Just Desserts

Every dish that made my cheating husband famous came out of my own hands.

Tonight, the biggest food critic in the city is coming. And Emmett has no idea what I've got planned.

For eight years, I've run the kitchen at Ember while Emmett ran his big mouth. He gets the magazine covers. I get the burns on my forearms.

The only person who ever noticed the difference is the man in counter seat six. Dominic Kane owns half the waterfront and eats alone every Thursday, and two years ago he figured out whose food he was really paying for. He's never said a word about it. He's never had to. One look from that man and I forget I'm somebody's wife.

Then I catch Emmett getting busy in the walk-in cooler with the sommelier — and before I tear him a new one, I hear them talking about their plans. The cookbook with her name on it instead of mine. The new chef starting Monday. And my mother's recipes, the last thing I have left of her, rewritten as some French grandmother's who never existed!

He says I'll hold it together. He says I always do.

He's right about that. I'll hold it together right up until the biggest review of his life, and that's when I'll get my revenge.

And when it's done, when the whole room has finally seen who I am? Dominic stands up.

Some men get what they deserve. I got a whole lot better.