“I was put into foster care a year or so later. I hated it.” Her lips formed a grimace.
“Why?” It was a question asked simply to keep her talking; he didn’t need her to elaborate. He could imagine any number of reasons a person might dislike foster care.
“It was just more of the same – feeling like an unwanted stranger in other people’s homes.” Her smile was a ghostly imitation. “Kind of like this, actually,” she remarked softly.
It was like having a weight crushed to his chest. His behaviour – making her feel unwelcome – hit him hard. He’d been pushing her away, intentionally making her feel as though she were a major inconvenience to him without having any idea that he was reopening wounds of her fractured childhood.
“I’ve explained that,” he said darkly. “It has nothing to do with you. This is just the way I am.”
“I know.”
But so did he, now. He was no different to her father, pushing her away for no fault of her own. He cracked open his beer and mirrored her position, hip casually pressed against the benchtop, watching her, close enough to touch her, challenging himself not to.
“I went through a few foster homes before I settled somewhere semi-permanent.”
He frowned, imagining what that must have been like. At least he was taken from his parents as a baby. His home life had been stable – Yaya and Gianfelice were, to all intents and purposes, his parents. “My foster mum was a great cook. She made everything from scratch; I mean, everything. Bread every morning, cakes, cookies, curries. Her garden was small but completely designed for produce. She rotated the beds seasonally and I helped. I liked it.” She lifted her shoulders.
“She taught you to cook?”
“My adoptive mum did,” she said with a small shake of her head. “But then Olivia – my last foster mum – sort of cemented that.”
“And then what?” He prompted.
“What do you mean?”
“How did you go from being someone who helped cook to being a professional chef?”
“Oh,” her nose crinkled. He ached to kiss the tip of it, so tightened his grip on his beer. “I’m not a professional chef at all.”
He lifted a thick, dark brow. “No?”
“God, no.” She laughed softly and it was like the sun shining from behind a cloud. He felt the mood in the kitchen lift by a magnitude of ten thousand. “I actually studied law at uni.”
Gabe was rarely surprised, but her remark wasn’t what he’d been expecting.
“So how did all this come about?” He prompted, gesturing to the kitchen.
“Well, I moved into a flat with four other girls. We were all broke as a joke, studying as much as we could, and we needed to come up with recipes that were super budget friendly – and yummy. I loved it. I ended up taking a cash contribution from each of them, each week, and making all the meals. After a while, I started to blog the recipes, and the blog was a runaway success, but people started to ask for videos, which led to the YouTube channel and the rest is history, I guess.” She twisted her lips to the side in a gesture he found distractingly sexy.
“You have a heap of subscribers.”
“I know. It’s completely crazy. It started off as a bit of fun and then bam! Before I knew it I had my first million followers and companies begging me to use their products. I never considered it could be a career.”
“So you didn’t actually practice law?”
“No. I finished the degree because I really loved it, and I got good grades,” she said. “Plus, there’s security in having the degree.”
“And security’s important to you.” He could understand why it would be, after what she’d been through.
“Isn’t it for everyone?”
She nodded. “I wanted to know that if everything with my books and YouTube stuff dries up, I can always fall back on a corporate job.”
“Books?”
“Oh, recipe books,” she said casually. “I’ve released a few. I’m working on one at the moment, actually, so this trip is partly research.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be,” she said with a wave of her hand. “It’s really just good luck.”
“It sounds like talent and hard work.”
He saw the warmth in her eyes at that compliment and felt a corresponding heat spread through him. He liked making her feel good. “Maybe a bit of that too.”
Silence fell between them, a silence that was heavy with feelings – awareness, chemistry, and a strange understanding that was almost like familiarity.
“My mum – adoptive mum – loved Christmas.” She spoke quietly, almost shyly. “It’s one of the clearest memories of the few years we had together. She made such a big fuss, Gabe. Every year was like magic…I can’t explain it.”
He couldn’t look away from her face. Magic was the best word to describe it. Her eyes twinkled, her mouth smiled, every part of her glowed.
“She’d buy the biggest tree – always a real one, never plastic – and we’d decorate it together over the course of a whole day. She’d play carols, always the same album, and make mince pies and egg nog. Christmas is in Summer in Australia, but she’d pump the air conditioner so we could rug up in ugly sweaters. Dad thought it was hilarious. I think of her a lot, but especially at Christmas.”
Suddenly, his desire to vanquish the makeshift Christmas tree from the kitchen felt petulant and childish. He could go back to hating everything about this time of year once Isabella was gone. For now, he’d say nothing. She
