Saved by the Single Dad (The Single Dads of Seattle Book 3)

by Whitley Cox

  Jane rolled her sky-blue eyes. “Shit, that’s right. You weren’t here yesterday. The owner sold the restaurant, and the new owner fired Tristan. Says she wants to manage the place herself.”

  Paige’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “What?”

  Jane nodded, then blew a strand of blonde and purple-streaked hair off her forehead. “Yeah. According to Jill, Tristan’s already taken off down to Mexico to lick his wounds. No word when he’ll be back. Or if he’ll be back.”

  Holy shit. Why hadn’t Tristan called her? Paige thought they were friends. She’d been at Narcissus for eight years. Had that not meant anything to him?

  Reeling from the news, she shook her head as she asked, “Who bought the place?”

  Jane’s lips pursed. “A woman by the name of Marcelle Thibodeaux, and from what I’ve heard, she’s a real cow. I’ve only met her once though, so I can’t say for certain if that rumor is true, but the fact that she canned Tristan isn’t working in her favor to counter that rumor.”

  Marcelle Thibodeaux.

  Why did that name sound so familiar?

  Jane leaned in and brought her voice down to nothing more than a whisper. “Rumor has it she owned a bunch of other restaurants all over Seattle and is in the habit of running her staff ragged and doesn’t believe in the after-shift drink.”

  Now it was Paige’s turn to purse her lips. She liked Jane, but the woman was still quite young and very much into the partying scene. She would often start her evening out at the restaurant bar after her shift, imbibing her after-shift free drink, and then taking advantage of her staff discount. Most of the time it wasn’t a problem, but once in a while a friend or two would join her, they would have one too many drinks, and things would get a bit loud. Never out of hand, but Narcissus had a certain reputation for being an upscale dining experience. The last thing customers, or the owner, wanted was a group of twenty-somethings getting carried away and disrupting someone as they ate their $49 rack of lamb with their $57 half-bottle of malbec.

  “I’m sure she’s not that bad,” Paige said, grabbing the tub of flour from off the counter and carrying it over to the enormous stand mixer. “Maybe just runs a tight ship. But that probably means her restaurants are successful.” She began to measure out flour in a five-cup measuring cup.

  Jane made a face that said she wasn’t convinced, and her lips flattened out. “I don’t think that’s it. There’s tight ship and then there’s tight ass, and I think she’s the latter. She fired Tristan, don’t forget.” A throat cleared behind them, and Jane’s hand flew to her mouth to cover a gasp. “Marcelle, so lovely to see you again.”

  Paige’s head snapped up from where she’d been messing around with the on switch for the mixer only to come face to face with a woman from her past.

  Correction, a bitch from her past.

  Marcy Thibodeaux. The bane of her entire elementary, junior and senior high school existence. The girl who made Paige’s life an absolute nightmare for twelve fucking years.

  “Paige!”

  “Marcy!”

  Marcy’s face pinched, and her cold blue eyes squinted. “It’s Marcelle. I go by Marcelle now.”

  Paige swallowed. “Okay then.”

  Marcelle clickety-clacked her high-heeled black slingbacks across the tiled floor of the kitchen. “Didn’t Janie tell you? I’m the new owner.”

  The new owner.

  Marcy Thibodeaux, the meanest of mean girls from Villa Academy and then Lakeside School, who had tormented Paige from their days playing puzzles on the floor in kindergarten to when they both tried out for the cheerleading squad their freshman year, was her new boss.

  Deep breaths. Deep, deep breaths.

  Marcelle smiled, though it would be obvious to everyone that there wasn’t an ounce of genuineness behind it. “I thought I recognized your name on the schedule. But then I thought it wasn’t possible little Paigey McFatson was a cook. I thought you got married and had a bunch of kids.”

  Paige fought the urge to duck from all the passive-aggressive barbs being thrown her way.

  “I’m a pastry chef, and I have a daughter.”

  Marcy’s nose scrunched. “Just one? I thought I heard through the grapevine you were pregnant again?”

