Fortune's Just Desserts

by Marie Ferrarella

  Or was there something else that was annoying him about her presence in his restaurant?

  Was it just that rich people in general annoyed him because he thought that they always acted as if they were better than everyone else?

  In Wendy’s defense—as if he had to defend her—he hadn’t noticed her behaving that way once she’d begun working here. There was no bored-to-tears heiress drama about her. She’d listened diligently while Eva showed her the ropes, instructing her where to find the flatware and dishes, how to serve people, how to pour beer into their glasses and a whole host of things he was sure Wendy hadn’t concerned herself with prior to coming here.

  According to Eva, she had been a good student, absorbing everything she was told the first time around. There was no need for repetition.

  Maybe it was just that he didn’t like his opinion being disregarded—and then proven wrong. Because, so far, the Fortune woman was working out rather well.

  After he’d allowed himself some time to calm down, he silently admitted that the incident at the table earlier hadn’t been her fault. After all, he couldn’t blame her for taking a man’s breath away merely by standing there.

  Marcos stood off to the side, watching as her table of six finally left. There were just too many maybes for him to waste his time contemplating. After all, he had a restaurant to run—all of it, not just one particular employee.

  “Did he hurt you?” Marcos wanted to know when she came back to the register with the table’s signed credit statement.

  The question—and his supposed concern—took her by surprise. Wendy braced herself for a lecture. Whenever Marcos spoke to her, there was always a lecture in the offing.

  “He gripped my wrist a little harder than I’m accustomed to, but no, he didn’t hurt me. And I think he felt bad about it.” She reached into her apron pocket and displayed a rather thick wad of bills. Unlike the payment for the meal, the men at table eight had left the tip in cash. “He got his friends to leave me a real substantial tip.”

  Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have said anything. Money didn’t matter to her. She’d always had more than enough. But tips meant that the patrons liked you and she wanted to prove to her handsome, thick-headed boss that the people who frequented Red didn’t find her lacking, the way he did.

  Marcos frowned as he watched her tuck the money she’d flaunted back into her pocket. It was just as he’d always heard. The rich were greedy. And the richer they were, the greedier they were.

  “What do you plan to do with your ‘tips’?” he asked sarcastically.

  Given his frame of mind, he wasn’t prepared for her answer.

  “I thought I’d give them to Eva.” Her words drew a scowl from him—why, she had no idea—so she added, “She’s pregnant, you know.” Wendy realized that she’d miscalculated when she saw the look of complete surprise that came over his face. “I guess you didn’t.” She pressed her lips together. Why was it she never said anything right around this man? He made her fumble around like some self-conscious schoolgirl. Wendy sighed. “Did I just get her in trouble?”

  “No,” he answered curtly, “you didn’t.”

  With that, he turned on his heel and made his way straight to Eva.

  Chapter Three

  “Eva, can I have a word with you?” Marcos requested as he passed by the attractive, raven-haired waitress. Without breaking stride or slowing down, he added, “In my office.”

  The smile on the young woman’s lips faded away. Her sunny face paled slightly. Taking off her apron, she hurried to follow Marcos into his office.

  When she crossed the threshold, Marcos closed the door. The sounds coming from the kitchen were muted. Without saying a word, he gestured toward the chair in front of his desk.

  Sitting down in the worn chair behind the scarred desk, Marcos leaned closer to the waitress before finally asking her, “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”

  He heard Eva catch her breath, watched as she grew even paler. Was she afraid of him? Why? If anyone had asked him, he would have said that they had a good working relationship.

  Eva pressed her lips together and met his gaze nervously. “You know.”

  He could see that this wasn’t going to be easy. She was afraid of him, or at least afraid of something. That bothered him.

  “That would be obvious from my question. Why didn’t you tell me?” he repeated.

  Eva looked down at her hands, lacing her long, slender fingers tightly, as if that was all that was holding her together. “Because I was afraid,” she finally said.

  It was one thing to suspect that she was afraid of him, it was another to actually hear her say it. It stung more than he’d thought it would.

  “Afraid?” he echoed incredulously.

  Her head bobbed up and down. “That you’d fire me,” she explained. “I mean, who wants to see a pregnant waitress waddling over with their order, right?” But even as she asked, she was watching him hopefully.

  Eva had been the first person he’d hired when a vacancy had become available, about two months after he’d started at Red. He couldn’t deny that he had a soft spot for her in his heart.

  Which was why her response took him by such surprise. Did he come across as some kind of ogre to her and the others?

  He thought he’d done his best to be fair and evenhanded with all of them—except for perhaps the Fortune girl, but that was a different matter entirely. As for his real staff at Red, he’d tried to make himself available to all of them so that if there was some kind of problem, they’d tell him.

  Apparently he wasn’t as approachable as he’d thought.

  Still, in light of how things were these days, with everyone watching their back and afraid of losing their jobs—usually for reasons beyond their control—he could see where Eva might be afraid.

  But if she’d just come to him with this news, he would have set her straight.

  As he intended to now.

