Two lovers, torn apart by betrayal, obsession and an unquenchable thirst for revenge.
How far would you go for love?
About to start the career of his dreams and marry the woman he loves, Sebastien Merrow has everything he could ever want, until a b...
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Lewis Ramsden pushes through the double doors into the kitchen of Lacroix's, ignoring the dirty look a server shoots him as he's forced to sidestep Lewis with acrobat accuracy to avoid dropping the three plates of delicately arranged... Whatever that beige shit was. These people worked in fancy pants places, they had to be kept on their toes. What was the harm in making them have to work a little harder for their over-inflated wages?
"What is this?" Albert says, peering into a saucepan, his voice rising above the sizzle and scrapes of the kitchen. The senior Lacroix snaps his eyes to the chef standing next to him, barely out of school, by the look of him. Lewis smirks as the young chef physically takes a step back. "Who taught you how to cook?" The boy doesn't answer. Albert picks up the saucepan and dumps the whole thing into a nearby bin with a heavy clunk. "Get out of my kitchen. And don't come back until you've learned how to make a white sauce correctly."
The dismissed chef pushes past Lewis, head hung low. Lewis clears his throat as Albert places a clean saucepan on the stove.
Albert glances at him, before busying himself with the measuring out of ingredients. "What are you doing back here?" Albert asks, not taking his eyes off a spoonful of flour.
"It's so refreshing to see a restaurant owner so passionate about his business, you know?" Lewis starts, trying to appeal to Albert's pride. "Half of those dimwits out there couldn't tell you the difference between a fried egg and a boiled one."
"Can you?"
"It's inspiring, is what I'm saying," Lewis plunders on, unaffected by Albert's cold, dismissive tone. "Another man in your-"
"Get to the point, Lewis. I'm a busy man."
"Yes, of course, you are." Lewis comes up to stand beside Albert and looks into the saucepan, where Albert is vigorously stirring some beige sludge. For self-serving reasons, he holds back a sneer of disgust. Damn these places with their overpriced, overcomplicated beige shit. What was wrong with a plate of potatoes and some glazed ham? "That's why I'm here," Lewis adds with a cheerful note. "To offer a hand. I'm sure with the wedding and everything-"
"Can you make a white sauce?" Albert pauses his stirring for a moment to offer Lewis the saucepan, inviting him to take over. The scent of butter curls around Lewis.
"A white-" Lewis cuts his snarl short, then starts again, more even-toned. "Well, no, but I can do other things."
"Then go do them." Albert goes back to the saucepan. "Somewhere else," he adds. He bangs his wooden spoon against the metal rim, one strong, clean strike to dislodge some sludge, then sets the spoon down. A judge's final word, a King's dismissal.
"Come on, Albert, throw me a bone here," Lewis says. The thin grasp he has on his temper slipping. "Everything else has dried up. For old times' sake, huh?"
"I don't need those services anymore." Albert has swapped the wooden spoon for a metal whisk. His attention is on the swirling liquid in front of him, his words the only acknowledgment of Lewis's presence. Another chef brushes past Lewis, an enormous pan that smells suspiciously like stew in his arms. That was more like it.
