Unforgettable

by Ann Christopher

  If you love steamy contemporary romance and enemies-to-lovers storylines, grab ALL OF ME today!

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  Turn the page for an excerpt from Isaiah and Alyssa’s story, ALL OF ME…

  Several months into her unlikely tenure as a server at Harper Rose Bistro, one of Journey’s End’s finest dining establishments, Alyssa Banks thought she knew something about difficult customers. There’d been the clueless couple who brought their toddler into the white tablecloth restaurant and proceeded to let the budding monster run screeching through the aisles prior to throwing most of his juicy spaghetti on the floor and at Alyssa. The grandmotherly type who’d stolen a server’s tip from another table right before Alyssa’s disbelieving eyes. The man who’d eaten every last bite of a $70 steak and all but licked the plate clean before complaining that it was overcooked and demanding a refund.

  Difficult customers were one thing. She was prepared for them.

  But Isaiah Harper, one of the five sons of the bistro-owning Harpers, who’d come in every night that week?

  No possible way to prepare for his misery-inducing presence.

  Was serving other persnickety customers good practice for dealing with Isaiah Harper? Yeah, sure. The same way watching a couple of Scooby-Doo episodes was good practice for dealing with a rabid pit bull headed your way.

  Isaiah Harper had, in the last forty minutes on this chilly October night, sat at his usual booth in the back and complained about the dirtiness level of his dirty martini, the selection of rolls in his bread basket, the windiness of the overhead vent, the weakness of the restaurant’s Wi-Fi and Alyssa’s temerity in telling him about the daily specials when he hadn’t asked about the daily specials. And he’d done all of that while tapping away on his laptop (he evidently saw nothing wrong with treating the restaurant like the corner Starbucks during business hours) and never making eye contact with her.

  Not once.

  Luckily, she had a long and impressive history of dialing back her anger and frustration when dealing with difficult people. She was used to keeping her mouth shut, her head down and her feelings suppressed. To being ignored and feeling insignificant.

  To being a doormat for anyone with muddy shoes.

  But this was the first time she’d ever felt invisible.

  The power imbalance (who did you complain to when your boss’s son acted like a dick?) and unfairness of his treatment were seriously starting to piss her off.

  It wasn’t that Alyssa thought she was the world’s greatest server—she snorted back a laugh at that improbable image—but she was competent. Besides. She couldn’t control half the stuff he’d complained about. Could she snap her fingers and make their temperamental chef cook faster? No. Could she wave a magic wand to speed up the Internet? Hell, no.

  But Isaiah Harper didn’t care about any of that, did he?

  Isaiah Freaking Harper.

  What an unmitigated jerk.

  Even his family disliked him. She’d seen enough of the Harper clan coming and going through the restaurant during the time she’d worked there to notice the way they all stiffened up like Madame Tussaud’s wax figures when Isaiah walked through the door. She’d heard the whispers about Crazy Isaiah and my crazy brother Isaiah.

  So it wasn’t her. It was him.

  Tonight wasn’t the night for that shit. Not with adrenaline already buzzing through her veins and her late mother’s disapproving face lingering in her mind’s eye.

  Tonight, Alyssa felt exceptionally edgy.

  Why? Well, for one thing, her precious baby, a contemporary romance manuscript into which she’d poured her heart and soul, had earlier been rejected by yet another agent. Which meant that basically every worthwhile agent in New York City agreed that her book sucked.

  And for another thing, bad memories kept crowding into her mind, demanding the answer to one perplexing question:

  What was the proper way to observe the first post-death birthday of your recently deceased and unlamented mother, whose tiny urn you carried around in your oversized purse?

  A few solemn words followed by a moment of silence?

  Cocktail party with champagne and confetti?

  Alyssa had no idea.

  Then there was the whole letter situation, namely that Alyssa hadn’t yet opened the one that her mother left for her along with her will. Why? Extreme cowardice, probably. God knew what kind of additional nastiness her mother could generate from beyond the grave.

