I don’t really know what I want. “For the moment,” I reply, “just figure out where he is. Don’t make contact.”
“Will do.” He rises to his feet. “I’ll be in touch.”
When he’s gone, I lean back in my seat and loosen my tie, trying to choke back my frustration. My father wants something from me, and I don’t know what it is. I can’t get a solid read on Piper Jackson. I don’t know anything about her — her background, her previous restaurant experience, her hopes and dreams. I’ve never gone into a partnership with someone feeling this unprepared.
I feel like I’m losing my grasp on what’s going on, and I hate that feeling.
9
Piper
The best way out is always through.
Robert Frost
My girlfriends and I get together every week on Monday evenings to drink, eat and dish about what’s going on with our lives. We even have a name for ourselves — we’re the inaccurately named Thursday Night Drinking Pack.
So far this Monday, we’ve had a lot of rum. We’ve talked about Bailey’s two men, and we’ve nagged Gabby about her trust issues. When there’s a lull in the conversation, I lean forward, glaring at Bailey. Though I know it was my fault, I’m still resentful at the way Wyatt Lawless and Owen Lamb scolded me on Saturday, as if I were an irresponsible child.
Had Bailey not interfered, the two of them wouldn’t even know I exist. Yes, the money they’re investing is a blessing, but if the two of them persist in treating me as patronizingly as they have so far, I’m not going to be able to work with them. Already, my reservoirs of patience have been seriously exhausted. “Talking about good looking men,” I pick up from the previous conversation, “Tell me about Wyatt Lawless and Owen Lamb.”
Bailey looks puzzled. “Who are they?”
“Two guys who’ve eaten at my restaurant every single day for the last two weeks,” I reply. “Every single day. I’m not in the front of the house all the time, so it took me a while to realize it. Then on Thursday, they offered to become my partners.”
A look of guilt spreads on her face. “Okay,” she confesses. “Don’t be mad. I yelled at Sebastian for upsetting you, and he felt so bad that he promised to talk to a couple of his friends about your restaurant.”
A couple of his friends? I keep forgetting that Bailey doesn’t know the restaurant world. She has no idea who Wyatt Lawless and Owen Lamb are. She doesn’t know how intimidated I am that they’re going to be working with me. “Bailey, do you even know who these guys are?”
“Not a clue,” she says, with a shrug of her shoulders. “Should I know?”
I shake my head. “I guess not, you don’t work in the industry. Lawless and Lamb are legendary. They have something of a Midas touch. Their restaurants are very popular.” And if Bailey hadn’t interfered, they wouldn’t have given me a second look. Somehow, that’s the bit that upsets me the most. I haven’t earned this partnership. It’s been given to me on a whim, and it can be taken away just as quickly.
“That’s good then, right?” Bailey sounds nervous. “You aren’t irritated with me for telling Sebastian?”
A hot surge of shame washes over me. I’m letting my resentment of Wyatt and Owen spill over to Bailey, and that’s not fair. She’s just trying to help. “No, of course not. You did what you thought was a good thing.”
“So what’s the problem?” Katie leans forward. “They are good at what they do and you need help. Do they want too much money? Or equity?”
“It isn’t that.” I don’t like talking about my difficulties. Even though these women are my best friends, and would never take advantage of my vulnerability to hurt me, I prefer to keep my emotions bottled up. “They just rubbed me the wrong way, that’s all.”
Wendy’s playing with her phone. “Is this them?” She hands me the device, shaking her head in bemusement. “Seriously, what am I doing wrong with my life? The only guys I meet are smarmy lawyers. Bailey finds two studs, Gabby decides to hook up and voila — she finds a couple of hotties, and now you as well?” She gulps down her drink. “Life is so unfair.”
“Pictures can’t reveal personality,” I snap. My cat Jasper, looks up at my tone, decides nothing is wrong and puts his head down again. “These two are smug, self-satisfied, and annoying as all fuck. You can have them.”
They exchange glances. I almost never swear. “You don’t have to work with them if you don’t want to,” Bailey says cautiously to me. “Do you want me to ask Sebastian if he knows anyone else who can help?”
