On Lavender Lane (7 page)

“I knew that he’s challenging their prenup, but since when is adultery a valid reason to void a prenuptial agreement?”

“It’s not. At least it’s not typical.” Diamonds flashed as Pepper waved away that idea. “After all, everyone cheats.”

“I don’t.”

“Of course you don’t, darling,” the agent soothed expertly. “Apparently, he’s trying to break it by claiming that he wasn’t aware of the full extent of her fortune. Along with impaired judgment.”

“I can identify with that one,” Madeline muttered. Obviously her own judgment had been flawed when it came to her marriage. “How, exactly, was his judgment impaired?”

“He says he was high on cocaine when he signed it.”

“Well, that’s a novel excuse.”

“Isn’t it? I suspect he hired someone to make that horrid video to embarrass her.”

“I don’t know about Katrin, but it sure as hell has embarrassed me,” Madeline admitted.

“You’re the injured party. You should hold your head high. My guess is that if her husband can somehow prove that her and Maxime’s relationship goes back to before the marriage, he might be able to argue that she didn’t enter into the marriage in good faith.”

“I can’t believe this.” Madeline rubbed her temples where the mother of all migraines was threatening to strike. Bad enough that she was publicly humiliated. Now her marriage was going to be dragged into the divorce of the century?

“It’ll blow over,” Pepper assured her quickly. “Things like this always do. Meanwhile, looking at the bright side: Not only is any publicity good publicity, but you’re going to be perceived as the victim.”

“Just what I wanted.”

“Well, of course you don’t. But better the victim than the slut home wrecker, darling. And think how many women out there will identify with you.”

“I’d rather not.” Publicly Cheated-on Wives wasn’t exactly a club Madeline had ever imagined joining.

“Well, let’s get on to the good news,” her agent said.

“Let’s,” Madeline agreed. Anything to get off this topic.

“I received a call from a representative of OneWorld Airlines this morning. They want you to create a signature menu for their European flights.”

“You’re suggesting I cook airline meals?” Could this day get any worse?

“Well, you wouldn’t be the one actually
cooking
them. But, yes, I think it would be a very positive opportunity. After Lufthansa started offering chef-driven meals for business and first class, the idea’s proven hugely popular with flyers. Tommy Tang even inked a deal with Thai Airways.”

“He told me. Quite honestly, I was a little surprised.”

Madeline had run into the Godfather of Thai Cooking during a layover at LAX a few months ago, which was when he’d told her about the deal. Although their culinary styles couldn’t be any more different, his tiger prawns topped with mango salsa were high on the list of top ten dishes she’d want for her last meal.

“People who can afford to spring for first class pay attention to chef’s name on a menu when they get great food,” Pepper pointed out. “Especially when the airline’s spending big bucks to promote those meals. Which, in turn, builds name recognition and makes them more likely to frequent those chef’s restaurants.”

“Now you’re talking about synergy,” Madeline murmured. Which she’d been hearing as often as
ancillary marketing
these days.

“Exactly!” Either her agent didn’t notice Madeline’s decided lack of enthusiasm, or, more likely, merely chose to overlook it.

“Let me give it some thought. The timing isn’t exactly the best right now.”

“I totally understand.” Pepper nodded sympathetically. Then polished off the rest of the martini. “Go home; talk things out with Maxime. Why don’t I give you a call tomorrow afternoon?”

“So soon?” A betrayal as hurtful and public as what her husband had committed wasn’t as easily dispensed with as a scorched béchamel sauce or a broken shrimp platter.

“I know.” She reached across the small table and patted Madeline’s hand. “But the offer is time sensitive. Although you’re absolutely their first choice, they’re also considering Rachael Ray. Or Sandra Lee.” Her brow furrowed. Just a bit. “And, let’s face it, darling. Although your food is superb, their public profile is a bit higher than yours.”

How about a lot higher?
And, since today’s department-store challenge, along with her encounter in the taxi line, the idea of adding yet more “synergy” to her already-filled plate had Madeline back to picturing tails and dogs again.

