Romance Impossible(57)

Beckett was fucking naive. In general, but particularly in this instance. He thought she returned my feelings because that was his experience with women; they had no reason to play games with him, because he was easy. Not like me.

Nothing could ever be easy with me.

This had to stop, and it had to stop now. No matter how much Jill simpered and smiled and admired my tattoos, no matter how sweet she'd been stopping by my house when I was insane with a fever - no matter how much my heart ached at the thought of closing off to her, I had to. There was absolutely nothing else to be done.

There was nothing really between us. Nothing at all.

She was never mine to lose.

So why did it feel like I'd lost everything?





***



Lydia met us at the restaurant, and pulled me into a warm hug the instant she saw me.

"Everything's gonna be great, Max," she whispered, near my ear. "You're gonna turn these lemons into lemonade, same way you always do."

After she pulled away, she went to shake Jill's hand. "It's so nice to meet you, finally. But I'm sorry you have to spend your holiday working."

Jill shrugged. "I like to stay busy," she said. "It's very nice to meet you, too."

Lydia, bless her, had already taken care of the most urgent housecleaning before we arrived. The staff who were deemed most responsible had been dismissed, leaving a core crew who needed to be re-trained before I could fill the leadership roles. Going through a hiring process again, so soon after Trattoria, was a nightmare scenario - but this was New York, so I'd have applications for miles and miles. It was just a matter of picking and choosing from some of the best chefs in the country.

Maybe I could convince one of them to come back to Boston and be Jill's second-in-command.

I was still planning on promoting her, eventually. My personal feelings didn't enter into that equation.

What was left of the staff lined up to meet me in the empty dining room, and I'd soon made a passable snap judgment on each and every one of them. Most were competent but confused, and a little frustrated. A few of them were sweetly slow, but I could work with that. Then there was Tom, the floor manager, who seemed like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I couldn't blame him, not in the least, but I wondered if his psyche was too shattered to contribute to a healthy workplace.

"I knew things were fucked up," he told me, without prompting, his eyes darting wildly from me, to Lydia, to Jill, and back to me again. "I knew things were fucked up, but I can only do so much, you know? I can only manage the front of the house so well when everything else is falling down around my ears. I tried, you know? I tried."

"Relax," I commanded him. It didn't really work, but it did get him to shut up for a while, which was all I needed.

Lydia had already filled me in on the results of her audit. It was exactly the problems I would have guessed. Too many egos, too many corners cut, all the usual subtle problems that would pass at most restaurants. But not this one.

I'd finished a walkthrough, making sure the kitchen was clean, at least, and none of the food in the walk-ins was rotting, when I heard a tiny ahem from several feet away. I turned towards it.

The soft-spoken hostess was standing in the doorway, staring at me. "Umm, Mr. Chef?"

Good Christ.

"Just Chef is fine," I said. "Or Chef Dylan if you need to get my attention in a crowd. What is it?"

"Mr. Thorne just called."

I nodded, slowly, waiting for her to explain what the hell that meant.#p#分页标题#e#

"He doesn't know who that is, Melissa," Tom the floor manager cut in. "Daniel Thorne, Chef - he hired us to cater an event for him, months ago, before all this shit happened."

"Daniel...really? Why didn't I know about this?"

Melissa and Tom shrugged simultaneously.

"Fuck's sake...all right, do you know why he called?"

"He said he wants to stop by today," Melissa said, her eyes huge. It was like dealing with Aiden all over again. "Wants to talk to us."

"About what?" I demanded.

"I have no idea," she said. "He didn't say. I guess if he wanted to cancel, he would've just done it over the phone, right?"

"Fucked if I know," Tom grumbled.

Good. Great. So one of the world's biggest tech mogul billionaires was just dropping in, while I was in the midst of cleaning up the rubble, and he wanted to have a chat. What could possibly go wrong?

"I don't know if I can handle another stuffed shirt," said Tom, raking his fingers through his hair. "I just...I just don't know. I think I'll go out for a smoke break when he shows up."

"That might be for the best," I said.