Mr. O’Connor needs an extra three thousand dollars for rent. Yesterday, only ten people came into the restaurant for lunch. All day, I tried to find another way out of the situation, but there isn’t one. If I don’t want to fail, I need to figure out how to work with Wyatt Lawless and Owen Lamb. “No,” I reply, suppressing my sigh. “I’ll suck it up. These guys are really good.”
“And really hot,” Wendy adds, her eyes still on her phone.
They might be hot, but they are jerks. And I’ve never, ever been attracted to assholes.
Wendy finds me in the kitchen before she leaves. “Are you okay, Piper?”
“I’m fine.” I force a note of cheer into my voice, but she’s not convinced. Wendy is a divorce attorney. Reading emotions is second-nature to her. Only a therapist would be more dangerous.
She takes a deep breath. “Your parents were in town this weekend, weren’t they? I might be out of line, but their visits always seem to upset you.”
I know why I have such difficulty opening up to people. As a teenager, my mother scoffed at my dreams and used my hopes as a weapon against me. When I told her I wanted to be a chef, she’d sneered. “That’s what we hire people for, Piper,” she’d said, her words dripping condescension.
I used to sneak away in secret to the kitchen, begging Maria, our Latina cook, to show me what she was doing, until my mother caught me one day. “Next time I see you in the kitchen, Piper,” she’d said to me, her voice icy, “Maria loses her job. I’m not raising my daughter to toil away behind a hot stove.”
“You think?” I ask bitterly. “They took me shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue, bought me a pointlessly expensive purse that I didn’t want, then insisted I join them for dinner. I was an hour late to a meeting with Owen Lamb and Wyatt Lawless.”
She whistles softly. “Were they still there?”
I nod gloomily. “Oh yes, they were there and they were furious with me. I don’t blame them. I’m pretty mad at myself. I’m a grown woman, but when it comes to my parents, I have no backbone.”
Wendy looks puzzled. “Couldn’t you just have told your parents it was urgent? You have a job, you can’t just take off whenever you like.”
“I did. Repeatedly. They just don’t listen to me.” I groan in frustration. “They bought me a three-thousand dollar purse. I don’t have money to pay rent at the restaurant, and I’m carrying around a Prada bag. My life’s a joke.”
“A Prada bag?” Her eyes gleam with interest. “Can I see it?”
“Sure.” I lead the way to my bedroom and pick up the red-orange leather bag. Don’t get me wrong; it is beautiful. I just didn’t want it.
“Oh, pretty.” Wendy looks at me. “You don’t like it?”
“I’d much rather pay rent.” Right now, if I can’t figure out some other way around it, I’m going to have to go to Wyatt Lawless and Owen Lamb and grovel for enough money to cover Mr. O’Connor’s increase.
“I’ll buy it from you, if you’d like,” Wendy offers.
I look up, startled at her generosity. “I was just complaining,” I stammer. “Not hinting that I needed money.”
She rolls her eyes. “I know, Piper. We’ve been friends for six years, you don’t think I know that? My thirtieth birthday is coming up, and I want to buy myself something nice to mark the occasion.” She grins. “I’ll even loan it to you when your parents come to town.”
I hug her tight. “Thank you. I was dreading having to ask Owen
and Wyatt for money.”
Her face scrunches in sympathy. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m partnering with an absolute jerk of a lawyer right now on a case, so I can understand how hard it is to work with someone when you just want to punch them. Hang in there.” She chuckles. “And if they get too insufferable, call me for backup. I’m very good at kicking ass.”
She pulls out her checkbook and writes me a check for the purse. She hugs the bag close to her chest, her eyes sparkling. “See you next Monday?”
“Not unless I kill Lamb and Lawless first,” I tell her gloomily. “Be prepared to come bail me out of jail.”
If Aladdin’s Lamp fails, my parents will have me on a plane to New Orleans faster than I can blink, back to a life in which I felt stifled and out-of-place. If biting my tongue in front of Wyatt and Owen is the price I have to pay, so be it. The restaurant isn’t going to fail, I promise myself. Not if I have anything to do with it.
