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2
Anna turned out to be a stunning black woman with locs that fell past her shoulders. Her deep red lipstick seemed striking against her identical all white outfit.
She looked me up and down. “It’s you.”
I didn’t pretend to misunderstand her. “It’s me. Can I please speak to Max?”
She leaned on the door. “No, you can’t. Haven’t you done enough to Chef? You aren’t getting anywhere near him.”
I swallowed. “Well, he can’t stay inside all day and all night. I’ll stand here. Right here. Or better yet, I will put myself in the corner over there so that I can watch both the front door and this one. I will live on that corner. Eat there. Sleep there. Go to the bathroom there. Until I can speak to him.”
She lifted her eyebrows with a slight smile. “That’s quite a statement.”
“Well, I’m really quite a person. See if I won’t. Test me.” In that moment, I meant it. I completely and one hundred percent committed to live on the street corner until I got to see Max and make my apology.
“What the fuck is going on here? We have meals to prep for and…” Max’s voice trailed off to a sudden stop as he recognized me and must have realized the problem. He glared at me, and I might have been halved into two separate pieces from the forceful slice of his gaze. That was okay. I’d been hated before. This was the first time I’d earned it, so my guilt made it feel much worse.
Guilt ate at me, it took over my insides, infested my brain. Others might be able to forgive themselves, see their actions as some sort of lesson learned, but that wasn’t me.
“Chef,” the young man who answered the door interrupted. “I can’t find any peaches. The guy I talked to said sorry, he loved the whisky you sent, but they’re held up in customs and we ain’t going to get any peaches today.”
“Fuck me sideways. So much for the cobbler. Fine. We’ll change to something else. Ask Dante to come up with an alternative for the third dessert.”
Well, if they wanted to make cobbler, therewereother options. “Aren’t there other kinds of cobblers? I’ve eaten apple. Blueberry…” I immediately stopped talking. It wasn’t the time or place for me to make suggestions.
Max stepped outside, shooing Anna and the unnamed guy back inside before he closed the door. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here? I thought I made myself very clear. You aren’t welcome.”
I nodded. “Well, I’m not inside.” Okay, I had to stop. I should launch into my apology. “Mr. Broadley, um, Max. Last night I… That is to say that… I am so very sorry about what happened with your restaurant Hayley,and I’d like to apologize and see if there is anything I can do to make it up to you.”
He laughed, which surprised me, but then abruptly stopped. “Oh, you’re not kidding. Are you out of your fucking mind? You can’t make this up to me. Not ever. You destroyed the life of astranger because you could. Because you’re some kind of sick, bored rich girl with nothing better to do. Let me be very clear—you’re not welcome here. The whole world might be in love with you, but I see you as the nothing you are. Stay away from me now and always. In case you’re wondering, this whole space, I don’t want to see you in it. Ever.”
Max’s gesture barred me from the whole street. I shook my head. “I’m not trying to stalk you. I just needed to come and say I was sorry. I don’t know how to make you believe me, but I truly am sorry.” I stepped back. “I’ll leave you alone now. Good luck.”
I turned my back and walked away, but I felt his eyes bore into me the whole way back to my car.
Theo raised a fatherly eyebrow from where he stood at the end of the street, but he didn’t interfere. “Get what you needed?”
No, but that was an impossibility in this case. Max Broadley was the first man to stir an awakening inside of me in five years. Those gray eyes… How could anyone have such an intense gaze? He hated me, and I couldn’t blame him.
But that was such a Hope thing to do—want what I couldn’t have.
Inside the car, I pulled up the privacy divider between Theo, Luke, and myself. Calling in favors from family in the State Department was best done alone. If, on some nebulous future date, anyone ever testified about my actions, they could say they didn’t know.
Although if they wanted to make a federal case out of what I was going to ask for, then it was a slow day in American justice. Not to mention, Darrel, whom I was about to call, could always say no.
I dialed his number. Years ago, when I’d needed him, he failed me, despite being a cousin of my mother and some of the only members of her family we had left. If he didn’t comethrough now, I would write him off, and so help me, he’d better not try to come to any more parties that I threw, ever.
It rang twice before he answered. “Hope?” His voice was growly, rough, like he’d smoked a million cigarettes over the years. I’d heard him give speeches that commanded the attention of the world and also seen him disappear into the shadows like he wasn’t there.
“Hello, cousin.” I crossed my legs, trying to get more comfortable. “How are you?”
“I’m well, but I doubt this is a social call. I never hear from you anymore, and I can’t say I blame you. So what can I do for you today, cousin?”
I swallowed. “Peaches.”
“What?” He cleared his throat. “Peaches?”
“I realize this might not be what you specifically do, but I want to get a shipment of peaches to a friend of mine who owns a restaurant. He needs them today, and apparently, there is an import problem.”
