I hold up my hand. “What’s the ‘or else?’”
“What do you mean?” my father blusters.
I meet his gaze squarely. “Let’s lay our cards on the table. You’re trying to blackmail me for three million dollars. Why do you think I’m going to agree to your demands?”
Is he going to mention the photos?
He does. “If you don’t,” he says, “I will sell photos of your mother’s house to the tabloids. The entire world will know that Wyatt Lawless’ mother lives in squalor. Everyone will whisper and talk.” He sneers at me. “I don’t think you’re ready for that, Wyatt.”
Owen’s hands clench into fists.
When I hear the threat, my heart breaks. A small, stupid part of me had hoped that it wouldn’t come down to this. But to Jack Lawless, I’m nothing more than a walking wallet.
“I don’t have ready access to that kind of cash,” I reply, lying without a twinge of guilt. “My money is tied up in investments. It’ll take me a few weeks to free it up.”
“How long?” Greed is making my father stupid. He doesn’t stop to think that I might be bluffing.
“Three weeks.” I want Piper to win Can You Take The Heat? before I see my father again. We promised her we’d be there for her and I intend to keep my word.
“I can’t wait that long,” he argues.
I get to my feet. “That’s the offer,” I say flatly. “Take it or leave it.”
He gives me an assessing look. Perhaps he’s trying to figure out how much he can push me. After a long pause, he gives in. “Okay. I’ll meet you here in three weeks.”
“There’s a condition.” Owen cuts in, his voice hard. “If you try and contact Wyatt before then, the deal’s off.”
My father opens his mouth to protest, then thinks better of it. He nods tersely, rises to his feet and leaves the room.
Jack Lawless thinks I’m going to pay him.
I’m not.
What I need is a plan.
I’ve bought myself some space. This is a chess game, and I have twenty-one days to figure out my next move.
43
Owen
“What are you going to do?” I ask Wyatt as we head to Maisie’s apartment.
“I don’t know.” He walks forward, his hands in his pockets. “My father hasn’t apologized for abandoning me. He hasn’t once said he was wrong to walk out on a thirteen year old child. All he cares about is himself.” He shakes his head, looking frustrated. “If it were just me, I’d tell him to go to hell. But I have to think about my mother. She’s spent her entire life trying to hide her illness from her friends and her co-workers. How is she going to feel when her house is being mocked in the tabloids?”
I’m surprised that Wyatt cares about his mother’s reaction. In all the time I’ve known him, he’s barely mentioned her. They only see each other a handful of times a year and Wyatt always returns from these meetings tense and angry. “So you’re going to pay him off?”
“Two impossible choices,” he mutters. “I need to find a third one.”
“Can Stone Bradley help?”
He shakes his head. “Stone won’t do anything illegal.”
“Will you?”
His lips twist. “I’d prefer to stay within the law. We’ve built a successful business over the years, you and me. We have restaurants that depend on us. I’d hate to risk all of that for my father.”
We walk the rest of the way in silence. When we reach Maisie’s building, Wyatt presses the buzzer.
“Hello?” Maisie’s voice sounds from the speaker, tinny and crackly.
“Maisie, it’s Wyatt and Owen. Can we chat with you for a minute?”
She sounds surprised to hear from us. “Umm, sure. Come on up.”
She buzzes us in and we make our way up to her apartment. Maisie’s standing in the doorway, waiting for us. “This is unexpected,” she says, surveying us with narrowed eyes. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I want to talk to you about Emerson’s,” I reply.
“Oh boy.” She steps aside. “You better come in.” We follow her inside, and she waves to the couch. “You guys want a cup of coffee or something?”
We both decline. “What do you want to know?” she asks.
“I read your article this morning,” I tell her bluntly. “I also ate at Emerson’s last night. How did it make it into the contest, and how on earth did it beat The Queen’s Beaver?”