10
Owen
The eyes are useless when the mind is blind.
Unknown
“Thanks for meeting me, you guys.” Carl Marcotti shakes our hands vigorously, and escorts us to our table, gesturing to it with an expansive wave. “Sit, sit. You’re eating lunch, aren’t you?”
“Wouldn’t pass it up for anything,” Wyatt replies. “The entire way here, I’ve been having visions of your lasagna.”
He laughs and signals over a waiter, who hurries up to take our orders. Once we’ve decided on food, we get down to the real reason we’re here. “You want to expand?” I ask him.
He nods eagerly. “We’re busy every night,” he says. “There’s an hour wait for a table on the weekends. We don’t take reservations, but if we did, we’d be booked every single night.”
I look around. Carl’s right, Paesano’s is hopping. Three waitresses weave in and out, carrying steaming plates of pasta, fish, and meat. One of them detours to deposit a plate of bruschetta at our table with a smile. “Compliments of the kitchen.”
We dig in as Carl flips open his laptop. “If you look at the numbers…” he starts.
“Already looked at them,” Wyatt interrupts. “I agree with you, Carl. You’re in great shape, and you’re definitely ready to take Paesano’s to the next level. What’s it going to cost to lease the place next door?”
He exhales in relief. “Thirty grand.”
“A month? Fuck me.” I’ve lived in Manhattan for seventeen years, and I’m still shocked at the price of real estate in this city.
He laughs. “Insane, right? But I’m confident we can do enough business to cover it.”
Wyatt doesn’t look surprised at the price tag. “We’re in. You’ll need another couple hundred grand to renovate the space, right?”
Carl shakes his head. “The place is in good shape,” he says. “There shouldn’t be too much remodeling necessary. One fifty should cut it, and we’ll be ready to open in four months.”
Carl’s chomping at the bit. He’s done his homework, and he’s made sure he’s prepared for this meeting. It’s a stark contrast to Piper.
“I was afraid you guys would say no,” he confesses as our food shows up.
“Why?” Wyatt raises an eyebrow.
“Well, you turned down Emerson recently, and word is that you guys bought a stake in Piper Jackson’s restaurant.” He sounds sheepish. “I thought you might not want to take on too many projects at once.”
Everyone knows everyone in the restaurant industry. No doubt Max Emerson’s bitching about how we didn’t invest, and Piper’s probably the target of everyone’s envy. I feel a brief moment of regret about that. I don’t want to throw Piper to the gossiping wolves.
Wyatt leans forward. “You know Piper?”
Carl nods. “We started culinary school together. She was the most talented chef in our class.” He shakes his head. “Great girl, Piper. She’s had a tough time of it.”
“In what way?” Wyatt asks. He takes a bite of the lasagna and closes his eyes in appreciation. “This is fantastic, Carl.”
“You haven’t investigated Piper’s background?” Carl gives us a curious look. “That’s weird. You guys knew my underwear size when we did our deal.”
I chuckle. Carl’s exaggerating, but only just. The background check was painfully thorough. We skipped a lot of steps because of Mendez.
Wyatt clears his throat. “It’s a long story,” he says, giving me a dry look.
Carl elaborates. “Piper’s parents cut her off when she joined culinary school,” he says, chewing on his veal. “She worked her way through the program. It took her almost five years to finish. Then, after graduation, when she was about to start working for Le Bernardin, her aunt died and left her Aladdin’s Lamp.”
“She inherited the place?”
“Six months ago,” Carl confirms.
“Well, that sounds like a lucky break,” Wyatt says, echoing what I’m thinking.
Carl snorts. “The place was badly run down when Piper took it over. You think it’s a dump now? You should have seen it at the start of the year. Half the chairs were broken. The walk-in freezer hadn’t been emptied and cleaned in seven years. And that’s not even the worst of it.”
“What’s the worst of it?” I ask.
