Personal Chef

Chapter 59

I followed the drama about Shawn as it unfolded online. Every crappy gossip news site had a story about Jayce's paternity, and most of them were ridiculously sensationalistic.

Most conjectured that Shawn believed he was the father until a paternity test proved otherwise. This was essentially true, though they didn't know about the part where Kat deliberately lied to him. It was clear that she had to have known there was more than one possible father, but no outright allegations were made that she'd duped Shawn on purpose, because he honorably kept that part of the story to himself.

She still looked bad, of course. Shawn's fans, including those who had supported her in the past, jumped on the hating-Kat bandwagon. Whereas the media held back from saying she'd used Shawn, his fans had no problem saying that they knew that had to have been the case. Shawn didn't tell the world how she'd tricked him, but he also rightfully did not say a word to defend her when his fans got nasty.

Kat cagily released a statement thanking Shawn for his support during her pregnancy and said he would always be one of her best friends. At the same time, she scrubbed her IG of all the photos during her pregnancy that included him. Interestingly, no more photos of her with Coulson Reyes popped up. He had tons of photos of baby Jayce on his account, but no sign of Kat. I wondered what their relationship was.

It was common knowledge that Shawn had returned to Toronto, and there was some speculation that he and I had gotten back together. My restaurant's name and location were shared after he'd been spotted there, and suddenly I had an influx of young fans hoping to catch a glimpse of him. They'd buy fancy coffee drinks and a dessert and then camp out at a table for hours. I didn't mind as long as they were paying customers, but I'd told Shawn not to come by until they gave up. I knew that if he didn't make an appearance, they'd eventually go away.

One Sunday afternoon, Shawn and I had plans to finally talk about his album. Paige was covering the restaurant so that I could meet him at my place for a couple hours, and I was bringing lunch from the bistro. I'd made us each a mushroom, onion, and cheese panini and packaged up a large container of beef and barley soup.

"Have fun on your date," Paige teased as I put the food in a brown paper bag.

"It's not a date and you know it," I said with a frown.

"What I know is that it's nearly impossible for two people who were once madly in love to turn off all their old feelings and just be friends."

"He's been home for weeks and we've managed so far."

She laughed. "You two are both playing nice for now. You're holding all your urges at bay. That's good, and I kind of get why you don't want to be with him, but at some point one of you is going to explode."

"I've got to go," I said as I put on my coat.

Ten minutes later I was unpacking lunch at my tiny table when there was a knock on the door. I answered and smiled when I saw Shawn standing there.

"Come on in. We should eat while the food is still hot," I said.

He hung up his coat and took a seat across from me.

"This looks great," he said, eyeing the food.

"Today's soup and sandwich of the day," I explained.

We chatted as we ate. He told me he'd been spending a lot of time with his parents. Since his family shared the loss of Jayce with him, they were able to offer lots of support.

"I know you thought Kat was lying from the start," Shawn said. "Have you been fighting the urge to say 'I told you so' to me?"

"You're kidding," I said, feeling offended.