“The first question is easy to answer,” she says, flopping into an overstuffed armchair. “There were sixteen restaurants in the contest. I picked eight. Yelp, as one of the sponsors, chose four, and the Hell’s Kitchen Business Association, as the other sponsor, chose four more. Yelp was transparent in their selection process; they put up a poll on their website, and the four restaurants with the most votes were chosen. The association wasn’t. John Page gave me four names with no explanation on how they were picked. Emerson’s was one of them.”
Interesting. “How did it advance to the next round?”
“That,” Maisie sighs, “I can’t explain. I eat at The Queen’s Beaver all the time, and I love the food there. But when we showed up on Friday to judge them, the kitchen was off its game so badly it was unrecognizable. There’s no explaining it.” She grimaces. “They might have still made it through, but Emerson’s won the public vote by a landslide.”
“What?” The contest has been designed quite carefully to make sure the only people that can vote on a restaurant are the people that eat there during the week. At Piper’s, we’ve been given a stack of comment cards to hand out to our patrons, each with a unique identifier to prevent fraud. “Emerson’s was nearly empty last night.”
She nods dourly. “They’ve got to be cheating.”
“Aren’t you going to do anything about it?” Wyatt demands in outrage.
“What do you want me to do?” she snaps, giving us an irritated look. “Do you expect me to stand outside Emerson’s, counting the number of guests each night, and making sure only the diners get a comment card?” She shrugs. “It sucks for The Queen’s Beaver. However, in the final round, there’s no popularity contest. The winner will be decided by the four judges and no one else.”
Wyatt frowns at Maisie. “You’re awfully calm for someone whose contest is being fucked with,” he growls.
“You should have seen me last night,” she retorts. “There was screaming.”
“It doesn’t add up,” I tell Wyatt as we head back to our offices. “Why did The Queen’s Beaver screw up? Greg Tennant has thirty years of experience. Maisie’s contest isn’t going to throw him off his game.”
Wyatt glances at his watch. “Let’s go ask him,” he suggests. “And I want to call Piper after that.”
“That’s good,” I tell him with a smirk.
“Shut up,” he grumbles, but a smile plays about on his lips. He raises his hand for a cab and we make our way to Hell’s Kitchen. With any luck, we’ll talk to Greg, then head back home in time to cook Piper a nice meal.
When we get to The Queen’s Beaver, everything’s oddly quiet. The restaurant is busy, but the waitresses, normally cheerful, are walking around in hushed silence. Something’s the matter.
We take a seat at the bar and Wyatt pulls a business card out of his wallet. “Is Chef Tennant working today?” he asks the bartender, handing her his card. “If he is, could you tell him I’d love to see him?”
She barely looks up. “The chef is extremely busy this morning.”
“We’re old friends.” I give her my best persuasive smile. “We only need a minute.”
“Fine.” Reluctance drips from every syllable. “I’ll see if he’s available.”
In about three minutes, Greg Tennant appears, wiping his hands on his apron. When he sees us, he gives us a strained smile. “Wyatt Lawless and Owen Lamb. I’m honored.”
Greg and I had lunch together only a few weeks ago. He looks tired this morning, a lot greyer than the last time I saw him. Somet
hing’s going on and I’m determined to get at the root of the matter. “Greg, can we talk to you in private?”
“Let’s go to my office.”
Greg’s office is tiny. The two of us squeeze in and take a seat. I eye the piles of paperwork threatening to overflow the battered wooden desk with amusement, but at my side, Wyatt flinches in discomfort. The place probably reminds him of his mother’s home, and after this morning, he’s especially vulnerable to chaos.
As soon as the door shuts behind us, Greg opens his mouth. “What’d you guys want to talk about?” he asks bluntly. “Forgive me for hurrying you, but I was on my way to the hospital.”
“The hospital?”
He takes a deep breath. “Can you guys keep something quiet?” he asks. “Max Emerson came to my kitchen last week and told me to throw Maisie Hayes’ contest.”
“What?” I lean forward, shocked.
He nods. “Of course, I told him to fuck off. As if I’m going to let a punk like Emerson tell me what to do. Then on Friday night, hours before the judges showed up, some guy ran a red light and t-boned my wife’s car.”
