Kitchen Boss

Someone who makes me wish I could crawl right back into bed.

“Betty.” I greet her with the best fake smile I can muster.

“Cathy,” she says my name plainly with just a twitch of a grin.

What is she doing here? Isn’t she supposed to be back in New York?

“If you’re looking for Jackson and Maisie, they’re not here,” I tell her. “Jackson is – ”

“Working, I know,” Betty finishes. “And Maisie is at daycare. I came to see you.”

My eyebrows furrow. “Me?”

“Yes.” She barges into the house, hitting my shoulder. “You didn’t go to work today. Why?”

My eyes grow wide. How on earth did she know that? Has she been spying on me?

And so what if I didn’t go in? Is that a crime?

“I’m about to go in, actually,” I say.

“But you didn’t this morning,” Betty says. “Why?”

Why does she want to know?

“I’m sorry, but I have to go in now,” I answer.

In other words, it’s none of her business. Betty doesn’t take the hint, though.

“Are you not feeling well?” she asks me.

I draw a deep breath as I try to rein in my temper. “I – ”

She places her hand against my neck. “You don’t seem to have a fever.”

She steps back and takes a look at me.

“And you’re not sniffling. You don’t seem to have a cold.”

“I don’t.”

“What is it, then? A stomachache?”

Really, it’s none of her business.

“I – ”

“You’re not pregnant, are you?” Betty blurts out.

The question makes me pause, not just because of how rude it sounds but because it makes me wonder about something for the first time today.

When you have sex, you get pregnant, right? Judging from the sticky stuff I found between my legs, Jackson didn’t use any protection. What? Did I tell him not to? At any rate, he didn’t. Could I be pregnant?

“No,” I answer Betty as confidently as I can.

I can’t be pregnant. I only just had my period. Besides, surely, it’s too cruel for me to get pregnant the first time I have sex. Does that even happen to anyone?

Betty narrows her eyes at me. “You’re sure?”

I narrow my eyes in turn because my patience has run out. “Sure. Now, can you please let me…?”

“Good,” she cuts me off. “Then it’s not too late.”

I give her a puzzled look. “Not too late for what?”

“For you to break off the engagement,” Betty says as she heads off to the living room. “That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about today, whether you went to work or not. I was going to postpone it if you looked anywhere near the brink of death, but you don’t, so I’ll proceed.”

I frown. Does this woman only ever think of herself? Something tells me yes.

I don’t really want to follow her into the living room, but I seem to have no choice. I can’t leave her here.

I go after her. “If it’s the engagement you want to talk about, Betty, you’ll have to talk to Jackson. He was the one who proposed, after all.”

“And you were the one who said yes,” she points out as she makes herself comfortable on the couch. “Don’t act like some victim here.”

“I’m not. I – ”

“You have the power to break off the engagement if you so choose, and I’m here to convince you to choose so, to use that power.”

I sigh. “I know you don’t approve of our engagement…”

“Of course not,” Betty confirms without a shred of hesitation. “How could I approve of someone like you becoming a stepmother to my granddaughter? You’re practically a child yourself.”

Another insult.

“I’m twenty-six, Betty,” I tell her as I place my hands on the back of a chair.

“Yet you’ve only just finished college,” she points out. “You’re only an intern.”

“I’m a management trainee now,” I correct her.

“Which you’ve only been for what? Three days?”

A bit more than that, but this time, I don’t bother to say so.

“Regardless, this is your first time working, isn’t it?” Betty asks.

“I don’t see how that is important,” I tell her.

“Ah, but it is. It means you don’t know much about life yet. Like I said, you’re still practically a child.”

I frown but find myself unable to argue with her on the matter. She does have a point. I’ve just barely started living my own life. Besides, didn’t Jackson himself say that I hadn’t grown up?

“Maybe that’s why Jackson is still in love with you,” Betty goes on. “Because you haven’t changed. Maybe to him, you’re still this little girl he needs to protect.”

So Betty knows about that, too, does she?

“Men like that, you know. They like protecting someone or even feeling like they are. It makes them feel like… well, men.”

She turns her head towards me to meet my gaze.

“And you, you look like the kind of girl who likes to be protected.”

My temper rises, but I try to keep it at bay. “If you’re saying I want to feel safe, I won’t deny it. Who doesn’t? But if you’re saying that’s the only reason I’m with Jackson – ”