“That’s it?” I asked. “Two suitcases?”
He nodded. “I’ll call someone to pick them up.”
“You can call someone to do that?”
“So naïve,” muttered Ryan.
Adam’s scalding glance was wasted on Ryan; he was already on his way out the door. I appreciated the privacy.
Reaching for my hands, Adam pulled me to my feet and into a strong hug. I wanted to know what had transpired with his mother, but bit hard on my bottom lip to stop myself from asking. There was only so much torment I could take in one day. He leaned back to look at me, sweeping my hair from my face and tucking it behind my ear. “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered.
I followed him out, loosely holding his hand. The evil brother was standing in the kitchen, using the reflection of the glass in the oven door to check himself out.
“We should try and sort some furniture out this afternoon,” suggested Adam.
“Or we could do it tomorrow.” Nothing about shopping for furniture appealed to me.
He leaned down close. “We’ve got to do it today.”
Ryan chimed in from the kitchen. “Call a decorator.”
“We don’t need to,” said Adam, still looking at me. “We just need to go shopping.”
“The only hope for that place is professional intervention,” insisted Ryan. “You definitely need a decorator.”
Mitchell and I had resided in some downright fleapits during our travels. Considering Gabrielle’s apartment anything short of luxurious was laughable.
“Spoiled scion of the rich,” I muttered, loud enough for him to hear.
Adam stared. “What did you call him?”
I knew he’d heard me perfectly well the first time. “Nothing.” An innocent smile had never been an easy look for me to pull off, but I tried anyway.
“Well played, Charlotte,” praised Ryan. “But no amount of wit will make up for your lack of style.”
“I have plenty of style.”
“I’m sure you do,” he agreed. “And when you’ve furnished the apartment, I’ll be glad to come over and admire the striped banana lounges and beaded curtains.”
I tried to catch Adam’s eyes but he was grinning at the floor. Clearly his memories of La La land still burned brightly. I’d shown him enough crazy to make him believe that banana lounges weren’t out of the realm of possibility.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I asked.
Ryan checked his watch. “Yes, I do.” He picked his keys off the counter. “See you Monday, Charli. Don’t be late.” The door slammed and the evil brother was gone – but his last comment lingered, just as he’d planned.
“What was that about?” Adam asked, hooking his finger through the belt loop on my jeans and pulling me in close.
I slipped my arms around his neck, trying to predict how he’d take the news that I was once again, his newest employee. “I’m working at Nellie’s.”
“You don’t have to do that.” His low tone and the way he murmured the words against my mouth stole my ability to argue the point. “In fact, you really shouldn’t do that. Wait until we get your visa sorted and you can work legally, if you want to.” He lifted me off my feet and lowered me on to the couch, blanketing my body with his.
“Can we talk about something else, please?”
His voice dropped a tone lower. “I don’t want to talk at all.”
“We shouldn’t get banana lounges, Adam. I don’t think they’re practical.” I ran my free hand down the black suede cushion beneath me. “We should get something like this.”
“Easy,” he murmured. “We’ll just take this one. Ryan will go berserk. That might be fun.”
I couldn’t help laughing. Nor could I help exacerbating the situation. “I like the coffee table too.”
“Consider it done,” he breathed. “We’ll take that too.”
13. Intelligence Gathering
Ryan’s job offer came with some stipulations. My coveted breakfast shift had been snapped up as soon as I’d quit, so I was relegated to working evenings. Real life is the ultimate romance thief.
I stood in the doorway of the bathroom, watching Adam through the mirror. I could’ve let myself drift with thoughts of how incredible he looked, bare-chested and sleepy, leaning against the sink while he shaved. But it was just an unwelcome reminder that he had somewhere else to be.
“What are you doing today?” I asked casually.
Adam rattled off his schedule of classes, pausing briefly while he glided the razor down his soapy cheek. Procedures, torts and contract law followed by a few hours of study.
