Chapter 14: The Cold War
1178 Words
(Tunde’s POV)
They say that you shouldn't cook when you are angry because the food will taste bitter.
They didn't tell me what happens when you cook when you are heartbroken.
"Chef?" Marcus asked tentatively. "The sauce."
I looked down. I was stirring a béchamel sauce. It had split. It was a lumpy, oily mess. I had been staring at the wall for ten minutes while the milk curdled.
"Throw it out," I said quietly. "Start again."
Marcus looked at the other cooks. They all looked terrified. I hadn't raised my voice in a week. I hadn't yelled. I hadn't thrown anything. I was just... quiet. And that terrified them more than the shouting.
It had been five days since the night at Eko Hotel. Five days of silence.
I walked to the pass and looked out the window. Across the street Baba’s Pot was open. The lunch rush was beginning. The new generator I bought her was humming softly in the alleyway.
I saw Amara. She was behind the counter serving rice. She wasn't smiling. She looked thinner. She looked tired.
Every time she looked out the window and saw me watching she would aggressively snap the blinds shut.
She had blocked me on w******p. She had deleted her ChefsConnect account. She had returned the generator manual and the spare keys I gave her in a brown envelope left with my doorman.
She was erasing me.
"I need to fix this," I muttered.
I grabbed my phone. I called the most expensive florist in Lagos.
"I want roses," I told them. "Red ones. Five hundred of them."
"Five hundred, sir?" the florist asked. "That will fill a room."
"Exactly. Deliver them to Baba’s Pot across the street from The Garnish. Right now."
I hung up. I felt a flicker of hope. No woman could stay angry in front of five hundred roses. It was a grand gesture. It was romantic. It was what billionaires did in movies.
An hour later a van pulled up. Two men started unloading massive arrangements of deep red roses. They marched across the street.
I watched from the window.
They entered Baba’s Pot.
I held my breath. I waited for her to come out. I waited for her to look across the street and smile. Or maybe wave.
Five minutes later the men came back out. They were still carrying the flowers.
They crossed the street and came into The Garnish.
"Sir?" The delivery man looked confused. "She refused delivery."
"What did she say?"
"She said..." the man hesitated. "She said she doesn't sell flowers. She sells rice. And she said if we bring them back inside she will use them to make fire for the goat meat."
My sous-chefs covered their mouths to hide their laughter.
I stared at the mountain of rejected roses filling my lobby. They smelled sweet and cloying. They smelled like failure.
I realized then that I was an i***t.
I was trying to fix a problem of trust with money. I was doing exactly what she hated. I was acting like the billionaire who thought he could buy his way out of consequences.
(Amara’s POV)
The nerve of him.
Five hundred roses. Where was I supposed to put five hundred roses? On top of the cooler? Inside the pot of Egusi?
He was trying to drown me in flowers just like he tried to drown me in attention.
"Madam," Uncle Dele said, chewing on a toothpick. "That neighbor of yours is trying very hard o. Roses are expensive."
"I cannot cook roses Uncle," I snapped. I banged a pot onto the stove. "And I cannot eat apologies."
"But he bought you the generator."
"That was a bet," I said. "He lost. He paid. That is business. This..." I waved my hand at the street where the flower van had just left. "This is manipulation."
I missed him.
God help me I missed him.
I missed the way he leaned against my counter. I missed the way he looked at me when I was cooking. I missed ChefX’s late-night messages telling me I was doing a good job.
But every time I thought about him I remembered the humiliation. I remembered sitting in that bar pouring my heart out to a ghost while he sat across from me and watched.
He had seen me naked. Not my body. My soul. And he hadn't shown me his.
"He lied to me Uncle," I whispered. "He made me feel like a fool."
Uncle Dele looked at me wisely. "Sometimes men lie because they are bad. Sometimes they lie because they are scared. You have to decide which one he is."
I didn't want to decide. I just wanted to be angry.
I closed the shop early. I walked out to lock the gate.
Tunde was standing there.
He wasn't holding flowers. He wasn't wearing a suit. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. He looked tired.
"Go away, Tunde," I said. I didn't look at him.
"I took the flowers back," he said quietly. "It was a stupid idea. I’m sorry."
"You are always sorry. And you are always rich. Do you think you can just throw money at me until I forget?"
"No," he said. "It’s not that. I just... I don't know what else to do. I don't know how to reach you."
"You can't reach me," I said. I locked the padlock with a loud click. "You lost that privilege."
I turned to leave.
"I missed you today," he said. His voice stopped me. "I burned the béchamel sauce because I was looking at your window."
I squeezed my eyes shut. I wouldn't let him charm me.
"That sounds like a waste of ingredients," I said coldly.
"It was," he agreed. "Amara please. Just tell me what to do. Tell me what I have to do to make you look at me again."
I turned around. I looked him in the eye.
"You want to know what to do?" I asked.
"Yes. Anything."
"Stop being the Billionaire Chef," I said. "Stop buying things. Stop sending your staff to run errands. Stop hiding behind your money and your phone."
I stepped closer to him.
"You said you wanted to show me you could fit in my world? Then fit in it. Without the safety net. Without the wallet. Without the lies."
I pointed at the ground between us.
"Until you can stand here as just a man I have nothing to say to you."
I turned and walked away. I felt his eyes on my back burning hotter than the sun. But this time I didn't look back.
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