Page 34 of Slow Simmer

Chapter Sixteen

Suzannah looked as though someone had just hit her on the head with a brick. Carlo didn’t think he’d ever seen her look so stunned. She shook her head slowly, as though unable to take in what he was telling her.

“It wasn’t just your parents,” she said finally. “It was everything… the whole world we were living in. You must have noticed the differences in the job offers we were getting. That offer fromLe Bourdainwas the final straw.”

“An offer I had no interest in taking!” Carlo threw up his hands. “I honestly didn’t care where I worked, so long as I was with you. Is that why you left, because you were… what,jealous?”

Her jaw jutted, and he was sure she ground her teeth before she snapped out “Yes, all right? I was jealous. I smashed headlong into the glass ceiling while you sailed through it like it didn’t even exist, because of your gender and your family and your charm and…everything. I had to work my guts out to prove myself in every position I ever held, while you just had it all handed to you on a platter!”

Carlo opened his mouth to snap back at her, and then he closed it again. Finally, he said “You were always more ambitious than me, Suzannah. Maybe that’s because of where you came from, and yeah, maybe I got opportunities you didn’t because of male privilege and advantages of my background. Ones I’m only just beginning to recognise now, if I’m completely honest, as I see how hard you’ve had to work to get to where you are. Particularly considering that you are without question the most gifted chef I’ve ever worked with.”

Suzannah blinked at that, startled by the compliment, and Carlo nodded.

“I’m not just saying that. Hell, I was practically raised in the kitchen of one of Italy’s best restaurants, and I wasn’t within spitting distance of you when we were in training. I think you’re the only person who even thought there was a competition. Everyone was so intimidated by your talent, not to mention your work ethic.”

“Huh,” she said, looking pole-axed. “Really?”

“Really.” He reached out to touch one dangling red curl, wind it gently around his finger. “I had the biggest crush on you. This magnificent red-haired goddess who cooked like an angel and gave anyone who had the temerity to speak to her a terrifying glare. Took me the longest time to figure out you were shy.”

“I didn’t know how to talk to any of you,” Suzannah confessed. “Everyone was so socially adept, and you… well, there were always girls hanging all over you. I didn’t want to be just another one of your groupies.”

“Suzannah Monteil.” He half-laughed, shaking his head. “You could never bejustanything. You were exceptional at nineteen; now, you’re extraordinary.”

Her emerald eyes were wide and soft as she gazed at him, and he wondered what she was thinking. She was too beautiful not to kiss, though, and Carlo was only a man, after all.

Their lips clung, Suzannah’s arms curling up around his neck, her hands running into his hair as she kissed him back. It would have been so easy for him to lose himself, but he still didn’t have an answer to his question.

“Why did you leave me?” He pulled back only far enough to ask.

“Because I was young and insecure,” Suzannah answered finally. “We came from different worlds and we were headed in different directions. I didn’t want to hang on your coat-tails in New York or anywhere else, didn’t want to be the girl from the wrong side of the tracks who was the dark blemish in your glittering life. I had to find my own way, don’t you see?”

“I do, and I see that you’ve succeeded without hanging on anyone’s coat,” Carlo said dryly. “Despite that glass ceiling and being from ‘the wrong side of the tracks’ as you call it. You’re the youngest chef in Australia running a Michelin-starred restaurant and nobody can ever say you got an easy ride.”

She nodded in agreement, a hint of pride entering her expression.

“So can we please put forever behind us any suggestion that you might somehow be not good enough for me? If anything, it’s the other way around. I’m the one who’s coasted through, had everything easy in life. I’m the hanger-on here.”

“No,” Suzannah protested, but Carlo reached up and touched his finger to her lips gently.

“I’m just hitching my wagon to your Michelin star.”

She laughed at his joke, as he’d hoped she would, and she put her hand up to curl her fingers around his, her eyes soft. “This time, I’m not running, Carlo. I’ve found my place in the world and I’m putting down roots. If you want me, this is where we stay.”

He kissed her again before gesturing around them, at the spectacularly beautiful beach, the lapping waves. “Such hardship. Such suffering.”

Suzannah giggled, and then her expression turned mischievous and she slid her hands up inside his T-shirt. “Take it off.”

He couldn’t help a look around.

“Yes, this is technically a public part of the island. But in two years living here, I’ve never run across anyone else in this particular spot.”

“On your head be it if we get caught mid coitus,” Carlo said with a grin, but he shucked his shirt readily enough and leaned back, taking his weight off Suzannah to help her remove her shirt too. She wasn’t wearing a bra underneath, her breasts spilling free to fill his hands, nipples already peaked with desire. He was about to close his mouth over one when a thought struck him.

“I don’t have a condom with me.”

Suzannah gave an overly-dramatic sigh, wiggled until she could put a hand into her back pocket, and pulled out a foil packet. “Do I have to think of everything?” she teased.

Carlo smiled, accepting it from her as she wiggled out of her trousers and underwear, lying spectacularly naked before him.

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