Chapter 17

CHAPTERSEVENTEEN

What if I fail?

~ Chloé

“COME ON, RED. You’re going to find out sooner or later.”

Zayne pushed Chloé’s laptop across the kitchen counter, and she stared at it as though it were a ticking time bomb.

“Then I vote for later.” She hopped down off the barstool, but as she turned to head out into the gardens, Zayne rushed around the counter and took hold of her arm.

“Oooh no you don’t.” He stepped in front of her and shook his head. “You’ve been putting this off for hours.”

“I slept in,” she fired back. “I had a big night last night, and someone—or two someones—kept me up until nearly three a.m.”

“That is all true. But ever since you’ve woken up, you’ve been avoiding your phone and laptop.”

“I don’t even know where my phone is.”

“Exactly my point. When do you ever not know where your phone is?”

“Right now.”

“Chloé? You in here? I found your phone in my—” Ethan came to a stop when he spotted her and Zayne mid-stare-off. “And what’s going on here?”

“Nothing,” Chloé was quick to say. But Zayne wasn’t about to let her get away that easy.

“Red’s avoiding her reviews.”

“Is she now?”

“Yep. Won’t look online, won’t check her phone.”

“Because I don’t want to know.”

“Really?” Ethan walked over. “So you don’t want to know that you’ve missed six calls and over fifteen text messages in the last fifteen minutes?”

Seriously? Oh God, that meant the reviews were out—or at least starting to show up online. But no, she still didn’t want to know.

“They’re probably all calling to make sure I haven’t hurled myself off a building.”

“And why would you do that?”

Chloé crossed her arms and looked anywhere but at Ethan and Zayne. She’d never been one to shy away from the spotlight, but for some reason this felt different.

Last night had been monumental, a huge step in her career as a chef, and while she knew that reviews and critics were part of that job, was it really so bad that she wanted to ride the high of such an epic night for a little while longer?

“Chloé?” Ethan pressed.

“I don’t know. But I don’t want to talk to anyone right now. I don’t want to know if people didn’t like what I served.”

“And what if they did like it?”

“It doesn’t matter, because I might accidentally see the ones who didn’t.”

“Assuming there are ones who didn’t.”

Chloé let out a sigh, and Zayne wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

“Aw, it’s going to be all right, Red. Where’s that confidence from last night? I hardly think your family is going to send you bad reviews.”

He had a point. Her family would never send her a negative review. But the pressure she felt to live up to her père’s standards was making her second-guess herself. He’d taken this country by storm when he burst onto the scene as the winner of the most popular cooking show, and then went on to become one of the most recognized chefs in the world.

He had Michelin stars, award-winning restaurants, contacts all around the world, and, well, Chloé knew that if she tanked last night, it would be everywhere.

“You’re going to make me read them, aren’t you?”

“No.” Ethan headed through the patio doors, leaving her and Zayne to follow. “I’ll read them for you.”

Ugh, that was almost worse. At least if she was reading them, she could scroll through the shitty ones and just give them the CliffsNotes.

“Chloé?” Ethan reached over on the outdoor couch and squeezed her knee. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Fine.” She blew out a breath. “But just the headlines. You can always tell the tone by the headlines.”

Zayne tugged her into his side as Ethan opened her phone.

“We were right—the messages are from your fathers and Justin, and a couple from Shayla.” He opened it up and then looked over at her. “Ready?”

No.“Yes.”

“‘Like father, like daughter. It appears that the Thornton-Priestley name is synonymous with fine French cuisine…’”

“Hey now.” Zayne’s eyes widened in excitement. “That’s pretty fucking great.”

“Yes,” Ethan agreed. “It is.”

“Okay, what’s next?” Zayne said, all put jumping up and down beside Chloé.

“‘Vibrant and chic, with only the finest ingredients, Chloé Thornton-Priestley delivers a fresh young take on traditional French flavors.’”

“Oh my God.” That got her attention. Chloé sat up and shifted to the edge of the couch. “Who wrote that?”

“Fiona McKenzie.”

“Shut the hell up.”

Ethan chuckled as he propped his ankle up on one of his knees. “I assume that’s a good thing?”

“Good? Yeah, she’s tough as hell.”

“Not around you, apparently,” Zayne said, and pulled her back into his arms. “You young, chic thing.”

Chloé giggled. “I mean, I am pretty chic. Look at these awesome yoga pants.”

“Trust me, Red, I was looking at them all morning.”

She tipped her face up toward his, and Zayne gently kissed her lips. Her worries were easing a little now.

“Ready for the next one?” Ethan said.

“Mhmm.”

“Okay, here goes. ‘With just one bite, Chef Chloé manages to transport each diner to a little French restaurant down by the River Seine. She takes the heart of France and serves it right here in downtown Chicago.’”

Ethan tossed the phone down on the seat beside him as he got to his feet.

