“That’s right. The diner,” Maxine confirmed, her eyes sharp with amusement. “Are you going to give me grief because it’s not a five-star restaurant and insult all the hard work it took to nab you this interview?”
Gail grinned, holding out her hands to Kiki. “Good then, it’s a date. I’ll babysit. Come see your Auntie Gail,” she cooed to a stoic Kiki.
White-knuckled, Frankie’s legs shook, and she wasn’t even standing yet. There was absolutely no way in friggin’ hell she could go on an interview, let alone work in a diner. Or anywhere.
Well, so much for protests. There was something to be said for the brand of vitamins Maxine was taking. She’d pried Frankie’s fingers from the molding around the door with the strength of a sumo wrestler.
Leaning against Maxine’s passenger door, Frankie huddled deeper into her sweater, reluctant and petulant. It was the heaviest piece of outerwear she still owned, but it wasn’t cutting it against the sharp November air. Her teeth chattered and her body shook.
“You’re cold because you haven’t been eating, Frankie.” Maxine’s observation came as she yielded into traffic.
“Thank you, FDA,” she muttered.
Maxine’s tongue clucked in disapproval, but her grip on the steering wheel was relaxed. “If you could put as much effort into preparing for this interview as you did into clinging to the doorway at your aunt’s, you’d be golden.”
“How am I supposed to prepare for something I wasn’t aware of until fifteen minutes ago?” Oh, she sounded so peevish.
“Someone had to throw you into the deep end. It wasn’t going to be Gail. She’s too soft, and she loves you too much to upset you. I, on the other hand, have no compunctions about dragging you from your cave, and I don’t care if it upsets your precarious balance or your beloved pity party.”
She might not have felt a whole lot in the past six months, but today, right this second, she hated Maxine Whatserface for forcing her to do something she didn’t want to do. “So who are you? The patron saint of divorced, depressed ex-trophy wives? And how did I get the label ex-trophy wife anyway?”
Maxine pulled into the parking lot of a place called Greek Meets Eat Diner, touting a huge banner that read, “Home of the World’s Best Meatloaf,” and laughed. “You’re snarky. I like that, and no, but I already told you, I know where you are. I know how hard it is to even consider surviving, let alone summon up the will to want to when you’ve been dumped in such a public way. I know what it’s like to have nothing. Absolutely nothing. So I started an employment agency for women just like you and me. Which leads me to the definition of an ex-trophy wife. Typically we’re pretty young things who marry a much older, rich man who likes to display his eye candy in the way of nubile. When we’re not so young and nubile anymore, we’re downgraded, and many times we lose everything because we were stupid enough to sign prenups. Hence, we’re not so trophy anymore.”
Frankie grunted. Thank God she knew who she was. The wife formerly known as trophy. Labels were good. She didn’t get it. If Maxine was back in the black, why did she give even a small hoot about women in a predicament she was no longer in? “And so you bought an employment agency to help ex-rich girls out? With what? Your new rich husband’s money?”
Maxine’s smile was glib when she put her car in park, but she didn’t rise to Frankie’s bait. “You know what, someday, when you get past behaving like a spiteful three-year-old who’s been forced to potty-train and give up her sippy cup all in one day, I might tell you exactly how I came upon the money to open my own employment agency and why I did it. Until then, let me just be really clear. I’m not the enemy. You’re your own worst enemy. I want to help. But you have to help me help you. Financially, you’re in dire straits right now. You might not care because you’re all caught up in the ‘bury your head in the sand’ stage of divorce recovery, but the time will come when you will care, and it’ll be too late, Frankie Bennett. Your aunt asked me to help because she was at her wits’ end with worry over you, and she didn’t know where to turn. I’ve never seen her as upset as she was yesterday at my mother’s. She was good to me at a time when good was hard to come by. I never forget that kind of good.”
Remorseful tears stung her eyes again. One minute she was railing in defensive rebellion for being dragged from her hibernation, the next, she was weepy and repentant. No matter how depressed, she’d never intentionally hurt Gail. “I’m sorry. I know my aunt is trying to help. I don’t want to hurt her.”
