"I found a place where nobody knows my name or my knife work."
Maxwell's voice carries a hint of mischief I've never heard before as he guides me through a narrow Brooklyn side street, his hand warm against my lower back.
The tiny Italian restaurant materializes between a laundromat and a bodega, its faded awning declaring "Nonna's" in peeling letters that have seen better decades.
Inside, red-checkered tablecloths cover mismatched tables. Candles drip wax onto empty Chianti bottles. The air smells like garlic and nostalgia and everything the polished perfection of Lumière is not.
"You come here often?" I ask as we settle into a corner booth.
"When I need to remember why I started cooking in the first place." He unfolds his napkin. "Before the Michelin obsession."
"You do scream about sauce consistency. Frequently."
"I'm aware of my flaws, Delacroix." That ghost of a smile appears. "Some of them, anyway."
The pasta arrives in generous portions that would horrify any fine-dining establishment—proper Italian grandmother cooking that fills the stomach and feeds the soul.
We eat in comfortable silence at first, and I try not to think about the calendar date burning a hole in the back of my mind.
"Three days," Maxwell says, reading me with unnerving accuracy. "Until Elsie's surgery."
My fork freezes midway to my mouth. "You remembered the exact date?"
"That's one of the reasons why I asked you out tonight. " He says it matter-of-factly. "You've been tight all week, and I figured you could use a distraction."
The observation lands somewhere between flattering and terrifying. This man notices too much.
"I keep running the scenarios in my head," I admit. "What if something goes wrong? What if her body rejects the implant? What if she finally hears and the world disappoints her?"
"The world will disappoint her eventually. That's what worlds do." His grey eyes hold mine across the candlelight. "But she'll have you to help her navigate the disappointment. That's more than most people get."
The simple truth of it loosens something in my chest. I take a long sip of wine and decide to push my luck.
"What made you want to cook?" I ask.
"Hunger, initially. We didn't have much growing up." He takes his own sip, the movement controlled. "Then control. The kitchen was the only place where what I did actually mattered."
"And now? What keeps you in it?"
"The Michelin star that stays just out of reach no matter how hard I push myself and everyone around me."
"You'll get it," I say. "The way you run that kitchen—it's only a matter of time."
"What about you?" He leans back, studying me. "What's your endgame?"
"I want my own restaurant," I admit. "Something small and intimate."
"Then we'll be rivals someday."
"Maybe." I grin. "I'll try not to steal too many of your customers."
"You'll steal all of them." His voice drops, rough with pride. "You have instincts that can't be taught."
The compliment wraps around me. From Maxwell, praise is rarer than perfectly tempered chocolate.
"Someone saw that in you once, didn't they?" I push gently. "Someone who shaped the chef you became."
His fingers tighten around his wine glass. "Where's this coming from?"
"You talk about precision like it's religion. Someone taught you that devotion." I lean forward, holding his gaze. "Who was it?"
The silence stretches. I watch him calculate how much to reveal, watch the walls go up and waver and finally crack just slightly at the edges.
"Chef Laurent." He says finally. "My mentor. The man who pulled me out of a dishwashing pit when I was seventeen."
"I've heard his name. Legendary reputation."
"He was everything I wanted to become. Three Michelin stars at his peak. The kind of career other chefs worship from a distance."
"What happened to him?"
Maxwell stares at the candle flame, and I give him the silence he needs.
"He lost his third star during a review that destroyed him. Then his second. The world he'd conquered forgot his name." His grey eyes meet mine, raw in a way I've never witnessed. "He hung himself in his own kitchen. I found the body when I came in early for prep."
Horror crystallizes in my chest. The image seizes my lungs until breathing requires conscious effort.
"Maxwell, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed—"
"No. You should know."
He reaches across the table, his fingers finding mine.
"It explains things about me that I can't otherwise articulate. I'm terrified that I will drive people away. That I'll give everything to this craft the way Laurent did, and end up alone with nothing but regret."
His thumb traces circles on my palm.
"You're the only thing that makes me want something beyond the kitchen, Raegan. The only person who makes me think there might be more to life than the endless pursuit of perfection."
The walk home passes in weighted silence, his arm around my shoulders.
At my floor, the elevator doors barely close before his mouth claims mine. My back hits the hallway wall while his hands explore curves he's memorized but can't stop rediscovering.
Elsie is staying with Scarlett tonight—the apartment is empty, and Maxwell seems to sense it.
His palm drags my dress higher, fingers pressing into the bare skin of my thigh, and I'm about to invite him inside when movement flickers at the edge of my vision.
Kobe stands at the end of the hallway, arms crossed, expression carefully blank. But his eyes burn with jealousy that radiates off him in palpable waves.
"Interesting evening?" he asks, voice deceptively casual.
Maxwell's hand stills on my thigh but doesn't retreat. "What are you doing here, Kobe?"
"Wanted to check on Rae before Elsie's surgery. Didn't realize she'd already found comfort elsewhere."
The accusation hangs in the air, sharp and undeniable.
This is the part nobody warns you about.
I step between them before testosterone poisons what little oxygen remains in this hallway. Both sets of eyes snap to me—grey and amber, possessive and wounded—and I realize with sudden, nauseating clarity that I have no idea what I'm doing.
"This isn't sustainable," I say. "We're deluding ourselves."
"Raegan…" Maxwell starts.
"No, listen to me." I press my palm against his chest, feeling his heartbeat hammer beneath my fingers. "I care about both of you. About Jared too. But I'm not naive enough to think jealousy just disappears because you've agreed to share."
Maxwell's mask cracks slightly. "I never said I was jealous."
"Your face is screaming it loud enough to wake my neighbors." I turn to include Kobe in my frustration. "How is this supposed to work long-term?"
The questions I've been swallowing for weeks finally surface, ugly and necessary.
Can I really love three men equally? Is that even possible, or am I just greedy and terrified of choosing?
"She's not a territory," Maxwell says finally. "I know that. But watching someone else touch her—"
"Cuts," Kobe finishes quietly. "Yeah. I know the feeling."
I look between them, these impossible men who've somehow decided I'm worth the complication, and the weight of what we're attempting settles fully onto my shoulders.
Managing three possessive men is going to be so much harder than I thought.