  Paige swallowed. “I was.”

  Understanding quickly flashed across Marcy’s face, but, just as Paige expected, not an ounce of compassion or pity showed in her eyes.

  Paige didn’t want either from this woman. She didn’t want to even be in the same room as her, let alone work for her.

  Marcy’s long, pointed, shiny black nails tapped on the back of the electronic tablet she held against her breasts. “Well then. I’m going to go up to my office. I’ll be meeting with each and every staff member in the coming days to discuss productivity, scheduling and expectations.” She reached out and wiped a counter, her finger coming away with what was obviously a thin layer of flour. Of course it would. She was in the fucking pastry section of the kitchen and right next to the mixer. Flour flew. But that logic was lost on Marcy, and she fixed Paige and Jane with a disgusted look. “Things need to change around here. Tristan was more concerned with being your friend than he was with being your boss.” She lasered in on Paige. “And I have enough friends already.”

  Lackeys who feared you were not the same as friends.

  Though Paige wasn’t sure Marcy would be able to tell the difference now, as she certainly hadn’t back when they were in school.

  Paige and Jane waited until Marcy left before either of them let out a breath or even dared to move. Then Paige counted to twenty in her head, the time she knew it took the average person to walk from the kitchen, up the stairs and then down the hall to the manager’s office, before she shuddered.

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me about the new boss before now?” Paige said with a hiss, her whole body trembling. “What happened to us being a family?”

  Jane’s eyes went wide. “I did. I texted you on Saturday when Tristan introduced us to her. I told you I messaged you.” She pulled out her phone, her fingers flying across the screen. “See—oh shit!” Guilt dashed across her face. “I forgot to hit send. Fuck!” Her hands fell, and she slapped the sides of her legs. “I’m so sorry, Paige. I thought I’d given you the heads-up. I was wondering why you weren’t replying, but then I remembered you had that dance thing, so I figured you were just busy with that.” She wandered over to the big mixer and turned it on, filling the kitchen with the low whining sound of the paddle in the bowl mixing the batter for Paige’s famous white chocolate pound cake. “How the hell do you two know each other?”

  Paige was still shaking. She was trying to measure out the white chocolate chips into the double boiler, but her hand wasn’t steady enough, and chips spilled out onto the floor.

  Jane rushed over and grabbed the measuring cup from her, then switched off the stove. “Come here.” She took Paige’s hand and led her down a small corridor to the walk-in fridge. This was one of the only places in the building they knew there was a blind spot for the security cameras. It was the only place they could talk in total privacy. They’d figured it out when Tristan discovered one of the dishwashers and one of the liquor distributors were having a torrid love affair, getting jiggy with it in the fridge in the one corner nobody could see them.

  Jane shut the door behind them, and Paige immediately wrapped her arms around herself. Even though it was July, hot outside and the kitchen was usually an absolute inferno, a chill had clutched her bones the moment she came face to face with the she-devil from her past.

  “Okay, dish!” Jane crossed her arms in front of her chest. “What is she to you?”

  Paige swallowed. “My absolute nightmare.”

  Tuesday night, Mitch tipped back his beer as he sat at the cramped desk in the corner of the kitchen. He and his sister Violet had bought the small three-bedroom house a little less than a year ago, after they’d both lost their spouses and moved back to Seattle. Violet was he
lping him raise his six-year-old daughter, Jayda, and they were all trying to start over in the city Violet and Mitch had grown up in.

  With a dull ache in his neck, he cocked his head side to side in an attempt to relieve some of the pain. He hated working in such busy and confined quarters: a small desk with a folding chair shoved into the far corner of the kitchen, where the lighting was terrible. This was no place for a professional photographer to be working.

  The scuff-scuff sound of his sister’s slippers grew louder behind him. Then he felt her hand land on his shoulder. “Is that Paige?”

  Shit!

  He’d been staring at one of the images he’d snapped of Paige for a good five minutes. He’d adjusted the lighting around her a bit, reduced the glare on her cheek from the afternoon sun, but otherwise he hadn’t had to touch up the image at all. He hadn’t had to touch up Paige one bit. She was perfect.

