King of the Kitchen (2 page)

Duncan’s father traveled in the same culinary circles as Beck and the Kings, but their paths rarely intersected because of the feud between Christian and Vincent. Duncan had always assumed he’d meet them someday, but he’d figured it would be at a swanky gala or four-star restaurant, not in the kitchen of the Sunrise Cafe. He’d been steadfast in his refusals to attend events like that with his father so far, or he’d probably have already met the famous Christian and his protégé. Maybe he’d start accepting some of those invitations to have an excuse to ogle Beck’s admirable ass.

Duncan’s neck heated as he realized he’d just served Beck Douglas a plate of diner eggs Benedict. Hell, Beck had won the James Beard Award last year, one of the youngest chefs ever to take it. Beck knew practically everyone in the restaurant world, thanks to his mentor, and Duncan had insulted him and implied he managed a buffet. Perfect.

“Duncan, I don’t know what you said to that guy, but he dropped two hundred dollars on the table to cover a twenty-dollar check. I ought to let you talk to the customers more often, man,” John said, grinning from ear to ear as he elbowed Duncan in the side. “You’re off now too, right? Let’s treat ourselves to some real food, courtesy of Mr. Angry Eyebrows.”

“Mr. Angry Eyebrows?”

“They were very expressive,” John said solemnly, and Duncan broke out into almost hysterical laughter at the understatement.

“He’s training to be a TV chef. I’m sure that involves lessons on how to emote with facial features,” Duncan said, unfastening his chef’s whites as he and John moved toward the manager’s office, where the staff stored their things. The diner was too small to have an actual employee lounge, but no one cared. Especially since the owner and manager, John’s mom, was hardly ever there and didn’t mind them using her office as a catchall. Duncan had even napped on her couch more than once. Of course, none of the other staff aside from John would dare try that, but he supposed that was a benefit of being pseudofamily.

Duncan had worked at the diner in the afternoons all through high school, and then he’d spent every college break he could at the Sunrise Cafe, helping out. His summers were spent apprenticing in more upscale restaurants, thanks to his demanding father, but he was always happiest in the kitchen at Sunrise. Duncan would be heading back to the University of Chicago to finish his master’s degree in biochemistry and molecular biology in a few weeks, which meant an end to his time in the kitchen. He’d already accepted an internship in the research and development department at Kraft Foods for the spring semester. If all went well, he’d be offered a job there come graduation in May.

He’d always picked up shifts at the Sunrise here and there, but he wouldn’t have time anymore. His class schedule for next semester was insane, paving the way for him to take the minimum number of credits in the spring, since he’d be spending half the week up in Madison, Wisconsin, at his internship.

There wouldn’t be time for marathon sixteen-hour shifts at the cooktop once he graduated, either, assuming he got the job with Kraft. He’d be moving up to Wisconsin, and even though Chicago was only two and a half hours away, it would be too far to pop down to cover line cook shifts when the Sunrise Cafe was in a bind.

He was really going to miss it. And John.

“I can see it. He’s pretty enough for television,” John said, shrugging out of his own uniform and pulling on a ratty sweatshirt. “So. Pizza?”

“Food of the gods,” Duncan agreed, tucking his spattered chef’s whites into the laundry hamper.

Chapter ONE

May 2015

“FOR THE
last time, Vincent, I’m not taking a position in any of your restaurants.” Duncan’s tone was the cultivated mix of cold and firm he’d perfected to use on his father over the years, but it didn’t deter his father, who kept talking as if Duncan hadn’t interrupted.

“Not just
any
of my restaurants. You know I’ve been saving the executive chef position at Goût for you. Even Henrie knows he’s just a placeholder until you’re ready—he’s been interviewing other places ever since you gave up that ridiculous notion of being a scientist.”

The word “scientist” dripped with scorn, and Duncan bit down hard on his tongue to keep himself from responding. Vincent had been fine with Duncan pursuing a university degree instead of going to culinary school. He hadn’t gone himself—he had a business degree.

There had been some pushback when he’d enrolled in grad school. His father saw it as delaying the inevitable time when Duncan would take his rightful place as his right-hand man in the Walters restaurant empire.

