Stella finally understood what Weston meant. “You want me to cook for you?”
Weston leaned against the glass door frame, his gaze unwavering, but he didn’t answer her question.
“No problem,” Stella replied with a nod, her voice betraying no hint of hesitation.
Weston’s silence did not faze her. She simply turned and walked toward the kitchen, her movements purposeful.
As she moved, Weston’s eyes followed her, noting the long cascade of her hair, which now reached nearly to her waist. He remembered when it had been much shorter, back when they first married. Every night, she would lie on their bed, her sleek black hair stark against the white sheets. The contrast of those colors, black and white, now flooded his mind each time he saw them, and it would send a wave of longing through him, a fleeting loss of control that he quickly tamped down.
He pushed aside those thoughts, his gaze sharpening as he spoke, his voice laced with a quiet challenge. “Surely you know exactly what I like to eat?”
In truth, Weston had never really thought about food preferences. Growing up, everything he ate was the best, prepared by the best chefs, served to him on a silver platter. He didn’t understand the concept of craving something specific, since everything was always perfect. His parents, despite their affection for him, never truly understood his likes and dislikes when it came to food, either. They never needed to—everything they gave him was the finest, and that was enough.
But Stella was different. After their marriage, she would always ask him what he liked to eat, what he preferred, what he needed. At the time, he had dismissed her efforts, thinking them trivial, a waste of time. He had been indifferent to her attempts, brushing them off with disdain. To him, it didn’t matter whether she was skilled in the kitchen. He could always have a world-class chef prepare anything for him with a simple request.
Yet after they separated, Weston had tried others—top chefs from around the globe. But none of them could recreate the taste of the meals Stella had prepared for him. It was strange, unsettling even, how no one else seemed to get it quite right.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Stella opened the fridge, her eyes scanning the contents. She was taken aback to find it stocked with every possible ingredient: fresh fruits and vegetables, frozen imported meats, seafood. It seemed as though Weston had prepared for her arrival. She stood in front of the fridge for a long moment, lost in thought.
It hit her then—Weston had been paying attention, preparing for her, in a way she hadn’t expected. She was reminded of how, during their marriage, she would spend hours learning new dishes, trying to discover what he liked, hoping to please him. Even when her food didn’t impress him, when he barely glanced at it, she would try again, tirelessly. Sometimes, her hands would blister from all the cooking, but if the food didn’t meet his standards, he wouldn’t even finish a bite.
It was bitterly ironic that now, when she had no desire to please him, no interest in making him happy, he suddenly cared about her cooking. She snorted, a hollow laugh escaping her lips, as she nonchalantly pulled a few simple ingredients from the fridge and tossed them into the sink.
The kitchen was a place she knew well—too well. Despite all her efforts to forget the past, this place still haunted her, reminding her of all the futile attempts to win Weston’s approval. The clatter of the ingredients in the sink echoed in the silence, a stark reminder of how much she had sacrificed.
Stella’s eyes flickered to the gleaming edge of the knife on the cutting board. For a moment, an intense thought—dark and sharp—flashed through her mind. It was brief, just a fleeting vision, but the thought was there, unbidden. She quickly dismissed it, but the edge of the blade lingered in her mind, as if challenging her to confront the depth of her own bitterness.
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