“I’ll call you,” she countered. Pepper wasn’t the only one at this table who could negotiate.

Although it obviously wasn’t the answer she was hoping for, Pepper’s red lips curved in a smile. “Wonderful.” She glanced down at Madeline’s glass. Which was, at this moment, closer to half-empty than half-full. Which, Madeline considered, could be taken as a metaphor for her life. “Would you like another?”

“I’d better not.”

Although the idea of getting wasted was even more appealing than it had been on the plane, she needed to be firm and clearheaded when she confronted her husband. Although she may be swinging between wanting to go straight to bed and sob copious tears into her pillow, or screeching and throwing a well-aimed cleaver between his legs, neither would help this situation she’d landed in.

7

It was raining. A cold, hard rain that pounded against the windows like a shower of stones and blurred the lights from the traffic below the apartment and the bridge crossing the river.

Maxime, who’d arrived back home before Madeline, had already lit a fire and opened a bottle of cabernet.

She’d practiced all the things she was going to say. Questions she was going to ask, demands she was going to make, all the time staying coolly, calmly in control. Being the injured party, she was determined to hold the high ground and not allow him to weaken her resolve by setting a romantic atmosphere.

Amazingly, proving how deeply their relationship had sunk into the morass of avoidance, she and her husband first exchanged a bit of chitchat about their flights. They compared her in-flight spaghetti salad to his Philly steak, and decided she’d gotten the better meal.

Then they went on to discuss the weather. The weather!

And, yes, even how many damn pots she’d sold in Omaha.

Finally, unable to avoid the huge, rotting elephant carcass in the room another moment, Madeline stopped her pacing, stared unseeingly out the window at the cars making their way across the bridge, and said, “I don’t understand.”

“I never meant to hurt you, Madeline,” he said with what sounded like sincerity. But then again, she’d believed him when he’d taken those marriage vows, which had included
fidelity. “Although it’s no excuse for what happened, I had no idea we were being videotaped. It was Katrin’s bastard of a husband’s doing.”

“So the woman
is
Katrin Von Küenberg?” Despite the heat the crackling fire was sending out, Madeline was colder than she’d been in Nebraska.

“Oui.” She’d noticed over the years that whenever he wanted to convince her of something she really didn’t want to do, his French accent would thicken. “He’s a greedy bastard who’s after her money. He wants to break the prenuptial agreement and humiliate her while doing so.”

His voice was hard. And coldly furious.

How strange that he’d be more concerned about his lover’s feelings than those of his wife.

Strange and sad.

She turned around to face him. The anger in his voice was echoed in his deeply hooded eyes. She countered, “That may be. But unless he forced you both at gunpoint into that bed, I don’t see how he’s to blame for the situation.”

“Touché.” He tilted his glass toward her.

She didn’t know this man. Didn’t recognize him. Maxime Durand was known for never holding back his emotions. Arguments in his kitchens had ended up with him punching so many holes in the walls, he’d quit bothering to repair what his employees had taken to calling design features.

Her fingers tightened on the slender stem of her own glass. “Well.” She felt tears sting her eyes and resolutely blinked them away. “Aren’t we being ever so civilized?” Madeline was finding it difficult to work up the proper fury while feeling as if she’d been hollowed out with a dull melon baller. “Is this how your other marriages ended?”

“You knew I’d been married before,” the stranger stated in a tone as cool and sterile as the décor of the room. “You knew those marriages had failed. I told you repeatedly that I don’t believe I possess the marriage gene. But you refused to listen.”

He had. And she had.

Her bad.

No,
Madeline reminded herself firmly as an encouraging flare of anger flashed through her.
His.

“I also warned you about the difference in our ages,” he continued defending the indefensible. “I knew you were too young. But I couldn’t resist your entreaties.”

“It wasn’t as if I got down on my knees and begged,” she muttered. But, admittedly, she’d come damn close. “Besides, my father was seventeen years older than my mother.”

“I’m well aware of that. Given that you pointed it out on a regular basis even before we began living together.”

