, trying to calm down.
You’re with Wyatt and Owen. You’ve already won.

But I’m lying. I have professional pride, and I definitely want to win.

F
orty minutes later
, I’m ready to hit Maisie on the head with a piece of battered fish. She’s drawing out the tension, building up the suspense, and I’m ready to scream. So far, she’s made each of us introduce ourselves and our dishes. Then the judges have pretended to taste each dish, even though the food is cold by now, and even though they already did their real tasting earlier. “It’s for TV,” the producer explains when we gets restive.

Finally, the judges are ready to make their decision. George Nicolson steps forward. “This was a hard choice,” he says solemnly. “We have to choose between three exceptionally talented chefs today.”

“Chef Nakamura,” he turns to the Japanese man. “Every meal I’ve eaten at
Katsura
has been impeccable. The presentation is beautiful, and the food, superb.”

My heart hammers in my chest. I’m so nervous I can’t breathe.

“Chef Garcia.” Anita Tucker addresses the head chef of
Cava
. “What can I say? Throughout the contest, we’ve come to identify
Cava
with bold, innovative cuisine, and today, you knocked it out of the park.”

My palms are sweaty. I try to wipe them discreetly on my chef’s whites. My knees quake. What are they going to say about me?

“Chef Jackson.” Maisie Hayes smiles at me. “
Piper’s
was our dark horse entry. We knew the other restaurants in the contest, but you came out of nowhere with your modern take on Southern food.”

I’m not sure if Maisie’s praising me or damning me. I paste a fake smile on my face. My stomach churns.

“Three very deserving restaurants,” she says to all of us. “And if we could award three winners, we would. Unfortunately, we’re forced to choose.”

“George, Anita, and I have conferred and we’ve made our choice,” she continues. “Our winner demonstrated, week after week, that they had what it takes to succeed in a very competitive field. They dealt with one obstacle after the other, and they kept going in the face of adversity. And never once did they take their focus off the food.”

I want to throw up.

The lights in the studio dim, and a drum-roll begins to play. A wide smile breaks out on Maisie’s face. “Piper Jackson, you’re the winner! Congratulations!”

The spotlight shines down on me, and confetti rains from the ceiling. I barely notice. I’m looking at Wyatt and Owen. A huge smile breaks out on Wyatt’s face; Owen pumps his fist in the air.

I’m sure there’s something I’m supposed to do right now for the TV show, but I don’t care. I run toward them and throw my arms around them. “You did it,” Wyatt says, and there’s so much pride in his voice that tears prick at my eyelids.

My friends are jumping up and down, cheering. Gabby’s hugging Noah. Daniel and Sebastian high-five each other. Wendy dances a little jig, laughing with happiness. Josef looks shocked while the rest of my team, Kevin, Salim, Gina, Sasha, and Petra, beam with joy. Scenes of celebration are all around me.

I feel a momentary pang that my parents aren’t among the audience, then I dismiss it. They made their choice. I’ve made mine. In time, the rift between the three of us might heal, but their many acts of sabotage are too fresh in my mind.

“You’re wrong,” I tell Wyatt. “
We
did it.”

I
’m still grinning
when I show up the next morning to see my father, Owen and Piper at my side. “Funny,” Owen remarks dryly. “I thought you’d be angrier about this meeting.”

Piper puts her arm around me affectionately. “Leave him be,” she tells Owen, a smile in her voice. “This is a much better reaction than I expected.”

I look down at her. “Well, thanks to you, my little lawbreaker, I hold all the cards. Why shouldn’t I be in a good mood?”

I feel strangely at peace. A huge weight has been lifted off me. My entire life, I’ve been ashamed of my mother’s hoarding. For as long as I can remember, my parents have been a source of tension, not comfort. Today marks an end to that.

Both Piper and Owen have, in their own way, learned to leave their past behind in the last few days. After they tried to destroy her restaurant, Piper’s realized the futility of trying to please her parents, and doesn’t want anything to do with them anymore.

For seventeen years, Owen has kept the wound of his family’s deaths alive. By telling Mendez he never wants to hear from him again, Owen has finally accepted that it’s time to heal.

And I’m ready to tell my dad to fuck off.

As before, my father shows up promptly, a security guard at his side. “Well?” he demands, as soon as he sees me. “Do you have my money?”

My father would make a good poker player. The photos have been stolen; the negatives are gone. He has no leverage on me anymore, but he hides it well. I guess he’s hoping he can bluster his way through this meeting.

I don’t want a long conversation with Jack Lawless. There will be no negotiation.

“No.” I give him a cold look. “The photos are gone, aren’t they? You’ve lost your only weapon.” I stand up. Though I try, I can’t conceal the sadness. “All you had to do was say you were sorry once, and I would have given you everything. All you had to do was take responsibility for abandoning a thirteen year old child, but you didn’t care about me. You never did. It was always about Jack Lawless and nobody else.”  

My father opens his mouth to say something, but I shake my head. I’m done listening. Nothing he can say can change anything. “You don’t have any power over me anymore,” I tell him. “If you show up here, you’ll be asked to leave. You can get drunk and follow me around; I don't care. All your power came from the fact that I gave a damn.” I look down on him. “No more.”

Owen rises to his feet as well. “The security guard will escort you out.”

As I watch Jack Lawless leave, I take a deep breath. Piper and Owen are at my side.

The past doesn’t weigh me down anymore, and the future is bright.