Not that Duncan had ever professed the slightest desire to do so. He’d even skipped over Vincent’s restaurants when he’d done his apprenticeships in college, thinking it would send the message to his father that now he was an adult, he wasn’t going to be working for him.

But hope springs eternal, and Vincent was a classic example of that. His head was buried so far in the sand—or up his ass—that he ignored Duncan’s plans for the future.

“Vincent—”

His father laughed. “Duncan, please. You lasted… what? Three years in the lab? You were made for kitchens, my boy. God gave you a gift, and you should be using it.”

Duncan held the phone away from his ear, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly at his mother, who looked up from the show she was watching and laughed fondly. He hated that she had a good relationship with his father—the man who had left them when Duncan was six because his culinary career was more important than his family.

The accusation wasn’t exactly fair. Vincent and his mother had split amicably, and it had more to do with the fact that Vincent needed to be in a big city to keep advancing in his career, and Duncan’s mother refused to leave their small town because she was caring for Duncan’s elderly grandfather at the time.

Even though the divorce hadn’t been contentious, it had been hard on Duncan. As an adult, Duncan was well aware his parents shared the blame for the divorce, since neither of them was willing to accommodate the others’ needs. But at the time, he’d been too young to understand that, and all he’d known was that his father had disappeared and his mother had cried all the time.

It didn’t help that after the divorce Vincent became radically religious in the worst possible way. Whatever hope there had been of the two of them being close was shattered when Vincent found some fundamentalist church right around the time Duncan realized he liked boys as much as girls. Even their shared passion for food hadn’t been enough to bridge the gap that Vincent’s constant disdain for Duncan’s sexuality had caused.

“It was four,” Duncan said flatly. He rolled his neck, praying for patience. Or maybe for a freak meteor to strike his father. No, that wasn’t fair. Damn it. He could understand why his father was so insistent he come work for him, but he wished Vincent could exhibit the same level of understanding for why Duncan was so very, very against that.

In the kitchen, they got along fine. Better than fine. They worked seamlessly as long as their whole focus was on the food, as it should be in a professional kitchen. But the second service ended or they stepped out of the kitchen? Disaster.

“I say tomato, you say canned tomato paste. Oh, wait, you don’t anymore, because you came to your senses, and you’re not in that godforsaken fake-food lab anymore,” Vincent snarked, and Duncan sent up another prayer for patience.

“Vincent, I appreciate the offer. I do. But I’m covering for Navien at 134°. She’s got another month left on her maternity leave.”

Duncan would do about anything for Navien. She was a good friend, and she’d always been willing to let him pop in to take over dinner service for a night or two while his soul had been slowly dying at Kraft. He’d been filling in for her as executive chef at the pretentious-as-fuck steak house for the last three months, and he was itching to move on. The food was boring, as was the concept. Seriously, who names a restaurant after the temperature of a medium-rare steak?

Vincent apparently agreed with Duncan’s assessment, judging by his ill-mannered snort. “Haven’t you wasted enough time with this traveling chef routine? Settle somewhere, Duncan.”

Duncan didn’t bother to suppress his sigh. He and Vincent both knew that by “somewhere,” Vincent meant “at one of my restaurants.”

Duncan had started out as a dishwasher and general dogsbody in the kitchen of Vincent’s flagship restaurant the summer he’d turned fifteen, learning the ins and outs of the kitchen. It was more time than he’d spent with his father since the divorce. His father wasn’t a bad guy. Not really. He did love Duncan, in his own way. But early on Duncan had realized if he wanted to be in his father’s life at all, it had to be on his father’s terms. He probably wouldn’t have bothered if not for his interest in cooking. His mother had seized on that and sent him stumbling into Vincent’s kitchens as soon as he’d been old enough, and the rest was history.

So even though Duncan considered the two of them estranged, he knew his father well.

He was especially familiar with the concept of Vincent never
listening
. Like now, while Vincent was continuing to take digs at the kitchens Duncan had been in lately.

