by Jamie Beck
“I hadn’t thought of brunch. I suppose that’s worth considering.” She retrieved a rough copy of a menu from her bag. “Here’s the menu the former chef and I agreed upon, which I’ve sent off to the printer. Standard fare with weekly specials.”
“That’s uninspired and boring.” The abrupt response landed between them like a hammer, making Colby flinch. Then pride flickered to life in her hazel eyes.
“Or comforting.” She leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Favorite dishes keep people coming back.”
He shifted in his chair, stunned she’d condescend to him about the industry he’d lived and breathed his entire adult life. “What keeps them coming back is curiosity about what might come next. Consistent quality. Unique twists on old favorites. The freshest ingredients. Beautiful presentation.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want this to be a place only foodies can enjoy. People like me, which are most people, enjoy basic, recognizable options. A fussy menu will limit our reach.”
Alec sensed his steely expression but couldn’t relax. Not with something this critical at stake. After scanning the menu, he tossed it on the table. “Do you actually expect me to churn out the same meals night after night?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
The fact she’d even asked sent him shooting out of his chair. Merde! Hunter told him he’d have control over the menu, not be relegated to run-of-the-mill cook.
“Everything.” He began pacing. He needed this job, but he couldn’t imagine being content preparing things as commonplace as chicken marsala year after year. “Ninety percent of restaurants fail in the first year. If you don’t want to be a statistic, then listen to me. I’ll make A CertainTea a destination—someplace that draws people from farther away than the neighboring suburbs. But to do that, we need to think bigger. To create a menu worth traveling to experience. You need to trust me, Colby.” Oh, the irony.
“Maxine and I went through a lengthy analysis to come up with this menu.” She tipped up her chin. “I’ve already paid to have leather-bound, embossed menus created.”
“I don’t know Maxine, but this overly extensive menu is going to cost you a lot in wasted inventory, not to mention making it harder for the cooks to be efficient in the kitchen. And don’t get me started on the distraction of a gimmicky Saturday-afternoon tea service right before the busiest night of the week.”
Colby folded the menu and stuffed it in her purse. She looked paler, despite the grim line of her mouth. “If this is going to work, you need to respect me. This is my place. My dream, not yours.”
“Except that Hunter hired me, and, unlike you, I know this business. I’ve succeeded at the highest levels.” He crossed his arms.
“Until you didn’t.”
It smarted. He wouldn’t lie. He hated reminders of his failure almost as much as he hated seeing her so hard-nosed. To her credit, she looked as if she wished she could take that last remark back.
“If all you want is to mimic every country-club menu in the Portland area, why hire me?”
“I didn’t.”
He went still then. Torn between hating and admiring her honesty. Between feeling responsible for restoring her happiness and needing to reclaim his own. “I don’t think I can settle, Colby.”
“Settle?” Although her expression remained firm, he noted the pulse point of her neck throbbing.
He’d upset her. He should feel bad about it, but he couldn’t let her win this argument. “I can’t be the executive chef and not be free to control the menu. To create and experiment. That’s the quintessential purpose of my job.”
Colby finally stood. He thought he noticed her lip tremble, but then she decreed, quietly but firmly, “Then perhaps you should reconsider this position. I understand your feelings, but I can’t work with you if you’re going to belittle my opinions. Let me know by tomorrow afternoon. If you choose to stay, I’ll assemble the team on Wednesday morning.”
Before he could respond, she grabbed her purse off the back of her chair and marched out the door.
Chapter Three
Like some new kind of PTSD response from her turbulent marriage, Colby’s bones had turned ice-cold when Alec snapped at her about the menu. She’d bolted so he wouldn’t catch her shaking. Apparently she’d given up the Xanax too soon. Nausea gurgled in her stomach as she pulled into the parking lot at Cabot Tea Company.
Rolling over, giving in, keeping the peace. She’d done that for five years to keep her husband happy, only to have it blow up in her face. Lesson learned. Indulgent compassion and bending to the will of another had nearly destroyed her. Never again—especially not with respect to A CertainTea, the one bright spot at the end of the dark tunnel through which she’d been crawling.