“Well, assuming torts have nothing to do with cake, what does it mean?”
Rinsing the razor under the flow of water, he chuckled.
“Nothing to do with cake. It means a wrongful act done wilfully,” he explained, “for which the injured party can sue.”
“I see,” I replied, drawing out the words. “Kind of like us stealing your brother’s furniture?”
Adam dragged a towel off the rail. Burying his face in it did nothing to dull his laugh. “Technically it belongs to both of us,” he replied. “Which reminds me, it’s being delivered this afternoon. Will you be here?”
I nodded. “I start work at four. I won’t see you until late.”
He sprayed a quick burst of cologne at his throat. A divine woody chypre scent filled the air. “I’ll come to Nellie’s for dinner,” he suggested.
“By yourself?”
“I can bring a date if you’d prefer.” I rolled my eyes. “This is New York, Charli. People dine alone all the time.”
“Yeah, weird, lonely people. Waitresses like me make fun of the weird, lonely people.”
I cast my mind back to my first few weeks alone in the big bad world without Mitchell. Of all the things I managed to achieve solo, dining alone in a restaurant wasn’t one of them. The whole concept was just too depressing.
“Waitresses at Nellie’s have to be nice to me, Charlotte,” he pointed out. “I’m the boss.”
“Yes you are. How did that happen, exactly? How does a boy like you end up as a part-time restaurateur?”
“Depends on who you ask. Ryan will tell you he graciously let me in on the deal of a lifetime.”
“What’s the real reason?”
“We’re the third proprietors in five years. The other two went bust. He was a little nervous going it alone. A fifty-fifty partnership with me means that his risk is halved.”
“That was generous of him,” I teased. “Weren’t you nervous too?”
He shook his head. “We inherited the money we used to buy it. It’s not like it was hard-earned. Besides, Ryan runs a tight ship. If anyone can make it successful, he can.”
“So he runs it alone?”
“Pretty much. I do eat there a lot, though.”
“What a shame,” I said wistfully. “I was kind of hoping you had some pull there.”
“I have major pull, Charlotte,” he purred. “I can walk in there and get your morning shift back just like that.” He snapped his fingers, making me jump. “There are benefits to sleeping with the boss, you know.”
As tempting as his offer was, having him pull strings was hardly carving my own path. Besides, the tips would be better in the evenings and Paolo, the tyrant day manager, wouldn’t be there.
“I’ll manage,” I told him, sighing heavily for effect. “All I have to do is play it cool and stay out of trouble.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible,” he said quietly. “All things considered.”
“What does that mean?”
The sheepish look on his face told me I wasn’t going to enjoy his answer. “You’re probably going to meet a lot of people there, Charli. A lot of my friends go there, usually for dinner.”
Finally I got it. “You mean Whitney.”
His perfect face contorted into a frown. “We haven’t discussed how we’re going to handle that.”
It made no diff
erence. Thanks to the heads-up from Ryan, I was more than prepared for a run-in with dim Whit and the rest of his purple circle.
“You said it yourself, Adam. She knows nothing about me. I think we should keep it that way. She doesn’t need to know I even exist. If I see her, I’ll pretend I don’t know her.”
“You’ve got nothing to hide,” he said, annoyed. “And nor do I.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” I insisted. “In time she’ll move on and won’t give a damn who you’re seeing.”
“It won’t work, Charli. We’ve been down that road before.”
I stepped forward and pressed my hands against his chest. “It’s for my benefit, not yours. Ryan told me all about your friends. You know how they’re going to react to me.”
“Ryan needs to learn to shut his mouth.”
“I get to pick my own friends, Adam. I don’t need to try fitting in with yours.”
***
Having Paolo berate me at the door for being three minutes late was not something I’d missed, which is why seeing him there when I arrived for my first shift back was devastating. The man never slept. Killing him with kindness was my plan.
“Good evening, Paolo,” I greeted him, sashaying past on my way to the cloakroom.
