by Ali Parker
“We’re not,” she said, returning her gaze to the menu she held in her red talons. She ran one finger down the length of the menu. “I’ll get the garden salad. Hold the feta cheese and dressing.”
I turned to the other woman. She was strikingly beautiful, with curly red hair and big green eyes. “And for yourself?”
“The same.”
I nodded. “You’re sure I can’t interest either of you in a free drink to make up for the delay in your service today?”
They exchanged a look. Then the one with dark hair shrugged. “A mimosa would be suitable.” The redhead nodded.
“Excellent. Two mimosas coming right up. Let me know if you need anything else.”
I met my brother back behind the counter to pour the mimosas. He was getting coffees for his table. He had an excited hop to his step. “This is great, huh?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Yeah. I forgot how much ass kissing was involved in customer service.”
Phillip laughed. “Are they rude?”
I shrugged. “Just moody, I think. I don’t know. One of them woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and I think the other just follows along. You know the sort I’m talking about?”
“Oh yeah. The mean girls from high school who never grew up?”
“You hit the nail on the head,” I said as I screwed the cap back on the fresh bottle of orange juice and slid it into the fridge under the bar. “Wish me luck. I’m going back in.”
“Good luck,” Phillip said under his breath as I slipped back out around the bar and crossed the floor to bring the drinks to the two women.
I placed the drinks in front of each of them. “I’m so sorry again that you had to wait. I hope you enjoy your drinks. Just let me know if you’d like another one. Nobody has to know I’m hooking you up for free.” I winked.
They seemed to think I was being generous, and my repeated offers of free booze softened them up. By the time they were done with their salads, they were treating me like we were best friends. They even gave me a combined tip of twenty bucks. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Before they left, I asked them to tell all their friends about us. If anyone came in and mentioned the two girls, I’d hook them up with free drinks as well. At this point, I would do whatever it took to get people through the door.
The women left, and the restaurant continued to have about six customers inside at all times.
It was glorious.
And exhausting. My parents had to leave to fulfill more delivery and catering orders. Phillip had to go home after already having worked a twelve-hour day. By the end of the night, it was just me and Aldo, and he too was running on fumes.
When the last customer left for the evening, I closed and locked the doors and flipped the Open sign to Closed. Then I marched straight into the kitchen where Aldo was sliding dish racks under the dishwashing hood.
“Aldo, you should go home. I’ll clean up shop. Your family probably misses you.”
“It’s all right, Miss Piper. I don’t mind.”
I shook my head. “I insist. Go home.”
He fought me a little longer. He didn’t want to leave me there alone. But I wanted him to be able to see Iris before she had to go to bed. I didn’t mind staying later to clean up. My heart was full after our first successful day of business in months.
It could only go up from there.
By nine thirty, I had the place in tip-top shape and ready for business the next day. I took off my apron and tossed it in the hamper in the back room before picking up my purse under my dad’s desk.
That was when I noticed the form tucked under his keyboard. I slid it out a bit and peered at the top of the letter.
It was a warning from the IRS, demanding tax payments from my parents. I scanned the page. If they didn’t pay the sum within the next sixty days, the restaurant would be shut down.
My mouth was suddenly very dry.
Sixty days?
Oh God.
How was I supposed to get my shit together in sixty days? I sank down into my father’s computer chair and buried my face in my hands. Then my phone rang. It was Janie.
I pulled the phone out of my pocket. “Hey, Janie.”
“Hey, I’m at the front door. Let me in.”
I hung up and walked out through the front of house to the restaurant door. I let Janie in and closed and locked it behind her. She looked around the restaurant. “Wow. It looks good in here.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s wrong?”
I sighed. “My parents might lose the restaurant.”
Janie asked a dozen questions after I made that statement, so I told her all about the letter I’d just found. When I was finished, I sat down at one of the tables. “Every time I think we’re catching a break, something else bites us in the ass. I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this, Janie. I’m so tired. And I don’t know what we’re fighting so hard to keep anymore. At some point, it might be best to just… I don’t know. Walk away from this place.”
Janie slid into the chair across from me and put her hands over top of mine. “Don’t throw the towel in yet, Piper. I think you might have a chance with this whole Casanova Club thing.” She held up her hands when I opened my mouth to speak. “It’s not a guaranteed thing yet. Not by any means. But Jackson finally indulged me in a conversation, and I got your name in there. He asked me to talk to you about the details. The things that might put you off it.”
I frowned. “Put me off it?”
Janie nodded. “Yeah, like the sex.”
“What about it?”
“Well, you might find yourself sleeping with some of them. Or all of them. If you are part of the club, you’ll have to get tested and—”
“That’s fine,” I said.
“You haven’t even heard it all.”
“I don’t care.”
Janie sighed. “Have you considered what will happen here? You’re going to be gone for a whole year, Piper. These guys don’t all live here. You’ll be all over the place. Who will pick up the slack here while you’re gone?”
