Opposites Attract: The complete box set

by Higginson, Rachel

  “Are you not a good chef?” I flinched at his bluntness. “I’m sure Vera could help—”

  “It’s not that,” I snapped, bristling at his assumption. I wasn’t great at bragging about myself, but there was something about this guy that forced my fighting spirit to surface. “I’m a fine chef. I was top of my class. Wyatt promoted me to sous chef the second Kaya left. My friends all gave extremely high recommendations for Ezra to hire me at Bianca.”

  “Okay, then what’s the problem?”

  He irritated me with how unruffled he was by me. He wasn’t at all charmed by my looks or money or car. I didn’t know if he knew how much money I had, but I was Ezra’s sister, so that should tell him something. And he didn’t seem to notice when I grumped at him. It was like nothing phased this guy. He was completely unfazed.

  Which only bugged me even more.

  “The staff,” I blurted, questioning my sanity all over again for confiding in this guy. “They hate me.”

  He weighed my words. I could feel his analytical energy from where I stood. “You don’t seem like the kind of person to shy away from a challenge. If they hate you, make them like you.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to work,” I pouted. I’d tried that already. And about a hundred other tactics. “They don’t listen to me. I’m there in the kitchen, telling them what to do and they just… collectively ignore me. It’s like I’m a ghost they can’t see.” I cleared my throat of the bitterness burning hot. “They don’t want to see.”

  “Hmm…”

  “And I don’t want to go to my brother,” I explained, answering the question he hadn’t asked. “I don’t want to be that person. The girl that can’t fight her battles, so I run to my brother every time someone does something I don’t like. They already don’t think I’m qualified for the position and that Ezra gave me the job out of pity. If I get him involved, that’s just proving their point. I will never get their approval then.”

  I knew he’d heard everything I’d said, but he was quiet for so long that I turned to look at him, curious of his expression. He stood there in fitted khaki pants and an army green short-sleeved button up, his arms folded across his chest, showing off his toned biceps. His hair had been recently trimmed short, just barely longer on top. His temple had lines shaved into the side. Trendy, but edgy for his usually polished look. His angular face was scrunched in thought and his eyebrows were drawn together over his nose.

  I lost my breath, suddenly realizing how striking this man was. I mean, I’d always known he wasn’t an ugly guy, but this feeling of… attraction was new. He’d been this familiar stranger until this moment, this very one. I’d recognized his face before. I didn’t hate looking at him. But he was a guy I had never cared to get to know before now.

  Not that I necessarily wanted to get to know him now… it was just different. I kind of, sort of, knew him. Or if I didn’t know him, he wasn’t a total stranger anymore, as he’d just pointed out.

  He’d convinced me to take the Bianca job. He’d started my car for me the other night. And now he was listening to my job problems.

  We weren’t friends. But we weren’t…acquaintances only either.

  “They don’t listen to you at all?” he asked thoughtfully.

  “No. None of them. I’ve barely convinced the servers I’m the one in charge. The kitchen staff is completely feral.”

  He lifted his gaze and gave me the full force of his stormy gray eyes. If I was a lesser woman I would have fainted. Or at least had to fan my face.

  “Fire someone,” he said.

  I shook my hair out, afraid I’d been so distracted by his face I’d misheard him. “What?”

  “Fire someone. Tonight. The first time someone doesn’t listen to you or talks back or ignores you, fire them.”

  His advice was so completely out of left field to me that I had trouble processing it. It was like he’d spoken a foreign language. “Your solution to getting the staff to respect and listen to me, is to fire someone? Just like that? Just walk in the door and make someone leave?”

  “These aren’t your people, right?” At my look of continued confusion, he clarified, “You didn’t hire them? They came with the restaurant?”

  “Right. Ezra hired them. Or the chef before me. I just stepped into the position with the current staff in place.”

  “Okay, so they have no reason to be loyal to you. You’re the outsider, not them. And my guess is that you’re younger than all of them too?” I nodded, hating every second of his honest assessment. “Less experienced?”

  I shrugged, not wanting to admit this part. “It’s impossible to say.” His gaze hardened, expecting the truth. “But most likely, yeah. I’m relatively new to the game.”

  “And even though you have the chops for this job, they likely assume you only got it because of your brother.” When I started to protest, he reminded me, “You said so yourself.”

  “Okay, yeah.”

  “Fire someone. The first time someone talks shit, cut their ass loose.”

  “I get the lesson, but don’t you think that’s a little harsh?”

  He shrugged. “Honestly, depending on how hostile this work environment is, you might have to keep firing people.”

  Laughing at the lunacy of his suggestion, I decided I wasn’t the only one on the brink of insanity today. “You’re suggesting I handle dinner service all by myself every night?”

  “I’m suggesting you do what it takes to get this kitchen, your kitchen, under control. You clearly can’t keep working like this. And you shouldn’t have to. You’re the boss.”

  His rousing speech was delivered with such conviction that I couldn’t help but repeat, “I’m the boss,” as if saying it for the first time ever.

  “You’re the boss,” he repeated. “Is this how a normal chef takeover happens? You walk in to someone else’s kitchen and have to convince them to listen to you?”

