Chapter 15
“You looklike someone just kicked your dog and ate your last pop-tart.” I intentionally poked at her in hopes of getting her riled up and out of her funk. She looked so defeated now that it was clear our only hope was to work together. Something I didn’t feel bad about in the least.
She lifted her head from her hands to glare at me. “I would not be upset about a pop-tart. Yuck.”
I gasped and brought my hand to my chest in mock astonishment. “How can anyone not like pop-tarts? There must be something wrong with you.”
“Wrong with me? Ha! That’s rich,” she sneered. “And to think they want you to run a restaurant? What is wrong with these people? The world has gone completely bonkers, I swear.” She dropped her head in her hands again.
My hand itched to reach across the table to comfort her, to rub the tension from her shoulders and tell her it would be okay. Better yet, to pull her into my arms. But I valued my life and limbs. And even though my attraction was as strong as ever, getting her to trust me enough to work together was more important.
Somehow, I had to convince her to give this deal a chance. To give us a chance. But I sensed I’d have an easier chance of convincing her that the moon was made of gorgonzola cheese. “Come on, Princess. This arrangement might actually be a good thing for both of us.”
She lifted her head to give me the stink-eye. A look she had down pat. “Stop calling me Princess.”
A chuckle snuck out of me. I knew I shouldn’t laugh. There wasn’t anything funny about our situation. But poking at AJ and getting a rise out of her was more fun than I expected. As much as I wanted to buy this place on my own, partnering with AJ was looking more and more interesting all the time.
She got up and began clearing the plates and mugs from the table, clanging them together and stacking them haphazardly. It was a miracle they made it to the dish tub in one piece. “You think this is just a big joke, don’t you? My dream has just been yanked right out from under me, and you think it’s a jolly adventure. This is never going to work.”
I grabbed her wrist to stop her. If the death glare she focused on the spot where my hand touched her had been a laser, she would have sawed my arm off.
We needed to figure this out and get on the same page or it really wasn’t going to work. Time for a Hail Mary. “Just listen. I already know you are an incredible chef, and you’ve done amazing things with the same tired old menu that has been in this place since before we were born. But I would venture to guess that you’ve been dying to expand, if not completely revamp the menu here. Am I right?”
She continued to glare at me.
“And knowing what a talented chef you are, I would love to have you continue cooking here.” She bristled, her face growing redder by the second. “Hold on. It wouldn’t look good to the owners if you strangled me across the table—not before we’ve signed the agreement.”
She gritted her teeth and snarled. “I’m sure I could make it look like an accident.”
“But without me, they’d go to those other restaurateurs, and you’d be out of luck.”
She sighed heavily, and her shoulders sank, looking completely dejected.
I grasped her shoulders to get her to look at me, but I had to crouch down to catch her gaze. “Hear me out. This is not the end of the world. As I said, you are the best chef around, and what you may not realize is I am highly regarded in the business world and am really good at what I do. The two of us together could make this restaurant the best in the state.”
“But I didn’t want a partner. I don’t want a partner.”
“Neither did I, but after thinking about this, it might just be a blessing in disguise.” Especially the part about continuing to fake an engagement to the most beautiful and beguiling woman I’d ever met, the woman I couldn’t stop thinking about. But I wasn’t about to mention that.
“And what will happen when they find out that it was all a lie, that we weren’t really engaged?”
“That’s why I asked what I did earlier. All we have to do is keep this going until the end of the trial and buy the restaurant as partners. After that, we can break off the engagement and decide if we want to continue the partnership, or I can buy you out and we go our separate ways.”
Fire flared in AJ’s eyes. “You buy me out? No siree, Bob. If there’s any moving on happening, it’ll be you hitting the road, pal, not me.” She punched my shoulder and stepped away.
Man, she was gorgeous with anger in her eyes. It probably wasn’t a good thing to enjoy riling up a potential business partner, but I couldn’t help it. I winked at her and said, “We’ll see about that.”
She pretended to ignore my wink and started stacking the dishes on the table. “Three months is a long time to fake this thing.”
“You afraid you won’t be able to keep your hands to yourself long enough to get your work done?”
She tossed a balled-up napkin at me. “Could you be any more full of yourself? This is a disaster waiting to happen.”
“It could be, but if we don’t do this, neither of us will be considered as a potential buyer. Disaster or not, this is our only option.”
