Dish Best Served Cold (Corporate Chaos Series Book 5)

by Leighann Dobbs

  Instead, they all watched as Franz spun Myrtle around. The two started to gracefully glide across the floor, with people moving aside as they did so. They waltzed across the dance floor and ended up in the middle at the end. The guests all clapped, and the two took a bow, laughing after they did so. Then the crowd started to leave the dance floor and head back to their tables.

  “Hold on. What is that person doing?” Logan asked, zooming in on one of the servers, a woman with a small build.

  “The one with the crazy curly hair?” Raffe asked, squinting.

  The three of them all leaned forward, trying to get a closer look at the monitor.

  “She’s standing at the soups. We're having them served straight from the pot to the tables,” Sarah said. “She's probably the one who is responsible for ladling the soup into the bowls.”

  Sarah watched as the server stood behind the table that held the giant pots of soup and looked around as if to see if anyone was watching her. Her mop of curls hung in front of most of her face, making Sarah cringe. What if some of that hair fell into the soup? Servers were supposed to have their hair pulled back! As if she heard what Sarah was thinking, the woman pushed the curls off of her face, causing Raffe and Sarah to gasp.

  “Brenda?” they asked in unison, turning to look at each other.

  “You know her?” Logan asked.

  “Yes, she was in the Chef Masters cooking contest. And she didn’t like us very much,” Sarah explained. “This can’t be good. In fact, this could be really, really, bad. We—”

  “Let’s go now!” Raffe had jumped up from his chair and was already halfway out the door.

  “Raffe! What about a plan? Are we just going to run in there?” Sarah shouted after him, with Logan following right behind her.

  “Sometimes it’s good to be spontaneous!” Raffe said, pausing only long enough to grab her hand and pull her after him.

  Brenda smiled in triumph. Everyone was seated, and any minute now, she would be cheerfully serving each and every one of them a nice bowl of soup with enough ipecac to bring them to their knees. She couldn’t wait until the entire ballroom floor was covered with people sick to their stomachs, including that idiot food critic Franz. That certainly wouldn’t be a five-star review!

  “One bowl, please.”

  Brenda faked a smile, grabbed the ladle, and scooped up some soup, pouring it into the bowl set strategically behind the giant soup pots. No one saw her add the drops of ipecac from behind it. It took seconds, and she handed the bowl to the server with a big smile. So it begins!

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I wanted to thank you all for coming. As you all know, the Kidney Foundation is very near and dear to my heart, and I thank you for coming to help me continue to support this great cause. To start our night off, our mascot, Kidney, will taste the first bowl of soup!”

  Brenda froze. What? No! Why would they be giving soup to a cat, for crying out loud! The ipecac... Kidney couldn’t eat that. He could die! She couldn’t bear the thought of killing Kidney. That stupid cat had been the only thing that had shown her affection over the last few weeks. She needed to protect him.

  “Noooo!” she screamed, dashing out from behind the table and running onto the dance floor, where Gertie was with Kidney beside her. Brenda knocked the bowl of soup out of Gertie’s hand, causing Kidney to meow loudly and jump out of the way of the falling bowl. The startled cat ran into the crowd of people that were watching with their mouths open.

  “Oh, God,” a voice said, and everyone turned to look at Marly, who was seated at one of the tables directly in front of the dance floor. Everyone ewwed as she threw up into her napkin, aside from Jasper, who had jumped up and was holding a large cloth napkin in front of her as if to shield her from view.

  “Gertie!” Sarah screamed as she dashed toward Gertie, worried that she may have been burnt by the hot soup that was now all over the floor.

  “You all know I like to make a splash!” Gertie said, laughing as she reached an arm out toward Sarah. “Please, bear with me just a moment.”

  “Are you okay?” Sarah asked Gertie as she looked over toward the side of the room. Logan and Raffe had grabbed Brenda and were heading toward the door with her.

  “Yes, for crying out loud. What in the heck is going on? I have guests here! Who was that crazy woman, and why did she knock that bowl out of my hands?”

  “That was Brenda. Crazy Brenda from the Chef Masters cooking contest. I think she’s been trying to sabotage this event for a while now, Gertie. I’m not sure what the whole story is, but Raffe and Logan will find out. They’ve got it under control.”

  She watched Logan and Raffe as they pulled Brenda outside the doors so that she wasn’t inside the ballroom anymore. Someone ran to the dance floor and cleaned up the soup that had spilled onto the floor.

  “You can go ahead and talk again. We’ll get the soup served,” Sarah said to Gertie, who was already pulling the microphone up to her mouth to kick off the dinner.

  Sarah ran over to the door and swung it open then stepped out into the hallway to see Brenda sitting in a chair and Raffe and Logan standing in front of her.

  “What’s going on? Why are you here?” she asked Brenda.

  “She was trying to ruin the event. Look what we found in her pocket,” Raffe said as Logan held up the bottle of ipecac.

  “What? People would throw up if they had this. Why would you want to make everyone sick? Is it because of the cooking contest?”

  “I’m sorry,” Brenda said, starting to cry. “I just—I couldn’t take it. I’m a great cook! And I needed that money to help save my restaurant!”

  “So, you decided to try to destroy Gertie’s? As well as my reputation? I mean, if everyone threw up, then it would look like I cooked up a bunch of bad food, right?”

  Brenda nodded. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I swear! And as soon as I saw that Kidney would be the first to eat the soup, I knew I was wrong. That’s why I ran out and knocked the bowl away from Gertie! I couldn’t bear to think about Kidney being hurt!”

