The Seaside Café

by Rochelle Alers

  “Last school term. I handed in my resignation in May.”

  She closed her eyes and counted slowly to ten. “All this time you let me believe you were leaving here at the end of the summer. You must have been laughing your head off at my gullibility. Or should I say my naïveté.”

  “You’re wrong, Kay.”

  “Yes, Graeme, I’m wrong. I am so wrong for trusting you when you didn’t trust me enough to tell me that you plan to live here. Do you remember what I said to you about trust? It means more to me than love. You’re the second man I’ve let myself fall in love with, and I can’t trust either of you.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I’ve got to go.”

  Graeme panicked. He would’ve felt better if Kayana had raised her voice or thrown things; he was thrown by the soft tone he called her therapist’s voice. “Please don’t leave.”

  She shook her head as she gathered up the discarded garments strewn on the bed and floor. “I have to leave now before I say something I’ll regret later.”

  “Please, Kayana.” He was begging and didn’t care if she knew it. He would grovel if he had to if that would keep her from walking out of his life.

  “No, Graeme. I can’t. I need time to process this . . . this shit you just dumped on me. Why couldn’t you have told me this before we slept together?”

  He ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know.”

  “Neither do I. You claimed your mother kept secrets you didn’t find out about until after she’d died. Do you realize you’re no different than she was? Better yet, don’t answer that, because I’m certain you’re probably hiding other things from me.”

  “There is something else, but I can’t tell you.”

  “You can’t or you won’t? Which is it?”

  “I can’t.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because you’re not my wife.”

  Kayana slipped into her underwear. “And I’ll never become your wife, so your secret is safe.”

  He watched as she finished dressing, wanting to tell her he was Brendan Andersen, but his tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of his mouth, rendering him mute. “There’s one more thing I have to tell you.”

  “Keep it to yourself,’ she spat out.

  “I love you, Kayana. I fell in love with you the first time I walked into the Café last summer, and it wasn’t until I’d discovered you were single and not seeing anyone that I decided to buy this place.”

  Kayana turned to look at him. “Was I also the reason you resigned your teaching position?”

  “No. After Jillian died, it was as if nothing was the same. The house had become a tomb where people go to die. I got tired of my colleagues asking me if I was all right or feeling the need to invite me somewhere. All the things I’d enjoyed up to that time were no longer important, and I knew I had to change things.”

  She gave him a forced smile. “Then you found me.”

  “Yes, I found you.”

  “Look, Graeme, you’re going to have to give me time to sort this out in my head.”

  “Does this mean you still love me?”

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m not able to turn my feelings on and off like a faucet. And the answer to that question is yes, I still love you, but if you fuck up again, then forget you ever knew me.”

  Graeme felt as if he’d won a battle, but it wasn’t clear about the war. And Kayana had declared war on him because he hadn’t been forthcoming about his future, and he knew he owed that to her before he asked her to come live with him.

  It wasn’t as if she hadn’t warned him about trust; yet he didn’t trust her enough to let her know he’d planned to make the island his chief residence. He left the bed, picked up his briefs, and stepped into them. He would give her time to calm down and not put any pressure on her to reconcile. Now that she knew he would live on Coates Island, she wouldn’t be able to avoid him.

  Chapter 19

  Kayana tried to ignore the incessant tapping on her apartment door, but she knew that if she didn’t answer, the person would not go away. “Who is it?”

  “Derrick. Will you please come and open the door?”

  Groaning, she managed to pull herself off the love seat and walk to the door. The summer season was over, life had returned to normal, and now she and Derrick were responsible for a buffet brunch from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday, which left her with more time on her hands than she knew what to do with. Last year, she couldn’t wait for the vacationers to leave so she could do all the things she’d been denied when living in Atlanta. But this year was different; she did not want to believe how much she had come to depend on spending her free time with Graeme.

  She missed him so much, yet she still wasn’t ready to forgive him for his deception. She was aware that he came into the Café several times a week for brunch, and the one time they saw each other, he’d smiled and acknowledged her with a slight nod of the head before walking out.

  Kayana unlocked the door, and Derrick brushed past her and sat on a chair in the living room. “Well, hello to you too.”

  Crossing his arms over his chest, her brother glared at her. “Cut the bullshit, Kayana.”

  “What!”

  “You heard what I said. Now, sit down so we can talk.”

  Her temper flared. “Have you forgotten that this is my place, brother? And I give the orders, not you?”

  Derrick ran a large hand over his cropped gray hair. “Please sit down, sister love.”

  “Oh, now you’re being fake.”

  “No, Kay, you’re the fake one. I don’t know what went down between you and Graeme Ogden, but I need to know before I kick the man’s ass for hurting my sister.”

  Kayana panicked. Derrick and Graeme shared equal height, but Derrick had managed to stay in top physical condition despite not going into the NFL. He’d set up a gym in his house and worked out practically every day. And if he did hit Graeme, there was no doubt he would seriously injure him.

  “No! You don’t understand.”

  “What I do understand, Kay, is you going around with a long face while acting like you lost your best friend. You weren’t this down in the mouth when you divorced that blowhard masquerading as a doctor.”