I bit my bottom lip. “I don’t know. I mean, my cousin Marge is coming to stay with my mom and dad next month, but I don’t know if this is something she can handle.”
“Ask her,” Janie said.
“Well, I can’t just—”
“You can. You need to start thinking about this more seriously. If it does happen, it will happen fast. Can Phillip cover more shifts here? Can Marge work tables and learn your bookkeeping hustle that keeps your folks in the black? Can you walk away from this place for a year and not have it all fall apart?”
I swallowed. “I didn’t really consider all these things.”
“Well, now is the time to consider it. Because Jackson seemed genuinely curious.”
“Why?” I asked.
Janie shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me, but he was. So, we’re going for this thing, right?”
I nodded. “Right.”
Chapter 10
Jeremiah
I was getting sick and tired of meetings. And photographs of pretty women.
And guys like Easton Price who reminded me of the sort of bullshit women were exposed to on a daily basis. It made my blood boil. Maybe that was because I had a young daughter of my own. I feared her growing up more so now than I ever had. I couldn’t stand the thought of her running with someone like Easton. Hell, I hated the thought of her running around with any guy.
Luckily, she was only six. I didn’t have to think about that for a long time yet.
The Casanova Club members were all sitting around the same damn obsidian table that we’d sat at every time we got together over the last couple of months. This was our final meeting, thank the lords, and by the end of it all, we would have our ten women to meet his weekend.
And I didn’t give a damn.
I had bigger fish to fry back home in Washington. My life in Port Orchard was full of responsibilities, the biggest of which
was my logging company. I didn’t like leaving the boys all on their own up there. It was where I should be, working alongside them to make sure they were using our new procedures properly.
My new innovations were safer, but mistakes still happened. I didn’t want to return from sitting around a table debating over a woman’s looks to an injured employee. Or worse.
The whole thing just felt so trivial to me.
I could tell there were other men who were starting to feel the same way. Men like Miles Stewart. He was sitting on my righthand side. He had a camera in his hands and was flipping through some shots he’d taken instead of looking at the photographs before him.
“You’ve lost interest in this too?” I asked him.
Miles glanced up at me, and then his gaze flicked to the photos in front of him. “Oh. Yes. I grew tired of this ages ago. I just don’t see how a picture can tell me what I need to know about a woman. We need more information.”
“Agreed,” I said. “How hard would it be to let us know what they like to do in their spare time? Or what sort of values they have?”
Miles turned his camera off and put it down on the table. “Exactly. Then we could make a somewhat informed decision. I like nature. I don’t want to be courting a girl who’s never gone camping.”
I laughed. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
Easton Curtis, the douche bag Floridian quarterback, spoke up. “All you need to know is in these photographs, boys. Unless of course, you’re actually looking for true love. I’m looking for—”
“We know what you’re looking for, Easton,” Wyatt drawled from the other side of Miles. “You’ve told us dozens of times. Tits and ass. We get it.”
The men around the table chuckled.
Easton bristled under the laughter at his expense. “I’m not the only one. Right, Coop?”
Cooper Diaz, one of the wealthiest at the table, turned his head to regard Easton. Physically, the two were polar opposites. Where Easton was blond and fair, Cooper was dark and tanned. And he was powerful, both physically and financially. He represented one of the newer generations of the Rockefeller family. He had old money and connections. He’d changed his last name for obvious reasons, and I wasn’t even sure how many men around the table knew his true identity.
I knew. And that was enough.
Cooper tugged at the collar of his shirt and loosened his tie. “It is disappointing that we can only have one.”
I knew for a fact that none of this would have been said if Jackson Lee was still in the room. But he’d gone off to take a call. I guessed that happened when you found the love of your life and got married. And pregnant. They were expecting their first baby.
What a strange thing to think about.
It was only last year that Jackson was in this position. Had he sat here, enduring the torturous conversation of the barbarians around him with his signature disinterested smile?
Easton grinned and pointed a finger at Cooper. “A man who speaks my language.”
“I think the two of you joined the wrong club,” Joshua Curtis said. The Canadian. He raked his fingers through his thick black hair and set his green gaze upon the quarterback. “Why not just attend a party at the Playboy Mansion? It seems more your speed.”
Miles chuckled beside me. “One point to the Canadian.”
Easton rolled his shoulders and slumped back in his chair. “You’re telling me you’re here for love, French boy? Huh? You’re hoping to find your sweetheart in all of this?”
“I wouldn’t be disappointed if that’s how it all played out,” Joshua said. His honesty was admirable.
Cooper, who was sitting directly across from Joshua, stroked his jaw and rested his elbow on the table. “In that case, doesn’t it bother you to think about the girl you’ve fallen for going to her knees in front of me?”
Easton slapped the table and burst out laughing.
Miles shifted uncomfortably beside me, and the rest of the men looked back and forth between the Rockefeller and the Canadian. Joshua was smiling.
