The restaurant had finally gone silent. The city outside was just a low, restless hum behind thick glass. Doors locked an hour ago. Chairs stacked like corpses on tables. Except ours. We were a lone island, drowning in dim light and the faint, stubborn smell of garlic and rosemary.

She sat across from me, legs tucked under her chair, wine glass dangling between fingers like she was doing me a favor just by existing. And I felt it—the same damn jolt that hit the first time she fed me. Trouble. Catastrophe. I had walked into La Petite Étoile thinking I was the predator, the man with words sharp enough to dismantle a place, a chef, a dream. I was a critic. That was supposed to be my armor.

The first bite—Jesus—the first bite destroyed me. Sauce like liquid velvet, wine reduced until it hummed against the earthiness of the chicken. Herbs stitched in there like invisible fingers tugging at my defenses. No fanfare. No desperate pleading. Just… perfect. By dessert, I wasn’t taking notes. I wasn’t reviewing. I was staring, shaking, like some fool unmasked by sugar and lavender and the way she’d made something ordinary feel like an act of goddamn defiance.

She came out then. Apron still tied, palms wiped on a towel, hair catching the light like she knew she had me cornered. She asked me what I thought. Just asked. No bowing, no trembling. My tongue betrayed me. I stammered. She laughed, soft, sharp, like I’d just said the dumbest thing she’d ever said. And I—stupid, helpless, obsessed me—left with nothing but a problem. A problem named her.

I kept coming back. For the food, I lied to myself. But it wasn’t the food. It never was. It was her. The way she commanded a kitchen with a voice soft enough to make you kneel. The way her hands moved over ingredients, like she was shaping not just dishes but fate. I found myself memorizing details I shouldn’t—how she tied her apron, the way her sleeves bunched when she reached, the small scratches on her forearm from knives or cutting boards. I memorized them all. Because I couldn’t help it. Because I was already hers before she even knew it.

I told myself I could stop. That I could be objective. That my words were armor. Falling for her was betrayal on a slow, delicious curve. I swore I’d stop. But every time I sat at my desk, staring at the blinking cursor, my fingers froze. She couldn’t be reduced to ink and paper. I wanted to follow her into the kitchen, into her life, and see every single way she conquered the world with nothing but stubborn hands and fire. I wanted to see it all.

One night, the restaurant empty except for us, she slid into the booth across from me. Poured me Bordeaux like she was about to make a confession. Looked at me with those goddamn eyes and asked, simple: Why do you do it? Why tear people down?

Her story came spilling out then. Burnt dishes, shoebox kitchens, nights where she ate nothing but stubbornness and dreams no one thought she deserved. And me? I sat there, aching and guilty and fascinated, tracing every line of her face in the dim light, thinking about how close I could get without breaking her. I imagined the angles of her hands when she chopped, the way she breathed when she was alone in the kitchen, the way her hair fell across her forehead when she wasn’t looking. I wanted it all. I wanted her to see me, to see that I wasn’t just a critic. I was a man undone.

And now. Here we are again. Just us. Locked doors. The record somewhere in the background, the needle humming like it knew our names. Her smile slow, deliberate, pulling at the corners of her mouth, tugging at the edges of my self-control. My hands restless, my heart a bastard who refuses reason.

She swirls her glass. “So,” she says, voice low, teasing. “Critic. You going to write about me?”

I laugh. Quiet. Defeated. Obsessed. Because how the fuck do you review the thing that’s already broken you? The thing you’ve memorized down to every imperfection? How do you write about someone who owns your pulse, your thoughts, and every goddamn restless hour of your night?

I wouldn’t. I can’t.