Melted (Cooking up a Celebrity Book 1) Read online

  I heaved a sigh, hyper aware that Sophia could come knocking on my door at any minute. This would not look good, but I didn’t want to turn Emma away so harshly. She was such a sensitive soul, craving protection and love.

  It was sweet, at first, but overwhelming after Mom died. In that moment, I couldn’t offer protection to anyone. Not Dad, not myself, not Emma. Then she started smothering me, trying to give back what she’d always wanted.

  I ended it abruptly, breaking her heart in a billion little pieces and scattering them in my wake as I raced around the world. Now she was back, asking for more.

  “Emma,” I said warningly.

  She flopped down. “I know, I know. I shouldn’t be here. But I wanted to feel normal. If only for a night.”

  I sat down next to her, my hands on my knees. “I don’t know if normal is the right word for what we had.”

  At her stricken expression, I gave her a hard hug. “I’m sorry,” I tried again. “But this is not our normal. I hurt you, and I’m sorry for that. You’re a good person, and you only wanted to help me. I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done. That being said, I think we’re past that phase of our life. Besides the fact I’m the judge and you’re the contestant, we’re not suited for each other. We want different things in life.”

  “That’s not true! I became a chef after Mouthful for you.”

  “You can only become a great chef if it’s what you want, not what you think I want.”

  If redheads were known for their fiery temper, Emma smashed all those stereotypes. Her emerald eyes sparkled with tears. She was seconds away from the fetal position.

  Then she shocked me. She wiped a lone tear from her cheek and stood up. “I understand.”

  She moved toward the door.

  “Emma,” I called.

  She turned, hope shimmering through her tears. It felt like I was stabbing her straight through her innocent heart.

  “Emma, I think you’re doing great. I’m really impressed that you went to culinary school and all that you’ve accomplished. You’ll go far. You always had a great palate.”

  “Thanks,” she sniffed. “But it wasn’t enough, was it?”

  I opened the door for her. “This is not about me. This is about you. Keep it up.”

  She managed a half-smile, but she’d be fine. She was finding how strong she was, and I hoped I contributed a little to that.

  I glanced down the hallway for one last look. I could go to Sophia, but I didn’t. I closed the door and tried not to wait.

  The next morning, I eased the treadmill into a walk while I chose some music for my run. Sophia hadn’t come over last night. I couldn’t tell if I was pissed I didn’t get sex or pissed that I was feeling so dependent on our nights together. Part of me knew that if I had any hope of staying sane, staying myself—I needed to break it off now. Things had gone too far as it was.

  The other part wanted Sophia. My two heads were not agreeing.

  I was getting into a groove when the gym door opened. She barely glanced at me, but I saw her eyes, and they were beyond ice. They looked as hard as diamonds. The whole room filled with her anger, and I suddenly felt the need to cleanse it with some sage.

  Without a word, she jumped on her own treadmill. This felt a little too familiar, like our first day on the job together. I wondered if she was going to try to judo chop my junk again.

  It occurred to me that perhaps she’d seen Emma leave my room. “Sophia,” I began.

  She upped her treadmill.

  Okay.

  “Sophia,” I tried again.

  She started sprinting.

  At great peril to my personal safety, I jumped off and went to her, yanking her headphones out of her ears.

  “What the hell, Hawthorne?”

  “I could ask the same question,” I said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

  I gestured with her earbuds. “Oh, I don’t know. Something about agreeing to come over last night?”

  She reached over and grabbed the wires from my fingers. “I’m sorry. I got busy.”

  “Busy,” I repeated.

  “Yep.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  Sophia didn’t yell. She never yelled. She was too composed for that. Her haughty, frosty voice was much scarier than yelling. “Maybe I don’t care to spend time with a prick.”

  I blinked. “You’re the one who accused me of guilting you into sex. Now you’re accusing me of what exactly?” I enunciated each word carefully. “Just so we’re clear.”