  “So, I assume it was you that did the other strange things around here, too? The mice, the grease, the delivery at the wrong loading dock?”

  Brenda nodded and hung her head.

  “The ipecac only made it into one bowl of soup.”

  “Oh my God,” Sarah said, running toward the ballroom again.

  “What’s wrong?” Raffe asked.

  “Marly! She threw up! She must have had some of the ipecac!”

  “I wasn’t poisoned,” Marly said, opening her eyes wide and nodding her head slightly at Jasper. Had Sarah forgotten? Jasper was right next to her, so it wasn’t like she could say why she had thrown up. It had nothing to do with anything crazy Brenda did.

  “Honey, how do you know? That woman is crazy. I think we should have you checked out, just to be sure. I mean, you did throw up,” Jasper said.

  “I’m fine,” Marly said sternly.

  “Dear, I think Jasper has a good point. Let’s get you checked out, just in case,” Gertie chimed in.

  Marly threw a dirty look at Sarah, whose eyes were wide open now, as if she realized she had made a mistake by bringing this up in the first place.

  “I wasn’t poisoned,” Marly repeated, frustrated.

  “How can you be so sure?” Veronica asked.

  “Because it wasn’t poison that made me throw up.”

  “But we need to make sure. We—”

  “I. Am. Pregnant.”

  The room grew quiet, aside from Jasper dropping his glass on the floor.

  “What?” he asked.

  Sarah nodded to the others, and they all crept away, leaving Marly and Jasper alone.

  “I’m pregnant,” Marly said, starting to cry.

  Jasper hugged her, pulling back.

  “Why are you crying? How long have you known? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t tell you because you hate kids,” she said, suddenly feeling a bit better.
The wave of nausea had passed.

  “What? Why do you think I hate kids?” Jasper asked.

  “Well, all you do is make negative comments about them. Any time we see kids when we are out, or if a baby commercial comes on. It seems to be nonstop. Maybe it’s just me. I’m overly sensitive, I guess,” she said, feeling bad.

  “No, you’re right. I have been going out of my way to act like I don’t want kids ever since the doctor told you last year that you might not be able to have them. I just wanted to try to make it seem like it wouldn’t be a big deal if you couldn’t get pregnant. But I really do want a baby! Marly, we’re going to be parents! We’re having a baby!” he said, his smile as big as the moon. He hugged her again, and Marly felt all the stress and anxiety of holding the secret in leave.

  “One more secret,” she said to him.

  “What could be bigger than this?” he asked.

  “It’s a boy.”

  Marly knew that having a boy had been Jasper’s dream. Sure, he would have been happy with a girl—any sex, really—as long as it was healthy. But he had talked forever about having a son to continue the family name.

  Suddenly Jasper jumped up on the table, and Marly heard the crowd gasp.

  “It’s a boy!” he yelled, raising his glass in the air.

  The entire room erupted in cheers.

  18

  “To a successful and eventful night!” Veronica said, raising her champagne flute into the air.

  Sarah raised her glass and laughed along with Marly, Harper, Logan, and Raffe. The ball was over, and the cleaning crew was clearing everything up, but a few of them had remained after all of the other guests had left.

  “Well, this was quite the night, wasn’t it?” Gertie asked as she wheeled up beside Sarah. “We made almost a million dollars for the Kidney Foundation!”

  “Gertie! That’s great!” Sarah said, knowing that the goal had been set at half a million dollars. “What about Brenda? What did the police say?”

  “Well, they wanted me to press charges, but I’m not going to. And before you say anything, dear, remember what I say. Everyone deserves a second chance. It seems Brenda is separated now, and she just focused on losing that cooking show contest and made that the root of her problems. She knows what she did was stupid. Besides, if she really was a horrible person, she would have let Kidney eat that soup.”

  “Good point,” Sarah said.

  “I’m taking her to the shelter tomorrow to help her pick a cat out. It’ll do her some good. And I’m going to get her the name of a good therapist.”

  Meow!

  Kidney appeared, as if to agree with Gertie, and jumped onto her lap, settling down for a snooze. Gertie petted the cat. “There you are! I was getting worried. Good thing you didn’t get any of that soup.”

  “Yeah, good thing.” Sarah reached over to pet Kidney. They’d looked for him after he’d run off, but he couldn’t be found. Thankfully, he seemed no worse for the wear.

  “Well, those two seem to be getting kind of cozy,” Raffe said to Sarah and Gertie, nodding his head toward the next table over. Myrtle and Edward were nose deep in a crossword puzzle, laughing over something.

  “If I didn’t know better, I might think that Edward has a crush on someone else now,” Harper said.

  “That would be fantastic!” Gertie laughed. Her phone rang with a call from Tanner, and she excused herself to answer it.

  “Congratulations,” Raffe said to Sarah, handing her his phone. She read the screen, which was Franz Durkin’s review.

  “Wow, that was fast. He must have written it on his way home in the Uber.” Sarah continued to read it. Franz had given the food five stars, which he hardly ever did. Even at EightyEight, they had only received four stars.

  “It’s well deserved,” Raffe said, leaning over and kissing Sarah.

  She looked around the room. Gertie was holding her phone up and FaceTiming with Tanner, a smile on her face. Marly and Jasper were bent over Marly’s phone, looking at baby clothes with TJ and Veronica. Myrtle and Edward were hunched over a crossword puzzle, their knees touching from sitting too close.

  Sarah grabbed Raffe’s hand, and he smiled at her. It looked like everything was going to turn out all right for everyone involved after all.

  ***********

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