Chapter 84

After a moment of charged, volatile solitude, Williams was now barricaded behind her desk, immersed in work, a tall glass of amber whiskey chillingly close to hand. The air in the room was thick with her bruised ego and relentless focus.

A gentle tap at the doorframe preceded Evelyn’s soft voice. “Dr. Williams,” she murmured, stepping inside. “Are you alright?” Her posture was hesitant, weighted with genuine concern.

“What do you want?” Williams’s voice was dry and clipped, not even glancing up from the legal documents that offered a tangible reality to clutch.

“You haven’t had lunch.”

“I’m not hungry. Get out of my room.”

Evelyn didn’t move. The silence stretched, testing Williams’s thin patience.

“Listen.” Williams sighed and finally lifted her eyes. “If you want to talk about what happened earlier, know that I didn’t mean to attack you. And I’m not interested in you. It’s…”

She froze, her gaze snagging on Evelyn’s attire. “What is that?”

Evelyn was wearing a pristine white chef’s uniform: a crisp tunic, a dark apron tied neatly at the waist, and a matching toque covering her hair. She looked less like a maid and more like a confident, professional baker. “I found this in the employee cupboard. Did you have a chef as an employee?”

Williams took a long, slow drink of the whiskey, her eyes narrowed in assessment. “Possible. They cooked meals of my choice.”

“Like what?”

Williams tried to recall a single meal, but the memory was blank. She barely ate, existing on coffee and adrenaline. “Various things. I don’t have time for this absurdity. Leave me alone.”

Evelyn ignored the dismissal, her eyes flickering down to Williams’s dominant hand signing documents with precise yet slightly shaky strokes. “Is your shoulder better?”

“Yes,” Williams lied immediately, refusing to show the weakness in her arm. She continued to leaf through the documents.

“Then can we check it?”

Williams’s pen halted mid-signature. She stared at Evelyn the way someone stares at a mirage, waiting to see if it dissolves. Evelyn was still standing there, radiating quiet, unyielding compassion.

Am I delusional again? Is this reality? The previous episode had shattered her certainty.

This time, I’ll stay calm. I won’t speak. I won’t react. She thought to herself.

“Dr. Williams, are you all right?” she asked. “I found this cookbook. I thought we could try one of the recipes. Together.”

Williams shut her eyes. Don’t react. Don’t respond. Don’t move.

Evelyn approached, closing the distance between them. A warm, careful touch landed on Williams’s bicep. “Williams, are you okay?”

“Go away, evil spirit,” Williams murmured, the words barely audible, her head bowed in internal struggle.

Evelyn deliberately poked her on the still-healing shoulder.

“Ahhh!” Williams flinched violently, gripping the chair arm. “It’s real?”

Evelyn frowned. “Of course it is real. What are you playing at?”

“Go away with your costume and your ridiculous book!” Williams snapped. “I’m not a cook.”

“Listen, I’m bored and…”

“And you are not on vacation here!” Williams lunged out of her chair, driven by panic and ego, intending to steer Evelyn towards the door.

“Wait!” Evelyn struggled, leaning almost out of the frame. “I was told you were a high-IQ woman, Doctor. So, a simple recipe shouldn’t be beyond your intellect.”

Williams stopped dead. Evelyn had found the lever. If there was one thing Williams always yielded to, it was the seductive pull of her own inflated ego.

Eyes locked into her opponents, she crossed her arms, her back straightening into a formidable rod. “Of course, I have a significantly above-average IQ. And I’m almost certain you read that in an online report. But what about you? I wouldn’t be surprised by the contrary, given the fact that you have difficulties in carrying out simple orders.” Her voice regained its legendary, icy authority.

“Then I challenge you.” Evelyn tapped Williams’s stomach with the wooden handle of a spatula, a gesture that was both playful and deeply intimate.

“Ouch.” Williams instinctively placed a hand over the spot, startled by the familiarity.

