Page 43 of Devotion
“Yes. A contractual husband doesn’t eat breakfast with you. He eats it alone after you’ve left the house, in secret, like a food criminal.”
Eleanor laughed. “You should spend more time at home,” she said. “Get to know him.”
“Eleanor.”
“I’m just saying.”
“You’re matchmaking.”
“I’m observing.”
“You’re matchmaking and I can see you doing it.”
She took a sip of tea and said nothing, which was her most dangerous move.
That afternoon, Eleanor insisted I take the day off.
I was in the home library, looking for a cookbook I was certain I’d placed somewhere.
A collection of Mediterranean recipes I’d been experimenting with. I was reaching for a hardcover on the second shelf when my elbow caught the edge of a folder and it slid off the desk and papers scattered across the floor.
I knelt to gather them—medical documents, a hospital report, and at the top, Christopher's name.
I was about to stack them and put them back when a detail caught my eye. The allergen section. Documented kiwi allergy. Severe. Diagnosed at age seven.
Documented.
This wasn’t a miscommunication or a gap in the system that somehow slipped through. The allergy was in his file. His team knew.He knew.
My hands started to tremble.
It couldn’t be.
I sat on the floor with the report in my hands and my mind racing. The crew members at Sazón who mentioned Christopher loved kiwi. How casual it was. How convenient. Like someone had planted the information knowing I’d overhear it, knowing a chef who admired Christopher Vale would want to do something special for him.
I thought about the meeting at the resort. How he’d apologized. How he’d taken responsibility. How charming he’d been, how generous, how perfectly the narrative was managed. The compensation, the interview, the job offer—all of it, every step, choreographed by a man who’d built his career on controlling how people saw him.
My stomach turned. I put the report back. Closed the folder. Put it on the desk. Walked to the kitchen and gripped the edge of the counter and stood there until my hands stopped shaking.
I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted the version where it was an accident. A gap. A mistake. I wanted the man from the interview.
The handwriting on the quote in my room.
But the evidence was in a folder on his desk and it told a different story.
Christopher came home at seven. I was at the kitchen island, dinner cooked and waiting. I couldn’t eat a bite of it.
He walked past me toward his study.
“Christopher.” I barely recognized my own voice.
He stopped and turned, and there it was—the neutral expression I was starting to hate, the face he wore at home, the one that said I was a temporary inconvenience being managed until the contract expired.
“Did you know about the kiwi?”
He didn’t answer immediately. His eyes searched my face. I held my breath, my heart twisting in my chest.
“Did your team know?” I continued. “Was the allergy in your medical file the day of the interview at my restaurant? Did you know what would happen when you ate that dessert?”
