Last Call

By Suki Chan

This is a heartbreaking and heartwarming story about feeding the soul, the spirit, and the body. Two chefs with a passion for cooking ignite the flames of love and of each other in a dish that is spiced with romance, fun, forgiveness, and commitment in the lush ltalian countryside.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524589387

Suki Chan

Suki Chan was born in 1978, the year of the snake, on the island of Hong Kong. Suki has always been a free spirit, and at an early age, she enjoyed being the center of attention and won the leads in several school plays. Naturally, Suki became an actress at the age of eighteen and then a well-known television personality. After leaving TV, she has wholeheartedly pursued her passion for food, cooking, fashion, traveling, and writing. Suki’s sense of adventure has taken her on culinary journeys throughout Asia and Europe. Suki has especially endeared Italy as a source for her learning. She took a long class there to gain many of her skills as a culinary chef. Her mother was a Thai maiden, while her father was born in Hoifung, China. This has influenced her to be a chef that is both traditional Chinese and a modern fusionist for food. Suki learned that it is important to put your love into your creations of food. This doesn’t mean put more sugar or butter in the food, but instead put your whole heart into it to make it more whole heart healthy. Her life experiences and the passion for exploring new and exciting discoveries make her cooking much more personal and special. Suki’s joie de vivre is revealed in her cooking and the exquisite care she takes when feeding those fortunate enough to be at her table. Suki’s penchant for fashion and food has also moved her to create a brand out of these experiences—Amour Lulu is that brand. This new venture aims to embody Suki’s beauty, exuberance, and passion for life.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Suki Chan.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017903267

ISBN:   Hardcover              978-1-5245-8843-4

              Softcover               978-1-5245-8842-7

              eBook                      978-1-5245-8938-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 03/10/2017

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CAST OF CHARACTERS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

CHAPTER 52

CHAPTER 53

CHAPTER 54

CHAPTER 55

CHAPTER 56

CHAPTER 57

CHAPTER 58

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I dedicate this book to my father, the love of my life…

—Skinny Fish

I would like to acknowledge and offer a special thank you to Andy for his warm encouragement, to Sue who helped me navigate my English when writing this novel, and to all my friends and fans who offered me their love and support.

INTRODUCTION

L ove is the pathway to joy, bliss, and fulfillment. But love doesn’t happen without nurturing, shared interests, mutual affection, and growth. And growth can be painful. When you get past the growing pains, the difficulties, love becomes transformative. When two people fall in love, the ultimate goal is usually marriage. But happily ever after takes a lot of work. There must be honesty, respect for each other, the willingness to be vulnerable, to compromise, to love unconditionally, and to forgive and move on. The past must stay in the past. There should be no scorekeeping. True, abiding, eternal love is possible only when a couple is willing to take the good with the bad, the bitter with the sweet, work together toward common goals to support each other’s differences and individual goals, to encourage and build up each other, to be unwaveringly faithful, and to never go to bed angry with each other. When the flames of passion die down, there must be much more left for real love to continue to grow and flourish and never die. Commitment to each other and hard work will make it possible to reach the common goal of peace, happiness, and contentment.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

JOSH: He is the main character who is a chef. He possesses a strong character. He is a motorcyclist with tattoos on both arms. His tattoos express his passion for cooking. His friends think he is certifiable.

ANA: She is Josh’s significant other who is also a chef. She is upbeat with a sense of humor. She is not concerned with what people think of her. She has a big heart. Ana can never remember her house key and often takes the wrong bus or other modes of transportation.

ISABELLA: She is a well-known romance author who is suffering from writer’s block at the moment and is in danger of losing her job. She has been romantically involved but not willing to commit until she feels she has accomplished her career goals.

DIEGO: He is the slightly handsome Italian director of Josh’s Amourlulu Cooking School. He loves the ladies, and the only thing bigger than his personality is his tummy.

JULIA: She is a supermodel but quiet and introverted. She is a recovering alcoholic and anorexic. She is married to Bob. She is very lonely and miserable in her marriage but lacks the courage to leave.

BOB: He is handsome and successful but self-centered and selfish. He is a wealthy businessman, and he is cheating on his wife Julia.

FAFI: She lives life at warp speed and is brimming over with joie de vivre. She is zany and loves food. She is slightly chubby, and she often speaks without thinking first.

WIDGET: He is a skinny, dorky, shy, socially awkward techie who has recently left his lucrative position because of burnout. He is a total foodie too who wants to start a whole new life.

ADAM: He is the low-key, easygoing, and comfortable-in-own-skin gay co-owner of a fashion-design company.

MARCO: He is an intense Italian gay fashion designer who always dresses over the top. He is Adam’s partner in life and work.

SCOTT: He is a wealthy New York businessman who drives a Ferrari. He is interested in Isabella romantically.

CHAPTER 1

J osh is in his restaurant, Passionata, stirring a pot. The kitchen is alive with activity—sous chefs chopping, stirring pots, rolling pastry out, expediting colorful dishes for the servers to take to guests waiting in great anticipation. Passionata is becoming a very popular new restaurant in a huge city glutted with fabulous restaurants. A phone rings shrilly in the background. A voice yells for Josh to come to the phone. He scowls and yells, I’m too fucking busy to come to the phone! Take a message.

There is a pause, and the voice sounds urgent the second time. Josh exasperatedly throws down his spoon, picks it up, bangs the side of the pot with it, and continues cooking. He doesn’t give the phone call a second thought.

CHAPTER 2

E arly evening on a busy New York City street, a light mist is falling. Josh is exiting his restaurant and is walking to the corner to cross the street so