Gretchen was a public defender specializing in immigration cases.
Their waiter approached the table with a bottle of chilled Dom Perignon. Mack had ordered it when he’d made the reservation, along with the signature dessert—the Sultan cupcake. It was so elaborate and expensive, it had to be ordered in advance. He couldn’t wait for Gretchen to see it.
“Champagne?” Gretchen asked as the waiter popped the cork.
“We’re celebrating,” Mack said with a wink.
The waiter poured two tall flutes and then left the bottle in a bucket of ice next to the table before saying he’d be back in a few minutes to go over the specials for the night.
“Sure,” Gretchen said, accepting her glass. “So what’s the occasion?”
Mack raised his glass. “I closed the deal today on the new building,” he said. “But more importantly, here’s to us. Three months. And hopefully many more.”
Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes when she clinked her glass with his. He thought at first that he was imagining it, but she looked away when she took a drink.
“Everything okay?”
She swallowed and nodded. “This is wonderful.”
“So are you.”
There it was again. The not quite a smile smile. Mack set down his glass and reached again for her hand. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m just . . . To be honest, I feel a little guilty being at a place like this.”
“Why?”
“My clients can barely afford boxed macaroni and cheese for their children.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t spoil you, does it?”
“I don’t need to be spoiled, Mack.”
“But you deserve to be.” He tried again with the wink and the smile. This time it worked. Her fingers relaxed in his.
“Thank you. You definitely know how to wine and dine a woman.”
“I aim to please.” He gave her fingers a final squeeze and let go. “Now I hope you’re hungry. Because I have a surprise for you later.”
Gretchen drank from her champagne and looked at her watch.
“I swear to God, why not just light a thousand bucks on fire?”
Liv Papandreas stepped back from the stainless-steel counter to study her latest culinary masterpiece with a disgusted shake of her head. As a pastry chef at Savoy, it shouldn’t surprise her anymore what the one percent would waste their money on, but sadly, it did. And she had known the minute her boss put the gold-infused cupcake on the menu that the city’s richest celebrities and show-offs would order it in droves just because they could.
Well, that, and so they could pose for an Instagram-worthy photo with Royce Preston, celebrity chef, television host, and the dickhead who signed Liv’s paychecks.
Every week, millions of fans tuned in to his reality show, Kitchen Boss, for a dose of his smooth-talking charm. Little did they know that his smooth-talking charm was as fake as his hair. When the cameras were off, he was a belligerent douchebag who stole most of his recipes from his own staff. Liv had somehow managed to survive an entire year in his kitchen, mostly because she had a stubborn disdain for wealthy posers. Who could’ve guessed that a teenage career in breaking rules and antagonizing authority figures would actually help her someday?
Rumor had it that tonight’s cupcake schmuck was some nightclub owner. Liv wouldn’t know. Nightclubs weren’t really her thing. Because people. People weren’t really her thing either.
Suddenly, her fellow prison inmate—er, pastry chef—Riya Singh clapped her on the back. “You don’t think your talents are worth a thousand dollars?”
“I think my talents are worth a lot more. I just don’t think a single freaking cupcake is. Every single person who orders one of these should be forced to immediately write a check for the downtown food bank.”
“Starting with Royce.”
Yeah, right. Men like Royce didn’t give money to charity. They hoarded it, flaunted it. Bribed their kids’ way into elite colleges with it. And he was about to make a helluva lot more of it. In one month, the first official Kitchen Boss cookbook would be published—a cookbook full of recipes he’d ripped off. One of Liv’s was in there—a twist on baklava using pomegranates and natural honey.
“I still don’t understand why you don’t just quit and take your sister up on her offer,” Riya said. “You could be free of this place forever if you wanted. The rest of us have to stay because we don’t have any other choice.”
Liv’s sister, Thea, had offered at least a dozen times to give Liv the money to open her own business. Thea was married to a Major League Baseball