“No.” Wyatt sounds horrified. “You think Max is involved?”
“I don’t know,” Greg admits. “But after the accident, I had to take him seriously. Donna broke two ribs and a leg.” He spreads his hands, looking helpless. “What would you have done in my place?”
Cold fear grips my heart. After her outstanding performance in the first round, Piper is the front-runner in Can You Take The Heat?. I can’t be worrying about Mendez’s shadow threats right now, not when there’s a real risk that Emerson might hurt Piper to win the contest.
“We have to tell her,” I tell Wyatt. “We can’t keep her in the dark.”
Wyatt looks grim. “You’re absolutely right.”
44
Piper
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.
Buddha
By the time Sunday rolls around, I’m tired, cranky, and completely miserable. I haven’t heard from either Owen or Wyatt since Friday morning, and I have only myself to blame.
I could call them. A thousand times, I’ve picked up my phone to dial their number, but my shame prevents me from following through. Without Wyatt and Owen, I’d be teetering on the verge of failure. I owe them everything, and this is the way I reward them?
There is, however, a silver lining. After our talk on Friday, Josef is a new man. He’s raised his game considerably. On Friday and Saturday, the kitchen ran like a well-oiled machine. So much so that when my mother calls and suggests eating lunch together, I agree without too much reservation, and meet my parents in a pretentious little bistro on the Upper East Side, steps from their five star, six-hundred dollars a night hotel room.
Once the three of us are seated at an outdoor table, my mother smiles warmly. “The restaurant was busy Thursday,” she remarks.
“It was.” My voice is neutral. Wyatt’s accusation echoes in the back of my mind. “Thank you again for your help.”
She waves aside my thanks. “Angelina said you wrote to her telling her you couldn’t be a bridesmaid.” Her lips turn downward into a frown. “That’s disappointing.”
Ah. We’re on much more familiar ground. I’m used to my mother’s unhappiness. “She wanted me to fly to New Orleans every second weekend from now until May,” I reply, scanning the menu instead of facing her accusing glare. “I just can’t afford to do that.”
My dad changes the topic. “I read about the contest on that woman’s blog this morning. What’s her name? You know, the one who’s in charge of the show?”
“Maisie Hayes.” I’ve been so depressed the last two days that I’ve completely forgotten that the official results would have come out this morning.
“Right, that’s her. She was very impressed with your restaurant.”
“Was she? I haven’t read her blog post yet.”
“Really?” He raises an eyebrow, pulls out his phone and hands it to me. “Why not? You’ve officially moved to the next round.”
“I’ve been busy,” I mutter, not ready to discuss Wyatt and Owen.
I skim the article. Maisie’s raved about the food, declaring it to be the best meal she’s eaten in a long time. She says a lot of flattering things about the decor at Piper’s, and the atmosphere, warm, friendly, and unpretentious. She closes with advice for her readers. As soon as the world discovers Piper’s, she writes, there’s going to be a months-long wait to get in. So go now, citizens of New York! Go before the crowds show up, and enjoy Chef Piper Jackson’s inventive twist on Southern comfort food.
My heart jumps at that last line. We’re going to be busy this week, thanks to Maisie Hayes. I want to text Wyatt and Owen to ask them if they’ve read the article.
Then my smile fades. I can’t do that. “That’s a nice review,” I say flatly, handing the phone back to my dad.
My mother gives me a piercing look. “Your partners, Owen and Wyatt,” she says, her voice deceptively casual. “You seem close to them.”
Panic fills me. Lillian Jackson has always been good at ferreting out the things I’m trying to hide from her. If she suspects the nature of our relationship… I can’t let that happen. I just can’t. Even though I’m an adult and I don’t need my parents to approve of my relationships, when I even think of revealing the truth, the words freeze in my throat.
I settle for a half-truth. “Their help has been invaluable.”
“You mean their money,” she says. Her nose wrinkles in distaste. In Lillian Jackson’s world, talking about money is just not done.
