“And you? Were you happy? What were you saving tonight?”
I shook my head. People didn’t really get it, and I couldn’t blame them. My role made little sense to anyone who wasn’t living in this echelon of BS. Most people hated it if they ever got the chance to touch it. My sisters couldn’t get away fast enough.
“Whales.” I didn’t touch the happy question. I wasn’t sure anyone was happy, not really. But I wasn’t in the mood to deal with the subject of happiness at the moment. It was too much.
“Did you eat?”
I looked at the time on my phone. It was eight thirty. “No. Shouldn’t you be working?”
“It’s Monday. We’re closed on Mondays. I’m here because I’m working on your menu, but I could stop. I could meet you at Aqualina right now and go over some of this stuff.”
The truth was that menu was set. We had set it in the contract. So he didn’t want to meet me for that reason, unless he wanted to renegotiate, and I doubted he’d be doing that with me. Muffy had her lawyers for that sort of thing. He probably wanted to meet to talk more about why I’d done what I’d done.
And I wasn’t in the mood.
“It’s been a long day. I don’t think I can take being yelled at tonight, even if I deserve to be yelled at every night, so I’m going to say no, but thank you.”
He was quiet for a second. “I didn’t ask you to have dinner to yell at you. I’m just…hungry. I thought maybe you’d be interested in joining me after hearing that you were too. Sometimes I get tired of cooking for myself. I want to eat other people’s food. We don’t have to talk about anything except that. I’m having…a day.”
I could certainly understand that feeling. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Great.”
Things had taken a sudden left-hand turn I hadn’t seen coming.
Aqualina was beautiful inside, serene. On a Saturday, we’d never have been able to walk in without a reservation. Monday, however, at nine in the evening, I stepped through the door and easily found a table.
The waiter smiled at me. I was there enough to be recognized, even if I wasn’t a favored customer. I didn’t come in nearly enough, but timing was key. I ordered a water and waited. Just as I’d started to wonder if he would stand me up, and that was really why he’d set this whole evening into motion, Max arrived.
He was gorgeous, dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a white collared shirt that clung to all of his muscles. He wore black shoes.
“Hi.” He sat down without much preamble. “Sorry, that took a hot second. There was a subway delay. Anyway, looks like we aren’t the only ones eating late.”
I smiled at him. There was something sort of surreal about sitting across a table from him like this. “I like when the restaurants are a little quiet, even if it’s better for them to be busy, from the business standpoint.”
He nodded, shooting me a look I couldn’t quite decipher before looking at his menu. “The scallops are your favorite thing here?”
“Yes.” I didn’t even need to look at the menu to know. It was always the scallops. If they ever took them off the menu, I was going to be full-on sad.
“I’ll get that.” He crossed his hands together and stared at me. “You look really pretty in that dress.”
I’d almost forgotten I was dressed up. My cheeks heated up, and in that redheaded way, I was going to be very red any second. “Thanks. It was for an event.” He already knew that. “So, um…”
“I wanted to say thank you. The operation Eric needs is just not covered by insurance. It might be a last shot in the dark. He’s had these terrible tremors and seizures for the last few years. We took fire on our last mission together. We both walked away a little dinged up, but some neurological damage occurred that doctors missed right after it happened. It’s very serious, and we’ve been having a lot of trouble getting him help. This might save him. Thanks.”
Well, that was incredibly unexpected. I swallowed. “Um…you don’t have to thank me. You never have to thank me. If I can help your friend by doing the very little that I did, then even better.”
I picked up my water as the waitress greeted us.
Her interruption gave me a second to make my pulse stop racing. Max was intimidating, and it was hard to make me feel that way. It was like he sucked all the air from the room and only left enough for just the two of us to be there. If I weren’t careful, I could get pulled into his vortex and never return. Wow. I am being dramatic.
And it was actually possible to have my nipples harden just by staring at him. I’d never had that happen before. Was it obvious? Could he tell? I looked down as discreetly as I could while he ordered himself a glass of red wine and couldn’t see the telltale nubs, which was a good thing. Phew.
“And you? Can I get you something? Oh, and I’m sorry, I never do this, but you’re a Redhead aren’t you? One of them?”
I forced myself back into the present and my mind off my breasts. “I’m good with water, and sometimes I’m called that. I think you probably followed Layla more.” I turned to Max. “Should we order?”
He lifted his eyebrows slowly. “We’ll wait a minute.”
“Great.” The waitress stepped away.
Amusement flooded his expression. “People do that. They call you the Redhead? Like it’s some kind of title.”
It was bizarre, I’d give him that. “I share the title with my sisters. It was given to us, strangely, when we were teenagers. The three of us showed up together somewhere, and someone gave us the name. It stuck. Spread. Social media. Came with being part of a young, rich group of teenage elites. There was a moment in time when being all those things were made really popular online by badly behaving socialites getting photographed everywhere. We were swept up in it, and at some point, my father decided it could be good for business. To help promote his business by using us. So he hired a PR firm, and we were pushed even further down the Redhead hole.” I took another long sip of my water to cool down. “We handled it various ways. It hit Layla the hardest because she let the title take her instead of taking it. Bridget doesn’t care. She ignores the hype and lives her life. And…”
“You used it.” He filled in the blank when I didn’t know exactly what to say. “To do what you wanted.”
