I Was Burned on Stage, and He Worried About Her

3.

He reached out and grabbed my hand.

Of course it was the one the oil had burned, and the pins-and-needles sting only got worse.

I pushed him off with my head and pressed back against the car door, half hysterical.:

“Our restaurant earned that rating. Why should I void it?”

“The judges said there was no problem. The host said there was no problem. The rules are right there.”

“Ryan Chandler was a legitimate substitute. The score we cooked together is deserved, and you keep circling back to say it doesn't count.”

I stared straight at him, cold all the way through.:

“Is it really that it doesn't count? Or is it that the one who got the score wasn't Lauren Vance, so it doesn't count?”

Owen looked at me the way you'd look at a difficult child.:

“The Imperial Feast needs someone graceful, poised, clean, good to look at, to run it. Only then can it go far.”

“Don't you know how much a face matters these days? How long can some cook who only knows recipes carry a restaurant?”

So in the end, what mattered was a face.

I gave a bitter little laugh, the way I had so many times before.

“But Owen, back when your face was ruined, I never held it against you.”

“I worked so hard to build the restaurant up, to let more people know its name. Have you forgotten why I ever did it?”

Owen had been disfigured by his father's mistress.

After that he was cast aside, no money to treat his face, the wound forever inflamed and oozing.

I was still a student then, no money of my own, so I secretly took the family's heirloom Imperial Feast recipes to sell.

My stepfather caught me in the act.

“You want to save that little childhood sweetheart of yours?”

“Then swear it. Swear you'll stay with the restaurant your whole life.”

I dropped out early and started learning to cook. I gave the first half of my life to that restaurant.

The one good thing was that he let me open a branch in the city I loved.

My stepfather paid for Owen's treatment. When the money ran short he sold two of the recipes, found him the best doctor, got his face healed……

Owen's eyes flickered, plainly unwilling to remember any of it.

“People like beautiful things. Stop holding me to your standards all the time.”

“Back then, treating my face was your choice. I didn't force you. And afterward, didn't I make up for it by being with you?”

“You're the one who came out ahead.”

Came out ahead?

I touched my face with my one good hand, and suddenly I found myself almost funny.

“So all those years I worked, in your eyes, that was just me laying the groundwork to come out ahead?”

“Owen, do you have a heart at all?”

“Is your heart made of stone?”

He saw my tears and turned away in disgust, as if afraid one might land on him and dirty him.

Lauren Vance came running over and planted herself between us, all frantic concern.

“Master, Master, please don't be angry.”

“It's all my fault. I'm apologizing to you. I'm sorry.”

She fumbled the pearl necklace off her own neck and tried to press it into my hand.

“I don't want this necklace anymore. Master, please don't be angry with Master Owen……”

She moved too hard and pressed it right onto my wound, the fabric grinding against the burn, and the pain made me reach out to push her away.

But before my hand could touch her, Owen slapped me across the face.

“Are you done making a scene?”

“I bought Lauren a gift to make up for the fright, and you want to snatch that too. You're disgusting.”

“Lauren, let's go……”