“Stop right there!” he barked.
Fearing he might have a coronary if I didn’t, I stopped and turned to face him. “Is there a problem?”
He clicked his fingers, beckoning someone behind me. “Thankfully, you are no longer my problem. Meet your new manager.”
I turned around preparing to see someone as scary as him, but the girl in front of me was hardly frightening. Not much older than me, she had a great smile and an air of quirkiness that I warmed to instantly.
“You must be Charli.” She held out her hand, revealing a little heart tattoo on the inside of her wrist. “Paolo told me all about you. My name is Bente.”
I shook her hand. “Ben-ta?” I asked, unsure of my pronunciation.
“Yeah, I know.” She rolled her eyes. “Sucks to be me, huh? It’s Dutch.”
The imbecilic nod I gave continued for too long, undoubtedly giving the impression I was a little slow.
Paolo’s phone ringing broke the awkward pause. “I know nothing about a lost earring and I don’t owe you any money! Stop calling me!”
“He’s been getting those calls for days,” whispered Bente. “He’s going to blow a gasket sooner or later.” I stifled a giggle, hoping I didn’t look too guilty.
Paolo left soon after, presumably at the end of his shift, turning control of the restaurant over to Bente. “Come,” she said, linking her arm through mine. “I’ll show you the ropes.”
The ropes Bente wanted to show me had little to do with actual work. She led me over to a quiet corner of the restaurant, under the stairs leading up to the mezzanine.
“I call this the information station,” she whispered, patting her hands on the wooden buffet. “If you’re quiet, you can hear any conversation going on at tables nine, four and seven. It comes in very handy at times.”
“For what?”
“Intelligence gathering. It makes it easier to deal with dicks. If you know what you’re up against, it kind of kills the need to smash cake in their faces.”
My heart sunk. I’d never stood a chance. Paolo really had told her all about me. “Look, Bente –”
“Relax, Charli,” she said, grinning wryly. “I appreciate fine work when I see it. Just don’t let the princes find out.”
“The princes?”
“Yeah, the owners. You’ll meet them sooner or later.”
My thoughts quickly spun in a different direction. Paolo had obviously filled her in on the fact that I was hopeless at my job, but not about my affiliation with Adam and Ryan.
“Why do you call them that?” Perhaps she knew they both referred to their mother as the queen.
“Because there are two of them. They can’t both be king.” Something about my expression must have looked seriously off because she instantly tried downplaying her last comment. “Look, relax, they’re okay. Ryan, the older one, is a bit of a control freak. He’s a dick, actually, but easy enough if you handle him right.”
Anything Bente said about Ryan I could handle, probably even agree with, but something about hearing dirt on Adam made me feel queasy, which is why asking her about him made me nothing short of idiotic. “And the other one?”
“Adam. He doesn’t have much to do with running the place but he eats here a lot – usually at table seven.” She winked at me.
“Intelligence gathering?” I asked, in a tiny voice.
“Now you’re getting it,” she praised, patting my shoulder.
“Because he’s a dick?”
“Sometimes.”
“Great,” I said, drawing out the word as long as I could.
“Cheer up, Kemosabe,” she teased, pretend punching me in the arm. “Welcome aboard.”
With nearly two hours to kill before Nellie’s opened for dinner, we had the run of the place. The first task was setting the tables.
“Is this really what you want to do forever?” I asked, wondering how someone as sassy and bright as Bente ended up waiting tables for a living.
“Of course not, but it’s a job, right? I’m almost through my journalism degree. Serving tables pays my way. We weren’t all born with silver spoons in our mouths like the princes.”
Abandoning the napkin folding, I turned to face her. “Why are you so rough on them?”
“Look, let me give you a little advice. You’re a very pretty girl. Adam and Ryan like pretty things. Sooner or later one or both of them is going to try taking advantage of that. Never break the cardinal rule of working here.”
“Which is?”