  “There’s only one reason to let someone go—and only one reason to fire them. The first happens when the business is losing money, which, happily, is definitely not the case here at Red. The second is if the employee is more interested in getting away with things than in getting the job done. We both know that doesn’t describe you. You’ve always been an exceptionally hard worker, Eva.”

  Mentally, Marcos made a notation to look into getting her a raise. With another mouth to feed, she was going to need one.

  In response to his words, Eva’s breathing grew a little more even and relaxed. Calmer, she looked up at him, still a little confused. “If you don’t want to fire me, then why are you angry that I didn’t tell you that I was pregnant?”

  “Because if I’d known, I would have seen to it that you were assigned to the smaller tables. Pregnant women shouldn’t have to struggle with overloaded trays,” he told her.

  She’d always been proud of the fact that she pulled her own weight. Now was no exception.

  “I don’t want any special treatment, Mr. Mendoza,” Eva protested.

  “It’s not special, it’s just common sense. If you wind up overdoing it, carrying trays that are too heavy for you, you might wind up hurting the baby—or worse. You could wind up in the hospital—and Red would be out one damn good waitress. So it’s settled,” he said with finality. “You take over waiting on the smaller tables, starting now.” Marcos looked at her pointedly. “Anything else I should know?”

  Eva allowed a little sigh of relief to escape her lips. “No, sir.”

  “You need any extra time?” he asked her. “Maybe some time off to go see your doctor?” When Eva flushed and hesitated before answering him, Marcos arrived at his own conclusion: she wasn’t going to a doctor. “You need to see a doctor on a regular basis, Eva. It’s important for your baby—and you.”

  Opening the double drawer on the right side of his desk, Marcos thumbed through several folders until he found what he was looking for: insurance information. He pulled out a thick bo
oklet and handed it to her.

  “You have health coverage. Pregnancy is a covered expense. Go see your doctor. And if you don’t have a doctor and find that you have trouble picking one out—”

  “I have a name,” Eva assured him. “My sister gave me the name of the one she uses. Dr. Sonia Ortiz.”

  He hoped she was a good doctor. “All right. Call Dr. Ortiz and see if she can squeeze you in this after noon or tomorrow morning. I don’t want you having any problems because you haven’t been taking care of yourself, Eva.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Mendoza,” Eva cried, tears of relief shimmering in her eyes.

  Marcos flushed at her words. He didn’t want her gratitude, that just embarrassed him. What he did want was for the woman to take care of herself—and the child she was carrying.

  “I’m glad we talked,” he told her, turning his chair so that he was facing his computer. “Why don’t we both get back to work.” Marcos smiled, then touched the keyboard and activated the monitor on his computer. Abandoning its sleep mode, the screen instantly grew bright.

  Focused on his timesheets, Marcos barely heard Eva leave his office. There was a slight pause be fore he heard the door being closed again, making him think that perhaps Eva had wanted to ask him something else.

  “That was very nice of you.”

  The soft, melodic Southern drawl made him look up sharply from his screen. There was only one way to construe the woman’s words, since not enough time had passed for Eva to have filled his personal albatross in on the conversation they had just had.

  “You were eavesdropping,” he accused.

  “Yes,” Wendy said simply. “I was.”

  Marcos stared at her, momentarily speechless. The Fortune girl made absolutely no attempt to deny her transgression. If anything, he thought he heard a hint of pride in her voice.

  She was brazen, he’d give her that. In another setting, that might have even intrigued him a little. He liked a woman who didn’t act like a shrinking violet. Usually. But not in this case.

  “I had to,” she told him before he could demand to know what the hell she thought she was doing, listening in on his private conversation with an employee. “I was afraid you were going to rake her over the coals about being pregnant. There was fire in your eyes when you walked away and called her into your office,” Wendy explained. “I figured you were either mad at her—or at me. If it was her, I wanted to be there for her when you finished reading her the riot act.”

  His eyes narrowed as he pinned her in place. “And if it was you?”

  He expected her to cower, or at least pretend to. Instead, Wendy smiled in response. That same bright, disarming smile he’d seen her aim at the customers, both male and female, when she walked up to their tables.

  The same smile that somehow seemed to brighten up a room.

  It was official, he thought. He was losing his mind. Because of her.

  “If it was me, I thought I’d spare you having to come and fetch me. I figured that would make you even angrier.”

  To his further surprise, Wendy slid into the seat that Eva had just vacated and then, without so much as blinking or building up to it, she asked, “You don’t like me much, do you?”

  She definitely wasn’t the kind of employee he was used to. Or the kind of woman he was used to, for that matter, either.

  “Whether I do or not doesn’t matter—”

  Again she didn’t give him a chance to finish—why didn’t that surprise him? “It does to me,” she told him. “I’m not used to people not liking me,” she said with genuine sincerity. “Now what have I done to rub you the wrong way?”

  Her choice of words was unfortunate because it unexpectedly conjured up a scenario in his head that had absolutely nothing to do with their work relationship, but it did have a great deal to do with him as a man and her as a woman.

  A very sensually attractive woman.

  The next second Marcos upbraided himself for allowing his mind to veer off the path so drastically. It wasn’t like him. Not when he was at work.