“Essentially.”
The waitress dropped off his drink and took our order. We made small talk until our food arrived, and then I took a bite, letting the flavors rush me through. If I’d been alone, I’d have closed my eyes and I might have even moaned, but my manners kept me from expressing my joy aloud in company. Instead, I just smiled and quietly chewed. Yep…that was fantastic.
“It’s really good.” Max took bigger bites than I did, cutting bigger pieces. I watched as he chewed and swallowed. Okay, I was really getting preoccupied. I looked back down and cut another bite, making sure to eat my salad too. It had a sweet dressing I loved.
“So where are you from?” I really knew nothing about him except that he had a friend who was sick and I’d ruined his life. Oh yes, he also suffered from insomnia and didn’t like chocolate.
I knew a few small things.
“A little coastal town in Maine. On the southern coast. Almost no one lives there in the winter, but the number of residents more than doubles every summer when it becomes a theater haven, a real place for art and performance. Every September, it’s empty again, save for a few people from places like here who drive up to see the leaves change. By Christmas, totally empty.”
I’d lived a lot of places but nowhere that resembled what he described. We’d always lived in big cities, no matter the country. “Does everyone know everyone else?”
“They do. My mother was one of those artsy people who used to go up for the summer, but she fell in love with a local man and stayed. They say that her first two winters, she almost left him because the winter is hard, but my mother is pretty tough and she grew to love it. Had eight kids, so I guess she’d have to be tough.”
I st
ared at him. “Eight?”
“Eight.” His grin told me he was used to that kind of reaction. “Dad taught history and then eventually became the high school principal. Six boys and two girls. I’m number three of eight. Boy, girl, boy,” he held up his hand to indicate himself. “Boy, boy, girl, boy, boy.”
“That’s amazing.” I guessed we were considered a big family because there were four of us, but we’d never been what anyone would consider functional, so I didn’t think of us that way. “Where is everyone now?”
He smiled, finishing his food then setting down his fork. “Everyone is still there except for me. They all left and came back. There’s a strong history of military service in my father’s family. My Dad served. All of us guys did, and one of my sisters. The younger one, Trina, she didn’t, but that’s not surprising. She’s really the most like my mom out of all of us. She tried to make it here on Broadway, like my mom did, but ended up going back home two years ago. Married her high school sweetheart. Teaching theater in the summers now.”
I was totally fascinated. “That is…amazing. All of you together. Really sticking it out. But you’re here?”
“Someday, I’ll go back. I have things to do first. I served the longest. They were all in and out when their obligations were over, but I liked it. I kept going back.” He looked away. “Until I was done. And then I wanted to do this. I never cooked a thing until I joined. But I loved it. Was good at it. Went to culinary school when I came out and then this life.” He waved his hand. “My father calls it fancy food. He doesn’t know how I picked up a love of fancy food.” Max’s smile was warm, loving. “That’s basically me in a nutshell.”
All the big details and none of the small stuff, but it was a start. “There is almost nothing about you online, other than some photos that get a lot of attention. Very little is publicly known about you.”
“Well, that’s on purpose. It turned out that was a good thing because few people have connected me, Max Broadley, with Maxim B, which is what they were calling me with the first restaurant. It helped I’d kept mostly to myself. I don’t want to be a celebrity. I just want people to like my food.” I’d stopped eating to listen to him and then quickly caught up. As I was finishing, he asked the question I avoided at all costs. “How long can you do what you’re doing?”
I smirked. “Eating? Hopefully forever. It’s a great joy of life.”
“No, I mean trading off your celebrity to fill parties with the right people?”
I sighed. It was a valid question. I had no discernible skills outside of knowing the right people. “I ask myself that a lot. What’s next? I don’t want to end up sad and pathetic.” Fuck me. Why had I said that to him? “So I’ll have to figure things out. I just don’t know what is next yet.”
I was running out of time to figure it out. “My father is a fugitive. It bought me enough notoriety that people continue to be fascinated when they should probably have let me go.”
“Oh, I doubt that. Your sister got kidnapped. That had to add time too.”
Anger pulsed through my veins. “I would never trade off what happened to Layla. That was the worst day of my life, and trust me, I’ve had bad ones. I am many awful things, which you have seen for yourself better than anyone, but I love my sisters. They matter more than anything. I’ll never trade off their pain.”
Something crossed his gaze, and I wished I could read him, because I really never had any idea what Max was thinking. It was so unusual for me.
“Fair enough.” He leaned back. “Hard to make you out, and I’ve been trying. You never fit the labels you should fit, Hope.”
Well, that was something at least. The waitress offered us dessert, which I would have declined, but he smiled a small, sexy, private smile. “Split something with me?”
I found myself nodding before I could overthink it. “Sure, I love dessert.”
We ended up with crème brûlée, a real favorite of mine, and a non-chocolate selection.
“So where is Layla now?” The waitress refilled my water glass before she delivered the food. This one was chatty. Most of the time, waitstaff left me alone after making sure they’d correctly identified me.
