"Oops." He winced. "Are they being audited?"
"Not yet, but they need someone to put things in order."
"Take care with that broken heel. Might be embarrassing. Wouldn't want you to get off on the wrong foot with the management." He laughed at his own joke as if it was so hilarious he might split his pants.
Hobbling onto the curb she cleared the way for him to jump into the cab. He winked at her. "See you around, Miss Mulligan."
"I hope not."
* * * *
Official business? In shoes like those? Hmmm that was the kind of official business he enjoyed best. Pity he didn't have time to stick around.
As the cab pulled away, he watched her limping for the restaurant entrance, one heavy bag pulling her shoulder down—which is probably how she tore her coat sleeve—and a suitcase, tied together with ribbon, clasped tight to her chest. That woman ought to have an "out of order" sign on her back, he mused, shaking his head. Always had been an absolute mess and he'd known her since they were teens, when they met at their cousins' wedding sixteen years ago. He was a groomsman and she was the fat bridesmaid. There was always one. He got landed with escorting her down the aisle, because his girlfriend at the time wasn't in the wedding party.
"You be nice to that young girl," his grandmother had exclaimed in her thick Russian accent when she saw his expression at the wedding rehearsal. "She's just what you need. Not like those sluts you run around with."
"Grandma, she's thirteen."
"A good age. Snap her up now." She was only half joking. His Grandmother had escaped a rural, impoverished Siberian village and, according to her, lived through more atrocities than he'd had dinners—hot or cold. Where she was raised, girls married young to bear as many children as possible and populate the labor force in the fields. Folk lived simply, but they took in every breath as if it might be their last. They clawed their way to survival. That was where he got his ambitious streak, no doubt.
Bryony Mulligan's sulking face didn't trouble her either.
"She's a fine, strong, healthy girl," his grandmother had said. "Hearty bones. Not one of these dirty girls you like."
"That's not dirt, grandma. That's a tan."
But, just to please the old lady, he'd tried to make his reluctant partner smile. And he soon found Miss Bryony Mulligan to be far more than just an awkward adolescent in an ugly, too-tight, shiny orange dress. She looked right through him with her wide, curious blue eyes and whatever she saw apparently amused her no end. A cynical laugh never seemed far from her lips and one eyebrow was quirked in permanent bemusement. When he quarreled with his girlfriend at the reception and received a bony knee to the groin, Bryony—who'd witnessed the attack and his subsequent girly squeal— joyfully christened him "Numbnuts". In retaliation, his seventeen year-old pride wounded, he called her "Chubbs", because he'd caught her stealing pastries in her napkin. The names stuck.
He smiled, shaking his head as he thought of his grandmother, tirelessly trying to marry him off to a "nice" girl ever since kindergarten. Even at the end, when he visited her in hospital after her stroke, she was trying to fix him up with nurses, recommending him as if she worked a market stall and he was a cod she had to shift before he went rotten. Somehow he'd evaded all her sales ploys. Sorry, grandma. He was thirty three, single and loving every minute. It was his firm belief that man wasn't meant to be monogamous, just like a tiger wasn't meant to be a domesticated pet. If women understood that, everyone would be as happy as him.
Ben looked down at his phone and quickly tapped out another text to the sous chef who was the only soul still inside to greet the rep from the accounting firm.
Give her some cannolis.
He pressed "send" and smiled again. That might keep Mulligan from imploding when she realized she'd just watched the owner of Leonato's ride off in a cab. Listen, wasn't his fault. Chubbs was fifteen minutes late and he was a busy man.
The cab turned a corner and he got one last look at her through the grey lines of rain on the window. Should have warned her that her day wasn't about to get any better.
Pity he couldn't hang around. It was always entertaining to have one of those arguments with her—gave him a burst of endorphins— and he'd missed that sneaky pleasure since the last time they met.
It had been quite a long while. Apparently too long.
'Cause Bryony "Chubbs" Mulligan was looking pretty damn hot these days.
Chapter Two
She dropped the files and one bulging binder on the already cluttered desk. "Let me get this straight," she exclaimed breathlessly, "Ben I'm-too-sexy-for-my-shirt Petruska just bought this restaurant? What happened to old Mr. Leonato?"