If she didn’t establish her role from the outset, she risked being trampled at every turn. Still, the memory of Alec’s expression when she’d flung Une Bouchée’s ruin in his face—yes, she almost threw up.
Cruelty had never been her go-to position before Mark. His refusal to properly treat his illness had warped their love into something unrecognizable. Risky behaviors with his health and their finances, philandering during his highly sexualized manic phases (followed always by profuse apologies), her own feelings of inadequacy and guilt in the face of the deterioration of the marriage—all of it had shoved her against a wall. Having failed to be a wife Mark valued enough to commit to therapy for, she’d built a fortress around her heart.
That barrier enabled her to be cruel when threatened. A lesson she sometimes regretted having mastered.
As she approached her father’s office building, the perfumed air from the abundant rose bushes offered no balm. She breezed through CTC’s lobby, flashing her badge to Jerry behind the security desk, and went straight to the elevator. When she reached her father’s office, she stopped at his assistant’s desk. “Hey, Cindy. Is my dad available?”
“He’s in there with Jenna. Let me check.”
While Cindy buzzed her father, Colby glanced down the hall toward Hunter’s office. To say he’d be unhappy about the ultimatum she’d handed Alec would be a massive understatement.
“You can go in.” Cindy smiled, unaware of the perspiration breaking out over Colby’s scalp.
“Do me a favor, please. Find Hunter and ask him to join us.” Colby drew a deep breath and headed into her father’s office.
Even though he was the founder and CEO, his office remained rather Spartan, sort of like the man himself. Nothing ostentatious or unnecessary. A large desk, flanked by two comfortable navy leather chairs. A round conference table with six swivel chairs. A whiteboard and a SMART Board. Functional, if not conventionally handsome. The opposite of Jenna’s smaller but beautiful office with its sumptuous Tibetan carpet and handcrafted desk.
Her dad had already stood to greet her with a kiss. He was tall and lean, like her, and his salt-and-pepper hair lent him a hint of sophistication. His eyes slanted upward slightly, also like hers, but with deeper laugh lines. “Hey, sweetheart. What brings you by?”
He gestured toward the table where Jenna, who nodded a greeting, remained seated. Jenna, the hardscrabble businesswoman, who’d started working here soon after college and captured her dad’s heart.
At first blush, one might assume her statuesque figure and flaming-red hair had won him over. But Jenna was also driven and savvy. Over the years, she’d worked her way up to a senior executive marketing position, proving herself his equal in many ways.
Jenna was a better wife and employee than her mother, but then again, what did Colby know about being a mother? She’d wanted children but had refused to bring any into the chaotic world of her marriage. If Alec had known of that conscious decision, he wouldn’t have been so sympathetic this morning about her childlessness.
Alec. The reason she now sat before the firing squad.
“Restaurant business.” Colby laid her purse on the table.
“Trouble so soon?” Jenna asked. The woman had mas
tered the art of sounding sweet yet poking for weaknesses. Unfortunately, Colby’s dad seemed blind to this habit.
“Let’s wait for Hunter.” Colby offered a tight smile.
“Want some water, or tea?” her father asked.
“No, thanks.”
He sat beside her. “You look stressed.”
“I guess I am.”
He patted her hand. “Remember, business isn’t like lawyering. You can’t be so conservative. Take risks. Expect to fail now and then. That’s how you learn and grow. The key is getting back up and in the fight.”
If it hadn’t been for the side-eye Jenna surreptitiously shot Colby, she might’ve actually relaxed a bit. Her father had an easy manner, which belied his business success.
As a child, Colby had resented him for leaving her, thanks to the steady diet of her mom’s “That damn business was more important than this family” rants. Colby had blamed Jenna, too, especially when she and Gentry enjoyed the “whole family” life that Colby and Hunter had lost. All that had made it easy to keep her stepmom at arm’s length.