Maxine cocked her head, turning in her seat to capture Frankie’s gaze. She reached out a hand and rested it on her shoulder. It brought curious warmth to the pervading chill her body couldn’t shake. “I know what you’re doing isn’t intentional, Frankie. You just want to be left alone. Sometimes, during something so life altering, so painful, you withdraw because hiding’s easier than getting back in the game. You’re lethargic and disinterested in everything. It’s depression.”
“Wow, I sound like one of those commercials where everything’s gray and dreary until you take a Xanax or, in this case, a Maxine, whatever it is, and poof, it magically makes your world go all bright with shiny colors again. Well, except for those nagging side effects like the anal weeping and eyeball leakage.”
Maxine chuckled, then sobered. “The thing is you are like one of those people, Frankie. The only difference is you haven’t been clinically diagnosed. But we could change that, if you’d like. I’d be happy to take you to the doctor,” she offered with her irritatingly pleasant tone.
Frankie sobered, too. She didn’t need a pill. She needed a bed with a blanket.
“Look, while you mope, the people around you, who love you, suffer, too. That’s why you have to get up off your ass and do something about it—even though you know it’ll suck. So here’s the skinny—get over yourself long enough to at least give this a try.”
Frankie lowered her eyes to her ice-cold hand in her lap. “And suck it up, princess, right?” Such a dumb expression.
Maxine chuckled again, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “That’s exactly right. It’s my life mantra. Now c’mon. You’ll like Nikos and his family. They all have a hand in the diner in one way or another. They’re a big, loud Greek family who’ll fatten you up in no time flat. Not to mention, they’ll provide you with a distraction while you heal.”
Heal. Like she had the flu.
Her stomach began to revolt by rumbling while waves of anxious panic swept over her. She couldn’t possibly convince anyone to give her a job in this state. She hadn’t been out of her aunt’s house but maybe ten times in six months. She’d forgotten what kind of common courtesies and communication were involved in meeting new people.
How in all of fuck could she possibly meet and impress a possible employer? Frankie’s fingers went to the handle on the door, gripping it for all she was worth. “I don’t think I can do this, Maxine. I—”
“You’re panicking. Understandable. But you will do this, Frankie. Even if you don’t get the job, it’s a beginning. A starting point. So just pretend this is a practice run.” With those words, Maxine hopped out of the car and went to the passenger door as if she were skipping through a vibrantly scented field of wildflowers.
Frankie locked it with fumbling hands.
Maxine’s eyebrows rose, but her smile was wicked when she held up the key fob with two fingers. The beep signaling the door unlocking made Frankie jump.
Maxine popped it open, holding out her gloved hand. “I win. So c’mon. If nothing else, I’ll buy you a bowl of soup and a sandwich. Now gird your loins and get crackin’.”
Frankie’s breath shuddered in and out, the cold air blowing steam from her panicked gasps. Maxine took hold of her arm, pulling her toward the diner’s doors, doors that were see-through with etchings in gold, giving Frankie a glimpse of the diner’s interior.
Red and silver booths with jukeboxes at every table were the first thing she was able to focus on before being swept into the warm rush of air
. The next was the smell—redolent with so many different varieties of rich spices and garlic, she couldn’t place one from the other.
Christmas lights were strung in winking bright white where the wall met the ceiling. Frankie winced. Christ. The last holiday she could clearly remember, and that was only due to the disrupting noise of it, was the Fourth of July. Was it already December? No, it was just two days after Thanksgiving. The distant recollection of her Aunt Gail and her friend Mona planning a Black Friday shop-a-palooza tickled her memory.
A small tree decorated with tinsel and multicolored blinking lights stood by the cash register. A young woman, her hair the color of black satin, in black hip-hugging pants and a white shirt with black vest smiled in Maxine’s direction. “Hey, Max! How are you?”
“Adara, it’s so good to see you! Home for Christmas break?”
Her sleek head bobbed up and down. “Yep. I’m working Papa over for some extra cash,” she said with a teasing grin.
Maxine pulled off her gloves, dropping them into the pockets of her jacket. “Connor’s coming home in three days. I’m so excited to see him, I could scream. Campbell even went out and bought an Xbox 360 so they could play video games together.”