“A duel. And in the end, if you win, I will submit completely to you without flinching.”

I will submit to you. The word resonated in the cavern of Williams’s mind, a siren call to her need for ultimate control.

“And what if I win,” Williams countered, her eyes gleaming with sudden, cold opportunism, “and I ask you to have an abortion?”

Evelyn’s smile vanished. The casual atmosphere evaporated, replaced by the weight of life and death. Her silence stretched long, heavy, and suffocating. “But that goes beyond the deal.”

“Then what use is your submission to me?” Williams spat.

Deep down, she just wanted to have a good time, to play, she thought, but her doctor’s ambition and need to eliminate the threat of the child had not changed.

Evelyn took a breath, meeting Williams’s gaze with one of unflinching courage. “Alright. But this time, you asked for it. If I win, the deal is canceled, and I am free. But if I lose, yes, I will terminate the pregnancy this very day.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Try me.”

For a moment, Williams wasn’t the cold surgeon or the terrifying commander. She was simply someone who didn’t expect to be met with such courage.

“Fine,” she said. “But you’ll regret it.”

A few minutes later, the kitchen felt like an operating theater under emergency pressure.

They faced each other like duelists.

Evelyn handed her the recipe book. “To make sure there’s no cheating, you’re going to close your eyes, choose a recipe at random, and we’ll both make it.”

Williams snatched it with a pretentious flourish.

“Fine,” she began.

While she turned the pages, Evelyn watched her with a genuine smile, admiring every part of her marvelous doctor radiating with confidence. Her perfectly manicured finger landed on a slightly complicated, multi-step Savory Tarte Tatin recipe.

“Here. You have this.” Williams handed her back the book.

If everything was written down, then it became a technical problem, simple to solve.

“Perfect. Title: Tarte Tatin, duration: 45 minutes,” Evelyn confirmed, a predatory glint in her eye. “Forty-five minutes, no more.”

“Agreed.”

Williams dressed as if preparing for open-heart surgery. She donned a surgical cap, a face mask that covered her mouth and nose, an immaculate white apron, and sterile blue gloves.

Evelyn watched with suppressed amusement; she wore only her chef’s tunic and apron.

“You should cover your mouth in case you feel the urge to vomit,” Williams instructed arrogantly, adjusting her mask.

Evelyn ignored her. “Hmmm, let’s begin.”

The duel began. Williams saw the challenge as a purely mechanical problem: follow the steps in perfect order, with surgical precision and speed. Her knife skills were superb; she cut her ingredients one by one, precisely and quickly. At times, her recovering hand sent a sharp, dull ache up her arm, but she stifled the pain, overriding the weakness with sheer willpower.

While Williams followed the recipe to the microscopic letter, Evelyn worked with fluid, intuitive mastery, employing grandmotherly tricks and shortcuts, unafraid to veer from the conventional method. In the end, the objective remained the same: to obtain an identical, or even better, result.

Williams turned on the heat beneath her frying pan, side by side with Evelyn. She glanced at Evelyn’s station, assessing the threat.

“No cheating, Doctor,” Evelyn warned.

“I never cheat! Who do you take me for?” Williams snapped, dropping her meticulously diced shallots into the sizzling butter.

She pretended not to watch her.

But she did.

The way Evelyn loosened her shoulders before chopping.

The way she hummed quietly when stirring.

The way she worked as if she belonged there, even though she didn’t belong anywhere in that house.

While scrambling for victory, she reached for the salt cellar and, at the same moment, their hands collided. Williams gripped the shaker with proprietary dominance, and so did Evelyn.

“I grabbed it before you!” Williams insisted.

“I just want a pinch.”

“No. We follow the order.”

“Never. I don’t have time to waste.”

“Me neither.”

“Then we’ll share.” Evelyn’s determination was final.

