The Radcliffes

by T. J. Kline

  “Oh, then come in. I have some great news for you.”

  News?

  She sounded so excited; he felt like a jerk. “I’ll be right there.”

  Disconnecting the call, he reached for the bottle of wine he’d brought. Maybe it would help to ease the discomfort of this entire matter. Surely she would understand the predicament their relationship put him in.

  Alex was waiting for him at the front door, stunning him into silence. She’d left her hair loose around her shoulders and his fingers itched to run through it. Her smile almost painfully dazzling, her eyes sparkling with excitement. He tightened his grip on the neck of the wine bottle, holding the flowers out to her.

  “Oh, Nico, these are beautiful.”

  They don’t even compare to you.

  He stifled the thought as she turned and headed toward the kitchen, reaching for a vase in one of her cabinets, filling it from her sink.

  “So, are you ready for my news?” she asked. Her smile beamed and Nico fought the urge to drag her against him and kiss her. Alex’s enthusiasm was contagious and he couldn’t help the lopsided grin that tugged his lips.

  “Sure.”

  “I’m opening a restaurant.”

  The smile fell from his lips and the air shot from his lungs. He couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d pulled a gun on him. “What?”

  “A restaurant,” she repeated, dropping the flowers into the vase and setting them on the counter with a laugh of pure glee. “It’s for you. I want you to be the head chef.”

  She was so excited that Nico felt like he’d missed a vital part of the conversation. She’d never even mentioned a restaurant before. “What are you talking about?”

  Alex moved closer, laying her palms gently against his cheeks and looking into his eyes. “I’m opening a restaurant here in San Francisco and offering you the position as head chef.”

  “But I want to open my own restaurant,” he said slowly, still trying to grasp what she was asking him to do.

  Her forehead pinched in a frown. “You’d said you want to do that eventually. This way you’d have all the freedom to do it now. And none of the headaches.”

  “Alex,” he softened his voice, not wanting to hurt her feelings. “I want the headaches. And the joy. I want that feeling of satisfaction you get when you succeed and it’s because of your own hard work. I want the trial and sacrifices to be worth the feeling of success.”

  Her hands fell from his face, resting against his chest. She arched a brow as she met his gaze. “I get that. But…” Alex slid into one of the barstools.

  “What do you really know about running a restaurant, Alex?”

  Couldn’t she see this wasn’t just something to do on a whim?

  She narrowed her eyes. “A business is a business, Nico. Growing them is what I do for a living.”

  Alex stood up and crossed her arms, clearly stung by his implication that she couldn’t run a restaurant.

  Yet he was just as offended that she’d assumed he’d be happy to give up his pursuits to work underneath her. “A restaurant is different. You have to have a passion for it, to love it, or it’s just going to wear you down.”

  “I thought you’d be happy about this.”

  “This is just like before. You’re looking at the business and not the people that support it. You’re not looking at me. You’re looking at the bottom line. I don’t want to be someone’s cash cow. I don’t want to be a project someone tries on a whim.”

  “Look,” she said. “I’ve thought it through. I have a great location and my investors are excited about the concept.”

  “Which is what?”

  “Well,” she hemmed, suddenly sounding nervous, “you sort of inspired me. I want to open a high-end Italian restaurant near Eco-Tech. I found a great location nearby—”

  Nico’s pulse thudded to a stuttering stop before picking up double time. “An old theater?”

  “Yes! How’d you know?”

  “You’re the buyer?”

  This couldn’t be happening.

  He couldn’t have pissed the universe off this badly.

  “Technically, AR Group bought it. But yes, we signed the contract a few days ago. I was waiting until it was finalized to offer you the position, but you obviously don’t want it.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated with the way this entire conversation was turning out. Not only was he being forced to choose between being with her or his lifelong pursuit, but he was being forced to face the fact that he’d lost the location for the Don to her. Mr. Lowell’s words came back at him. They suddenly seemed more like a warning than a threat now.

  “I already work for your grandmother.”

  “I see.” Alex pursed her lips and arched a single brow, backing away from him and crossing her arms. “What you mean is that working for one Radcliffe is enough.”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “You didn’t have to.” Alex moved across the kitchen, putting more space between them. “Look, contrary to whatever happened here, I don’t usually mix business with pleasure.”

  If he’d wondered about their relationship, she’d just clarified it for him. She’d reduced him to a business associate who had once offered her a fun distraction on the side. His fingers gripped the bull-nosed edge of the granite counter. Nico had never felt more used.

  “Is that what this is? You’ll be able to get a little of both whenever you need it? Because that explains a lot.”

  “Excuse me?” Her eyes flashed angrily at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that you’re really good at keeping your feelings under wraps so you can compartmentalize people. Now you’re trying to put me in a box.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” She shook her head. “Here I thought I was giving you exactly what you wanted, Nico. A restaurant of your own, where you could cook what you want.”

  “But that’s not what this is. You’re offering me a job. It’s the same thing that I have with your grandmother, only on a larger scale. It would be your place, not mine. I’d still have to answer to you.”

