way I could get the time off,” Sophie repeated.
“Pity. The money’s good, and you were the first person I thought of,” Julie said. “You know how John and I love your cooking.”
“Thanks, Julie. And thanks for thinking of me. I only wish I could help you out,” Sophie said.
“Not a problem. And just so you know, Sophie, no one who knows anything about food paid a bit of attention to that foolish review last month. Sorrentino’s will always be our first choice when dining out,” Julie said.
They ended the call after another few minutes of small talk. But instead of diving back into her makeup bag, Sophie stared sightlessly at her hands, brooding once again about the restaurant review that had rocked her world last month.
She hadn’t even known they were being reviewed. When the photographer made contact to take shots of the dining room, explaining the reviewer had already been in for his meal, she’d felt slightly cheated. She liked to put her best foot forward when she knew a foodie was expected. Still, she hadn’t been too worried. Sorrentino’s had an excellent reputation and she’d received a strong recommendation from the same magazine five years ago.
Not so this time. She still remembered the words by heart. How could she not? They were etched into her pride.
On our last visit five years ago, Sophie Gallagher of Sorrentino’s in Surry Hills seemed set to become one of the shining lights of the Australian restaurant world. But it seems time has stood still in Sorrentino’s kitchen. On our return, we found the menu little changed, a disappointing discovery when dining in Sydney has taken some huge and exciting leaps forward in recent years. All was done well, but the choices on offer were safe, conservative, unadventurous. One can only guess that Ms. Gallagher has settled into a premature middle age.
Every time she thought of that last line, she wanted to spit. Smug bastard, passing judgment on her through her menu. She’d ranted and raved for days after the magazine came out, but fortunately the restaurant’s bookings had remained solid and Brandon and his parents had been more than ready to slough the whole thing off and forget it.
Probably good advice, but the review continued to niggle at Sophie, especially when people mentioned it to her—even well-intentioned people like Julie. A dozen times over the past five years she’d experimented with new dishes for the menu, testing new ideas and combinations. But always she returned to the understanding that Sorrentino’s was a family restaurant—an elegant, neighborhood place where husbands took their wives for anniversaries and their children for birthday celebrations. The menu she’d created five years ago suited their clientele admirably, as the restaurant’s success attested. Why rock the boat?
The sound of a key in the front door shook Sophie out of her brooding and had her shooting to her feet. She’d only mascaraed one eye, and her short, pixie-cut auburn hair was clinging damply to her skull. Ruffling it with her fingertips, she snatched at a lipstick and smoothed on some color just as the door to the bedroom swung open and Brandon entered.
It was Sunday, and they had exactly three hours before either of them was due at the restaurant for the night. They had champagne, black satin and sexy music—everything they needed for a little horizontal play. Throwing her shoulders back, Sophie struck what she hoped was a sexy pose.
“Surprise!” she said, giving him her best come-hither look.
Brandon froze. His gaze ran up and down her body. Then his shoulders slumped and he closed his eyes for a long, long beat.
When he opened them, the look in his eyes made her stomach dip with fear.
“Sophie, we need to talk,” he said.
2
TWO HOURS LATER, Sophie pulled into the darkened driveway of Julie Jenkins’s Blue Mountains estate west of Sydney. Behind her on the backseat of her rusty Volkswagen Beetle was a box containing a jumble of cookbooks, her recipe folder, her knife roll and, for some absurd reason, a can opener. She’d thrown it all together haphazardly when what Brandon had told her had sunk in.
They were over. Finished. Fourteen years gone, just like that.
Hot tears burned at the backs of Sophie’s eyes as she wound her way up a long driveway, and she knuckled them away and swallowed noisily.
He hadn’t even wanted to talk. That was the thing that hurt the most. He’d presented her with a fait accompli.
“Sophie, I can’t do this anymore,” he’d said. “I’m sick of hoping things will change. I’m sick of lying in bed night after night like an old married couple. I don’t want to get to forty and look back and wonder where my life has gone.”
“I know we’ve been in a rut lately,” she’d said, and he’d laughed—a sharp, hard, angry laugh.
“A rut? Jesus, Sophie, we’re in the Grand freaking Canyon.”
“So we talk. We do something about it. What do you think this afternoon is all about?”
Brandon had sat on the end of the bed and put his head in his hands. “Sophie, a bunch of satin is not going to patch over our problems. It’s time to face the facts—we passed our use-by date years ago.”
That had made her legs go weak and she’d been forced to sit beside him.
“That’s so not true,” she’d said. “We still love each other. We’re best friends. We just need to take time to rediscover each other again.”
“We love each other, but we’re not in love, Sophie. We haven’t been for a long time.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Then he’d sucker-punched her. “I want to sleep with other women.”
She’d gasped. It was a slap in the face the way he’d said it so abruptly.
“I’m sorry, but it’s true. Don’t you ever wonder what it would be like with someone else?” he’d asked, searching her face with his eyes.
“No. No, I don’t.”
He’d nodded then. “I suppose that’s probably true. You like things to stay the same, I know that. You like your routines, and knowing what’s going to happen next. Well, I can’t do it anymore. I feel like I’m suffocating.”
He’d started packing a suitcase then, and she’d been frozen with shock as she tried to comprehend what was happening.
“You’ll thank me, you’ll see. You just need a push to make you get out there and spread your wings. We’ve been hiding with each other for too long, Soph.”
She’d been about to throw herself at his feet and beg him to talk more, to at least give them a chance to try to make things work. But the patronizing, all-knowing, parental tone of his words had made her bristle. And she’d done the first thing that had sprung to mind—picked up the phone and called Julie Jenkins.
And now she was pulling up outside a huge, two-story house—mansion, really—about to embark on four weeks of pandering to one of the world’s most indulged men.
Once again tears threatened, but Sophie refused to cry. She was angry, not sad,