  “You’ve got some nerve,” she said. “I can’t even begin to fathom the things you’ve been doing. How insatiable are you? Are you screwing Charlotte, too? Is that why you’re fine with whatever she asks us to do? Whomever she wants to send home? You’re pathetic.”

  “I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about,” I said, clenching my fists behind my back, trying to expel this angry energy somewhere other than my raging chest. “If you want to ask me a question like a grown-up, we can do that.”

  Sophia stopped her treadmill, jumping onto the sides, heaving. I could tell it wasn’t from an increased heart rate. She was fucking livid.

  “You’re trying to make a mockery of this show. I don’t know the specifics of why and I don’t care to know. The only thing I want made clear is that I won’t let you bring me down with you. I’ve worked too hard to have my integrity called into question because you can’t keep your dick in your pants.”

  I could feel my jaw ticking. “Once again, I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about. If you’re referring to the fact that a contestant came to my room last night, I’ll tell you right now that nothing inappropriate happened. But you don’t care about the truth, do you? Only what can help justify your agenda.”

  By the look on her face, that was not what she wanted to hear. Sophia spun on her heels and stormed out. I watched the door for a few minutes, wondering. Weighing. Judging.

  Then I grabbed my water bottle and towel and headed for the shower.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Sophia

  Istanbul, Turkey

  Hawthorne was lucky I didn’t kick him in the balls again. I dearly wanted to. Instead, I left, putting as much distance between us as I could, considering he was my co-host. I wasn’t able to escape our brief filming session this morning, but now that it was over, I couldn’t bear to listen to his excuses. Perhaps he was telling the truth about Emma, but why would he? If he was caught, he had nothing to gain by coming clean. In fact, he had everything to lose.

  Then again, I’d underestimated him before. I sighed. I needed to apologize. I’m sure nothing else had happened. This was just me, using Emma as an excuse to run away from him.

  Maybe I should let the excuse linger. Jump back on the celibacy train for good. My career came first.

  I headed back to my room. We were finishing up taping the elimination challenge tomorrow morning in Istanbul and then leaving for Kochi, India. I didn’t know much about it, besides being coastal, so there would be plenty of seafood challenges.

  In the meantime, I needed to keep my cool. Maybe I should call Rie. She’d keep me levelheaded. I’d never be able to tell her what actually happened between Hawthorne and myself if I valued my sanity, but I could still blow off a little steam.

  My phone buzzed, and I picked it up, thinking my sister had a telepathic line to my brain. “Speak of the devil—oh, Charlotte?”

  I pulled the phone from my ear and focused on the name. Why would she be calling right now? We were about to meet downstairs in an hour for eliminations. Perhaps another delay? I put the phone back to my ear.

  “Sophia, did you hear me? I need you to come to my room. We have some urgent business to discuss before the final challenge today.”

  “Oh, yes. Sorry. I’ll be right over.” I hung up, my gut sinking. I had a bad feeling about this. Perhaps someone else saw Emma going into Hawthorne’s room, and they’d fired him. I w
ould never rat him out, but maybe someone else did. Someone like Jackson, taking revenge.

  I spared a quick glance in the mirror to smooth a few flyaways and pulled my hair into my signature up-do. I added a quick swipe of pink lipstick. I never went into an unknown situation looking less than professional. That’s what my dad always told me.

  The moment I knocked on Charlotte’s door, she opened it, like she had been waiting for me on the other side. The first thing I noticed was how off the room felt.

  Charlotte had cobbled together a makeshift desk and behind it stood the Food & Dine H.R. consultant, his hands cupped behind his back. Nobody smiled. My stomach sank a few more feet, hovering around my ankles at this point.

  Charlotte slid behind the desk and gestured to the hotel chair she’d placed on the other side. “Please, have a seat.”

  Suddenly, this was beginning to feel less and less about Hawthorne.

