“It’s spoiled.”

Valerie froze. She knew the wine. She had checked the cork herself.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said carefully. “It was just opened. It may need a moment to breathe.”

Victor slammed his hand on the table. Silverware rattled. The room fell silent.

“Are you contradicting me?” he snapped. “Do you know who I am? How much wine I buy? I don’t need a waitress with a fake accent explaining Bordeaux.”

This wasn’t a complaint. It was a performance.

“I’ll call the sommelier right away,” Valerie said.

“No,” Victor smiled thinly. “Don’t bother him—he’s with important tables. Take this away. Bring the menu again. And I don’t want the foie gras anymore—it looks like rubber.”

She cleared the table and walked to the kitchen, face burning.

The chef, Henri, tasted the sauce and rolled his eyes.
“Perfect. That man is an idiot.”

“He wants a reaction,” Valerie said quietly. “He wants me to break.”

Henri nodded. “And Oliver will fire you to ‘protect the restaurant’ if he does. Be careful.”

Valerie returned with menus. Victor looked pleased, like a child who’d broken someone else’s toy. Renee looked miserable.

Victor stared at Valerie.
“I want something authentic. But reading menus in English ruins it. Takes the soul out of the food.”
He smiled. “Tell me—do you speak French?”

“I’m familiar with the menu, sir.”

“Bonjour, baguette, oui oui?” he mocked, turning to Renee. “You can always judge a place by the education of its staff.”

Then he switched to French—not normal French, but exaggerated, archaic, intentionally cruel. He wasn’t communicating. He was trying to crush her.

“Do you understand,” he finished smugly, “or am I speaking too fast for your little brain?”

He waited for humiliation.

Renee looked down, ashamed.

Valerie didn’t move.

She remembered lecture halls at the Sorbonne. Her dissertation on aristocratic dialects. She remembered that language was power—but also justice.

Victor wanted a show.

She would give him one.

She folded her hands, tilted her head slightly, and looked him straight in the eyes.

Then she spoke—in flawless Parisian French. Calm. Precise. Devastating.

“Mr. Sterling,” she said coolly, “if you’re going to use the imperfect subjunctive to impress someone, I suggest you review your conjugations. And comparing duck skin to glass is a clumsy metaphor—typical of bad nineteenth-century poetry.”

Victor froze.

Valerie continued, her voice carrying.