I smiled at her. “Living her life someplace where no one gets to see her without permission.”
She didn’t like my answer and frowned as she left us alone. I’d have to make sure I tipped her well so Bitchy Hope didn’t become my next nickname.
“I see what you mean about protecting your sister. Mine would have done the exact same thing.” He handed me a fork.
We ate in silence, and eventually, I laid down my fork, much fuller than I’d expected to be at dinner. “Well, this is better than the cereal I’d probably have poured myself or some meal I’d microwaved.”
“This is New York. You can get the best food in the world delivered any time, day or night. I think you should be able to do better than those two options.”
He was right. “That’s true, except I tend to shut off the world once I close the door to my apartment. I can’t bring myself to order food and have to open it back up.”
Why did I say the things I said to him? That wasn’t something I readily confessed.
“I get wanting your sacred space to stay sacred.” He shook his head. “I thought I might be able to make you out after tonight. I thought I could get a handle on you. Ever since I met you, I’ve found you aren’t at all who I thought you were for years.”
I took a last drink of my water, finishing it. “And? What have you decided?”
“I’m not sure of you at all, Hope. Every time I think I’ve got you handled, you surprise me. And I have no business wanting to be around you, but I do. I was just thinking I’d like to do this again. That I could eat with you all over Manhattan. That it would be fun figuring out what you like to eat.”
I forced myself to stay calm or to at least to look like I was. “I’m always up for a good meal. I’d like to know you too. Maybe you’ll see I’m only a quarter the monster that you think I am.”
“Sure, you’re totally monstrous. You and those brown eyes that show nothing about what you’re really thinking except when you’re really mad. I can’t tell too much else about you yet.”
I winked at him. “I’m not the only one at this table who is hard to read.”
“Years of learning it in the military. Before then? You’d have thought I was an open book.” He rose and held out his hand, which I took because I liked that he’d offered it. “I’ll walk you home.”
That was sweet but unnecessary. “I have my car. My driver will get me home fine.”
“Ah, yes, those special forces guys that you have trailing around watching you.”
I liked how his hand felt in mine, how his was so much bigger than my own. “How did you know that? What they were?”
“It takes one to know one. We can always spot each other. They’ve made me too, that I guarantee. Well then, I’ll walk you to the car.”
When he squeezed our linked fingers, I almost became a pool of mush on the floor. “Which branch did you serve?”
He side-eyed me. Maybe I’d said it wrong. “I was in the army.”
I could imagine him in uniform, and it was a damned sexy thought. Those broad shoulders and big muscles. He must have been sexy as hell in uniform. “Where were you guys when you took the fire that hurt Eric?”
He shook his head. “Maybe another night, but maybe not ever.”
With a look he shot Theo, Max opened the car door for me. Right before I would have gotten in, he stopped me. “I don’t do relationships. I’m bad at them. Whatever is happening between us, we can be friends, right? However it turns out, that’s enough?”
I squeezed his fingers one more time. “Do you always hold hands with your friends?”
He tilted his head just slightly. “Depends if the friend in question looks like you in that dress, but point made.”
I didn’t let go when he would have pulled his hand away. “Look, I’m in no
condition for a relationship. To put it bluntly, I am not really in a good head space for one. So yes, I’d like to be friends, whatever that looks like. I won’t pretend I’m not attracted to you. That would be lying. But I have no idea what to do with that.”
This time when he took his hand back, I didn’t try to stop him. He ran his fingers through his dark locks before he gave me a full-on grin. “I guess we figure it out. Maybe we end up in bed together, maybe we don’t. As long as we both understand there is no such thing as romance in our lives.”
I nodded. “Don’t worry, Max. I don’t believe in Prince Charming, and I think you know better than most that I’m not Cinderella. We can both be grownups if that is what we both end up wanting.”
He stepped back. “I think we both want it.”
I got into the car and left him there on the street, glad when Theo drove away. I had to breathe. Had to think. What is happening here?
My phone dinged, and I looked down, blinking twice at the person whose name showed up there. Justin? My brother?
I hadn’t heard from him in a long time. Not since he left Layla penniless and alone in France.
Hope, I think… I think I’m in big trouble.
Thoughts of Max flew from my head. Yes, I bet Justin was in big fucking trouble.
Chapter 5
Justin was only a little bit older than us. My mother had four kids in two years and had really suffered through it, from what I understood. She was an artist, a redhead like her four children, and when she’d died in her bed from an accidental overdose, two-year-old Justin had tried to care for us for over a day until my father got home. Four traumatized babies, starving, crying, and clinging to each other.
I’d always heard it was an accidental overdose. That was the running story. Somehow, everyone else had figured out she killed herself except for me. I’d only learned that fact a little less than two years ago from Layla, when she’d had to be hospitalized after her ordeal. Bridget had already known.
I waited for Justin to answer me, pacing around my apartment. Four locks. I’d gotten in and kept it four, somehow. This was like a point of pride for me. Exactly how many times did I have to lock my door in a building with doormen and my own paid security outside?
Redheaded Redemption (Redheads Book 2) Page 5