But after learning firsthand how difficult marriage could be—how much could happen within a relationship that no one else knew—she’d softened her attitude toward her dad. Her newfound understanding had helped her forge a closer relationship with him, as proven by his offer to help her start over. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Thanks for what?” Hunter entered the office without sparing Jenna more than a dismissive glance. Colby barely resisted the reflex of ducking for cover from the palpable animosity between those two.
Hunter took a seat beside her.
“For the pep talk,” she answered.
“So tell us the crisis, because we’ve got other items on our agenda.” Jenna set down her notepad.
Impatient as ever. Colby guessed that Jenna’s attitude stemmed from the fact that she wished her husband didn’t have another family—other children. Or maybe Colby was making more out of the simple gesture than necessary. Reading between the lines had become a reflex—an exhausting one that kept her mired in a state of constant defensiveness.
“Crisis?” Hunter clenched his pen, but he didn’t snap at Jenna. Instead, he turned to Colby. “When I left you and Alec, things seemed fine.”
“They were, at first. He loved the kitchen and the grounds.” She glanced from Hunter to her father. “But then he trashed the menu. The one I’ve already budgeted for and paid to have printed. He’s insistent on substituting his vision for mine, so I gave him an ultimatum. He might quit, which means I’ll need to find another chef. Since you hired him, I thought I should tell you in person.”
Hunter and her father exchanged a meaningful look, while Jenna doodled dollar signs on her notepad.
“When you came to me for help to get this idea off the ground, I agreed, partly because you’ve been struggling since Joe’s and Mark’s deaths. Between the hefty acquisition cost, renovation, insurance, advertising, and personnel expenses, we’re in this for close to four million in order to make it everything you wanted.” Her dad cast Jenna a quelling look to keep her quiet. “I knew you’d need time to learn this business. That you’d make mistakes. But setting aside the personal issues, dismissing a chef with Alec Morgan’s credentials rather than finding a compromise seems both unprofessional and foolish.”
Her dad had been generous, yet the majority of those expenditures were now fixed assets on CTC’s balance sheet. If CTC sold the land and building, it would recoup 90 percent of what it had spent to date, maybe more. She hadn’t blown through $4 million on a whim, and she wouldn’t let him lord that over her as if she had.
“Alec says he won’t settle for being a ‘country club’ cook. He hates my vision, but it’s my restaurant. He’s being inflexible.” Deep down she admitted she hadn’t tried to compromise, either. Instead she’d knee-jerk reacted to feeling bullied. Overreacted, actually.
Hunter shrugged. “Is the printing cost of the original menu really worth sacrificing the potential boon Alec could be? Why not learn from him? Use his experience to avoid rookie mistakes.”
Colby noticed Jenna toss an incredulous look at Hunter, probably because she believed she knew more than he did about everything, yet he butted heads with her at every turn.
“You’re not listening. I know he’s a fabulous chef, and Une Bouchée was amazing. But it’s not like the only restaurants that succeed are fancy French ones. My favorite place in town is the Gab-n-Eat diner. And look at Gunther’s Pub, or Sesame Palace, or Taverna. They’ve all been around forever without architecturally challenging meals that no one can pronounce. Haute cuisine might impress those in the know, but normal people like me want decent portions of recognizable foods that taste great. I can’t help it if Alec thinks A CertainTea’s menu is ‘beneath’ him.”
“It is.” Her father crossed his arms. “I called my old friend—Rob Salvetti, up in Seattle—when I was deciding about whether CTC should invest in your idea. He freelances for Saveur, Food & Wine, and Bon Appétit. During our conversation, he mentioned that there’s been a big increase in interest in haute cuisine because of all the cooking shows and stuff.”
She’d expected Hunter to defend Alec, but not her dad.
“That might be true, but it’s beside the point. I can find another qualified chef who’s happy to cooperate with me and my vision.” Colby’s leg bounced beneath the table.
“Is that best for the bottom line?” Criticism colored Hunter’s question.
