Fifty thousand dollars. One night. Your sister's future.
The thing is, I really never held onto my V-card as some moral high ground. It wasn't a purity ring situation or a "waiting for marriage" deal. It was more like... imagine trying to schedule a dental cleaning when you're working three jobs and raising a child.
Sex just kept getting bumped down the priority list. Somewhere between "learn to meditate" and "organize the junk drawer."
But there's a difference between losing it to some fumbling Tinder date who thinks foreplay is optional and... this.
Is my pride really worth more than Elsie's wellbeing?
The question circles endlessly. But now survival demands I tear down everything I've protected.
One night. That's all.
One night, and Elsie hears your voice for the first time and for the rest of her life.
The door of our apartment swings open before I can reach for my keys.
Elsie's face glows with joy so pure it stops my heart mid-beat. Her hands fly through the air, signs tumbling over each other in her excitement.
"I made dinner! Well, I tried to make dinner. But I followed the recipe you taught me, and I think the sauce actually tastes good this time."
I force my lips into a smile, signing, "It smells amazing, little bird."
"Come see, come see!" She grabs my wrist, dragging me toward our tiny kitchen with the enthusiasm of a child half her age.
The table is set with our mismatched plates, a candle flickering in the center—one of the cheap vanilla ones from the dollar store. She's arranged cloth napkins I didn't know we owned, folded into imperfect triangles that make my eyes sting.
Over concrete pasta, she launches into a dissertation about her upcoming surgery, hands flying.
"Okay, so first Dr. Reeves showed me these diagrams of how the implant works. It's wild, Rae. Like, actual technology that goes inside your head and translates sound waves into electrical signals. I felt like I was in a sci-fi movie."
"And you understood it all?"
"Mostly. He kept using big medical words, but I made him explain them in normal language." She grins. "He said I might cry when I hear your voice for the first time. Is that weird?"
I can't breathe. I can't think.
I can't do anything but stare at my sister's hopeful face while my heart shatters into pieces too small to ever reassemble.
"No," I choke out, switching to my voice because my hands won't cooperate. "That's not weird at all."
She can't hear me, but she reads my lips and beams anyway.
"I'm so excited, can't stop thinking about all the things I'll finally get to experience." She reaches across the table with one hand and squeezes mine. "Thank you for making this possible."
I squeeze her hand back, blinking against the tears I refuse to let fall.
"You are my baby sister," I sign when I trust myself to move again. "I would do anything for you."
"I know," she signs back. "That's what scares me sometimes."
Smart kid. Too smart.
After Elsie goes to bed later, I sit in the dark with my phone, cursor blinking in the empty message field like it's mocking me.
Just do it. Like ripping off a band-aid. If the band-aid was your soul. Elsie needs this.
I close my eyes and type.
Me: I accept your terms.
The response comes within seconds.
Armand Beaumont: I knew you would. I'll send details tomorrow. Sleep well, Ms. Delacroix. You'll need your rest.
***
The next day at Lumière, I'm operating on approximately two brain cells, and they're both screaming.
I've fucked up everything I've touched. And I swear to God, Adrian's smirking at me like he knows something, but I'm too destroyed to care.
Every time I see Maxwell, Jared, or Kobe, my brain helpfully supplies detailed fantasies of what I'd always imagined—soft touches and desperate kisses.
Instead, I'm going to give it to a man who makes my skin crawl.
"WHO THE FUCK RUINED FORTY POUNDS OF DOVER SOLE?"
Maxwell's voice cuts through the kitchen like a chainsaw through butter. Everyone freezes mid-motion, knives suspended, flames forgotten.
"These were for tomorrow's Police Benevolent Association dinner. FORTY. FUCKING. POUNDS. Overseasoned to the point of garbage!"
His grey eyes scan the line like a predator seeking prey and my stomach drops to my shoes.
Before I can speak, Adrian's voice rings out, helpful as a knife in the back. "Delacroix was in charge of the sole prep and the mother sauces today, Chef."
That. Fucking. Bastard.