  “Damn it, can’t you see that I wouldn’t do this for anyone else? I’m doing it because I care about you. I wanted to do this for you and with you.”

  Nico ran his hand over his face, rubbing his eyes. “No, Alex, you’re doing this for you. You see me the way you see everyone else in the world. As someone to help build your castle where you sit on the throne, high above us.” He shook his head. “I hate to break it to you, but it’s going to get lonely on that pedestal. If you don’t believe me, just look at your grandmother.”

  He turned and walked out. He knew that he wasn’t only leaving the woman he’d come to care about, but his last chance to make the Don a reality.

  Chapter 30

  “Wait a second,” Alex yelled as Nico headed for the front door.

  “What else do you want from me, Alex? A congratulations?”

  “I am opening this restaurant. Stop being so stubborn and take the job.”

  A bitter laugh fell from his lips and Alex cringed at the sound. She’d never heard him sound this disgusted. “You’re so used to telling people what to do that you don’t even realize when you’re doing it. You can’t always be in charge, Alex. Not you and not your grandmother.”

  Her breath caught in her chest, her pulse pounding so hard she thought he might be able to hear it. Rage burned through her. She was tired of being compared to Wilhelmina Radcliffe. She wasn’t trying to live up to what her grandmother had accomplished, she was trying to blaze her own trail with something bigger. Why was she being punished for that?

  “Fine. Don’t take the job. There are hundreds of chefs who’d love the position. I’m not going to beg you to take it.”

  “Good. At least now I know that I was right. You see me as expendable.”

  She threw her hands in the air. “Are you seriously going to walk away from this opportunity? Are you nuts?”


  “This isn’t the kind of help I want, Alex. I don’t want anything handed to me.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “You want to help, Alex? Let me rent the property. I signed the lease the day you purchased it.”

  Alex sighed. There was no way her investors were going to let this go now. She’d specifically chosen this group of clients because she knew they’d be excited about the prospect. “I can’t. The project has already gone too far.”

  Nico shrugged. “You know, I came here tonight hoping to find my way out of a no-win situation.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  “When you ended this the other day, maybe you had the right idea after all, Alex.” He closed his eyes as he spoke, and when he opened them, she could see the saddened defeat in them.

  “Just go.” She forced the words through clenched teeth, trying to ignore the painful ache in her chest.

  She could see it in his face. He was already pulling away and he had been from the moment she offered him the position.

  She should have known better. The last time she’d dated a man she worked with, he’d used her to get ahead in his own career. This time, she picked the one man who judged her for trying to help him do just that.

  Chapter 31

  Nico thought his day couldn’t get any worse. He woke up late, rushed through his morning routine, and saw that it was hailing outside. After dashing to his car, he discovered that his windshield wipers weren’t working, but with no other mode of transportation, felt he had to make it work.

  It hadn’t gotten any better at the restaurant, either. Martinelli had somehow found out he’d taken the day off for a date and had ripped him a new one, threatening to fire him if it happened again. He probably would have given his two weeks’ notice on the spot, but now, without a property to lease, there was a good chance his plans for the Don were going to fall apart. He couldn’t quit. Not until something else came up for lease in the same price range as the theater.

  Later that afternoon, he ran through the back door into the Radcliffe kitchen, praying Lowell was busy somewhere else in the massive house. He crashed into the man and knocked him backward.

  “Mr. Donacelli, I’m going to assume that you have a good reason for being late, and for tearing through the kitchen like a wild animal.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Lowell. I had car problems and the storm has made travel slow going. I didn’t want to be late.”

  Lowell pursed his lips. “That is hardly an excuse.” He waved a hand toward the staff lockers. “Go, change. See that this doesn’t happen again.”

  “Yes, sir,” Nico muttered.

  “Mr. Donacelli,” Lowell called, halting Nico mid-step. “Am I correct to assume that you took care of the matter we discussed yesterday?”

  “You are.”

  “Which means…”

  “It means that there are no conflicts of interest when it comes to me working for the Radcliffe family.”

  Lowell twisted his mouth to one side, and his eyelids lowered. Then he gave him a quick nod and disappeared down the hall to his office.

  Nico arrived back in the kitchen where Dylan was already prepping the evening meal. Dylan glanced up as he entered and gave a low whistle.

  “You look like you haven’t slept all week. Wanna talk about it?”

  “Not really.”

  “Just because I like guys doesn’t mean I can’t understand women troubles. Relationships are the same either way, you know.”

  “I said I’m fine. I just have a few big decisions I have to make. Why don’t you chop the vegetables for the salad while I start the veal?”

  Nico could make a veal scaloppini in his sleep, which gave him the mental space to figure out what he was going to do. The rug had been pulled out from under him and he wasn’t sure what to do now. He couldn’t get his loan without a location, and Alex had made it clear she wouldn’t lease him the property. Somehow, he’d managed to lose the restaurant and the woman of his dreams in one fell swoop.

  And why was it that the thought of losing Alex, not the Don, was the one tearing him up inside?