  Charlotte nodded to the man standing beside her. I could tell she thought it made her look authoritative to be seated while he stood behind her like the muscle. As if she was a mobster.

  In her fucking dreams.

  “Do you know why we’ve called you here today?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “I wanted H.R. in here to discuss your termination from Cooking Around the World.”

  Everything blurred, making the scene hazy and surreal.

  Over the buzz, Charlotte was asking me another question, but for the life of me, I couldn’t understand what she was saying.

  “Sophia,” she said again, much louder. “Do I need to call security?”

  I tilted my head, looking at her from an angle. Maybe she was pretty. I couldn’t tell. If she was, her beauty was hidden behind years of wearing a mask she thought the world wanted to see.

  “Do you understand what I’m telling you?” she asked again. “I have proof of a major lapse in judgement on your part.”

  “Proof?” I croaked, my throat as raw as my emotions.

  Charlotte sighed. “I didn’t want it to come to this. You’re a great chef, and you’ve been a good judge. But the terms were very clear. We’re going to have to send you home due to this egregious breach of your contract.”

  “What proof?” I asked.

  Charlotte flipped through her phone. She laid it down on the desk and pressed play. It was a very graphic scene involving me sucking Hawthorne’s cock in the Turkish baths. Even worse, I was on my knees, looking for all the world like another notch in Hawthorne’s bedpost.

  “How did you get this?” I asked, my voice deadly quiet.

  “Does it matter?”

  I looked up, hatred clouding my features. “Yes.”

  “It was sent to me,” Charlotte admitted.

  “By whom?” My mind whirled. If Charlotte didn’t take the video, who did? A cameraman? Jackson? Emma?

  I didn’t want to go there, but my brain couldn’t stop picturing his face. Was Hawthorne capable of secretly recording us for leverage? I had accused him of horrible things. Maybe this had been in his back pocket the whole time, enjoying his sexcapades while patiently waiting for the perfect moment to use the nuclear option to get his revenge.

  Charlotte ignored my question and continued with the formal dissolution of my contract. She kept saying something about payment and post-production, as well as official excuses for me bowing out in the middle of the competition. Apparently, I was to get food poisoning. How poetic, but we both knew it was pointless. Gossip would leak sooner rather than later.

  I listened until I couldn’t take any more, until the white-hot fury ignited in my chest and threatened to combust anything I touched.

  I interrupted her, still processing. “What about Hawthorne? He’s just as culpable if that’s the basis of your morality clause.”

  Charlotte tittered, an awkward smile on her lips, but it was her eyes that told me everything I needed to know.

  He betrayed me.

  How fucking dare he.

  She didn’t have to say a word.

  I licked my dry lips. “Hawthorne doesn’t have a morality clause in his contract. Does he?”

  “Well, it is his image, bad boy chef and all that.”

  Despite everything that had happened in the previous five minutes, it was the word chef that drove me over the edge. “He hasn’t cooked in years!” I fumed, snorting through my nose, trying not to unleash on this tepid excuse for a human.

  I stood up. I didn’t even want to fucking see his face. I wanted to go home. I wanted to see Rie and Lena. Most importantly, I wanted tequila.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Hawthorne

  Istanbul, Turkey

  When I went to bed, I knew Sophia was mad at me. When I woke up, I found out exactly how mad. She was gone, and—according to Charlotte—she’d tried to take me down with her after being confronted with damning evidence.

  Charlotte refused to tell me what exactly Sophia did to make production fire her in the middle of the competition, but I could put two and two together. Sophia mentioned a morality clause. Fucking like rabbits wasn’t exactly covered in most morality contracts.

  Something didn’t smell right, but I didn’t have time to figure it out right now. Production went into scramble mode to find a temporary co-judge for part two of the wedding challenge and the elimination round, which was being filmed today.

  But as soon as that ended, I intended to do some digging.

