My Big Fat Fake Honeymoon - Lauren Landish Page 0,94
now, as the chef, I have two hundred more plates to prepare. If you’ll excuse me.”
Cold fury freezes her face with her lips pressed into a thin line and her penciled-on brows drawn up . . . well, as high as they can be, considering her forehead doesn’t move.
“Chef Toscani, you would do well to remember that I might be a wedding planner” —she mimics my obvious distaste, mistaking it for her profession when it’s entirely personal— “but I work with a long list of clients on a multitude of events. And I find your lack of professionalism alarming. I’m not sure I would be comfortable recommending your services to my clients in the future.”
“Okay.”
She thought her threat would hold water with me, but I don’t give a fuck about her snooty list of clients. I want to cook, to create, and will happily do so for people who can appreciate that.
Hell, I don’t even know where I’m going to be next week! Why would I bend to this imaginary list of clients in one town that she’s holding over me?
But Meredith Wildeman is a cunning woman. She might not have anything to lord over my head, but she does have an ace up her sleeve.
“I do wonder,” she muses as she taps her red lips with an equally red-tipped finger, “where you got these marigolds? Is it from the flower girl? I hope she hasn’t let her work suffer from providing the kitchen staff with flowers. I guess I’ll have to see, won’t I?”
Flower girl. Kitchen staff. Every word she speaks makes it quite clear that she feels we are all beneath her, puppets for her play.
And her threat is thinly veiled. If she can’t get at me, she’ll go after someone else I care about.
“You mean Abigail?” I correct, feeling my blood heat. How dare this bitch!
Meredith smiles serenely. “Ah, yes, Miss Andrews, the flower girl who gets by on her name. Or her father’s, I guess I should say,” she clarifies snidely. “If her work isn’t up to snuff, I guess I shan’t be recommending her either. Such. A. Pity.”
Who the fuck says ‘shan’t’ in regular conversation when they’re not quoting Elizabethan literature? Or wanting to sound like a fucking Disney villain?
“I’m sure the arrangements are exactly as Claire ordered,” I reply coldly, gritting my teeth. I want to smash things. I want to go out there and tell Abigail that this bitch is threatening her business. I want to tell Claire exactly where she can shove her wedding planner, and it’s nowhere as nice as an island paradise.
No, I’d leave Meredith in the desolate cold of Siberia where she belongs. I bet her blood wouldn’t even freeze, cold bitch that she is.
But this a battle of words, of leverage. And she does have some power over Abigail, working in the city she does and with a similar clientele. Meredith Wildeman could sabotage Abigail’s plans.
“I suppose you would know. You’re rather close with Miss Andrews, are you not?” Meredith tilts her head, looking down her nose at me smugly. And that’s saying something considering I’m a good six inches taller than she is in her black heels.
“We have people in common, as you’re aware.” I’m hedging, not mentioning this week but playing on Violet as our common denominator the way Abigail and I decided to early on. It’s not the best look for the staff to be fraternizing, even if it hasn’t affected our work in the slightest.
“Hmm, it is good to have close friends and family on a trip like this,” she declares. “I’m glad you’ve gotten on so well with the other staff.”
I can see it now. The picture she’s painting . . .
One of a grand opportunity to work the wedding of the year in paradise. One where Abigail and I spend the week fucking off, taking yoga and sunset cruises, and neglecting our work. One where, regardless of the food or the flowers, Meredith can deem them inadequate and sell the storyline that if we had only focused on what we were supposed to, things could’ve been so much better.
How does she even know that Abigail and I have been spending time together? Does that even matter?
Before I can respond to our verbal warfare, Esmar comes up. “Chef, you are needed at the pasta station. Urgente!”
Fuck! What has Gilberto gotten up to now?
I don’t bother excusing myself from Meredith. I simply walk away to handle my work, exactly as I’m supposed to do.