Chapter 1
"Josie... I can't marry you."
The second round of lamb was already leaving the kitchen.
I'd been up since four that morning to make it.
It was my wedding.
And the most expensive meal I'd ever cooked.
Eighty-nine platters were still waiting to go out.
While my fiancé—
stood in front of three hundred guests...
and chose someone else.
I didn't cry.
A chef carrying a full platter through swinging kitchen doors doesn't get to spill.
My mother could carry three at once.
Nineteen years she worked in this house.
Never dropped a single plate.
The ballroom smelled of lilies and champagne.
All I could smell...
was the lamb.
Preston was still talking.
But before he even finished his sentence, his eyes had already drifted past me.
Toward the back of the room.
Bree Lockhart had arrived.
She was the face of the brand.
The woman smiling from every spring catalog cover, cradling a Dutch oven she'd probably never cooked with.
The tagline beneath her picture read:
From our family's kitchen to yours.
The food inside that pot?
I'd made it.
"The brand needs a face, Josie."
Preston's voice was soft.
Almost gentle.
"No one remembers the person who cooks."
"They remember the face."
He paused.
"You've always been the reasonable one."
"So you'll understand."
"You belong in the kitchen."
"Not beside me."
Someone laughed.
Quietly.
Somewhere behind my left shoulder.
Then another.
Phones started coming up.
One.
Two.
Someone in the third row was already recording.
I knew every one of them.
Corinne's younger brother would go into anaphylactic shock if a single pine nut touched his plate, so I'd baked his bread separately for ten years.
I knew exactly who insisted on medium-rare steak...
then lied to his cardiologist every annual checkup.
Christmas dinners.
Christenings.
Two funerals.
For the past decade, nearly everything they'd ever put into their mouths...
had come from my hands.
Now they were watching me through their phone screens.
Not angry.
Not even curious.
Just wearing that look I knew all too well.
The look every cook recognizes...
when a dish comes back untouched from the dining room.
Nobody says a word.
They simply wait for someone...
to carry it away.
I lifted my hand and slipped off my engagement ring.
No one asked me to.
I wanted it off.
I'd worn that ring for exactly four hours.
The first time I'd ever worn it.
You don't wear rings in a professional kitchen.
For three years, it'd hung from a chain around my neck.
Every morning, I'd take it off...
and place it in the drawer beside my chef's knife.
I set it gently on the podium.
Right beside the family recipe book.
"I hope the two of you are very happy, Preston."
My voice never shook.
That surprised me more than anyone.
"I mean that."
Then I turned and walked away.
Not toward the front doors.
Toward the kitchen.
I'd lived in this house for thirty-two years.
My feet only knew one way out.
I counted as I walked.
I always counted when I was nervous.
Eighty-nine platters.
The lamb had maybe nine minutes left in the warming cabinet.
After that, it'd dry out.
It wouldn't be worth serving.
Someone needed to tell Marco to start the next batch.
Someone had to.
But I didn't.
Because I was walking through my own wedding...
in a white dress...
while three hundred people watched me disappear into the kitchen.
Eighty-nine platters.
Nine minutes.
Marco.
The worst moment of my life.
And my first instinct...
was still to make sure everyone got fed.
"Miss Halloran."
I stopped.
No one in this house had ever called me that.
I was Josie.
My mother had worked here for nineteen years.
To them, she'd simply been the kitchen girl.
After she died...
she became the girl we used to have.
I turned around.
Three hundred people remained seated.
Only one man was standing.
The phones slowly lowered.
The laughter vanished.
The ballroom fell so silent...
it felt as though the entire room had stopped breathing.
"Eighty-nine platters," he said.
Every muscle in my body locked.
"Nine minutes."
"After that, the lamb dries out."
Three hundred people filled the room.
Only one of them...
knew what I'd been counting.
"Maeve Halloran."
He spoke my mother's name.
No one in this house had said it...
in nineteen years.
"I've been looking for her..."
He held my gaze.
"...for twelve years."