She hated that he was calm when she was not. Hated that he had the gall, after what he’d done, to use her own words against her.

She repeated what she’d always said. “They were totally compatible. In their marriage and in the kitchen. And my father never,
ever
strayed.”

He shrugged as he refilled his glass from the decanter on the outrageously expensive ultramodern glass console table the designer had said would be perfect in the space. The table Maxime loved. The one Madeline found lacking in any warmth. Like the rest of the penthouse.

The kitchen was the only place she’d ever felt even the slightest bit comfortable. Unfortunately, it was also Maxime’s realm, and she was basically relegated to saucier whenever they prepared the rare meal together.

After they’d returned from their honeymoon, Madeline discovered that instead of working side by side, as she’d imagined, her new husband was putting her at the front of the house at his restaurant, where she was expected to serve as both the dining room manager and hostess.

“Your beauty and charm bring my dining room to life,
darling
,” he’d insisted. While admittedly flattered, she hadn’t devoted all those years learning how to cook to end up spending each evening wearing Spanx beneath long black
gowns, standing on foot-killing heels, greeting guests, and keeping service humming, all the while continuing to smile until her lips felt frozen.

He’d assured her it would only be temporary. But one month had turned into two. Then six. Then a year, then, before she knew it, although she was occasionally called in to help out on the kitchen line, most of her time was spent up front, and locked away in her office, running the financial side of the restaurant while her husband ruled supreme in the kitchen. On those increasingly rare occasions he was actually in the city. Most of the actual cooking had been taken over by his sous chef. Who was—no surprise, given the chauvinism of the business—male.

She’d believed him when he’d told her the trips were business. But now she was forced to wonder the same thing Katrin’s husband was allegedly trying to discover for his own reasons. How long had the couple’s affair been going on?

“Children don’t always know what goes on in a marriage,” he pointed out, dragging her mind back from that vexing thought to their conversation and her firm belief in her parents’ fidelity.

“Spoken like a man who’s never had, or even wanted, a child,” she snapped. Then took a deep breath.

One thing at a time
. And right now her bastard husband’s unwillingness to have a family wasn’t an issue on the table.

“My mother first brought me to spend days at my family’s restaurant in Umbria when I was an infant,” she said. Again repeating what she’d told him whenever the subject of children had come up. “I grew up there. I did my homework in the dining room before the restaurant opened for dinner. I spent most of my waking hours until I was thirteen years old at Trattoria Gabriella, and all I ever saw was love and respect. It was obvious to anyone who ever saw them together that they were soul mates.”

Hadn’t her mother always said that Nikos Galinas, Maddy’s Greek father, had taught her mother to cook with passion, while her father, in turn, claimed that his dazzling Gabriella had taught him to cook with soul?

“Do you know the trouble with you, Madeline?”

“No. But I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“You’re a romantic.”

“Guilty as charged.” Madeline was annoyed at how he made it sound like a flaw. “Which is why I cook from my heart instead of creating flashy, pretentious dishes designed to impress magazine critics and self-important foodie bloggers.”

Bull’s-eye.

His brows lowered above narrowed eyes. “Is that what you’re accusing me of doing?” He splayed his hand across his chest.
“
Moi
?”

“How long has it been since you’ve actually prepared a meal, or even a single dish, at any of your restaurants?”

He looked at her as if she’d gotten her degree not from the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, but from an online correspondence course. “We’ve been through this before, Madeline. I’m a visionary.” There it was again. That condescension she’d grown accustomed to hearing in his tone. “I create the concept, then hire people to carry it out for me.”

Madeline wasn’t totally naive. She knew many chefs who’d built careers these days doing that same thing. But it was still so foreign to the way she’d grown up. The way she’d always thought she’d run her own restaurant. Someday. Marrying Maxime had sidetracked that dream.

“People always loved it when my parents greeted them when they arrived. Or at least came out of the kitchen at the end of the meal. It made their experience more personal.”
And if there’d been a problem, like overcooked scallops, they would have damn well known it immediately and made things right.