  “She’s beautiful,” Violet marveled. “Look at the way she gets her leg up like that. You’d never know in a million years that she was a beginner and had only been dancing for a couple of months.”

  Mitch swallowed. “Yeah.”

  “That’s a great shot. Cool that she was able to get right down on the stage close to you. She’s even looking straight at the camera. You don’t get many of those. Usually doesn’t work, either. Looks fake and cover-modelish. But this works.”

  Hell yeah, it worked.

  He doubted Paige took a bad picture. The woman was made for the camera. Her bone structure, her build, her expressive eyes. Photographers went years, if not lifetimes, in search of somebody so photogenic, so natural in front of the lens.

  And she’d practically fallen right into his lap.

  “What’s her hair like?”

  Oh fuck! He hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

  Her hair had been tucked up in a high and tight ballerina bun, as was mandatory at the dance school. But he would bet money that with her hair down, Paige was a million times hotter. And the woman was smokin’ with her hair up. That long, slender neck. Creamy skin.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?” He turned around in his seat to find his sister giving him a raised eyebrow and a skeptical look. Her green eyes, the same shade as his, burned bright with curiosity.

  “Why do you want to know what her hair is like?” Violet asked, cocking a hip and tossing her sandy-blonde hair behind her shoulder. “You like her or something?”

  Mitch lifted one shoulder before turning back to the computer screen and Paige’s face. “I don’t know her.”

  “But you’d like to.”

  “I’d like to photograph her again. Get her to let her hair down. It looks like it’s curly.”

  He loved curly hair on women. Especially when their hair reflected their personality—wild and untameable. And although he didn’t quite get the wild vibe from Paige—yet—he could tell a lot about a person by the way they photographed, and with Paige he could see she had wounds that ran deep. Wounds that she hid behind, that muted her fire, but deep down she was a fierce spirit with incredible passion. She wasn’t as mousy as she feigned; she was simply hurting, and that made her duck into the corner. She was a wounded tigress, but still a fighter, still alive and slowly healing.

  He’d never liked a predictable woman. Never liked one who toed the line every minute of every day. He preferred women who weren’t afraid to break the rules once in a while. Weren’t afraid to take off their shoes and go dancing in the fountain.

  His heart constricted inside his chest. God, how he missed Melissa.

  For an English lit major on the shyer side, she’d had a wild streak to her as well. More than once they’d let loose, throwing caution to the wind, not letting their inhibitions get the better of them.

  A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth at the memory of their skinny dipping adventure just shortly before Melissa’s accident. Their neighbors a few doors down from where they lived in Arizona had an outdoor pool, and when they knew Rich and Rhonda had gone to bed for the night, Melissa and Mitch made a detour on their way home from date night. They parked in their own driveway, ran down the road and then hopped the fence, taking a clothing-optional dip in the dark.

  It had been one of the best, and most memorable, nights of their lives.

  “It is curly.”

  Violet’s voice behind him pulled him back to the present, his heart still hurting from remembering the past. Even the good times and all the wonderful moments they shared hurt to think about.

  “Her hair is just like Mira’s. You going to print that off and give it to her?”

  Mitch nodded casually. “Yeah. She should definitely have it.” Despite the fact that she didn’t think she was any good and had brushed off his offer on Saturday. The woman obviously didn’t know how beautiful she was or how incredibly well she danced. Mitch needed to show her.

  “I can give it to her tomorrow during dance class,” Violet offered.

  Mitch zoomed the screen in on Paige’s face. On her expressive, light brown eyes and the glinting of gold just around the pupils. She wasn’t smiling. No. There was sadness. Pain and an ache he could feel through the computer screen and deep in his chest.

  “I’ll give it to her,” he said quietly. “I want to talk to her.”

  3

  It was a warm and muggy Wednesday night. A few forest fires toward the south had blown their smoke northward, and the entire city was blanketed in a thick, yellowy fog. Mitch felt like he’d been living in sepia mode all day, and his lungs weren’t too happy about it either.

