Her Las Vegas Wedding

by Andrea Bolter

  Shane had on his signature chef’s coat and jeans.

  “Daniel, Shane, we’re ready to bring you in for a couple of shots,” the head bee called.

  With a roll of the eyes, Shane trudged over. The Murphy brothers with their partners in business, and now in life, the Girards. Shane was apparently about to become Audrey’s brother-in-law.

  He had burned the few photos of him and Melina that they had taken the day they went to a justice of the peace in New York to become a legally married couple. It had been a no-fuss ceremony. Afterward, they’d had lunch with Reg, Shane’s parents and Melina’s mother. Melina’s estranged father was not in attendance.

  When he looked back on it, Shane wasn’t really sure why he had agreed to marry Melina. It was she who’d wanted to. As a young man with the level of fame the restaurants brought, Shane attracted more than his fair share of chef groupies. He supposed Melina pressured him into marriage to try to insure his fidelity. The truth was that he’d been so immersed in cooking and the restaurants at that point, she needn’t have worried. Though he did seek acclaim, he had no interest in sexual dalliances.

  Melina was an outcast blueblood. Her father, a wildly successful mogul overseas, had cut her off because of her party lifestyle, but that hadn’t changed her ways. Shane met her at an art gallery opening after he had returned to New York once the LA restaurant was up and running.

  She was an eccentric who sang in a band. As a young star chef, Shane had temporarily enjoyed the diversion of her rock ’n’ roll crowd, who were in great contrast to the luminaries of New York who came into the restaurant.

  But he’d tired of the superficiality of Melina’s orbit. And had become acutely aware that they were not growing closer. They were not turning marriage into a foundation to stand on together. Their apartment was not a home.

  It had been a reckless and immature decision to marry Melina. Even their nuptials were a spur-of-the-moment plan on a Tuesday afternoon. They had never been right together.

  His four years with her were now comingled with memories regarding the horror of her death. The phone call from the highway patrol. Police officers who were gracious enough to come to the cabin to pick him up during the snowstorm and drive him to identify his wife’s body.

  Shane hadn’t even been a guest at a wedding in many years, so he’d forgotten about all of the pomplike engagement photos. Now, the next wedding he’d attend would be his brother’s. Studying Audrey again, whose mere being seemed to light something buried down inside of him, he simply couldn’t picture her and his brother together.

  Reg seemed ill at ease with this photo shoot, breaking frequently to text. They hadn’t had a chance to talk privately last night, but Shane could tell his brother was bearing the weight of the world on his slim shoulders.

  After the last photos were taken and the bees left, Reg’s phone rang and he took the call. Shane didn’t like the look of alarm that came over his face. “Rick in New York.” Reg identified the caller. “Shane, take Audrey into the kitchen and show her the progress you’ve made on the cookbook so far.”

  “Alright, let’s go.” Shane took Audrey by her hand, which was even tinier and softer than he’d imagined it was going to be, and tugged her in his direction. There wasn’t much to show her but maybe it was time he assessed what he had.

  In the restaurant kitchen, Shane rifled through the papers on his desk, all of which needed his attention. From under them he pulled a tattered manila folder. He dumped its contents onto a countertop.

  Audrey looked surprised but managed a pursed lip.

  “This is how I work,” he said.

  Ideas for recipes were written on food-stained pieces of paper. On napkins where the ink had smeared. On sticky notes that were stuck together. On the backs of packing slips from food deliveries. On shards of cardboard he’d torn from a box. There was one written on a section of a dirty apron.

  “O...kay,” Audrey prompted, “tell me exactly what’s here.”

  He glanced down to the front of the floral dress she was wearing for the photo shoot. The pattern of the fabric was relentless in its repetition of pink, yellow and orange flowers. Begonias, if he had to guess. The way she filled out the dress sent his mind wondering about what sweet scents and earthly miracles he might find beneath the thin material.

  Shane wanted to know what was under the dress, both literally and figuratively. She was an accomplished woman yet he thought there was something untouched and undernurtured in her.

  He admonished himself for again thinking of his brother’s soon-to-be bride, although he took a strange reassurance in the fact that this was an arranged marriage between people who were not in love.

  Still, it was nothing he had any business getting involved in.

  What he needed to concentrate on were these scraps of paper that were to become one of those sleek and expensive cookbooks that people laid on their coffee table as a design accessory and never cooked from. A book whose pages held close-up pictures of glistening grapes and of Shane tossing a skillet of wild mushrooms.

  “These are my notes.” A scrap from the pile caught his eye. “Feijoada.”

  He’d scribbled that idea over a year ago. When Reg had asked him to think about how to make use of the lesser cuts of pork he had left over from other recipes. “I’ve seen Brazilians throw everything into this stew, the ears, the snout, all of it. The whole pot simmers with the black beans for a long time and you squeeze the flavor out of every morsel.”

  “Let’s see what you have,” Audrey offered. She leaned close to him to read the note together.

  His tendons tightened at the sweet smell of her hair.

  “There are no amounts for the ingredients,” she observed.

  “Obviously.”