“Actually, no.” To my surprise, I contradict her. “Anyone could have invested money, but they did so much more.” Owen and Wyatt have been with me every step of the way. They cheer me up when I’m down, deliver bracing words of encouragement when I doubt myself, and when I need their support, they’re always there with a shoulder for me to lean on.
They’re more than my partners, and they’re more than just friends. Though I wanted to slap them the first time I met them, I can’t imagine my life without Wyatt and Owen in it.
I think I’ve fallen in love with them.
Shit.
“They’re quite unsuitable, of course,” my mother sniffs. “I’m assuming you know that, Piper.”
I ignore the warning in my mother’s tone. We finish our lunch in silence.
After that strained meal, I’m ready to talk to someone normal. It’s Sunday. I’m assuming Bailey is doing something with Daniel and Sebastian. Gabby is a two-hour drive away and I don’t own a car. Katie’s busy with the monster twins and Miki’s in Houston.
I call Wendy and beg her to hang out with me. An hour later, the two of us are huddled in a booth in a bar in West Village, looking at a beer list that’s three pages long, trying to make up our minds what we want to drink. “I really shouldn’t,” I say regretfully, looking longingly at the pints of beer on the tables all around us. “I might have to go back to work.”
Wendy grimaces. “Me too.” We order glasses of orange juice, ignoring the eye-roll the waitress gives us. Once she’s gone, Wendy gives me a piercing look. “You look glum,” she says. “Which is odd, because I read what Maisie Hayes had to say this morning. You should be over the moon.”
“I’m having boy troubles,” I say moodily.
“How come? The three of you looked pretty close on Thursday.”
I look up at her. “You noticed that too? My mother remarked on it today.”
“I’m not surprised,” she says. “Neither Wyatt nor Owen could take their eyes off you. So what happened between Thursday and now?”
“I did something really stupid.” I take a sip of my orange juice and wish it were something stronger. Drowning myself in drink might not solve anything, but it will at least numb my misery. “I said something really mean to Wyatt.”
I tell Wendy the story of the ruined gravy. “Wyatt
and Owen thought it was my mother who did it,” I finish. “I lashed out at Wyatt.” I grimace. “I was so angry, but that’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have.”
Wendy frowns. “Didn’t you apologize to him? You don’t typically sit on your high horse when you’re in the wrong.”
“I apologized right away. But I haven’t talked to them all weekend.”
My friend shakes her head. “In other words, each one of you is waiting for the other to call,” she says dryly. “That’s very grown-up of all of you. Why are you avoiding them?”
“What if they want nothing to do with me?” Gulping nervously, I voice my deepest fear. “I really like them. I don’t want it to be over.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake. Don’t be ridiculous. Call them now.”
“What?” I look up at her. “I can’t do that.”
My phone’s on the table. Before I can react, she grabs it, finds Wyatt on the list of my contacts, and dials his number, ignoring my outraged squawk. “Stop that,” I say indignantly, but it’s too late. Wyatt’s picked up.
“Is that Wyatt Lawless?” she asks. “This is Wendy, Piper’s friend. We’ve met before. Piper wants to talk to you.” She hands me the phone. “Do it.”
My hand trembles as I reach for the instrument. “Hey,” I say, crossing my fingers behind my back. “I’m so sorry. I should have never said what I did. Please don’t be mad at me.”
Wyatt’s voice wraps around me like a warm embrace. “Okay,” he says.
“Wait, what?” Of everything I expect to hear from him, this isn’t it. I’m prepared for a cold shoulder, or angry words of recrimination. I’m not ready for a calm okay.
“Okay,” he repeats, and this time, there’s a note of amusement in his voice. “Okay, I won’t be mad at you.”
“If you aren’t angry, why didn’t you call me?” The moment those words leave my mouth, I want to take them back. I sound like a whiny girlfriend, and God knows I don’t have any claim on either Wyatt or Owen. We’ve had sex twice. That does not give me the right to make demands of them.
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