  “How did you know I was seeing Graeme?”

  “How could I not know? This island is two miles long and three miles wide, and there’s nothing that goes on here that folks don’t know about. A few people mentioned to me that they saw your BMW parked at Graeme’s house, so it’s obvious you were spending nights there.” He held up a hand. “And I also know you stayed over to watch his house and his dog when he flew back to Massachusetts for several weeks.”

  “Well, damn!”

  Derrick smiled. “Yes, damn. Now tell me what’s wrong that you don’t want to see him.”

  Kayana sat down on a chair facing Derrick’s and told him everything. It was as if they’d turned back the clock to the days when she’d come crying to him about some boy she liked who didn’t seem remotely interested in her. She could always count on her brother to make her feel better when he told her she was too good for the boy; if he couldn’t recognize a diamond, then he wasn’t worth her time.

  “You overreacted, Kay. The man not telling you something doesn’t mean he lied to you. To be honest, he isn’t obligated to tell you anything, because, after all, you’re not his wife. And even husbands and wives have secrets from each other.”

  “Oh, don’t I know that.”

  “I’m not talking about cheating, Kay. You claim Graeme has something else to tell you, but he can’t because you’re not married.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want to marry him?”

  Derrick was asking her a question she’d asked herself again and again the past two months, and each time she found herself in a quandary. Not only did she love Graeme, but she had fallen hopelessly in love with him. And she did not want to believe that she’d waited until she was forty-six to find a
man so attuned to her wants and needs that she sometimes believed she’d conjured him up.

  “I think I do.”

  “You think or you know?”

  “I know, Derrick.”

  “Well, Miss Kayana Cassandra Johnson, what are you going to do about it?”

  Kayana buried her face in her hands. “I suppose I’m going to let Mr. Graeme Norris Ogden know he can tell me his secret because I’m willing to become his wife.”

  Derrick slapped his thigh. “That’s my girl. You’re off this week, so why don’t you spend some time with the man I wouldn’t mind calling my brother-in-law?” He stood up. “I meant to tell you that the week I’m off, I’m driving down to Florida to check up on my baby girl. I’m not going to tell her I’m coming because if I find her hugged up with some little shit, I’m going to snap his neck and make her come back home for her last year.”

  Deandra had elected to spend her senior year in Florida while applying to schools in the state as a permanent resident. “You will not do that to my niece, or she’ll never forgive you.”

  “I gave her the rules, and I expect her to follow them, or she’ll suffer the consequences.”

  Kayana knew her brother was overprotective when it came to his daughter, but there was no need to go Neanderthal because she liked a boy. Deandra’s life had been planned for her, while Kayana still had to get hers together. She would take Derrick’s advice and talk to Graeme. But there was one thing she would not do: grovel.

  * * *

  Graeme stood in the doorway, waiting for her, as she closed the door to her vehicle. She could see by his smile that he was happy to see her. Barley scampered over to her, sniffing her toes, as she bent down to pick him up. He was heavier than when she’d last seen him.

  “Hey, baby boy. I miss you too,” she crooned when he attempted to lick her chin.

  Graeme cradled the back of her head and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “His daddy also missed you.”

  Kayana inhaled the familiar scent of his cologne. “Graeme. We have to talk.”

  “No, we don’t, babe. We talked enough the last time you were here. You know that I love you, and you said that you love me. Now, what are we going to do about it?”

  “What people in love normally do.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “And that is?”

  “They get married and live happily ever after.”

  He angled his head. “That sounds about right. When and where do you want to marry?”

  “Christmas in Newburyport.”

  “Hot damn! The woman’s a mind reader. Do you think it’s possible to have your family come up? There’s plenty of bedrooms, and if they come during the winter break, they can stay the entire week. After they leave, we can honeymoon in Dubai for a couple of weeks.”

  “You really have everything planned out, don’t you?”

  “Why not? Did I not plan to buy property on Coates Island when I saw a woman who’d become my muse?”

  “I’m the muse for your novel?”

  “Yes. Now that we’re going to be married, I want you to know I’m not an aspiring writer but a best-selling author of several books. I use the name Brendan Andersen, but the only people who know my identity are my agent, editor, and publisher. And now you.”

  With wide eyes, Kayana placed her fingers over her mouth. “For real?”

  “Absolutely for real.”

  She didn’t want to believe he was Brendan Andersen, the mysterious, reclusive writer who refused to be photographed and declined to be interviewed and whose books were snatched up the first day they were released.

  Kayana pantomimed locking her lips and throwing away the key. “Your secret will never pass these lips.”

  Graeme took her hand, threading their fingers together. “Come with me to the study. I want to show you my next book.”

  “Am I in it?”

  “Yes, you are.”

  Kayana did not want to believe her decision to come back to Coates Island and help her brother run the Seaside Café would result in her falling in love with a man whom she could not wait to marry despite her protestations she never wanted to marry again. And she was also looking forward to next summer to reunite with her book club buddies when she would inform them she was no longer Kayana Johnson but Kayana Ogden.

