I shook my head. “You’re an idiot.”
“An idiot who gets some anytime he wants. Not that you have that problem.”
I remained quiet as the waitress set down our plates.
“Cheers,” I said to her when she smiled at me, but I didn’t give her more than that.
“Right,” Jagger said. “So the opening was a smash, other than Lulu’s shit review, which means we can focus next on Paris, yeah?”
“Actually, I’m going to be heading back to New York,” I said in between bites of pie.
Jagger frowned. “What? That wasn’t the plan. You said you were there to check out the competition, not to start a new restaurant. We already leased the space in St. Germain, and you’re supposed to be interviewing designers and head chefs next week.”
I shook my head. “Change of plans. New York is the next destination. Paris is too saturated.”
“And New York’s not? There are more restaurants per capita there than any other major city.” Jagger squinted and rubbed his goatee. “What aren’t you telling me?”
I stared at my plate. The pie was delicious, filled with aromatic beef and kidney, the delicate gravy Miss Flanders was known for, the flaky pastry crust that melted in the mouth. Suddenly, though, it tasted like sawdust.
I set down my fork. “Something came up.”
“Something came up? Xav, if I have to cancel all our carefully-laid plans to take over France, you’re going to have to give me more than that.”
I heaved a sigh. “I—you remember that girl I met when I was there looking for my first expansion? Right before Lucy got her diagnosis and Kori finally took off?”
Jagger’s face darkened, both at the memory of Lucy and the difficulty with our first joint venture. He had been friends with her too—mostly through me. “Ah…sort of? Wait, the one from Brooklyn?”
“The Bronx,” I corrected. “She’s Italian. Or her family is.”
“Is? So you saw her again this last trip? You dirty dog.”
“It was a bit more than that.” I pushed my plate forward, unable to eat anymore. My stomach was growling, but every time I thought about what Francesca had done, I wanted to be sick. “Turns out she had a kid just after I left. And, well…it’s mine. I have a daughter, Jag.”
It was the first time I’d said it out loud. Not even at home in the mirror. The words stuck in my throat, choking me one by one.
“Bloody hell,” Jagger said after a few long seconds.
That’s when I knew it was a real mess. Nothing shook my best friend.
“So, what happened?” he asked. “How did you find out?”
With some difficulty, I told him the entire story, beginning to end, when Francesca and I shouted at each other in the middle of the street and I threatened her with the courts. Jagger listened through it all, taking pensive bites of his fish and chips with the occasional forkful of mushy peas. In the end, his response wasn’t exactly what I expected.
“So, how’d she look?”
I glared at him. “After all that, that’s your first question?”
He shrugged. “Well, yeah. If I recall correctly, you wanted to marry this girl. You came home from New York that year looking like a Disney character, all starry-eyed and twitterpated. Like, you actually told me you loved her. And, mate, I know you don’t have a heart of stone, but it’s what everyone else says about you.”
My scowl hardened even more. I was perfectly aware of my reputation. Sometimes I was even proud of it. People don’t fuck with someone they think has no conscience.
“Francesca looked good,” I admitted, then bent to my food.
Jagger’s brows rose about an inch.
“Really good,” I conceded.
“Yeah?”