“These are unbelievable,” he said, then he leaned down, cupped her face, and stole a sweet kiss from her lips. “You are unbelievable. What’d we tell you? You had nothing to worry about.”

She nodded as she stared up at him.

“You’re right,” she said, then turned to Zayne. “You both are. I just didn’t want anything to ruin last night.”

“Nothing could ruin last night, Red.”

She couldn’t agree more. So many amazing things had happened, and now that she could finally stop worrying about whether or not she would have a career today, it was time to tell Ethan and Zayne about the other amazing thing that had happened—her fathers’ proposition.

She’d been going to bring it up last night when they got home, but it had slipped her mind when the earl and viscount had shown up to play. But now seemed as good a time as any.

“So, can I talk to you two for a minute?” She tugged Ethan down to the couch, then got to her feet and moved to the coffee table so she could face them.

Ethan narrowed his eyes. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, um, it’s just… You know how my fathers wanted to speak to me yesterday after everything?”

“Yeah, up in the skybox.”

Chloé nodded at Zayne. “That’s right. Well, they wanted to congratulate me, but also…” She looked down at her lap and started to fiddle with the drawstring there.

“Chloé?”

She looked at Ethan, who had sat forward, his brows pulled down in a frown.

“Did something happen? Are your fathers okay?”

“Oh yes,” she quickly said. “Of course. It’s just… They offered me an opportunity, and I want to talk to you both about it.”

Ethan relaxed back into his seat and stretched his arm along the back of the chair. “That sounds exciting. What kind of opportunity?”

Chloé swallowed, a sudden flurry of nerves twisting in her stomach. “They want me to run JULIEN.”

“Holy shit, Red. That’s fucking amazing.”

Zayne’s exuberance was contagious, and Chloé found herself laughing. “It is, yeah. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

“But…” Ethan eyed her closely, always seeming to sense when there was something behind the silence.

“But they don’t mean JULIEN here in Chicago.”

Zayne’s confusion was obvious, but Ethan cleared it up for him real quick.

“Paris.”

Chloé nodded, and Zayne’s jaw all but fell in his lap.

“They want you to go to Paris? For how long?”

“Um…” Chloé turned her attention to Zayne, very aware that Ethan had yet to react. “As long as I want. I’d be running it.”

“Wow…”

She chanced a look back in Ethan’s direction to see him studying her with the same serious expression from minutes ago.

“I haven’t given them an answer yet. I wanted to speak to you both first.”

“Thank you,” Ethan finally said, his expression softening. “That’s a wonderful opportunity.”

“It is, but… I don’t know. It’s such a big move.”

“It is.”

“And I’m finally settled in here with you two, and my family is here. I just had an amazing debut in the Chicago food scene, and now what? I’m just going to up and leave it all?”

“Uh, first up,” Zayne said. “You aren’t leavin’ us. If you go, we go. So you can cross that right off your list of worries.”

Ethan smirked. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Chloé looked between the two of them, hardly believing what she’d just heard. “Be serious.”

“We are being serious.”

“You’d just up and move to Paris for me? No questions asked?”

Ethan looked at Zayne, then they both turned back to her with a smile. “Sure, why not?”

“Why not?” Chloé dropped her face in her hands and shook her head. “Ugh. That just brings on a whole other round of stress.”

“It does?” Zayne said.

“Yes. I can’t ask you to move countries. You have a business here—”

Ethan shrugged. “We have a business there.”

“That’s not what I mean. You have an enormous company you run from here.”

“I told you I don’t run anything. I attend a board meeting once a month, and I can easily do that via a computer or plane. So, what else you got?”

Chloé dropped her hands into her lap and sighed. “My family. I can’t even begin to imagine living that far away from them.”

“I mean, they’re offering this to you, Red. They want you to go.”

Chloé arched a brow. “I’m sure you mean that in a supportive way, and even if you don’t, I already checked that they weren’t trying to get rid of me.”

Zayne snorted and reached for her hands. “Who would ever want to get rid of you?”

“Good answer. But still, I don’t know what I want to do. It doesn’t feel fair for me to ask you to both uproot your lives.”

“My life is with the both of you,” Zayne said. “Where you go, I go.”

“And you?” she said to Ethan. “Are you going to just up and leave all of this”—she gestured to the beautiful gardens of the Holt Estate—“so I can go and chase a dream?”

“It’s more than just a dream. It’s an opportunity to grow, and we wouldn’t be leaving it. We’d just be visiting it rather than living in it. And who’s to say that wouldn’t change again somewhere down the road?”

Chloé began to pace, her mind now spinning with all the possibilities and what-ifs. Including the biggest one of all: What if they do this for me, and I fail?

“Chloé?” She stopped and looked at Ethan, who was staring up at her. “What do you want? If nothing and nobody else was involved, what would you want to do?”

And that was the problem right there. “I don’t know.”