  I thought about his question and shrugged. “Not always. Sometimes EC’s bring their own sous chefs. More often, they promote from within so the staff already respects the new leadership. I have never been a head chef before so I don’t have a sous to bring with me and I’m obviously not being promoted from within.”

  “You have no choice,” he pointed out. “You’re going to have to fire someone.”

  I wiggled, feeling uncomfortable with the idea. “I don’t know.”

  “I mean, you could fire them all and start from scratch. I’m sure you have friends in the industry that would be willing to come work for you.”

  Chewing on his words, I realized that to get people I knew to come work for me, I’d have to poach them from my friends. That wasn’t an option.

  And starting from scratch wasn’t an option either—not if I wanted to turn Bianca around in a reasonable amount of time. I needed people in the kitchen that knew what they were doing, that already believed in her mission and wanted what was best for her. I needed people that gave a hell about the restaurant, but also listened to me.

  “God, I feel sick,” I mumbled, slowly accepting that his suggestion made sense. Fire someone? Me? That would take guts. So many guts.

  Who did I think I was? Gordon Ramsay? I never yelled at people. I convinced them to be my friend and then got them to do what I wanted by respectfully asking them to do their job. It wasn’t in me to walk into a hostile work space and take away someone’s livelihood just to get everyone to wake up and pay attention.

  “Can I hire them back?” I asked him.

  His chin jerked in surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “You know, make my point, fire someone. And then once they’ve all realized I’m serious, let the fired person come back to work again?”

  He shook his head slowly, as if still trying to process my question. “That defeats the entire purpose of trying to get them to respect you.”

  He was right, but I obviously couldn’t tell him that—his ego was big enough already.

  “So, you’re
saying… just walk in there and fire the first person that doesn’t listen to me?”

  “Or talks back or rolls his eyes or breathes in a way that you don’t like. But yeah, that’s the general idea.”

  “And as soon as I ruin that one person’s life, everyone else will magically listen and follow orders?”

  “You’re not ruining anyone’s life. You’re doing your job. Just like these idiots working for you should be doing their job. They’re ruining their lives by being entitled assholes. You’re the boss. Regardless of how you got the job or whether or not they believe you deserve it, you’re. The. Boss. Which means they follow protocol or they find a different job. Have any of them given you the impression they’re looking for other work?”

  I thought seriously about his question. Had they? They’d been consistently late all week. They’d been consistently negligent and disobedient and willfully obtuse. But they’d shown up every single day without fail.

  That gave me the impression they didn’t want a different job, they just didn’t want me at their current job.

  But if I started firing people willy-nilly, they might change their mind.

  Truthfully, I hated what was happening right now. I also couldn’t man the kitchen alone.

  “Have you ever used this tactic?” I asked him, hoping he would give me an honest answer.

  He was silent for a few seconds before admitting, “I’ve never had to. My employees have always respected me.”

  His words burned through me, ripping fresh wounds open even wider. “Oh.”

  “That said,” he continued, “I have dealt with others not taking me seriously. I know what it’s like to be young in business. It’s hard to get anyone to take you seriously, but especially your peers. Sometimes people behave the way they’re supposed to and things go the way they’re supposed to go. And sometimes you have to force your way in the door and carve out your own place. It’s not the fun way to do things, but it’s worth it.” He held my gaze. “If you love what you do, it’s worth it.”

  The burn he’d set off inside me turned into a consuming fire driven by desire and a conviction I didn’t even know I had. I wanted this job. More than anything I had ever wanted in my life.

  To be fair, I had lived a mostly charmed existence and I had never had to want for much. In a materialistic way. Regardless, I knew how to work. I wouldn’t think too hard about how this was the first real thing I wanted and couldn’t easily have.

  Liar—my heart whispered. You wanted your dad to love you. How did that turn out?

  You wanted your early twenties to end differently than they did.

  I didn’t know if I’d ever recover from those years.

  Ignoring the painful reminder that not everything I ever wanted was handed to me on a silver platter, I mentally built an armor of grit and steel. I had goddamn moxie. “You’re right,” I told him.

  His lips twitched with what could only be described as an almost smile. I ignored how charming the expression was on his usually grumpy mug. “What was that?”

  Rolling my eyes so he knew I didn’t enjoy repeating myself, I said, “You’re right. If I want them to pay attention to me, I have to go in guns blazing. I can’t let them bully me. I have to take this bull by the horns and fucking ride it.”

  “Whoa, there were a lot of metaphors in there.” When I glared at him, he loosed a cocky grin. I retaliated with a harsher glare. “But I think you get the point.” Job apparently finished, he started to back away toward the street and the shop he’d left unmanned for the last twenty minutes. “If I go back to work, you’re not going to try to throw a brick through the window or something are you?”

  I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling. “I don’t need inside anymore.”

  His smile softened, punching me right in the girly bits with the sweetness of it. “Good luck, Baptiste. Don’t leave too much carnage tonight. Remember, you can’t run that kitchen alone.”

  “I’m calling you in for backup should things go awry. If you can’t cook, you can at least be my character witness when the cops question what happened.” He laughed at my joke and it left me with a heady feeling of triumph. I remembered my manners at the very last second. “Uh, thanks, Vann.”