  But now wasn’t the time for moody memories about Mommy Dearest, she thought as she waited in the kitchen for Isaiah’s plate while idly fiddling with her mother’s heavy gold charm bracelet. Alyssa had taken it off her wrist immediately after her death and worn it ever since. All the mama drama would keep until her shift ended later. Now was the time for taking care of the one thing she could control: serving Isaiah Harper’s dinner to him while it was still hot and thereby soothing the savage and hangry beast.

  At least for a few minutes.

  “Here you go,” Chef said, glaring at her as he finished plating the food, as though he couldn’t believe her temerity in asking him to do his job and actually cook dinner for the restaurant’s customers. “One Isaiah Harper special.”

  “Thanks,” she said cheerily, determined to stay upbeat and professional despite the lengthy delay for this one simple salmon dinner.

  “Better late than never,” said Nigel Harper, one of the restaurant’s co-owners, shooting a glower in Chef’s direction.

  Chef stiffened as he slung a towel over his shoulder and widened his feet into a fighting stance, giving the distinct impression that he longed to take a swing at his boss.

  “You want to start in on me tonight?” he asked Nigel.

  “Not at all,” Nigel said placidly, jotting a note on his clipboard. “I just thought it was worth mentioning that if you were any slower, it would be yesterday.”

  “You want to go there?” Chef said aggressively. “That’s what you—”

  Oh, for God’s sake.

  Alyssa rolled her eyes and turned her back on the combatants, annoyed and determined to make her escape before the situation devolved into Chef’s nightly quitting/firing. She grabbed the food from the warming table and hurried from the kitchen to the far corner of the elegant dining room, where Isaiah and his laptop sat with his brother Daniel, one of the four nice Harper siblings, arriving in time to hear a grim-faced Daniel tell Isaiah the following:

  “Every now and then I forget why it’s so hard to like you. Thanks for the reminder.”

  Alyssa hesitated, lingering out of their line of sight.

  Ouch.

  There went a sharp slice right across Isaiah’s heart. Assuming he had a heart, that was. Probably well earned on Isaiah’s part, but still. That comment was going to scar.

  Sure enough, Isaiah’s gaze flickered with unmistakable hurt, quickly subdued. “I am who I am. I won’t apologize for it.”

  “That’s exactly the problem,” Daniel said. Isaiah opened his mouth, looking outraged, but Alyssa slid into her lifelong role as peacemaker before the brothers could resort to blows.

  She knew she was doing it. Hated herself for it but couldn’t stop to save her life. If there was a family in turmoil somewhere in her little corner of the world? She was the one to try to smooth things over. She hated conflict. Hated ugly words and hurt feelings, even if they had nothing to do with her.

  “Here we are,” she said crisply, startling them as she reached across the table to set down a new bread basket. “Fresh bread.”

  Daniel turned away from Isaiah’s lingering glare, grabbed his wine and
drank as if his life depended on it. With that, the brothers eased back and the tension broke with a snap that was almost audible.

  Much to her relief. She took a deep breath and focused on placing Isaiah’s food a safe distance from his precious laptop lest she give him something else to complain about. Then she placed the loaded plate to the side of Isaiah’s computer and stepped back with grim satisfaction. “Steamed trout with lemon juice. No butter. Smashed potatoes with plain yogurt, also with no butter. Broccolini sautéed in olive oil and truffle oil. No butter.”

  There, she thought, resisting the urge to grin and whoop with triumph. Nailed it.

  “Can I get you anything else?” she asked.

  Isaiah gave the food a quick and dismissive once-over that made her heart sink.

  “I don’t see my drink,” he said, referencing the refill he’d ordered on his dirty martini, which was ready over at the bar but which she hadn’t brought just now because, unlike an octopus, she only had two arms to carry things. He rummaged through the bread basket, rejecting several rolls before selecting one that seemed to meet his exacting standards. “That puts you down at around a twelve percent tip. If the service doesn’t get any better, you’re looking at nothing. Which would make it a tough night for you, I’m guessing, because there’re no other customers. So you might want to step up your game. Just FYI.”