Bente handed me a tray of cutlery. I followed her to the closest table. “Don’t sleep with them,” she said, waving a fork in the air like a wand. “They treat women like dirt.” Something told me that her opinion was an educated one. She was speaking from experience.
“So, which one did you sleep with?” I tried to sound as if I didn’t care either way.
“Ryan. A long time ago. No big deal.”
Her cavalier reply didn’t wash. “I think it was. That’s probably why you can’t stand him.”
The cutlery chinked loudly as she placed the tray on the table.
“Very perceptive, Charli,” she praised. “Look, guys like that don’t go for girls like us. Not long term, anyway. It was nothing more than a one night grope in the cloakroom.”
I would never be able to think of the humble cloakroom in the same way again.
“Okay, so that explains your feelings toward Ryan; but what’s your gripe with Adam?”
“Ah, Adam,” she said wistfully, turning her focus back to the table setting. “I had such high hopes for him, but ultimately he’s just as much of a dick as his brother.”
“Did you find that out in the cloakroom?”
Bente threw her head back in a bray of laughter. I braced for her answer. “No, I’ve never touched him, I swear.” Perhaps alarmed by my expression, her hand flew across her heart. “He’s just ice cold. He’s been dating a girl called Whitney for years. No idea why. I doubt he even likes her most of the time. Anyway, he dumped her a few days ago and like a true coward, he’s been laying low since. Whitney’s been in here a few times this week looking for him, pining like a little bitch.”
“So, you don’t like her either?”
“No. She’s a whiny, needy try-hard. Whitney needs to have Adam around. Within their group there’s a hierarchy,” she explained. “Some are more important than others. I don’t know what it’s based on, maybe money or looks or popularity, but some are higher up the ladder than others. Whitney needs Adam so she can stay in the fold. Adam never needed Whitney. He just let her hang around like a puppy. That makes him a dick.”
“I’m sure he never meant to hurt her,” I defended.
Bente stared across the table at m
e, shaking her head. “Stop defending him. I’ve heard a whisper that he’s already got a new girlfriend. He should have had the decency to make things right with Whitney before moving on to the next victim.”
I wasn’t feeling much like a victim. I felt like the wicked instigator of the whole mess. I wondered if that made me a dick.
“So why did he stay with Whitney for so long?”
“I have a theory,” she replied, waving cutlery at me again. “All their friends are paired off. They’re all couples. By staying with Whitney, he had a constant date at the ready. Every time they attended a party or fashion show or whatever the hell it is that preppy brats do for fun, she was conveniently waiting in the wings, only too happy to oblige.”
“You know a lot about this. Your investigative journalism skills are supreme,” I teased.
“I love studying them. They’re like my pets.”
“Do you think Whitney wants Adam back?”
“Of course – because she wants to retain her position at the top. I don’t think she’ll do it without Adam. It might be the end of her reign.”
Bente spoke of Adam and his friends as if they were pawns in a chess game. Just thinking about it made me feel like I needed to shower. Trying to keep my distance from them was absolutely the right decision.
“I can’t wait to meet the new girl,” she said gleefully. “It’s going to shake them all silly.”
It was time to fess up, fearing that if I didn’t, I’d hear something I really didn’t want to. “Bente, I have a confession to make.” I winced as I said it. “I’m the new girl.”
She placed the bunch of cutlery on the table and stared at me for so long I felt uncomfortable. Her hand flew up. “Wait! We need pie.” She scarpered across the restaurant, disappearing through the kitchen doors.
A more conscientious employee would have continued setting the tables. I pulled out the nearest chair and sat down instead. The doors burst open a short while later and Bente rushed out, plates in hand.
“Is this really necessary?”
“Of course it is.” Paolo would have flipped his lid if he’d seen the way she dumped the plates on the table. “It’s pecan pie. Every good story begins and ends with pecan pie.”
The slab of pie in front of me was more food than I usually consume in a day. She obviously expected the story to be long.