  Emmett, one of the other dads from poker night, had shown up at Mitch’s place with his daughter Josie, or JoJo as they all called her, with the offer to take the girls for ice cream. Jayda and JoJo had played very well together at Art in the Park on the weekend, so Jayda was very excited to get a later bedtime and go grab ice cream with her new friend. Mitch took the opportunity of his sudden child-free evening to head to the dance studio where he knew Paige would be.

  There was a scattering of vehicles in the parking lot, including his sister’s Fiat. He glanced at his watch. Class ended in five minutes.

  Slowing his pace so that it didn’t look like he was lying in wait for Paige, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his shorts and strolled along the strip mall where Violet’s dance studio was located. That’s when he noticed the two For Lease signs tacked up in the front window of two adjacent store fronts.

  He peered inside, cupping his hands around his eyes and pressing his nose to the glass. It was a deep space, with what looked to be a storeroom and what he could only assume was a bathroom. It held good lighting, getting all the afternoon sun, and there was a door connecting it to the vacant space next to it. He took a few steps to the side and peered into the next unit.

  It had been an old restaurant.

  A smaller space than the first vacancy, but that didn’t mean it still wasn’t a decent size. A big industrial-size kitchen took up the right side along one wall, with a big stainless-steel countertop and a place for fridge, freezer and stove.

  He couldn’t recall what had been in here before it closed, so obviously it hadn’t been memorable.

  Violet probably knew.

  He brought out his phone and took a quick snapshot of the real estate agent’s phone number and information. He wasn’t quite sure what his plan was yet, but the cogs had officially started turning in his head.

  The sound of a chime jingling down the way drew his attention from the empty spaces. The dance class had ended, and students were leaving.

  He picked up the pace and headed toward the studio. He reached for the door just as a flurry of dark curls knocked him in the chest.

  She hadn’t been looking where she was going. Her head was down, and her phone was out.

  “Oh, sorry,” she murmured, not looking up.

  “Paige?” He already knew it was her. She had that same sweet, vanilla-like scent from Saturday.

  Slowly, she lifted her head, her
brown eyes going wide when she realized it was him. “Oh … hello.”

  She hadn’t smiled yet, but that didn’t matter. His smile was wide enough for the both of them. He knew she’d be drop-dead fucking stunning with her hair down. He hadn’t been wrong. “Hey!”

  She made to move past him, but he blocked her path. Not in a creepy predator way, though. More in an awkward, he thinks she’s going left so he goes right, she thinks he’s going left so she also goes right kind of deal.

  A chuckle bubbled up at the back of his throat, but she seemed to almost growl and sigh in frustration.

  “Sorry.” He laughed.

  She exhaled. “It’s fine.” She took a wide step around him and headed off in the direction of her car.

  Mitch chased after her. “Paige, can we talk for a second?”

  He wanted to reach out and grab her arm, but when she stopped in her tracks and glared at him, he shoved his hands in his pockets and took a step back.

  “No,” she bit out, turning away from him again and continuing on into the parking lot.

  He followed her. “Why not?”

  “Because.”

  “That’s not a good enough answer.”

  “Well, it’ll have to do, because that’s all you’re getting from me.”

  He snorted. “Spoken like a true parent.”

  She reached a cute little red sporty Mazda 3. She hit the fob and it unlocked, then she spun around to face him. “You’re coming off a little pushy here, buddy. Back off. How would you feel if a guy was behaving this way with your daughter?”

  Mitch’s face fell, and he took several steps back. Fuck, she was right.

  He was behaving like one of those entitled jackasses who couldn’t take no for an answer. The kind of jackass that kept him awake at night in fear for Jayda, the kind of jackass he vowed to protect her from.

  Mitch ran his hand over his face, then threaded his fingers up into his hair. “Shit, you’re right. Sorry.”

  Her lips flattened. “I’m not interested, okay? If you’re trying to ask me out, I’m not interested. Please accept my decline as enough.”