“I guess you’re right.” She exhaled loudly and sank back onto her chair. “Just don’t get any ideas. This is a means to an end. It’s just an act so we can both get what we want. Nothing more.”
It tickled me to think she was worried about it becoming more. Maybe she wasn’t as resistant to me as she pretended to be. But there were better times to think about that. “So let’s talk about what we each envision for this place. I’m sure you have it already planned out.”
“Of course, I was all ready to submit a proposal. Ever since I started working here, I’ve been making notes of the things I wanted to change to improve efficiency. And I have tons of menu ideas.”
“I knew it.” I pointed at her. “I knew you’d be someone who had detailed plans at the ready for when you got the chance to take over. And I bet Mr. Quince didn’t listen to a single one of your suggestions. Did he?”
She shook her head slowly. “What about you? Why do you want this place? What’s your plan?”
“I grew up on a farm outside of town, Willowbrook Farm. You might have heard of it. Ours was the first organic farm in the area. And my dad sells to restaurants all over. My goal is to have a farm-to-table restaurant that would utilize organic food from our farm, and others in the area. Places like this do really well, especially in tourist areas. And there isn’t another like this for at least 100 miles. All I need is a top-notch chef to create the menu with fresh ingredients available each season.”
“Did you have a certain type of food in mind?”
I shook my head. “Only that it uses fresh, organic ingredients. You will have free rein over the menu.” I paused, hoping she would realize we wanted the same things. “You mentioned efficiency in the kitchen and dining room. We could talk about changes you’d like to make. I’m all for making this place more efficient while still giving the customers the best possible experience. I’ll handle the business side, including finances, marketing and branding. But first, I’ll need to dig into the books and see where we’re at.”
“I haven’t seen the books, but I do know it hasn’t been good. We could be a lot busier. I think the whole place, including the menu, needs to be overhauled. It’s stale and outdated. A few changes and we could be bursting with business.”
“Agreed. See, we are actually looking for the same thing. Our visions align perfectly.”
She sighed, apparently not convinced. “I don’t know.”
“What aren’t you sure about?”
She sat in silence, shredding the napkin in front of her. Her green eyes studied me for a moment, her brow furrowing as she bit her lower lip, taking my measure. It was obvious she didn’t quite trust me. I couldn’t blame her. This was a big deal, and we really didn’t know much about each other.
“You know, if we try this and it doesn’t work out, we’re not out anything. We can walk away and let someone else step in. But if we give it a go, we could create something really special here. We’re both amazing at our jobs, but we excel in things that the other doesn’t. We really are perfectly matched for this.”
A small crack seemed to appear in her resolve, as she sat up a little straighter in her chair and light returned to her eyes. “You said I could have total control of the menu and kitchen?”
“Absolutely.”
“And the staffing?”
I nodded. “You can handle that if you want. But I’ll be here to back you up whenever you need it.”
“Do you plan to be working here all the time? There is only one office.”
“In the beginning, I’ll need to be here more to dig into the records. But I’ll have an office on the farm that I’ll be at most of the time.” Though I’d prefer to be here, sharing the small office with her.
“And what about our fake engagement? How will we pull that off for three months?”
I shifted uncomfortably and cleared my throat. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to have some public appearances once in a while. My family already knows what happened. They heard the rumors, so I had no choice but to confess about the ruse we thought would only be for the one night. I’m sure they will help us to keep it going.”
“But we only act like we’re together when we’re in public. Like we’re actors in a play. That’s it.”
“Are you trying to convince yourself of that, Princess?” I stood and tugged my jacket on. “We aren’t going to be able to plan everything out. It’ll have to be more like improv. We’ll just need to wing it. But I have no doubt we’ll be able to pull it off.”
She carried the dirty dishes to the bus tub. “I don’t like this. Not one bit. But it seems like we don’t really have a choice. Either we go along with this arrangement and continue our ruse, or we lose our opportunity.”
“So what do you say, Princess? Are you in?”
She sighed and tossed her hands in the air. “Fine. I’ll do it. But you better not get in my way. And stay out of my kitchen.” She pointed a finger at me and gave me an icy glare. “If I see your face in my kitchen again, you’ll have more than a food fight to worry about.”
I laughed. An idea popped into my head that fired me up, but I bit back my enthusiasm. Instead, I smiled and nodded at my new partner/fiancée. “Of course. Anything for you, Princess.”