nouvelle style, using the freshest ingredients, with simple prep to create lighter and more delicate flavors. Two restaurants, both menus controlled by me with guest chefs making appearances on a monthly basis to keep the ideas fresh and unique.
“What about the outdoor area?” he asks.
My hand clenches around the pen in my hand. It’s all part of the original plan to utilize the entire block and provide a whole sensory experience to go along with the food. There will be twinkling lights, fountains, high-end heat lamps that blend into the greenery, fire pits, and comfortable outdoor seating.
“I’m working on it.” If I could get my hands on a slippery food truck owner named…what was it? I pick up the article on the desk in front of me. Scarlett Jackson. For some reason, the name gives me a sense of déjà vu. Have I heard it before?
“Work faster, would you? This is a bad sign. I should have hired a different chef,” he mumbles. And then he hangs up.
A pulse pounds in my head. He didn’t hire me. We agreed on this deal together. I know better than to take it personally, this is just how he is. Damn Oliver and his crazy, eccentric, superstitious money. I need him to pull this off. I hate that I need him. I hate that he can cut out of this deal at any moment and won’t lose a wink of sleep. I thought I could deal with him.
He’s not entirely a dick, even though he’s good at acting like one. I’ve known him since we were in high school. I was one of his only friends since most people thought he was a weirdo. He is, in fact, a brilliant weirdo who went from a poverty-stricken upbringing to billionaire with nothing more than his own hard work and razor-sharp mind. He’s also one of the few people I know who enjoys hanging out with my sisters. They love him. So I love him too, even when I want to strangle him. Which is why I agreed to this deal, with nothing in writing. I should have made him sign a contract agreeing to not be a total pain in my ass, but I might as well have asked for the Earth to stop rotating.
I was too excited at the possibility of being able to keep my career without it affecting raising my sisters.
I shove thoughts of Oliver and the food truck issue to the side and try to keep them there.
“Carson!”
He comes running back to his chair.
“Moving on,” I snap. “Have we filed the paperwork for Marie?”
“Three more weeks. Almost four.”
The other thorn in my side. You can’t file for divorce based on abandonment until a year has passed. So close.
“Any word from John?” My attorney. The one helping me try to get a divorce.
Carson winces. “We still haven’t been able to serve her papers.”
This doesn’t surprise me. We’ve been trying to get her for the past year, but Instagram is the only way to figure out where she is and she doesn’t stay in one location long enough to pin her down and serve her papers. It’s costing me an arm and a leg to get her served overseas, and she’s been everywhere from the Maldives to Ibiza, hence my having to wait forever to file under the terms of abandonment.
“We’re booked out for the next two months?”
He nods, his eyes brightening. “The exclusivity idea was brilliant. We could probably schedule out this way for years just because people want what they can’t have.”
Part of my deal with Oliver was being able to spend more time with my family. Which is why, for now, Decadence is only serving dinner and only by reservation for a few hours a night. We charge an exorbitant amount for the opportunity.
A muscle twitches in my eye as Carson rattles off a list of the details that are on fire over the next week—so much to do to make everything run smoothly. But it has to be perfect. Everything I need, and the girls need, is riding on this. Sometimes managing all this is like building a skyscraper out of the thinnest of wafers. One inadvertent sneeze could topple the entire thing.
“Guy?” Carson stares at me, head tilted in concern.
It probably wasn’t the first time he said my name.
“What?”
He purses his lips. “As I was saying, for the charity event tonight, your tux is hanging in the bathroom, and the car is picking you up in an