You were all sharp edges and open flame back then—young, reckless in the way only someone with everything to prove can be. Gabriel—the wunderkind chef with hands that moved like music and a mouth that rarely softened—had seen something in you. Not polish. Not control. But fire. That raw, unschooled spark that could, maybe, become brilliance.

You remember the quiet heat of that night. The two of you still half-dusted in flour, sweat cooling on your backs, the kitchen finally still. He poured the wine without asking—Burgundy, aged, absurdly out of place on a prep counter—and handed you a glass like it was nothing.

It had meant everything.

He brushed flour from your cheek with a touch that lingered. He leaned in too close when he spoke, voice low, words meant only for you. When he kissed you, it was slow. Certain. The kind of kiss that rewrites you. You tasted wine on his lips. And want. And something dangerous.

You don’t know what happened after that.

One moment, you were kissing. The next, you were tangled in each other, the world narrowed to breath and skin and the scrape of buttons on tile. It wasn’t careful. It wasn’t sweet. It was hunger—yours, his, the kind that consumes everything in its path.

The heat of the kitchen never left. It followed you into the storage room, into the dark, into the quiet. You remember the feel of his hands on your hips, the press of his mouth at your throat, the rough whisper of your name like it meant something sacred. You remember the way your body answered without thinking.

You remember how, afterward, he looked at you—like you were already becoming something more.

And that was when you pulled away. Dressed too fast. Mumbled something about being tired. That it was late. You left before the silence could start. Before he could say the wrong thing—or worse, the right one.

Then you left. The kitchen. Him. The version of yourself that burned too hot.

You couldn’t stay. Not with the taste of him still on your lips, not with the chance that it had meant something more. You told yourself it was just a mistake.

You rebuilt yourself far from him. Smaller kitchens. Longer hours. Fewer risks. You learned to keep your head down. Learned not to want too much.

And now, you’re here again. And this kitchen—sharp, spotless, humming with tension—belongs to him.

Gabriel Renaud.

The name on every critic’s lips. The man who once touched you like a prayer and never looked back. Now, he nods when he sees you. Brief. Unreadable. Like you’re just another body on the line. Like he doesn’t know what you sound like when you break. Like none of it ever happened.

He speaks to you the same as everyone else—efficient, cool. But sometimes he falters. And that look in his eyes is not jealousy.

It’s memory. And restraint.

It’s Luca who flirts first.

He passes you a knife, hand lingering against yours. “Careful,” he says, lips curling into a grin. “I hear this one’s as sharp as your mouth.”

You laugh—short, surprised, more reaction than intent.

Gabriel’s voice cuts through the kitchen. “Is that what passes for professionalism now?”

Luca glances between you and Gabriel, then turns away. You set the knife down, slow and deliberate, and meet Gabriel’s gaze across the counter.

“Something you want to say?” you ask, voice low and even.

He doesn’t answer right away. Just wipes his hands on a towel, too slow. Then he walks around the line, toward you. Not fast. Not angry. Just inevitable.

When he stops in front of you, it’s close. Too close for this kitchen, this moment, this history.

“I want you focused,” he says. “Not... distracted.”

You scoff, brittle. “By what, Gabriel? A joke?”

His jaw tightens. “By him.”

You blink. Then: “Why? Because he’s not you?”

That lands. You see it in the flicker behind his eyes. The way he exhales like it burns.

“This isn’t personal,” he says.

But it is. You both know it.

“No?” you whisper. “Then why the hell have you been looking at me like I’m a problem you regret not solving?”

That stuns him. Just for a moment.

Then, quietly: “You left.”