  He waved me off like it was no big deal. And maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he wasn’t being kind and considerate like I’d painted him in my mind. Maybe he was only talking a crazy lady down from the ledge.

  It didn’t matter now. No matter the reason he’d chosen, it was advice I needed. It was advice I was going to use.

  I would have to find the courage between now and three hours from now to do it. I could fire someone. I could.

  At least I hoped I could.

  For a split second, I thought about sticking around and waiting for Wyatt or going to Ezra to ask what he thought. Shaking those wild thoughts out of my head, I jogged back to my car and slid into the driver’s seat again.

  There was no point. Vann had given good advice and I found I was anxious to see what happened.

  Seven

  By the time I’d driven across town to Bianca, I had lost the positive attitude I claimed after talking to Vann. I walked into Bianca feeling freshly defeated.

  It took some kind of special determination to fire someone, to take away their hopes and dreams and kick them out on the streets. And, honestly, I didn’t think I had it in me.

  Then what are you doing here? a small voice whispered inside me.

  It was a valid question. One that I took a few minutes to ponder.

  Ignoring the staff that had managed to be on time today, I trudged back to my office and threw my purse on the desk. What was I doing here?

  If I couldn’t do something as simple as get my kitchen to follow me, why was I here?

  What did I want?

  I mean, really want?

  Was it to be handed an easy job and given my career? Or was it to carve out a name for myself in the industry through blood, sweat and tears?

  Was I going to give up because it wasn’t easy?

  Or was I going to dig in my heels and force people to do as I asked?

  The answer was obvious.

  The door to this job might have been opened for me, but nobody was going to hand me a legacy on a silver platter.

  “Enough of this inner dialogue bullshit,” I whispered to no one.

  Spinning around, I buttoned my chef jacket and stomped back into the kitchen. I decided this was it. I’d had enough. There were decisions that had to be made for tonight and I was done pussyfooting around. But I also wasn’t ready to start firing people left and right.

  That would have to play out naturally, I decided. And hopefully, going into my second week at Bianca, it wouldn’t have to come to that.

  I pulled down the clipboard from where it hung next to a cooler and started to go over the schedule. Checking people off the list as they slowly walked in for their shifts and prep work, I started to feel carefully optimistic.

  Everyone managed to walk in close to ten. Granted, it was ten-forty-five and Ashlynn, the head sous chef and second in command was only just strolling through the door, but a quarter to eleven was a big improvement over last week.

  She glared at me, per usual, as she shrugged on her jacket and started buttoning it. I held her stare, not backing down.

  “Now that we’re all here,” I addressed the room in my most commanding voice, “we can start.” I pulled the pen I’d used to secure my hair in a makeshift bun and started going down the list, assigning stations and prep tasks.

  “A few final things,” I told them, struggling to keep their attention. “We’re out of the duck for our duck confit.” A murmur of disapproval rippled through the ranks. This was a popular dish at Bianca, one of the staples, and I hadn’t ordered enough. It was my mistake, but I was still learning the kitchen. “Instead, we’re going to do a strip steak and duck fat frites with a mango and watermelon chutney.”

  “You can’t do that,” Ashlynn said, spea
king up for the first time that day and speaking to me for the first time in two days.

  Stunned by the vehemence in her voice, I asked, “Can’t do what?”

  “You can’t just change the menu day of,” she snapped, folding her arms over her chest. “That’s tacky.”

  My body snapped to attention at her insult, standing straight and flexing every muscle. “It’s not tacky,” I corrected her. “It’s a solution.”

  “We wouldn’t need a solution, if you wouldn’t have created a problem.” She wasn’t wrong, but that wasn’t the way to speak to your boss either. “Now you’ve put us in a bad situation and want us to fix it by making shit up on the fly? This is ridiculous.”

  I took a steadying breath, trying not to let my anger get the best of me. I decided to reason with the logical part of her brain, hoping to help her understand. “This isn’t a difficult dish. I’ll go over it with you today, we’ll prep the chutney ahead of time and we’ll use the fat already prepared for the duck to make the frites. I think it will be a great addition to tonight’s service.”

  If she would have kept her mouth shut, I would have been able to move on. Or at the very least, she could have asked to speak to me in private. But she was too angry and too bitter to think clearly. Or that was what I told myself after she growled, “This is fucking bullshit,” in a whiny, high-pitched voice I had to believe was an imitation of what I was supposed to sound like.

  And that was the final straw.

  God, I hated that Vann was right again. And I hated that it was Ashlynn of all people. In a mostly male-dominated space, I was not in a hurry to fire one of my only female employees.

  But that was too far. And she’d questioned my authority blatantly in front of the entire staff.

  Honestly, she left me no choice.

  Before I could overthink it or let my soft, squishy heart get in the way, I shouted, “That’s it! You’re fired.”

  The room froze in place. Ten pairs of eyes stared at me. It was hard to know if they took me seriously enough to even heed my order. It was just as likely Ashlynn would ignore me entirely and keep working through service. Then I would have to call Ezra in here.