  He delivered the entire speech with the monotonous, brisk and soulless efficiency of Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada.

  And all without looking her in the face.

  If Miranda Priestly was the devil, then Isaiah Harper was the devil’s brother for sure.

  Alyssa stood there while his words settled, stunned stupid. She felt furious at him, yeah, but she was mostly pissed at herself. She was the fool who’d thought that anything she could ever say or do would stop this known SOB from showing his true colors.

  Please.

  As if you could stop a black panther from showing his carnivorous side if you bleached it white and offered it a salad.

  “Isaiah.” Daniel shot Alyssa an apologetic look. “I’m so sorry—”

  There was probably more from Daniel but she held up a hand to stop him, all her growing fury irrevocably centered on his jackass of a brother.

  Why?

  Because Daniel wasn’t the one who owed her an apology. Because Isaiah’s words finally sank all the way in, causing a surge of white-hot anger across her face and making listening impossible. And because she ran, suddenly and irrevocably, into her limit.

  Her limit of what?

  Of peacemakers like Daniel and herself, those hapless folks who thought that if they intervened with a diplomatic comment or two, they could divert attention from the dysfunctional among them and eradicate all unpleasantness from the world.

  She ran into her limit of feeling powerless and marginalized.

  Most of all, she ran into her lifetime limit of bullies.

  Seething, she wheeled around and walked off without a word, determined not to lunge for Isaiah Harper’s throat or otherwise lose her damn mind.

  Count to ten, girl, she told herself, her hands itching to reach for the nearby shelf full of clean plates and smash a few on the floor. Do not rock the boat. Count to ten.

  She took a deep breath, her cheeks still on fire.

  One…

  Two…

  “You fucking jackass!” Daniel cried behind her. “That poor woman—”

  Poor woman?!

  “—is doing the best she can, and you have no right to treat her like that! She’s shy! Now she’s probably crying her eyes out in the bathroom—”

  Crying. Her. Eyes. Out.

  The assessment infuriated her as much as Isaiah’s harangue. As if she was some melty little snowflake whose delicate crystals disintegrated when a bully looked in her direction.

  Actually…You know what? Maybe that was exactly who she used to be.

  But that damn sure wasn’t who she was anymore.

  Maybe Isaiah Harper was the devil’s brother, but she was about to impersonate Satan’s sister up in here.

  Propelled by forces beyond her control, she grabbed a heavy silver pitcher of ice water from the side cart and took it back to the table.

  Where she unceremoniously dumped the entire contents on Isaiah Harper’s lap.

  He yelped with surprise. Roared with outrage. Surged to his feet and got in her face.

  Directly looked at her for the first time all night. Possibly ever.

  Saw her.

  “What the hell?” he shouted, towering over her five-five from his wiry height of six-one or so, his brown-skinned face a satisfyingly vivid shade of red. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Don’t you know who I am?”

  Everyone in town knew who he was thanks to his recent cover spread in Time magazine. He was a thirty-seven-year-old tech millionaire who’d done something revolutionary with algorithms and recently sold his second company for a ridiculous amount of money. He now lived in Seattle but had come home for his brother James’s wedding the other day and was the one outlying jackass member of the lovely Harper family.

  What else…what else?

  Well, he’d gone off to MIT as a sixteen-year-old child prodigy and earned advanced math and computer science degrees. He’d also earned the distinction of being a ridiculously demanding boss because of his uncompromising perfectionism. The article overflowed with accounts from tearful and fearful current and former employee victims of his reign of terror, including one memorable anecdote about him firing his entire marketing department when they couldn’t get the ads right a couple of days ahead of a product launch.

  Isaiah freaking Harper. She’d seen this routine before. She knew exactly the sort of person who engineered this type of turmoil and anxiety.