“Hunter, Jenna, give us a minute.” Her dad waved them out. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
Without delay, those two parted without a kind word between them.
Her father leaned forward. “What’s really going on, because it’s got to be more than a simple fight about a menu?”
That damn stinging behind her eyes started up, but she wouldn’t cry while discussing business. Why was it that every time she patched up one gush of emotion, it just leaked out through a different crack? “Do you think I’m being stupid?”
“I think you’re being rash. So I’m guessing you’re taking a stand for reasons that go beyond your vision. Because, honestly, I can’t imagine why Alec’s loftier ambitions don’t excite you.”
Her gaze fell to her hands, which were clasped tightly in her lap. “I don’t know if I can work with him.”
“Because of Joe?” Her father touched her arm.
She nodded, then confessed something she didn’t like admitting, not even to herself. “And Mark. I’d finally gone ten straight weeks without a nightmare. But anticipating seeing Alec today had me on edge all night. Now I’ll be working with him—a constant reminder of both Joe and Mark. What if the nightmares start again?”
Her dad set his chin on his fist. “Did he say anything to upset you?”
“No.” She privately acknowledged he’d been quite forgiving. That there had been moments when she’d even thought it could work. When she’d imagined it would help them both. But she’d been wrong about so many things before that she didn’t know which feelings to trust. It seemed safer to push Alec away. “This restaurant is supposed to be my fresh start. Seeing Alec brings the past all back. And on top of that, he wants me to roll over and let him make all the decisions.”
She’d let Mark make most decisions, and that had been disastrous for them both.
“Not all the decisions. Just the menu, which seems like something he’s extremely qualified to do.” Her father had one of those rich voices, like a late-night DJ. Deep and silky. Soothing. Amazingly effective at calming and persuading her whenever she let her guard down.
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s precisely the point. You’ve got to put the past behind you, honey. No one but you can do that, though.” He glanced at her ring finger. “Don’t let ghosts interfere with your objectivity, in business and otherwise.”
He sat back, arms crossed. She recognized the signs that the kid gloves were being removed.
“Apparently
I can’t separate from people and emotions as easily as you.” The knife’s edge in her voice caused him to frown. She shouldn’t have gone there. Not when he’d been trying to help.
Again, her eyes stung as unruly emotions fought for release. Would the legacy of her marriage to Mark forever be the feeling that someone was trying to force her head under water?
“You want more autonomy? Pledge your personal shares of CTC against the investment we made. Hunter and I will ease up then, because you’ll be shouldering most of the risk. Maybe if you have everything to lose, you won’t be so quick to turn away good advice when it’s offered.”
Her CTC shares were her safety net, and he knew it. She wanted to be angry that he’d called her bluff, but that would be childish and wrong, and she’d already been childish enough for one morning. How many times had she heard him say “Shit or get off the pot” in her life? A million? Two million?
Now he’d boxed her in, just like Mark had always done. If she refused, she revealed her weakness, and he and Hunter would continue to make the decisions.
Outside the office, she could hear people walking and talking, going about the day as if everything in her world weren’t tipping on its axis. Her father sat in silence, except for the tapping of his forefinger on the table, while she considered the ramifications of her choices. Although she was mired in self-doubt, a tiny voice deep in her heart whispered, “You can do it.”
Colby stood and picked up her purse. “Let’s separate the restaurant legally. Have your lawyers draw up a partnership agreement where CTC keeps a ninety-nine percent stake as a limited partner, but I’ll be the general partner with a one percent interest. In exchange, I’ll surrender the income from my shares if the restaurant loses money. You’ll have limited liability and rights to distributions until I can afford to buy you out, and I’ll be free to make decisions as I see fit without needing to kowtow to Hunter.”
Thank God lawyering taught her how to negotiate. Failure at A CertainTea would be a material financial hit, but not bankruptcy. She could live with that. Her mother, on the other hand, might have a breakdown when she learned that her private bank could run dry for several years.