Maxwell's gaze snaps to me, and I've never seen him this nuclear. Not when Jordan dropped a full hotel pan of demi-glace. Not when the new intern set a towel on fire.
This is pure, refined fury.
"Do you have any fucking idea what you've done?" His voice is deadly quiet, which is worse than screaming. "Dinner is tomorrow. Two hundred guests. The fucking mayor. Critics who would rip each other’s throats for the chance to write that we served shit."
"Chef, I—"
"Shut up."
He steps closer, and even drowning in panic, some demented part of my brain notes how magnificent he looks in his rage. Jaw clenched so tight it could cut glass, those grey eyes practically molten silver, forearms corded with tension as he grips the desk.
"You've destroyed ten hours of prep.” Each word is precise, lethal. “You're staying all night if necessary to fix it. And if you fuck up one more thing, you're done. Not just here—everywhere that matters."
Why is that hot? What is wrong with me?
"Yes, Chef."
"Get out of my sight."
So I did for the rest of the day and by midnight, the kitchen was empty except for two of us.
Maxwell's been pretending to do inventory, but his eyes have been on me for the last hour. Burning holes through my chef's coat, tracking the movement of my hands, lingering on the exposed skin of my neck when I bend over the reduction.
I'm on my fourth attempt at the bechamel—finally smooth as silk—when I hear him approach. The hair on my neck stands up before he even speaks.
"Your technique is wrong." His voice is different. Lower. Rougher.
"I'm stirring clockwise, like you taught me."
"No." He's behind me now, so close I can feel the heat radiating from his body. "You're not."
"Show me then." The words come out breathless, and I want to die.
He moves closer, and suddenly he's everywhere. His chest brushes my back, solid and warm. His cologne mixes with the smell of butter and wine and testosterone.
"Your wrist." His hand covers mine on the whisk, fingers sliding between mine to adjust my grip, and I literally stop breathing. "You're too tense."
I'm tense because you're pressed against me and I can feel every ridge of muscle through your chef's coat.
"Like this?" My voice comes out embarrassingly breathy.
"No." His other hand comes to my waist, adjusting my stance, and I nearly collapse. "Your whole body is wrong. Relax."
Relax? You're essentially wrapped around me and you want me to RELAX?
His thumb strokes the inside of my wrist as he guides my hand in slow, deliberate circles. His breath disturbs my hair, lips so close to my ear I can feel the heat.
"Better," he murmurs, and the word vibrates through me. "Keep going. Slow. Steady. Don't stop."
We're not talking about sauce.
We're definitely not talking about sauce.
His hand stays over mine, controlling the rhythm, while his body cages me against the counter. I can feel his heartbeat against my spine, fast and hard, completely at odds with his controlled voice.
For one impossible moment, I think he's going to turn me around. Pin me against the counter. Show me exactly what two years of tension feels like when it finally breaks.
Then he steps back so abruptly I almost stumble.
"Continue on your own." His voice is wrecked, like he's been gargling gravel. "I need to… inventory. The walk-in."
He disappears, and I stand there stirring sauce while my body burns from phantom touches, trying to remember how to be a functional human.
I finish everything in record time, driven by nervous energy and arousal that makes me stupid. When I step outside for air—and definitely not a cigarette—he follows.
"Those will kill you."
He's leaning against the brick wall, sleeves rolled up, looking like everything I can't have.
"Lots of things might kill me these days."
"What's going on, Raegan?" My first name. He never uses my first name. "You're better than most of the chefs in this city. You don't make mistakes like this."
Tell him. Tell him everything.
"Money stuff," I say instead. "Family stuff. The kind that requires more than I have."
He watches me for a long moment, those grey eyes seeing everything I'm not saying.
"Whatever you're thinking about doing," he says quietly, stepping closer, "make sure it's worth it."
I can't. But I don't have a choice.
"And stop smoking." His voice shifts back to normal Maxwell. "It fucks with your palate."
I smile despite everything, because underneath all that intensity and those walls, he gives a damn. Which makes everything worse. Because after tomorrow, after Armand, I'll never be clean enough for someone like Maxwell.
"Yes, Chef."