The Radcliffes

by T. J. Kline

  “What? That’s ludicrous.”

  Several staff members appeared, cutting their conversation short, carrying silver trays with their meal. Alex frowned. “We aren’t waiting for the others?”

  “Your parents are in Paris, and Gabe and Anna are in Sonoma this weekend.” She didn’t sound pleased. “And Fallon? Well, who can keep track of that girl? She said something about a mare.” Her grandmother shuddered and shook her head. “I’ll never understand what she sees in those animals.”

  Alex knew her sister loved her racehorses and had a talent for picking them. Her brother’s winery had just been featured in a high-profile magazine. They’d both found success outside the family business, much to their grandmother’s displeasure.

  “So, it’s just the two of us.” As the trays were laid before her, Alex thanked the maid, who simply nodded, not meeting her gaze.

  “Why do you do that?” Wilhelmina asked with an exasperated sigh.

  “Do what?”

  “Thank them. It’s their job. I pay them to do it.”

  “Grandmother!” Alex scolded. The maid hadn’t yet entered the kitchen and Alex didn’t miss her disgusted expression even though she ducked her head to hide it. “There’s nothing wrong with being polite. They’re still people.”

  Her grandmother’s pursed lips spoke volumes. Alex knew there was no arguing with her. She was too set in her ways.

  Alex spooned her soup, and when she brought it to her lips, she was greeted with a complex burst of flavors. A hearty combination of sausage and kale with a creamy texture that soothed her.

  “This is amazing. You don’t have a chef, do you? Is this soup from one you’re looking at bringing in? Because you should hire him on the spot. If you don’t, I might have to.”

  A tinge of regret twisted through her. She’d had a man who wanted to cook for her and she’d let him go. Even worse, she’d ordered him to leave because he’d questioned the way she ran her business. Or maybe she’d thrown him out for another reason. Maybe she’d been looking for an excuse to run away. From the argument, from facing their differences, from the truth her sister had already tried to explain. In her business, Alex was becoming more like her grandmother with each acquisition she made. She’d begun to see the companies she snapped up as made up of faceless masses rather than real people with lives outside their job. Maybe those real people were looking at her the way the maid just looked at her grandmother.

  “He’s okay,” her grandmother said with a shrug, waving her hand at her household manager standing inconspicuously nearby. “Lowell insisted he’d be a good fit.”

  Suddenly, Alex was determined that she wouldn’t become callous. “I’d like to thank him, Lowell.”

  “What?” Her grandmother sounded outraged. “I told you. I pay them well for their service, Alexandra. There is no need for us to fraternize with the help.”

  Lowell, her grandmother’s staff manager, stepped forward, his hands clasped behind his back. He nodded to her grandmother in deference. “There is no need for that, Miss Alexandra. I will relay your compliments to our chef.”

  Alex took a deep breath. She didn’t need to press the situation, but suddenly, it was important to her. She wasn’t royalty to be served by nameless peons. Even though she was raised in a family of means, she’d never been like that. She’d always felt most like herself when she was connecting with others.

  Perhaps it was due to Nico’s compassion toward Brad and Merry. Or maybe it was because he’d pointed out that she was living with her head in the clouds, forgetting the real world below. Either way, she wasn’t letting this matter slide easily.

  “There’s no need, Lowell.” She rose abruptly and crossed the room. Tugging open the kitchen door, she glanced back at them, staring after her. “I’ll do it myself.”

  Chapter 24

  Nico barked out orders to his sous chef, Dylan. The kitchen was a bustle of activity.

  “Hey, if you don’t grab that salmon, it’s going to burn.” He rushed across the kitchen to retrieve the pan Dylan seemed to have forgotten on the stove.

  And then everything came to a screeching halt.

  “Nico?”

  Alex’s voice sent a chill down his spine. Her gray gaze slid over him slowly, as if she was unable to believe what she was seeing. “Do you work here?”

  “Uh…” He didn’t know what to say. The salmon fillet sizzled in the pan and he could smell it burning. Rushing to remove it from the heat, he turned the stove off, trying to ignore the curious stares from the kitchen staff. “What are you doing here?”

  “Having lunch with my grandmother.” She stared at him like he’d grown a third eye.

  “Your grand—” Realization suddenly dawned on him. “Wilhelmina Radcliffe is your grandmother? She’s the family you talked about. Oh, shit,” he muttered, thinking back over their last date. Had he really insinuated that she didn’t know how to run a business properly? That she was out of touch? He —a complete nobody—had told the granddaughter of the most elite family in San Francisco how to treat people. No wonder she’d sent him packing. This woman had run in circles he couldn’t begin to climb to; her entire existence had been marked by wealth and power. She hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in her mouth—it was pure gold. Yet, somehow, they’d connected on an intimate level.

  She’d known where he’d come from and it hadn’t mattered to her. She’d accepted the fact that she was dating down—slumming, for lack of a better word—and hadn’t made him feel that way. She’d opened herself up to him, opened her world to him, and he’d pushed her away with his brash judgment.

  His big mouth had ruined his chances with Alex, and now, it may have also destroyed his dream of running his own restaurant. If he lost this job, there was no way he could afford the place. Alex held his future employment, or unemployment, in the palm of her hand.

