Page 123 of Checkmate
Back to square one.
She took a swig of the alcohol meant for the risotto and investigated the pan. Carrots, onion, celery and leak. Garlic, don’t forget the garlic. Probably too much, but she didn’t care. Bit of oil and…
No! No, no, no!
Why was it sticking like that? Why couldn’t she do it? All she wanted was something that vaguely looked like the image in the book, and then she’d be happy. Instead, her vegetables looked black, and her oil was dirty. She’d cleaned this pan so many times, there was no chance it could be dirty.
Try again. Back to the beginning.
She could do this, she could!
She… couldn’t do this.
Something so simple and important to Alex, and she couldn’t do it. She’d been at this for how long? When she glanced at the clock, her stomach dropped.
Over three hours. And she had absolutely nothing to show for it.
‘Easy lobster risotto in only ninety minutes’.
Well, she’d been trying for double that time and all she had to show for it was some burned veggies and a foul smell in the air.
She didn’t have a ‘clean and fresh meal’ on her plate. She didn’t even have any ingredients left!
The bin had eaten more risotto than they had. In fact, that was a lie. Nothing she had made had come even close to resembling risotto. She hadn’t even made it past step four in the recipe book.
Throwing the book across the room, she screamed into the empty kitchen.
All she wanted was to be perfect for Alex. To take care of him and prove she was just as good as Erica. Just as valuable. He kept pulling away from her and nothing she did brought him back. And she was trying.
So. Fucking. Hard.
Sinking to the floor, she sobbed into her apron. Great, giant sobs that wracked her entire body. Rasping deep breaths as though she were struggling for air.
Why wasn’t she enough?
For months and months, she had done everything in her power to get Alex to look at her, even a fraction of how he looked at Erica. She had been perfect in every way, desperate for any form of affection for him.
And for what?
A man who barely looked at her and preferred to fuck her from behind, so he didn’t have to see her face. Were things that bad between them? Was she that bad of a person?
She gave herself a moment.
And then a moment longer.
Finally, she got back to her feet, looking at the remains of her ingredients and sighing.
Well, that little meltdown got her nowhere.
She was enough for him when he was screwing her in his office. Something about her made him step out of his marriage. She just had to figure out what that was.
So she wasn’t a chef, but she didn’t have to be.
All she needed was to know a chef.
Sophie wasn’t Erica, and she needed to quit trying to be. She had so much to offer, just being herself and using her own skills. One of those skills was getting people to do the things she didn’t want to do.
Alex wanted a meal on the table and for his home to be clean. But she didn’t have to be the one to do it.
