Hit the Jackpot! My Broke Chef Husband Is a Billionaire novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Mise en Place

She tells her husband what his eggs are missing, and her stepsister arrives with a bag of pennies and leaves with her pride in pieces.

I woke at five to the smell of butter.

For a second I forgot where I was.

Then I remembered the sliding door, the borrowed T-shirt, and the six-foot-four man who had slept on a five-foot couch.

He was at the stove in his socks, with a towel over one shoulder and a pan in his hand.

He didn't turn around.

"Sit," he said. "Eat. Tell me what's wrong with it."

"I haven't had any yet."

"That's what makes it fair."

There was a stool at the counter, and I took it.

He slid a plate in front of me, and a fork.

It was soft scrambled eggs with chives, on toast, with a spoon of something dark and shiny beside them.

I ate the eggs, and they were perfect, and I hated that.

I ate the dark thing, and it was sweet, and my mouth wanted something sharp.

"It needs acid," I said.

He stopped moving.

"A little lemon, or vinegar. The jam is too sweet next to the butter, so the whole plate sits flat."

"What kind of vinegar?"

"The sherry one, if you have it. Or whatever's in the bottle with the wooden cork."

He got the bottle with the wooden cork.

He put two drops on the jam and tasted it off a spoon.

He closed his eyes.

"My grandmother has told me that for fifteen years," he said. "I never listened."

"I cooked for my dad from the time I was ten. He drove a truck and he wouldn't eat anything that wasn't chili."

"Did you make him chili?"

"Every Sunday. With a hot plate and a pot the size of a bucket."

"I'd like to eat that."

"You can't. It's not mine to make anymore."

He looked at me for a second.

He didn't, and I was grateful.

I put an envelope on the counter, with five hundred and fifty dollars in it.

"First month."

"Rosie."

"Half. We said."

He looked at the envelope, and I watched him fight an argument he'd never win.

"I'll put it in the jar," he said finally.

"What jar?"

"There's a jar for the gas."

I laughed so hard I had to put my fork down.

He had the grace to look at the ceiling.

On the other side of the counter, hanging from a magnet strip, was the fattest roll of knives I'd ever seen.

It was black leather and brass snaps, and the handles were pale wood, and each blade had been ground until it looked wet.

"Those are nice for a man with a payment plan," I said.

"They're a hobby."

"A hobby that costs more than my Corolla."

"I like sharp things." He picked up his coffee. "It's a character flaw."

At seven fifteen somebody pounded on the back door.

Ewan opened it, and there on the fire stairs stood Tabitha, in heels, with a wicker basket on her arm and her phone already raised.

Dale's daughter was twenty-five, with platinum extensions to her waist, and nails like a row of small cars.

She'd been calling me "the mouse" since the day I turned twenty-one.

"Surprise!" she sang. "Welcome to the family. Daddy sent a little something."

She swept past him into the apartment and set the basket on the counter.

I looked inside.

There was a can of store-brand beans, a box of matches, and a ziplock bag of pennies.

"For the meter," she said, in a stage whisper. "Daddy says you might need them."

She was filming.

I could see the red dot of the camera swing from the stove to the shut-off notice to my face.

I picked up the bag of pennies and weighed it in my hand.

"How many are in here?"

"I don't know. A couple hundred?"

"Tab, you drove forty minutes this morning to bring a bag of pennies."

"It's a gesture."

"It's a long way to go for a joke with no punchline."

Her smile slipped a little.

"At least I have a family," she said.

"At least somebody sent me a basket. Nobody sent you a basket, Rosie. You came with a couch."

"I came with a husband," I said, "who made me eggs at five in the morning. When did Dale last do that for you?"

Behind me, Ewan made a soft sound that might have been the start of a cough.

Tabitha's face went the color of her nails.

She lowered the phone.

"You think you're so smart," she said.

"I think I'm late for work."

She stood there, and I picked up the basket and handed it back to her, with the beans and the matches and the pennies.

"Take these home. You'll need them."

She snatched it so fast the handle swung.

At the door she looked at Ewan, up and down, the whole six feet four of him, and she sneered.

"Nice jacket," she said. "Is it rented?"

"It's Gram's," said Ewan gravely.

I didn't laugh until the stairs stopped shaking.

Then I laughed until I had to hold the counter, and he laughed too, in his big silent way, bent over the stove.

"You didn't have to do that," he said.

"I wanted to."

"I know." He wiped his eyes. "That's what I liked."

My phone buzzed on the counter.

It was a text from Dale, with a picture.

My mother, in a wheelchair, in the front hall of the house on Hird Avenue, with her coat still on and her head down.

Under it he'd written, "Home from the hospital. Visiting hours are mine."

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