  She looked exactly the way she had the other night. Just before she told him good-bye.

  Chapter 25

  Of all the chefs in the city of San Francisco, what kind of bad luck dictated that she act like an idiot with the one her grandmother hired?

  Once she and Nico locked eyes, she squared her shoulders. She was embarrassed but wasn’t sure why she should be. “I just came to offer my compliments,” she muttered. “I should go.”

  Alex hurried through the kitchen, unwilling to return to the dining room where her grandmother waited. The last thing she wanted was for Wilhelmina to catch a scent of what was happening.

  “Alex, wait.”

  Nico’s footsteps squeaked on the tile floor as he followed her out the door. She didn’t turn around, didn’t want to see the guilty look in his eyes again. He wanted to work for her grandmother. This is what he’d been after the entire time they’d been together.

  He had to have known who she was. She might not have told him who her family was, but the Radcliffes were one of the most recognized families in San Francisco. Their whole relationship had been a ploy.

  “Alex, will you stop?” He reached out and grasped her elbow.

  She spun on him. “You lied.”

  “About what?”

  “You pretended not to know who I was.”

  “I didn’t lie. How was I supposed to know you were Wilhelmina Radcliffe’s granddaughter? It’s not like you told me,” he pointed out. “If anyone lied about anything, it was you.”

  “I didn’t…” she began, realizing he was right. She’d kept her identity secret from him. “I didn’t lie; I just wasn’t completely upfront about my family.”

  “Why not?”

  “Were you?”

  “Yes, actually. I was.” Nico’s hands slid up to draw her closer. Alex felt her stomach take a tumble and her entire body seemed to hum with longing. “I’d never hide from you, Alex. You knew exactly who I was.” His gaze crashed into hers and she could read his hungry desire there. “And what I wanted.”

  “You didn’t use me to get a job here?”

  Nico drop
ped his chin down and shook his head. “I’ve been working here for months, Alex. Before we met.” He met her gaze again. “You really think I’m capable of using you like that?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened. Or the second, or the third.”

  Nico’s hand rose to cup her cheek and she looked into his eyes. “You know me better than that.”

  “Do I? What do either of us really know about the other?”

  Nico didn’t wait for any further argument from her. His mouth covered hers, gently, coaxing her desire to the surface. Her hands clung to his forearms, her fingers digging into the flesh beneath his shirt, and she sighed into him. Wanting what he offered, afraid to accept it.

  “Alexandra Radcliffe, where are you?” Her grandmother’s voice rang down the long hallway.

  Nico took a step back. “You’re being paged. Go, be the Alexandra Radcliffe. But have dinner with me tonight, as Alex?”

  “My place?”

  “Sure. I have a meeting when I’m finished here but I’ll meet you there at seven.” Her grandmother caught sight of her and strode toward them purposefully, her heels clicking on the tile like gunshots. “We’ll figure out a way to make this work,” he reassured her.

  Watching him stiffen at her grandmother’s approach, Alex doubted it. But she wasn’t willing to give up hope just yet.

  Chapter 26

  “Excuse me, but don’t you have someplace else you should be?” Her grandmother cast a disparaging glance at Nico.

  “Grandmother,” Alex scolded.

  “Yes, ma’am, I do.” Nico bowed his head slightly and hurried back into the kitchen.

  Her grandmother turned to her with a sigh of frustration. “Are you trying to give me even more gray hairs?” She ran a hand over the perfect blond coif, as if willing every strand into place. “Did I just see you kissing him?”

  “We’ve been…” Alex wasn’t even sure what to call what they’d been doing. “Dating?”

  “Is that a question or an answer?” Her grandmother pursed her lips, her disapproval obvious. “Is that why you wanted to go ‘thank the chef’ for the meal?”

  “No!” Her grandmother arched a brow in disbelief. “I didn’t even know he worked for you.”

  “Well, now that you do, I hope that you’ll end this ridiculous relationship.” When Alex opened her mouth to argue, her grandmother held up a hand, silencing her. “You are a Radcliffe. Just because your brother and sister have ignored that fact, you need to remember it and uphold our family name. There are standards that we have set in this community. A common cook, Alex? Really?”

  “Chef,” Alex corrected. “He’s classically trained, you know. And I don’t care what he does for a living, Grandmother. Nico—”

  “You may not care, but I’m sure that your investors do. What would they think about a woman of your stature dating a cook?”

  “A chef,” she repeated, knowing her grandmother was deliberately minimizing Nico’s position to prove her point. “And I plan on offering him a position with my latest venture.”

  “Really.” Instead of interest in her grandmother’s eyes, Alex saw doubt.

  “I’m opening a new restaurant, in an old theater.”

  “And you plan on stealing my chef?” Her grandmother shook her head, disappointment etched on her barely wrinkled brow. “Oh, Alexandra, didn’t you learn your lesson the last time you mixed business with pleasure? I thought we groomed you better than this.”

  Chapter 27

  Nico walked back into the kitchen to see Lowell, arms crossed and glaring, standing in front of his stove. Ignoring him, he turned toward Dylan.

