Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
I was desperate to find out.
Chapter Three: Michael
It was Friday, and the big test for Stevie as my new head chef.
Friday night was the busiest night of the week. People wanted to get out and celebrate the weekend, that was when everyone had their date night, and so on. It used to be that Friday nights we had to turn people away, we were so booked with reservations and walk ins, but now I was lucky if we filled even a third of the restaurant on these nights.
I knew that of course we couldn’t change things in a single night, but I also couldn’t help but feel a stupid kind of hope, one that I hadn’t felt with the other head chefs I’d tried. Stevie had always been the most determined person I’d ever met. If she wanted something, she got it. Not that she was spoiled. Far from it. But when she set her sights on something, she wasn’t going to give it up.
As I stood by the host stand, staring out into the street, I wondered if I should go back in and check on her. See how she was doing. Staring out of the front windows hoping that customers would come in was not really going to help anything. A watched pot never boiled and all that.
But at the same time - it felt dangerous to be near her.
When I last had seen Stevie, she had recently sprouted up two inches and gotten curves, but I hadn’t really noticed. She’d been my daughter’s little friend. But then I had also still seen Brooke as just a child, and had only recently begun to realize that my daughter was now an adult and someone I had to start treating like an adult, capable of making her own decisions no matter how I felt about them.
At least with Brooke I had seen her almost every day. And then she was my daughter, always daddy’s little girl.
Stevie was a shock.
She was a beautiful young woman, voluptuous, her dark hair thick and long and curling. Her clothes were professional but they hugged her body tightly, had clearly been tailored for her, and I kept itching to put my hands on her generous curves. And the confidence with which she’d carried herself, the determined glint in her eyes, that hint of sass that I remembered so well still peeking out…
When Virginia left me, I had been…
Well…
I think everyone in my life had known that I was heartbroken. I hadn’t exactly done the best job of hiding it. As far as I’d known, Virginia and I had been fine. Our relationship had been great.
Of course, I’d been throwing myself into my work a lot but I’d been excited to give Theo more responsibility and to start taking time off to be with Virginia more. And I’d always made time for Brooke. So I guess I just hadn’t seen the warning signs. Or hadn’t wanted to.
The point was, when Virginia had left me, I’d still been truly, painfully, deeply in love with her. And it took a while for that to fade.
Once it had… once I’d realized that Virginia really wasn’t going to come back and that I was an idiot for wanting her to, that she hadn’t appreciated me the way that I deserved… I still hadn’t wanted to look at another woman. I’d been too damn busy trying to save my restaurant. And too damn busy trying to deal with the fucking divorce, and my daughter, and all the rest.
It was a fucking nightmare.
Now I was…I was…well. Might as well call a spade a spade. I was wildly attracted to someone for the first time in three years who wasn’t my ex-wife, and it just had to be the best friend of my daughter.
Stevie was only, what, twenty-one?
Get a grip, Michael, for fuck’s sake.
I should go back and check on her—but every time I’d tried, Brooke had kept shooing me away. “Give her space!” she’d say.
Yeah. Space. The last thing I wanted to give Stevie. I wanted to crowd her against the wall, slide my hands over her, rip open that damn shirt of hers and—
I shook my head to clear my thoughts. Down, boy. Now was not the time. Now was the time for seeing if Stevie had the kind of chops that you needed to run a kitchen. She was sassy, sure, and determined, and she’d always enjoyed it when I had shown her how to cook something. But could she be the boss she needed to be for this kind of job?
Brooke appeared at my elbow, smiling. Some of the worry in my chest loosened up at that. “Hey, how’s it going?”
“Good!” Brooke responded, her smile widening.
I hope so.
Brooke had been maudlin for months after her mother left. Things really fell apart between them. I had hoped that despite Virginia’s actions the two of them could still be close, like they used to, but this was apparently a betrayal that Brooke couldn’t get over. She didn’t just see it as her mother cheating on me—she saw it as her mother cheating on her too, keeping such a big secret from her and hurting someone she claimed to love while not being honest.