Williams inhaled deeply, struggling against the sudden, distracting closeness. She put her hand in the salt bowl, and Evelyn did the same. Their fingers tangled, warm skin against cool, dry salt, a momentary, charged intimacy. The rest of the duel followed suit, their hands brushing over herbs, flour, and oil.

A shock of something neither named.

They pulled away too quickly.

And yet…

Williams found herself stealing glances again and again.

They had turned the kitchen into a chaotic, flour-dusted battlefield, with flour on the counter and droplets of sauce on the floor, as two women breathed hard over steaming dishes.

A few minutes later.

“Soon it will be time,” Williams declared, her voice tight with anticipation.

Williams immediately tore off her surgical cap and gloves. She was sweating beneath the cumbersome gear. She straightened her hair, the expensive silk falling perfectly back into place. Evelyn watched her with wide-eyed amusement. What splendor, to be so obsessed with control, even in a kitchen.

Williams turned, ready to issue a sharp, preemptive critique, but Evelyn’s gaze stopped her. They had just spent an hour in furious, focused proximity, not hating, not physically fighting, but collaborating in a duel. And although the stakes were the life or death of an unborn child, they had found a bizarre, functional rhythm.

Williams lowered her gaze, suddenly disarmed.

Then Evelyn’s voice, quiet but firm, broke the spell. “It’s ready.”

With her heart pounding, Williams awaited the final verdict. She didn’t need Evelyn to tell her. Just by looking at her own dark, burnt offering, she had to admit that the magnificent surgeon had failed miserably. She moved closer to her dish, surprised by the blackened color and scorched crust.

“Dear Doctor, it’s time to surrender. You lost,” Evelyn smiled, pulling her own perfectly golden, caramelized tarte from the oven.

Williams frowned. Strangely, she wasn’t angry. Perhaps because her failure was private, safe from the prying eyes of the public and her board, her perfect image was not at risk. But this also meant the abortion was not going to take place and, worse, Evelyn was free.

FREE. Williams froze, the reality of the loss striking her like a physical blow.

What have I done? This was not the plan. Makizal must deal with this tonight. She thought.

“Okay,” Williams replied, her voice dangerously flat. “I’m going to rest.” She rushed toward the exit.

But Evelyn grabbed her wrist, firmly and definitively. “Where are you going?”

“What do you want?” Williams demanded, pulling against the gentle restraint.

“You lost. And I won. First, you have to congratulate me, confirm that the deal is off, and ask me what I want.”

Williams stopped, standing rigidly. Her entire being fought the demand, but her pride was the chain. “Congratulations, Hazel,” she said, her voice barely audible. “The deal is canceled. But that’s all.”

“You couldn’t win,” Evelyn told her, her voice rising in triumph.

“What?”

“You couldn’t win, Dr. Williams. You don’t become a chef in one day. It’s like your profession. You didn’t become the best in a day. It takes patience, art, and years.”

Williams looked at her, the words cutting through her ego and into her core belief system. She revisited a flash of the sleepless nights and the grueling hours of hard work she had put in to become the celebrated surgeon. Evelyn wasn’t calling her weak, only inexperienced. And if she put her mind to it, she would be the best.

“I have a medal in cooking, dear Doctor. And now, you have to ask me what I want.”

“We talked about the deal.”

“That’s what you wanted. Now ask me what I want.”

Williams closed her eyes, swallowing the bile of defeat. “What do you want?”

Evelyn leaned in, her voice dropping to a seductive, commanding whisper that was more potent than any surgical order. “You’ll clean up every inch of this mess while I go wash up. And when I get back, you’ll serve me the winning Tarte Tatin.”

“What?” Williams stammered, disbelief warring with outrage.

“You heard right, maid. And the more you clean, the more you’ll regain the strength in your hand.”

Poor Williams. The rebel had gotten the better of her with her strategic compassion and beautiful, ego-flattering words. Her pride had led to her downfall. Not only had she lost miserably, but now she had become a servant. And even if it was only for a night, she learned something from her.

Never challenge a chef.

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