Adara’s head cocked, her eyes, as black as her hair, lit up. “So he likes school then?”
Maxine’s light brown head nodded. “Loves it.” She glanced at her watch and pursed her lips. “I hate to rush, but I have dinner with Campbell in an hour. Adara, this is Frankie Bennett. She’s interviewing with Nikos today.”
Adara stuck out her hand and grinned again, her smile a thing of utter beauty. “Awesome to meet you. Welcome to the home of the World’s Best Meatloaf.”
Meatloaf.
At Greek Meets Eat Diner in Riverbend, New Jersey.
Hookay.
Frankie hesitated until Maxine nudged her with an arm. Right, she mentally reminded herself. Be polite, cave dweller. She took Adara’s hand and gave her a faint smile. “Nice to meet you, too.”
Coming around to the front of the cash register, Adara hitched her jaw in the direction of the doors Frankie assumed led to the kitchen. “You want me to go tell him you’re here? I think he’s in the back with Mama and Cosmos.”
“Please, Adara,” Maxine said with a smile. As Adara went off to find Frankie’s would-be employer, Maxine leaned into her and whispered, “Adara is Nikos’s sister, Cosmos is his brother. And in case you’re wondering, every last one of them is as good-looking as the next. I don’t know what they feed those kids, but they’re all like Rodin sculptures.”
No pressure, but seriously, no shit.
Frankie gave a self-conscious glance at her baggy jeans and faded T-shirt, tightening her sweater around her and pushing at the loose strands of her ponytail, windblown and askew. Then she gave up. What difference did it make what she looked like? There wasn’t a hooker’s chance at the debutantes’ ball she’d maneuver a job looking the way she did—especially with her dormant social skills at an alltime low. Retreating back to the recesses of her mind, Frankie decided to pretend this wasn’t happening. A sigh escaped her lips, drawn out and disinterested.
When the kitchen doors popped open, Frankie gave only a cursory glance upward before returning her eyes to her sneakers. Thankfully, she’d purchased them with her Bon Appetit salary just before she and Mitch had broken up or they’d have gone the way of the prenup, too.
“Max!” a throaty timbre greeted.
“Nikos, it’s great to see you!” Maxine responded, disgustingly cheerful. Hugs were apparently exchanged due to the rustle of material. Suddenly, Maxine’s arm was around her shoulder and her hip was nudging Frankie’s.
Another one of those signals to behave accordingly in a social setting.
“Nikos, this is Frankie Bennett. Frankie, Nikos Antonakas.”
Antonakas. She found she had trouble even considering rolling a name like that over her thick, underused tongue.
Frankie took her time looking up, letting her eyes scan the leather-worn work boots Nikos wore, following his length by way of his thighs. His hard, muscled thighs in black jeans.
Whether it was genuine curiosity to see if his bulky thighs matched the rest of him, or some of her social graces were thawing, Frankie glanced upward, letting the fringe of her unadorned lashes keep her eyes undercover.
Oh.
Shazam.
Rodin had nothing, noth-ing on this man.
Holy spanakopita.
Stunned by Nikos’s breathtakingly chiseled good looks, Frankie’s head swirled, and her legs trembled. He really was that beautiful. Even in her stupor of postdivorce lunacy, she could not deny the appeal of his hard, classic features. His hair was thick, the color of midnight in the height of a winter chill, falling just past his chin. A widow’s peak in the center of his forehead drew her attention to his eyebrows, raven and arched. His ruddily toned skin held two patches of color along the angular slant of his cheekbones. Eyes the color of black olives assessed her with a smile full of straight white teeth.
Oh, that smile. Disarming with a hint of playful.
He had a dimple in his chin, too, and catching sight of it made Frankie’s breath hitch.
Shit. Had they been introduced? Maxine gave her arm a discreet pinch. Frankie coughed to hide her embarrassment. “I’m Francis—Fran . . . kie. Uh, Bennett.”
The dark Adonis put out a hand for her to shake. “Nice to meet you, Frankie. Welcome to Greek Meets Eat. Home of the World’s Best—”
“Meatloaf,” she muttered to avoid his hand. Oh, no. If she shook that hand, long fingered and wide, she’d pass out.