“You know her staff? The waitress who smells of cigarette smoke, and the sous-chef with an alcohol problem? The waitress makes sixty grand in salary and the sous-chef makes a hundred. A hundred thousand fucking dollars.” Carl shakes his head. “She’s going broke paying for them, but she can’t fire them. The trustees of her aunt’s estate won’t let her.”
“You’re joking.”
“I wish,” he says soberly. “The poor kid. Her family is determined to see her fail.”
“How do you know all this?” Wyatt asks curiously. His brows are drawn together in a frown.
He shrugs. “Everyone talks, you know how it is. But mostly it’s because people like Piper. She got a raw deal, and she never once whined. You won’t hear her complain. She just gets quiet, and then she gets to work.”
She’d done that on Saturday. The two of us had yelled at her and accused her of wasting our time, and she hadn’t said one thing to defend herself. Now, to find out she’s been dealt an impossible hand, and she’s doing the best she can to play the game, even if defeat stares her in the face?
Perhaps I should have yelled less and listened more.
Judging from Wyatt’s expression, he’s feeling the same way. “Thanks for telling us this, Carl,” he says quietly. “I really appreciate it.” He takes a sip of water, but his lasagna stays untouched. Like me, he’s lost his appetite.
11
Piper
Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Henry Ford
I’m determined not to blow my second chance.
Yes, you don’t like them, I mutter to myself as I do kitchen prep by myself on Tuesday evening. Josef is, unsurprisingly, late. He doesn’t know the precise terms of Aunt Vera’s will, but he has learned in six months that no amount of bad behavior can get him fired. By any rights, he should have been let go a dozen times over, so he’s reached the conclusion that I’m a pushover.
I’m only a pushover where my parents are concerned. I just can’t afford to fire Josef.
My knife moves rhythmically as my mind wanders. Wendy thought Wyatt and Owen were attractive. She’d practically been drooling at her phone. Are they? I’m trying to picture them, but all my mind brings up is the image of them yelling at me on Saturday night, their lips twisted with disapproval.
Objectively, I guess they are attractive, if you like your men with a side of asshole. I don’t, I never have. Yes, that dark beard of Wyatt’s is all kinds of sexy, and Owen’s shoulder-length blond hair makes me want to run my hands through its thickness.
And then rip it out, because he’s a jerk.
My lips twitch at that thought. Maybe he’ll stop lecturing me then. Maybe Wyatt will stop look
ing at me with those dark, measuring eyes.
“I’m here, I’m here.” Josef bustles in. “Ah, I see you’ve got the lentils cooking. And you’ve made the hummus too. Excellent.”
I straighten my shoulders. This situation with Josef is deteriorating rapidly. “You’re almost an hour late,” I say coolly. “Do I need to remind you that you’re supposed to be here at three thirty?”
“The subway wasn’t running,” he says sullenly.
If I’m to believe Josef, the subway fails on a weekly basis, and the MTA is made of a bunch of incompetent idiots. I wonder how much of a fool he thinks I am. “Make the salad dressing,” I snap. “Lawless and Lamb are going to be here for dinner, and they’ve asked for us to prepare three dishes that represent Aladdin’s Lamp. On Saturday, you served them frozen lamb and dressing out of a bottle. Let’s do better today.”
I brace myself for a resentful silence, but Josef nods eagerly. “Of course. I know the perfect three dishes.”
“You do?” This is a rare display of enthusiasm from Josef. Call me selfish, but I don’t want to squash it. It would be really nice if my sous-chef would actually do the job I pay him for.
“Yes. I’ve a great recipe for a vine-wrapped grilled salmon, served with a basmati pilau,” he says. “I can braise a lamb shank, serve it with couscous. Also, a grilled chicken with pomegranate sauce.” He rubs his hands together. He’s almost bouncing on the balls of his feet; he’s so eager to get going.
I gaze at him doubtfully. The truth of the matter is, my specialty isn’t Middle Eastern food. I’m competent and I can follow a recipe, but I don’t know enough about the cuisine to be able to improvise. I’ve cooked Southern food all my life, and I learned to cook classical French cuisine in school, but ask me to cook anything else and I’m well outside my comfort zone.
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