  Something else to hold against the woman, he thought grudgingly.

  Ordinarily, he had a great deal more control over his thoughts and his reactions, both inside Red and outside, when he socialized. He was a man who liked to party in his off hours, but not so much that he ever carelessly ignored the consequences that any of his actions might generate.

  But there was just something about the Fortune girl—beyond being saddled with her—that pushed all of his buttons at the worst possible moments.

  Since she’d asked a legitimate question—and he wasn’t the type to shy away because he’d lost his nerve—Marcos gave her an answer.

  “I don’t like people who have had everything handed to them and expect that to continue for the rest of their lives.” He looked her straight in the eye. And was mildly impressed when she didn’t look away. She was either very gutsy, or too dumb to know what he was talking about. And he was beginning to suspect, from what he’d witnessed, that she wasn’t dumb. “I also don’t like people who don’t know what it means to work.”

  Wendy nodded, waiting for him to be done. So that she could begin. “Anything else?”

  “Oh, there’s a lot more,” he assured her, even though he hadn’t phrased it properly in his mind yet. “But that’ll do for now.”

  Wendy nodded, seeming to accept his response. But rather than get up and leave in a huff the way he’d expected, she slid forward in her chair, fixed him with an unabashed, penetrating stare and asked, “Has anyone complained about me? Has anyone told you I was doing a bad job, or not carrying my weight?”

  Because he couldn’t in all honesty say yes to any part of her question, he tried to approach it in a different way. “Half the kitchen staff is tripping over their feet, rushing to help you.”

  So now he was going to blame her for that? He had to know that was completely unfair.

  “I can’t help it if you hired a bunch of polite people. I never asked one of them to do anything for me. I don’t palm off my work or expect anyone to carry my load,” she told him pointedly.

  But there had been more to his dissatisfaction with her, so while she was at it Wendy decided to address that, as well.

  “And as for what you said about having everything handed to me, yes, I was born a Fortune and, yes, my parents are rich. And yes, I don’t really know exactly what it is I want to do with my life right now,” she threw in, even though he hadn’t said anything about that. She assumed that one of her parents had probably complained about her lack of direction to the Mendozas, who in turn might have told Marcos.

  “But I know that whatever I do decide I want out of life, I’m going to have to get it on my own, because otherwise it doesn’t really count. And I also realize that the only person I know I can count on is me,” she said with feeling.

  Channing had taught her that one and she had learned her lesson the hard way. She’d put all her faith in him, expecting Channing to provide her happily-ever-after for her. When he’d pulled the rug out from under her and told her that he no longer loved her, that he was in love with someone else, she definitely hadn’t been prepared to land on her butt in full view of her so-called friends. None of whom offered her any real sympathy.

  While the whole humiliating experience hadn’t turned her into a bitter person, it certainly had taught her not to be so trustingly naive.

  It also taught her to keep her eyes open so that she didn’t run the risk of being mowed down like that ever again. One supremely humiliating experience in a lifetime was more than enough.

  She straightened in the chair, giving every indication that she was ready to leave. “Now, if you don’t have anything else that you feel you have to chew me out about, I’d like to make a suggestion.”

  Oh she did, did she? Did she think that working here for a couple of months qualified her to become his assistant? Or better yet, to take his place?

  “Which is?” Marcos challenged.

/>   “Since you’re putting Eva on the smaller tables, I’d like to volunteer to take over her station.”

  Eva’s former station contained the party-size tables. Tables that accommodated office luncheons to celebrate a promotion or someone’s final day at the company. Stations like that were intended for more experienced waitresses who worked smoothly and efficiently. Waitresses who didn’t drop trays.

  Granted that up until now Wendy hadn’t dropped a tray—if he didn’t count the one she accidentally knocked over just before she’d begun working here—but as far as he was concerned that was just a freakishly fortunate streak of luck. And there was just so much luck to go around.

  “We’ll see,” he answered.

  Wendy frowned. She was still sitting in the chair, her hands on the armrests as if she had abruptly changed her mind and was ready to propel herself up to her feet. She’d thought she’d made some headway with Marcos. Apparently not.

  “That means no, doesn’t it?” It wasn’t really a question. Marcos’s tone had already given away his intention.

  “No,” he contradicted, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked at her again, “that means we’ll see.” This just wasn’t going to work out, was it? He bit his tongue to keep from saying as much. Instead, he told her, “You know, we might get along better if you didn’t keep trying to get under my skin.”

  Wendy looked at him for a long moment, as if debating saying something. Instead, she rose to her feet. “I’m not trying.”

  For someone who wasn’t trying, he thought, she was having remarkable success.

  “Still accomplishing the same thing,” he told her. The way to deal with this woman, he decided, at least for now, was to ignore her. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got some work to do.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” she told him breezily. “Maybe we can talk later to clear the air some more,” Wendy said as she crossed the threshold.

  Just what he needed. A threat.

  “Maybe,” he murmured, having no intentions of doing any such thing unless he was forced to. “Don’t forget to close the—”