  The bride and groom stood on either side of me, all smiles for their television debut. They barely questioned the chaos swirling behind us, or the new face. We’d quickly roped a local chef into helping as a special guest judge, while I explained for the cameras about Sophia’s “food sickness.” We introduced her to the contestants. Then, the bride and groom joined us as we made our rounds for the evaluations.

  I could barely taste, let alone think.

  I charged through the day in a fog, dishing out criticisms and critiques. Contestants didn’t look overly thrilled with my brusque manner, but production ate it up. Here was their bad boy, giving everyone a piece of his mind.

  Wait until they saw my finale.

  The bride and groom chose their favorite dish. We held a quick elimination round. The two bottom contestants had to cook the best dish of their life, no pressure, using only Turkish ingredients such as rosewater, nuts, eggplant, lamb, and tahini.

  What bullshit. It was all rigged. Which was exactly why I put Jackson in the bottom two, even if he didn’t quite deserve it. That motherfucker. I knew Charlotte was pissed, but I couldn’t find it in myself to care. It was amusing to watch her froth at the mouth. She didn’t think I’d dare. Well, she really didn’t know me at all.

  I turned, watching Charlotte intently watching me. She was mouthing the words “Bethany” like she was afraid I would forget my lines in the school play and embarrass her. Sorry, not sorry. I knew exactly what my line was.

  I was about to eliminate the shit out of Jackson. Suck it, Charlotte. Or rather, don’t. I didn’t want her anywhere near me.

  Charlotte kept mouthing, rocking on her high heels, as if wishing she could pull the words out of my mouth. I smiled devilishly, and she lunged toward the judge’s table, sensing my rebellion.

  “Jackson, Turkey is the last stamp on your passport,” I said. “Get out of the kitchen.”

  I made sure to put enough menace in my voice that bloggers and watchers across the country would pick up on it and comment until enough gossip surfaced to confirm his overall shittiness. Well, that, and the fact I’d add fuel to the fire. Anonymously. Obviously. Davis was just a phone call away.

  The prick didn’t have the goddamn decency to shake our hands or thank us. He stomped off like the child he was, while the remaining contestants exhaled a sigh of relief.

  Charlotte squeezed her clipboard, her knuckles turning white, and glared at me.

  I walked past and squeezed her arm. “Some show, huh? It was pretty intense there in the middle, with the new judge and all, but
I think the ending was perfect.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Sophia

  Chicago, Illinois

  It was the fork drop heard ’round the world. Everywhere I surfed, I saw a new headline. All the prominent blogs picked up the story and even some of the major news networks. No one bought that bullshit about my food sickness. Before my plane even touched down in Chicago, the truth had come out: I’d been fired due to a lapse in judgement and a violation of my morality clause.

  Fame wasn’t my thing. Infamy even less, so I was naïve enough to believe that hiding out in Sassafras would cure all my problems. I headed straight there as soon as I landed. I was even dumb enough to pull up to the front in a taxi.

  My mind was still foggy from the rapid turn of events and the international plane ride, so it took me a minute to realize the crowd out front was waiting for me, despite it being almost 10:00 p.m. There were still diners inside Sassafras, finishing up the last round of seating.

  “Sophia Sato?” someone called out. I turned and a series of camera flashes burst, practically blinding me. “Do you care to clarify why you got fired? Did it have anything to do with Hawthorne West?”

  Were they fucking serious? There was a goddamn train of paparazzi camped out in front of my River North location, ruining the ambiance of my restaurant. Was nothing else going on in Chicago today? Was my disgrace really the biggest news?

  People walking down the street started rooting around their pockets, searching for their phones. Undoubtedly, they sensed someone famous had shown up and wanted a video. Too fucking bad it was just me.

  I froze like a deer staring down its future death-by-headlights, unable to muster the strength to move an inch. A reporter shoved a microphone in my face and yelled a question. I swatted it out of the way and barged forward, intent on parting the crowd by sheer force of willpower. I didn’t bother with “excuse me” or any other niceties.