  “Take out more salmon. We need to start over.”

  “You,” Lowell growled. “In here with me.”

  Left with no option but to follow, Nico met Lowell in his office. He’d barely entered when Lowell turned to him.

  “Are you crazy? Or do you not value this position?”

  “Mr. Lowell, this position means more than you can imagine.”

  “Then why in the world would you jeopardize it by kissing Mrs. Radcliffe’s granddaughter? Do you have any idea what she would do if she found out?”

  Nico had a feeling he was about to find out. There was no way she could have missed the kiss in the hallway when she walked up to them. Before he could answer, Mr. Lowell pressed on.

  “Mrs. Radcliffe has a strict policy—employees are not allowed to date. She doesn’t believe in mixing business with pleasure. I can’t even imagine what she’d think of the help flirting with her granddaughters.” Lowell slid into the chair behind his desk with a long sigh. “Look, I like you, I really do, and you’re a tremendous chef, but I can’t let this go on. I’ve fired people for far less.”

  Nico felt a knot tighten in his stomach, crushing his hope of opening the Don. There was no way he could do it without the income from this job.

  Lowell ran a weathered hand over his eyes and down his face. His shoulders slumped and made him suddenly appear old and tired.

  “I didn’t know who Alex was when I met her. She didn’t tell me.”

  “And you didn’t recognize her?”

  How would he? It wasn’t as if he had time to read the local gossip columns. He barely had time to pay his bills between shifts at his two jobs.

  Clenching his jaw, Nico shook his head.

  Lowell stared at him, hopefully reading the honesty of his declaration. But the staff manager had never been overly friendly to Nico and there was no reason for him to start cutting him slack now.

  “You have to stay away from Miss Radcliffe. I’ll make sure that Mrs. Radcliffe doesn’t fire you, but only on the condition that we never have this discussion again. Whatever is going on with the two of you ends here. Agreed?”

  Nico wanted to lie and agree with the man, but he knew he would never leave Alex without an explanation. Which meant that he was thinking about giving up his dreams for a woman who was supposed to be a one-night stand.

  Chapter 28

  “Mr. Donacelli, I’m so sorry. I’m not sure how something like this happened. There was some sort of delay in processing. Before we could inform the property owner of your lease agreement, his agent sold the property.”

  “Sold it?” Nico clicked the button to switch to the speaker and slid his phone onto the table next to the open file folder of bank loan documents. He rummaged through to find the lease agreement he’d signed yesterday. “But how is that possible? I have—”

  “Well, technically the sale was still pending, sir, and I apologize again. The property has been on the market for quite some time, and apparently it was an immediate, one-time transaction. We didn’t receive notice until this afternoon. I’m sorry for any inconvenience this causes you. We have several other industrial properties we could show you.”

  Nico couldn’t believe this was happening. His vision of the Don’s marquee began to fade in his mind. He could see his dream slipping away.

  “Do you have the name of the new owner?” he asked, grasping at straws. “Perhaps I could contact him.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t give out that information. However, once the sale goes through, that information would become public record,” the property manager offered, trying to be helpful. “We do have a quaint place off Pier 33 on Embarcadero and another near Fisherman’s Wharf, although the rent is higher on both.”

  Quaint? Nico knew that was real estate agent–speak for small. The old theater had been exactly what he’d wanted. He was looking for something with history and charm to dazzle clientele.

  “Perhaps I could convince the landlords to lower the rent payments slightly for the first year,” she offered. “As a way to make up for the trouble this has caused.”

  “Trouble,” he repeated dumbly, feeling slightly numb.

  This wasn’t trouble. This was full-out devastation.

  “When will the sale be final?”

  “I could give you the number of the agent, sir. You could contact him
directly if you have questions.” He copied down the number she gave him. “But I urge you to take a look at these other properties. Neither of them will last long.”

  “Yeah, I’ll call you in a couple of days.” That would at least give him some time to try to convince the new owners to let him follow through with his lease.

  First, he’d found out that Alex was the granddaughter of his employer, and now, he lost the building for his dream restaurant. This was turning out to be a shit day all around.

  Chapter 29

  Please answer the phone, Alex.

  His silent plea was unanswered when he was sent to her voice mail yet again. Nico knew she was home and expecting him to show up that evening. But he had no clue what he was going to say to her when he saw her.

  That’s why he’d been calling. He needed to cancel their dinner and put off their conversation for as long as possible, or at least until he figured out what he wanted to do.

  His problem was that he liked her.

  Yet when faced with a choice between a woman he’d only known for a week and the one thing that had given him purpose his entire life, he wasn’t sure he could cast his dream restaurant aside.

  The Don.

  The name alone conjured up emotions he couldn’t contain and memories of his grandfather. He’d promised the man he’d open a restaurant in his honor. And Nico had been working toward this goal for so long, he couldn’t imagine walking away from it for a woman.

  But Alex wasn’t just any woman.

  His phone rang, the tone blaring in the silence of the car.

  “Alex, hi.”

  “Hey, are you on your way? I got stuck on a conference call with an international investor.”

  Her voice made his entire body heat, even as the smile crept to his lips, until he realized what he had to do. “I’m here, but—”