Chapter 38 Midnight Kitchen Test

• The restaurant slept, but the kitchen didn’t.
• Fluorescent lights hummed low above gleaming steel counters. The scent of caramelized sugar and burnt vanilla hung thick in the air, wrapping around Élise as she moved between stations, sleeves rolled up, hair tied loosely. It was past midnight — the hour when silence feels like a mirror, when memories echo louder than footsteps.
• A half-finished dessert sat on the counter: smoked chocolate mousse with a thin ribbon of sea-salt foam. The flavor didn’t sing yet. It needed something,maybe bitterness, maybe fire. Like him.