Then Wyatt spoke up with his southern drawl. He kept his eyes downcast at the photos he was flipping through. “You know, I hope she’s with you in January, Coop. Then at least for her sake, she’ll get the disappointment over with right away. The rest of us will be there to help remind her that there are still good men out there.”
Asher, the only one among us with royal blood, snickered. When he spoke, his English accent made him sound incredibly superior to the dimwits among us, like Cooper. “I never thought I would like a cowboy.”
Wyatt nodded at the Londoner with a crooked smile but didn’t say anything.
Cooper scowled. “All these little friendships you’re all forming are quite cute, but it’ll bite you in the ass down the road when we’re all sharing the same chick. Mark my words.”
“I’d rather she end up with the Prince than with you,” Wyatt said.
“Duke,” Asher corrected.
“Whatever,” Wyatt said, his eyes still rolling over the pictures in his hands. Then he tossed them down on the table. “I’m over this. No more staring aimlessly at pictures. Someone just narrow it down to ten, for fuck’s sakes.”
“Ten women,” Joshua said. “How hard can it be?”
“Like pulling fucking teeth,” Miles grumbled beside me.
“I propose a solution,” I said.
“I propose a solution,” Easton said mockingly. Everyone ignored him and turned toward me.
“All of us select one woman.”
“But there are twelve of us, halfwit,” Cooper snapped.
“All of us except for Cooper and Easton, choose a woman. That’s our final ten. Then we all get a fair vote at the end of the weekend as to which one we’d like to pursue. Sounds about as fair as we can get it.”
“Done,” Wyatt agreed effortlessly. He fell against the back of his chair and turned it to me, resting one elbow on the armrest and his chin upon his forefinger.
“Now hold on a minute,” Easton hurried to say, looking around the table. “You know I’m just fucking around. Come on.”
Cooper leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Knock yourselves out. I don’t give a damn who ends up in the final ten. So long as she’s got a—”
“We really don’t want to know,” Joshua interjected. “I’m in. I suggest we make our decision before Jackson comes back in and talks us out of it.”
“Teamwork, what a concept,” Asher said as he pulled a pile of photos toward himself.
The decision was made. Those of us who seemed to be there for a good reason—or at least a better reason than Cooper or Easton—deliberated soundly over which woman we most wanted to see at the end of it all.
None of us spoke up or tipped Jackson off to our plan when he came back into the conference room after his phone call. Not even the two guys we’d sidelined. They kept their mouths shut. I assumed they’d used what little deductive reasoning they possessed and concluded that this was the most efficient way to move past this step and actually start meeting the women.
Because that was what this whole thing was about, right?
Meeting people. Making connections. Possibly finding the person who would be by your side for the rest of your life.
It all sounded a bit too airy-fairy to me.
At the end of the evening, we turned in the photographs of the women we would each like to meet. Jackson held the ten photographs in his hand and nodded around the room at all of us. “We’ve moved beyond the first step. Tomorrow, you will finally meet some of the women you’ve selected, and this process will become infinitely more difficult. You are all free to go.”
I didn’t linger in the conference room like some of the others to make small talk. I wanted to get the hell out of there.
I hailed a cab to take me back to the hotel, and when I arrived, I went straight up to my penthouse suite. I was in bed within fifteen minutes of my return and staring up at the very still fan
in the middle of the bedroom ceiling.
This was all a waste of my time.
“Why the hell are you here?” I whispered.
I should have been at home with my daughter and my crew, not chasing tail in a fucked up frat boy circle. I’d found the love of my life a decade ago. And I’d lost her, too. Years ago. I knew there was no woman out there who could possibly replace my girl.
“I’m sorry for this shit, Katie,” I said to the ceiling fan. “We just have to get through it.”
Chapter 11
Piper
I woke up, and my whole body felt heavy. It reminded me of the way I felt when I had the flu or a cold, minus the fat head and the cough and the nausea. As I sat up, I rubbed at my eyes with the heels of my hands and indulged in a big yawn.
A quick glance at my phone told me it was seven in the morning. Perfect. I had a little over an hour to get ready and head out to my mom and dad’s place for breakfast. The restaurant didn’t open until two o’clock on Friday afternoons—another thing I was trying to convince my folks to change—so we usually tried to do something together. Today it was breakfast.
I rolled out of bed and left my bedroom in my booty shorts and tank top. A groan escaped me when I realized Janie was in the shower. I had to pee so badly.
“Janie,” I called as I knocked on the door. “I have to pee. I’m coming in!”
The bathroom was full of steam. Janie was humming a tune I didn’t recognize but stopped when she heard me shut the door. She pulled the shower curtain aside to poke her head out. “What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry. I knocked, but you couldn’t hear me. I have to pee.”
“Oh. All right.” She let the curtain fall as I did my business. “I’m going to take another stab at Jackson this morning and see if he’ll crack. I think if I really pressure him into this and convince him it’s a good move in terms of having variety in the women, he’ll go for it.”
“Yeah? That would be awesome, Janie. Thank you.”