Page 47 of The Devil She Knows
A bed, that much was obvious. A bedroom. White walls.Notpadded. Thank God. Long, gauzy curtains covered a window to the right and—hold on.
This washerbedroom. The bedroom she’d shared with Hannah for the last two years. Even if everything looked different, the floor plan was the same. The decor was minimalist chic with clean lines, the furniture all new and Scandinavian modern in a neutral palette, white and gray and brown, everything made of wood and wool and glass. A cream-colored piece of macramé art hung on the wall and a single pothos plant rested on the dresser, the green leaves giving the place its only pop of color.
All her pictures that had hung on the walls were gone, not a knickknack in sight, nothing but—
“Holy shit.”
Talk about a rock. No, aboulder. The emerald-cut diamond on her nightstand was massive. Three carats? Four, maybe? Bigger than anything Sam would ever have picked for herself, impractically large, but that didn’t matter.
There was a sparkly diamond on her night table that—yep, it fit her finger. Unless that suddenly meant something different, Sam was engaged.
Fantastic,butshe was going to need a lot more than a ring before she got her hopes up this time. She’d been engaged to Hannah in her first wish and that hadn’t stopped her life from going belly-up in the blink of an eye.
She glanced at the clock again.
Six thirty a.m. Time to rise and shine. Nacho and Pumpkin needed to be fed soon, and Sam had a fiancée to find, and she couldn’t do any of it from the comfort of her bed.
Poking out from beneath the nightstand was a pair of plush shearling-lined slippers. Sam slipped her feet inside them and padded out of the room and into the kitchen.
“Hannah?” she called out. “You home?”
No answer. Not that she had expected one. Hannah was an early riser, out the door most mornings no later than six for either CorePower Yoga or GRIT BXNG class.
“Nacho! Pumpkin! Breakfast time!”
She opened the pantry door, and that was when it hit her.
Nacho and Pumpkin were probably still at the vet.
The day she’d proposed—or the day she’d proposed in real life—well, this was her real life now, too, wasn’t it? The day Hannah had turned her down and ended their relationship, Sam had dropped Nacho and Pumpkin off for a routine teeth cleaning. Poor baby Nacho was going to need a tooth removed, so the vet had said she’d like to monitor him overnight, and since Pumpkin didn’t do well without his brother, they’d both stay until the vet called the next day—today—for Sam to pick them up.
This was the first wish that had resulted in Sam wakingup in her own apartment as opposed to snapping into consciousness at a fancy grand opening or hellish cooking competition, so the vet visit had completely slipped her mind until now.
Without hungry cats to feed, Sam set the coffeepot—new like everything else—to brew and padded back across the apartment to the bedroom. A phone was charging on her nightstand, the latest iPhone model. Pricey.
Settling in at the breakfast bar with a cup of coffee doctored up with Hannah’s favorite zero-sugar French vanilla coffee creamer—they were out of Sam’s favorite, hazelnut—Sam unlocked her fancy new phone with Face ID. A picture of Hannah standing in the surf of a white sandy beach wearing an outrageously oversize sun hat smiled back at her from the home screen.
Sam’s first wish—not counting the bread pudding because, retroactive effectiveness clauses aside, the bread pudding shouldn’t have counted—had left her blindsided. Her second wish, too. Daphne had dropped her into each … universe, reality, whatever it was called, with only the wording of her wish to work off. No context, no idea of where she was or what she was meant to be doing until someone told her, no nothing.
But not this time. This time, Sam had a phone. Sam had a phone, which meant she had the internet at her fingertips.
First order of business, find out where Hannah’s dream girl worked.
Sam typed her name into the search bar of LinkedIn. Six pages’ worth of Samantha Coopers and she was the top result.
Samantha Cooper
Executive Chef and Owner at Indulge Hospitality Group New York, New York, United States
10k followers, 500+ connections
Sam clicked on her picture and scrolled down the page.
Samantha Cooper is the executive chef turned owner of Indulge Hospitality, the New York-based group behind the highly acclaimed restaurants Glut (SoHo, Manhattan), Gorge (Miami), and Gratify (Nashville), along with the newly opened bar Gulp (Park Slope, Brooklyn).
Hailing from Grosse Tête in Iberville Parish, Louisiana, Chef Cooper moved to New York City at the tender age of twenty-two, where she almost instantly exploded on the culinary scene. While working her way through the kitchen ranks at Glut, Chef Cooper captivated food enthusiasts everywhere with her mouthwatering recipes and signature irreverent sense of humor on Instagram and TikTok, swiftly making herself a household name. A year later, Chef Cooper purchased Glut from previous owner Émile Bouchard and transformed it into the successful operation that it is today. Chef Cooper has received numerous accolades for her fine dining, including four stars from theNew York Times, four James Beard Foundation Awards, and three Michelin stars.
Most recently, Chef Cooper announced her forthcoming book,Indulge: Culinary Secrets from Chef Samantha Cooper’s Kitchen.