  “How are we going to use these notes for recipes then?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “How do you get the dishes to taste the same every time if you don’t have the measurements written down?”

  “I feel it. They don’t come out exactly the same every time.”

  “You feel it.” She bit her lip. “Then how would someone at home be able to cook them?”

  “They wouldn’t.”

  Shane watched Audrey’s expression go from irritated to intelligent as she thought through what she should say next. “You’re not at Shane’s Table in New York and Los Angeles cooking every single dish. How does your staff prepare the food?”

  “Of course the restaurant menu recipes are written down. We’ll use a few Shane’s Table guest favorites for the book. But it’s supposed to be all new food. Reg promised we’d deliver fresh, rustic and regional, and I’m still working on the dishes. The measurements are the least of my problems.”

  Audrey took a big breath into her lungs and held it there.

  She sure looked adorable when she was thinking.

  “I’m trying to work with you here, Shane.” She exhaled. He liked hearing her say his name. “The restaurant menu had to have been ideas in your head at the beginning. How did you develop the recipes for those?”

  “That was a long time ago.” Before Melina died. Before grief and frustration and anger clouded his mind and heart. Nowadays he went through the motions but stayed under the darkness. Which was how he wanted it. Or thought he did anyway.

  Another Shane’s Table was opening. Truthfully, so what? A cookbook as a publicity stunt Reg said would bring their brand to every corner of the world. So what? The Feed U Project with the kids was about all he cared about anymore. Just as he and his family had done in a dozen other locations, he’d turned a warehouse in downtown Vegas into a kitchen where he taught local kids how to cook.

  Reg’s call interrupted his musing. His brother wanted to meet right away.

  “I gotta go, Sugar,” he said to the five-foot-two ray of light.

  “I thought we were suppo
sed to achieve something on the cookbook today.”

  He turned to the pan he had cooling on a nearby rack. With his fingers, he broke off a taste of what he had baked earlier. From an old recipe that it had occurred to him to whip up this morning. With Audrey in mind, if he was being honest.

  “Pan de dulce de leche. Caramel.” Shane popped the chunk of still-warm cake into her delectable mouth.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “IT’S BAD,” Reg told Shane as they reached the edge of the pool after a lap. “Much worse than we thought.”

  “Kitchen or front-of-the-house kind of worse?” Shane knew the New York and Los Angeles restaurants weren’t making the profits they once were but, apparently, that wasn’t the extent of it.

  He shook some water from his hair.

  When Reg had called while he was in the kitchen with Audrey half an hour ago, Shane suggested they meet for a swim in the employee pool. The Girards made a practice of building a private pool or gym at all of their hotels exclusively for the employees to enjoy. Though this pool was small and not at all like the deluxe rooftop pool area for guests, it was a handy, gated-off oasis that Shane had taken to using often.

  “Both kinds of worse,” Reg continued his report. Shane could tell from the tone in his brother’s voice that this wasn’t just going to be “the price of tablecloths went up” bad.

  “What?”

  “Lee quit.” Their executive chef in New York. The man they had left in charge of running the kitchen while they kept their eye on LA and put their energies into getting this third restaurant off the ground.

  Shane’s jaw flexed in disbelief. “Why?”

  He’d always had a good relationship with Lee, whose friendly disposition never wavered no matter how difficult Shane could be.

  “He got a better offer. A full partnership in London. Doing Korean food.”

  Shane sighed. “That’s what he always wanted.”

  “Effective immediately,” Reg added.

  “Effective immediately?”

  “I don’t have a lot of the details,” Reg continued. “He apologized profusely. Said he’d call you.”

  “No executive chef in New York.” This was devastating. Shane couldn’t be in three places at once. He’d counted on Lee remaining a major part of the team. Still, he understood. Lee was a Korean American who longed to elevate the flavorful food he loved to a fine-dining clientele.

  Shane dunked his head under the water and then popped back up.

  “That’s not all.” With the setting sun casting a shadow over Reg’s face, Shane could see the disquiet in his brother’s eyes.

  “Okay, what?” Shane didn’t want to hear whatever it was Reg was going to say, but knew he needed to.

  “Rick reviewed the monthlies in New York and there are big discrepancies in the cash receipts.” Rick was their accountant in charge of balancing their books.

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning someone at the restaurant is stealing from us.”

  Not again. This had happened before. Unfortunately, when cash changed hands sometimes some of it disappeared. But it had never been a large enough amount to warrant the tightness currently in Reg’s voice.

  “How much money?”

  Reg gave Shane a figure that set his pulse racing.

  He pushed away from the side of the pool. This was everything he disliked about being in business. Dealing with staff and money and logistics was never his forte. All he’d ever wanted was just to cook and let his brother handle the rest of it. Yet now it was do or die. If Murphy Brothers Restaurants was going to have a future, he was going to have to extend himself past that comfort zone and start tackling these problems head-on.

  Yet he wasn’t sure he’d be able to. Knew that he, himself, was the biggest problem.

  Shane dove deep underwater and swam the length of pool without coming up for air. Took a quick gulp at the other end and then did the same on the way back. When he emerged, Reg hadn’t moved and was staring out at nothing in particular.