  We hope you enjoyed THE SEASIDE CAFÉ,

  the first book of

  The Book Club series

  by

  Rochelle Alers.

  The next book in the series, THE BEACH HOUSE,

  is due out in

  December 2020

  If you missed the first book of Rochelle Alers’s last series,

  THE INHERITANCE,

  just turn the page and take a sneak peek at an excerpt from

  this best-selling book!

  Available at your favorite bookstore or e-retailer.

  Chapter 1

  Smiling, the doorman touched the shiny brim of his cap with a white-gloved hand. “Have a good day, Ms. Lowell.”

  Hannah DuPont-Lowell returned his smile with a warm one of her own. “Thank you, Max.”

  Her smile still in place, she inhaled a lungful of warm air. It was mid-May, a glorious morning, and her favorite time of the year. The daytime temperature was predicted to reach seventy-eight degrees; the weather in New York City had gone from a damp and chilly spring to summer overnight, forcing her to modify her wardrobe.

  Today she’d selected a navy-blue linen gabardine pantsuit with an emerald-green silk blouse and navy kitten heels. Hannah favored wearing lower heels because they were not only comfortable but practical. Since moving to New York, Hannah found herself walking everywhere: the three blocks from her apartment building to the office, and whenever she didn’t eat lunch in the bank’s cafeteria it was the half mile to her favorite French-inspired café; on weekends it was either strolling to Battery Park or to the South Street Seaport.

  Hannah didn’t meet the eyes of the stoic guard standing outside the historic four-story structure in the Stone Street Historic District that housed the private international investment bank where she’d worked for the past five years. No matter how many times she greeted him with a smile he never returned it. She wondered if he even knew how to smile. She knew his job was to monitor everyone coming into and leaving the building, but a nod of acknowledgment would have been nice. And it wasn’t the first time she reminded herself she wasn’t in the South, where most people greeted strangers with a nod and “mornin’,” or “good evenin’.”

  Whenever she returned to New Orleans for vacation or family holidays, she unconsciously settled into her childhood home training. She’d been taught never to sass older folks, nor use profanity in their presence, and to speak when spoken to. In another two years she would celebrate her sixtieth birthday, and old habits were still hard to ignore.

  Hannah swiped her ID before punching the button for the elevator to the second floor where the bank’s legal offices occupied the entire space. The doors opened, and she came face-to-face with the attorney who ran Wakefield Hamilton Investment’s legal department like a drill sergeant. Lateness—his pet peeve—extended from not coming in on time to not completing a project by a pre-determined date.

  “You’re wanted in the small conference room. Now!” he snapped when she hesitated.

  Hannah resisted the urge to snap to attention and salute him as she stepped back into the elevator. The doors closed, shutting out his cold ice-blue eyes and the thin lips that were a mere slash in his corpulent face. The car descended to the first floor, and a minute later she entered the conference room. She recognized the occupants seated at a round oaken table: CEO, CFO, and a member of the bank’s security staff. The three men rose to their feet.

  CEO Braden Grant gave her a steady stare. “Please sit down, Ms. Lowell.”

  She sat, the others following suit. Hannah didn’t know why, but she felt like she’d been summoned to the principal’s office because of an infraction. A shiver raced over her body a
nd it had nothing to do with the frigid air flowing from overhead vents. She rarely, if ever, met with the bank’s senior officers.

  Braden continued to stare at her. “Ms. Lowell, I’m sorry, but we’re terminating your employment, effective immediately.”

  The CFO pushed an envelope across the table. “We’ve direct deposited three years’ severance and the last quarter’s profit sharing into your bank account, and we’ll also cover the cost of your health insurance coverage for one full year. Earlier this week the board of directors held an emergency shareholders’ meeting, and the stockholders voted to merge with another institution. The result is the entire New York operation will move to Trenton, New Jersey, this coming weekend.”

  She inhaled deeply in an attempt to slow down the runaway beating of her heart. Talk about being blindsided. Five years ago she’d resigned her position with a prominent law firm in midtown Manhattan to work for the bank, and it had been her plan to stay long enough to retire at sixty-seven.

  “Am I the only one being terminated?” she asked, after an uncomfortable silence.

  “No. Unfortunately, we’ve had to lay off half our employees,” the chief financial officer replied in an emotionless monotone, “including upper management and support staff.”

  Hannah saw his mouth moving but she wasn’t listening to what he was saying because she’d suddenly tuned him out. She knew that someday she would go back to her roots, because she’d always yearned for a slower pace in which to live out the rest of her life. It was apparent that day had come much sooner than she’d planned.

  Braden cleared his throat. “Is there anything else you’d like to ask or say, Ms. Lowell, before security escorts you to your office so you can retrieve your personal belongings?”

  Her lips twisted into a cynical smile as she tucked a platinum strand of hair behind her left ear. He really didn’t want to hear what she really longed to say. She stood, the others rising with her. “No. Thank you for everything. You’ve been most generous,” Hannah drawled facetiously, when she wanted to curse them soundly for disrupting her life without prior notice.