Maxine coughed in Frankie’s ear, “Shake his hand, princess.”
Immediately, Frankie did as she was told, their fingers connecting for a moment before she tugged her hand away, shoving it into the pocket of her jeans. His skin was warm with just the right amount of callusedness, burning an imprint against her icy flesh.
Nikos’s expression said he wondered if she was deranged, but he hid it well when he called over his broad shoulder, “Let’s go back to the office and sit and talk. You want coffee, Max, Frankie?”
“No!” Frankie faltered behind the shelter of Maxine. “I mean, no, thank you.”
Maxine smiled over her shoulder with encouragement, following Nikos to the end of the wide diner. His fingers turned the brass doorknob on a broad, red enamel door, holding it open for them to enter with a sweep of his long muscled forearm.
Maxine found a chair, patting the one beside her as Nikos took his place behind the desk cluttered with papers and a computer. “I appreciate you coming to Trophy Jobs, Nikos.”
He grinned, alarmingly warm and charming, making Frankie’s already slow breathing hitch again. “Don’t thank me. You’re pretty impressive, lady. I know you didn’t expect a lot from Lacey, but she was one of the best damned short-order’s we’ve ever had.”
Maxine’s chuckle and the glance she exchanged with Nikos bordered on mysterious. Frankie fidgeted in her seat, uncomfortable with the fluorescent lights of Nikos’s office. “Who knew Lacey, of all people, would want to go off and study at Le Cordon Bleu?”
His laughter was hearty, his eyes warm with fondness. “We miss her, but she sends us postcards all the time. Anyway, with the kind of luck we had the first time around, you were the person who came to mind.”
Who was Lacey, and oh, my God. She was in a diner. A diner. A diner boasting the world’s best meatloaf. Meatloaf. Food for heathens who had no taste buds, if you listened to Mitch.
But she wasn’t listening to Mitch anymore. Bamby With A “Y” was.
Strangely, that made Frankie want to bust a grin.
But it hurt to consider moving her facial muscles. So she didn’t.
“So you have all the information on Frankie’s work history, right? I had Bettina fax it over this morning.”
Nikos slapped the papers on his desk with a loud hand. “I don’t need paperwork, Max, but yep, I got everything.”
“Okay, good then,” Maxine said, rising.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where was the divorce guru going? Surely Maxine wouldn’t leave her here all by herself with the reinvention of gorgeously glorious. Not when she was as fragile as eggshells and liable to crack at any given moment.
Oh, but she would. Maxine gave Frankie’s shoulder a reassuring pat. “I’ll just wait outside and let you two talk. I think I’ll have some of that coffee while I do.” And then she was gone.
And they were left staring at each other.
His glance was openly curious, but cheerful.
Hers was petrified, and well, petrified.
Nikos cleared his throat, rustling the papers Bettina had sent. “So, Frankie. Do you have any experience working in a diner—maybe a restaurant?”
I was a crappy waitress. But I can work a Slap Chop like a breast implant salesman works an A-cup convention. She shifted in her chair, pulling the sleeves of her sweater over the palms of her hands. “No.”
“Any food experience in general?”
“I’ve been known to eat it.” Oh. Jesus.
His chuckle was thick and sexy. Just like him. “Right.” He patted his hard abdomen. “Me, too. What I mean is, Max says you have experience as a chef.”
Right. Max would say that. “Define ‘chef.’”
Nikos rolled his tongue around the inside of his cheek. “Well, aren’t they usually people who cook? You know, like that food thing we talked about.”
“Yes, they are, and no, I’m not a chef. I hate to cook.” That said, she waited while he processed her response and shipped her back off to Maxine. Screw her car. The repo man could come and take it. She didn’t need to drive if she never planned to leave the house again.
He nodded his sleek black head, all agreeable. “Well, that’s a good thing. We don’t need a chef.”
Damn. Foiled again.
This was ridiculous, and she was doing nothing but wasting his time. So if she frigged up the interview, she could go back home to her aunt’s dark guest bedroom and get back into her nice warm bed. Let the frigging begin. “Can we be frank with one another?”
Burning Down the Spouse Page 4