  Chapter 32

  Anna threw her arms around Fallon and Alex’s shoulders. “I can’t believe the wedding is so soon. It felt like it was months away and now it’s right around the corner.”

  “Which is why we need to get this decision finalized soon,” Fallon pointed out. “What about this one, Alex?”

  “Hmm?” She wasn’t even paying attention as the two women combed through the bridesmaid dresses the stylist had brought over.

  “Are you even listening?”

  “Not really.” She slumped onto the pillowed bed, clasping her hands between her knees. “I’m sorry. I’m just…” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you see anything you like?” Fallon slid closer to the couch, holding a gown out to her sister. “I’ll let you take first choice of the designer dresses.”

  Alex waved her hand. “I don’t care. Go ahead.”

  “Wow.” Anna planted her hands on her hips and stared at Alex. “Thanks.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean about your wedding, Anna. I meant about having first choice of the dresses. I’m sorry.”

  Anna waved a hand, laughing it off, but Fallon studied her sister. “What’s wrong? Spill it.”

  “It’s stupid. Don’t worry about it.”

  Fallon crossed her arms, glaring at her sister, looking almost as domineering as their grandmother.

  “Fine,” Alex huffed. “It’s a guy.”

  Anna’s eyes lit up and she drew close at the suggestion of juicy details. “A guy? What guy?”

  “The one you met at the bar that night. Nico.” Alex didn’t want to go into details and found herself searching for the easiest way to explain their relationship. “We went out a few times.”

  “I knew there was something going on.” Fallon dropped onto the side of the couch.

  “You did not,” Alex argued.

  “I absolutely did. But dating isn’t a reason for this moping. That’s good news.”

  “Isn’t it?” Anna asked Alex hesitantly.

  “Yes. Or it would’ve been, if we were still dating.”

  “You’re not? Oh, Alex, I thought…” Fallon sighed heavily. “I thought this one might work out.”

  “It might have, if he hadn’t compared me to Grandmother.”

  “And what, my dear, is wrong with that?” All three women looked up to see Wilhelmina walk into the room.

  Alex felt the blush heat her cheeks. She glanced at her sister and Anna, certain their expressions of guilt matched her own. “Nothing,” she lied.

  Wilhelmina arched a brow, casting an icy gaze over each of them in turn. “That’s a nice try, Alexandra, but you have a long way to go to improve your prevarication skills. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being tenacious and hard-working.”

  “No, there isn’t,” she agreed. “But—”

  “And are we discussing my chef? Because if he is speaking about me that way, there will be repercussions.”

  Alex felt her stomach drop. She wouldn’t put it past her grandmother to fire Nico on the spot.

  “We’re discussing someone else, Grandmother,” she lied, eyeing her sister, silently begging her to change the subject. “A man we met when we went out to dinner last week.”

  Her grandmother glared at them on the couch. “Well, I should hope it’s not the chef. I’ve given him a tremendous opportunity, working for me.” She sniffed haughtily before looking at the racks. “Those are the dresses Ella brought? Goodness, you’d think I told her this was a garden party. I’m not sure any of these will work. What do you think?”

  Fallon faced Alex and rolled her eyes dramatically.

  “I’m going to go call Ella and request she send another rack over. Excuse me.”

  For the first time, Alex was grateful for her grandmother’s lack of technological advances as Wilhelmina marched out of the room.

 
“That was close,” Anna breathed, holding her hand to her chest.

  “Yeah,” Fallon agreed. “Except now we just went from fancy to formal for this party.” She shrugged, turning back to their original conversation. “Alex, you’ve been a different person ever since that night at the bar. You haven’t gone to the spa once in the past few weeks.”

  “Caitlyn told me you bought her a coffee the other day.”

  “I was being nice,” Alex said as she threw her hands into the air.

  “And that you asked about hiring veterans?”

  Alex shrugged, the image of Brad and Merry making her eyes water.

  “What did this guy do to you?” Fallon’s eyes glinted mischievously. “Maybe you should ask him to do it again.”

  “Stop it, Fallon. Leave her alone,” Anna scolded as she slid to Alex’s other side. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know.” Alex shrugged, feeling completely unsure where she and Nico had gone wrong. Maybe their relationship was exactly what she’d expected—a wildfire that burned out too quickly. “The short version is that he’s Grandmother’s personal chef and I offered him a job at the new restaurant space I bought. One minute everything was great. The next, he was walking out.”

  “What new restaurant?” Fallon asked, shocked.

  Anna sighed. “Oh…oh, no, Alex. You didn’t.”

  “What restaurant?” her sister repeated.

  “What’s wrong with offering him the job?” Alex asked. “He’d have been the head chef, running the place however he wanted.”

  Fallon reached for her sister’s face, forcing her to meet her gaze. “One, what restaurant? And two, have you ever tried dating someone who worked for you?”

  Alex jerked her chin back. “Look, I found a great location for a restaurant and Nico inspired me. I got the investors involved and they are ready to put some big money into it on my recommendation. I wanted him to be the head chef. He, apparently, didn’t like that idea and walked out. But he told me he wanted to start his own restaurant.”