“I’m happy with how things are going, but thanks for your interest,” Duncan said before going in for what he knew would be a kill shot. “But if you’re that worried about me staying in one place, I suppose I could take Christian King up on his offer to run the kitchen at one of his places.”

“The day you step foot in that unfortunately named godless heathen’s kitchen is the day I disown you,” Vincent said.

Duncan could imagine him frothing at the mouth. “You two call each other the sweetest things. His latest nickname for you is ‘that religious zealot,’ had you heard?”

Even though Duncan didn’t like Christian’s food any more than his father did, he did have to give Christian props for reading him so spot-on. Points to Christian for that.

“I’ll not have you cavorting with that man,” Vincent said, his voice low.

Duncan smirked. Usually that sentence was uttered with a completely different meaning. The conviction was the same, though. Who knew Vincent hated his nemesis as much as he hated Duncan’s sexuality?

“I’m hanging up now,” Duncan said into the phone before his father could continue his tirade. He quirked an eyebrow at his mother’s exasperated expression as he tossed the cell onto the couch cushion next to her, knowing she would pick it up.

His parents’ continued friendship remained a complete puzzle to Duncan, but he didn’t worry too much about it. Aside from giving Vincent the inside track on what restaurants Duncan was working in—something Vincent was more than well-connected enough to find out on his own, anyway—he knew his mother respected his desire for privacy and didn’t disclose much else.

Duncan wandered into the kitchen to get dinner started, while his mother chatted with Vincent and made excuses for Duncan’s obstinate refusals.

“He’s not that bad, you know,” his mother said from the doorway a few minutes later. “You two fight because you’re so similar. I wish you could see that.”

She trotted this favorite argument out whenever Duncan and his father fought, and it never failed to sting like a bitch. Duncan refused to believe he was anything like his father. He could agree they both shared a passion for food and a talent for making masterpieces in the kitchen, but that was where it ended. Vincent Walters was a slave to his own ambition and intent on finding fame. Duncan simply wanted to cook. The media liked to draw the same kind of comparisons, but those were easier to dismiss. After all, the reporters were strangers. This was his mother. She of all people should know better.

“Sure, Ma,” Duncan said, waving her off. Hopefully if he didn’t argue, she wouldn’t launch into her fifty-point lecture on why it was true and how if Duncan would get to know Vincent better, everything would work out.

“You really should consider your father’s offer. I know it’s hard for you to see it, but he’s so proud of you.”

Duncan wrinkled his nose, ignoring his mother in favor of pulling ingredients for a simple dinner of chicken and rice out of the refrigerator. Everyone always assumed that as a food scientist and chef with an interest in molecular gastronomy, he always ate fancy, deconstructed food, but to be honest, he preferred simpler meals. Eating them, at least. Duncan couldn’t deny he loved the thrill of taking apart a classic dish and putting it back together in a fresh and modern way. But at home? He was a pizza and burgers kind of guy.

“I’ve told him again and again. I don’t want to work for him,” he said, busying himself with dinner prep to keep his annoyance in check. Having his hands busy always helped him keep his temper, which was one of the reasons he was so good in a professional kitchen. Tempers always ran high in them, but Duncan managed to keep a level head by immersing himself in prep and cooking. Outside the kitchen was a different story. More than a few epic showdowns between the Walters men had occurred in Vincent’s office over the years.

“But he loves you, Duncan. He wants you to be successful. I know you enjoy moving around, but it’s been almost a year. He can actually help you get ahead. Why won’t you take him up on it?”

His reasons were legion, and he’d gone over most of them with her untold times before. What this really boiled down to was her getting anxious that he’d move across the country. She liked having him close, and for the most part, he enjoyed being back in Chicago. His last job offer had come from an up-and-coming bistro in Napa, and it was really tempting.

He’d been wandering, a kitchenless nomad, since the last place he’d been executive chef closed in 2014. It hadn’t been a terrible blow since he’d only been there six months. Before that he’d had three other restaurant jobs around the country. He’d flitted around through different concept restaurants, going from traditional French bistros, to venues where he could get his mad scientist on with true molecular gastronomy, to things in between, like the steak house. The only thing all the restaurants had in common was the fact that they
weren’t
owned by his father.