  Just like that, all her anger evaporated. Funny how that worked now that she finally had his attention. A perverse feeling of righteous calm settled over her, letting her words flow and her voice ring out nice and strong.

  “I know exactly who you are. You’re a bully.”

  “A bully—?” he said, yanking a napkin off the table and using it to wipe his crotch.

  Daniel, meanwhile, settled in to watch them with the gleeful interest of a Star Wars fan hearing the theme song come up on opening night of the latest installment.

  But she didn’t have time for Daniel right now.

  Right now was about balancing out the scales between her and yet another person in her life who didn’t want to act right.

  “A bully,” Alyssa said. “It doesn’t matter if you went to MIT. I don’t care if you were just in Time magazine for selling your company for twenty-five million. All that means is that you’re a millionaire bully with a high-priced degree.”

  Isaiah went very still, eyes flashing behind his black-rimmed glasses.

  That was about the time that Ada Harper hurried out from the kitchen. She was Isaiah’s mother, Nigel’s wife and most importantly, one of the co-owners of Harper Rose Bistro. Which made her Alyssa’s boss. Alyssa felt a passing stab of guilt but, hey, at least she’d go out with a bang when she inevitably got fired tonight.

  “What the heck is going on out here?” Mrs. Harper cried, surveying the mess, the adversaries and Isaiah’s wet crotch. “What happened?”

  Isaiah seemed not to hear the interruption, instead taking an aggressive step toward Alyssa as he looked her up and down, nostrils flaring. Alyssa stood her ground, tipped up her chin and stared him in the face, feeling a wild surge of satisfaction now that she was no longer invisible. She also felt the telltale tightening in her lungs that told her an asthma attack might be in her near future if she kept up like this, but a wheezing fit and perhaps a trip to the ER were prices she was willing to pay for this one moment of glory.

  “Who are you to call me a bully?” he said.

  Alyssa barked out a humorless laugh. Was that the best he could do? This big, bad bully who suddenly wasn’t so big or bad when someone stood up t
o him and called him on his shit?

  “I’m a human being. That makes me entitled to respect,” she said. “Oh, and by the way? I have an Ivy League degree, which means I’m smart just like you are.”

  That shut him up in a hurry. The freaking snob.

  “And just so you know?” Alyssa continued, determined to get it all out there for once in her shy and peacekeeping life because she was done cowering. Done hanging her head and trying to blend in with the furniture. “My mother was a bully who makes you look like a toddler with a saggy diaper—”

  Daniel and Ada gasped.

  Isaiah gaped at Alyssa, his lower jaw on the floor and his skin now mottled with red blotches of anger.

  “—and when she died, I made up my mind. I’m not putting up with any more bullies in my life. So you can go straight to hell with your twelve percent tip.”

  She finally ran out of steam, leaving a ringing silence and three wide-eyed and speechless Harpers in her wake.

  That was when it hit her.

  She’d just lost her damn mind at work and assaulted someone. Only with water, true, but assault was assault.

  Which meant both that her ass was out of a job and that she’d disappointed Mrs. Harper, her late mother’s friend from church and the one person who’d believed in Alyssa for the last several months, if not years.

  The guilt returned. Kicked in with a vengeance.

  Alyssa ducked her head and turned to her boss. Former boss. Who had been far kinder to her than her own mother had ever been.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Harper. I don’t know what just happened. I’ll...I’ll turn in my apron. Thanks for taking a chance on me.”

  With a heavy heart, she handed the empty pitcher to Mrs. Harper, gave her a peck on the cheek and headed for the kitchen.

  Halfway there, she pulled an inhaler from her pants pocket and took a hit from it (more from habit than anything else, because her breathing was fine now) as she examined the detonated fragments of her life. She’d really enjoyed this little job, which had gotten her out of the empty house. Now, thanks to her newly discovered hot-tempered streak, she had nowhere to go on all these long and cold winter evenings.