  “Race.” Shane challenged his brother to a lap across the pool. A slight grin crossed Reg’s thin lips. Growing up, neither Murphy brother was a star athlete. Reg was more likely to have a book in his hand than a ball. But Shane would walk over to the playground in their Brooklyn neighborhood and shoot some basketball with whatever kids were hanging around.

  “Go.” The two brothers sprinted through the water. Shane narrowly edged Reg to the end of the pool. He felt nothing at his victory. It was just a stall tactic before continuing the conversation.

  The problem was they were both spending so much time in Vegas. They’d been flying back and forth to the other restaurants as much as possible, but that was no substitute for being there night after night.

  When they opened the Los Angeles restaurant, they had taken turns being on each coast. And opening the Las Vegas location had been manageable because they had thought the New York restaurant was in capable hands. They were wrong.

  “What are we going to do?” Shane looked straight at his brother.

  “I don’t think we have a choice. I’ll have to go back to New York and be there every night to oversee operations.”

  “Reg, you know I can’t run things on my own here.”

  No one knew better than Reg that, not only was Shane incapable of the minutia involved in operating the restaurants, but since Melina died his concentration and patience were at zero. Even the cookbook, which should have been a joy, eluded him.

  “We’ve got Rachel in LA training Enrique to be general manager here.” Reg was focusing on solutions, thank goodness. “We’ll bring him to Vegas now and Rachel can talk him through whatever comes up.”

  Shane would feel better with Enrique here. Many of the new staff had been hired. Perhaps some could start earlier than agreed upon to provide extra help.

  “I’ll be back a few days before the opening,” Reg continued. “We’ll still talk every day.”

  Shane’s brother was a smart man who could have had a career doing anything he wanted. The two grew up working in the Brooklyn diner that their grandmother started, and then in the Lolly’s chain named after her.

  Their predispositions started early. Shane was always at Grandma Lolly’s apron, learning to cook the sturdy Irish dishes that she had learned from her own mother who’d brought them with her when she emigrated from Limerick. And young Reg kept his eye on the money, suggesting that they add a particular menu item or buy from certain vendors in order to maximize profit. When Shane proved to be a true culinary prodigy, Reg saw the business opportunity. They had a symmetry that had worked.

  For a few years. Until Melina died. Until new chefs started grabbing the public’s attention. Until the already reclusive Shane disappeared into himself.

  “There’s more,” Reg continued.

  Shane splashed water on his face and exhaled an extended breath through his nose. He didn’t know how much more he could take in one night. “Okay, better to have it all dumped at once.”

  “It’s about Brittany.”

  “Our assistant bar manager in New York?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  * * *

  Audrey fought with the zipper of the flowered dress she’d had on for the engagement shoot earlier. She hadn’t been thrilled with it but they’d needed to take some practice publicity photos today. Without a minute to come back to change, she’d kept the dress on all day but now tugged it off and threw it across the room, narrowly missing Shane’s face on the stand-up photo that was still propped in her bungalow. She had to rush to an appointment to pick a wedding gown. With only a month until the ceremony, there was barely time to have it ordered and altered.

  Charging around the room in her white undies, she no longer cared what cardboard Shane thought of her. In her secret nightstand drawer, she reached
for one of the stashed chocolates she had brought from Philadelphia. Which, although it was her absolute favorite kind, paled in comparison to the caramel cake Shane had teased her with a little while ago.

  Her eyes rolled back in her head at the memory of that warm and gooey concoction delighting her taste buds. And how he had fed it to her with his fingers. His fingers! His thick, insistent fingers. She should have been deeply offended by his informality. Yet instead she’d been so powerfully aroused she could hardly keep her eyes open.

  Once again, she thanked her lucky stars that she was marrying this man’s brother and not him. Around Shane, who could even concentrate on anything?

  As she chewed the familiar nougat robed in the fine chocolate of her Philadelphia candy, she couldn’t remember a day in months when she hadn’t craved and then savored this exact flavor. Yet suddenly, there was something unsatisfying about it. It tasted fine. But ordinary. Not the embodiment of heaven on earth she’d once thought it was.

  Not able to name what, she hankered for something different. For something she’d be surprised to know she wanted. She glowered at Shane’s photo and indicted him, “You did this! It’s your fault! With your pan de dulce de leche on your warm fingers. Leave me be!”

  After buttoning up a cotton shirt and slipping on jeans, she walked out her door and over to the hotel’s half-built spa and salon. There, the manager Natasha had set up a temporary dressing room for her. Audrey had also called on Jesse, one of their stylists, to select some sample dresses. He wheeled them in on a rack.

  “These will be far too long on you but we just want to get the idea, yeah?” Jesse said as he lifted one of the gowns and hung it on a hook for Audrey to try.

  She inspected the dress.

  Wedding gowns. She was here to choose a wedding gown. There had never been a clear picture in her mind of the actual ceremony binding her to Reg. If it wasn’t for their new concept of using the wedding for hotel publicity, she might have married him in a courthouse. A simple legal transaction. Perhaps she’d have worn a plain white business suit.