Stepbrother Bad Boy's Baby Boxed Set(49)

"Shhhh, it's all right," Mom said, coming over and hugging me. "I already sent Gina home, telling her she's not welcome here right now. Oh baby, if I'd known....."

"I suspect that Miss Aksoy wanted to surprise you with the knowledge," Yuki said quietly. "In some of the things she said after she became aware of Krystal and Julian's relationship, she sounded vindictive."

"Gina's never been the nicest of people, but she's never been like this before," Mom said. "Yuki, what's this about you knowing about Julian's actions?"

Yuki explained it again, starting from when Julian knocked on the door of her office. She ended it with Gina dropping her bombshell on the back lawn. "I know this is hard to believe, Sandra, but I believe him. Julian may have started with evil intentions, but he did truly fall in love with Krystal."

"And how would you know?" Mom replied. "Yuki, you are talking about one of the most deceitful, lying men I've ever known."

"I've known him longer, and spent more time with him than you have, no offense Sandra. I've seen him scheme, scam, and screw up time after time, each time walking away without a care in the world other than causing more trouble. And I also saw his face in my office today, and again on the back lawn. I know it seems strange, I know I sound crazy, but it is true. Julian fell in love with Krystal, and didn't mean to hurt her."

"Then why didn't he tell me?" I wailed, fresh tears coursing down my cheeks. "Why?"

Mom went to hug me again, while Yuki stood quietly in the middle of the room. When my sobs had calmed down again, she looked at me with tenderness and affection. "This may cost me my job at the manor Krystal, but I must say it. If you were in Julian's shoes, what would you have done? How many of your former lovers have you told him about?"

"Yuki, get out," Mom said. "I'll speak with my husband when he comes home, but consider yourself on two weeks notice."

Yuki nodded, a tear trickling down her cheek. "As you wish, Mrs. Castelbon. I shall be in my quarters if Mr. Castelbon wishes to contact me."

Yuki left, leaving just me and Mom. I cried some more, wiping at my cheeks, until I was hollowed out, my eyes burning and my face puffy. "Mama...."

"Shhh, it's okay baby," Mom said, holding me close again. "You relax, or at least try to. I'll talk with John, we'll take care of all this. We'll get through this somehow."

I stayed there, lying on my bed with my head in my mother's lap, until the sun went down, and the pain in my stomach was replaced by a deeper pain in the black space that was my heart.





Chapter 22





Krystal





I knew I shouldn't have been on the line. I'd just gotten back to Chicago the night before, hadn't slept in two days, and had barely eaten as well. I was bleary eyed, running on fumes, and my mind was not in the right place it needed to be to keep up with the pace and the pressure of the line at Alinea. I should have called off, regardless of whether Horst and Shannon would have been slightly upset or not.

Instead, there I was, in my whites, trying to work the meat station. Prep had gone okay, after all slicing six ounce steaks and tying strings around fillets is stuff even a child can do. Even the start of service wasn't too bad. While it was a Friday night, we were in a rare period where there wasn't much going on in Chicago. The Cubs and White Sox were on road trips, basketball hadn't started, and the Bears were still in the preseason. Most of the universities were still on summer vacation, and even the business cycle was down. Everyone was resting up before the push into fall.

Also working in my favor was the Alinea menu cycle. Shannon liked to change menus on the seasons, and we were still a few weeks out from the change from the summer menu to the fall menu. As such, most of our regulars had already eaten what we had to offer, and so the start of service was slow.

Around seven o'clock though, things got busy, and I ran into trouble. Tickets started to pour in, and I was falling behind. It was the little things that were getting me in trouble, and I knew it. I wasn't coordinating my tickets so that if a table ordered a steak and two lamb chops, all of them came off at the same time so they'd hit the customer's table at the perfect temperature. I was leaving one side down a bit too long, turning caramelization into scorching. By eight, I already had four plates come back to me from Shannon for redoing. She was getting on my ass, nothing I didn't deserve, but I couldn't take it anymore.

The straw that broke the camel's back was double thick pork chops. You have to understand, cooking pork chops is different from cooking steak or lamb. Pork has to be cooked through, or else the risk of food poisoning is a lot higher. You can't have rare pork chops, in fact in the United States there are very strict laws on it. However, because the chops are double thick, you can't have your fire too hot, or else you end up with a chop that is cooked in the middle and a hockey puck on the outside, or perfect on the outside and dangerously raw in the middle.

It was this second sin that I was guilty of. I'd put the pork chops on the section of the grill reserved for beef and lamb, not even thinking about it. Going by instinct, I flipped it to a beautiful golden brown crust, and then finished off the other side. Instead of checking the interior temperature, I plated the chops and sent them off with the rest of the order, already forgetting about it to focus on the next ticket.