Chapter 2
TWO
Marianne Browne swung the office door open with a crash. “What the hell is going on, Amira?”
Her wife glanced up over the top of her laptop screen and tucked a cascade of salt-and-pepper curls behind her ear. “What now? Have they delivered the wrong kind of mushrooms again? Surely you can use your culinary genius to cope with the change.”
Marianne blinked. “What? I’m not talking about mushrooms. The bills, Amira. Why aren’t we paying our suppliers?”
She paced to the window and pulled up the blind, letting some light into Amira’s dim office. She was trying to stay calm, but finding out they owed money to suppliers was upsetting, not to mention embarrassing.
Amira let out a long sigh. “What’s the problem?”
“Joey O’Hara texted me. They haven’t been paid. And not for the last few deliveries. What the hell is going on? What about the others?” She paced around the small space, trying to breathe.
Amira leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. “Calm down, honey. It’ll be a mistake with the bank. We’ll get it sorted and Joey will keep bringing you those lovely ingredients for the dishes that keep our bookings full three months in advance.”
Marianne dropped into a chair and gripped the arms until she felt the weave of the fabric imprint onto her skin. “I can’t work like this. My reputation relies on me having professional relationships with suppliers. If a journalist got wind of this, I’d never work again.”
Amira snorted. “That’s a little dramatic.”
Amira’s relaxed attitude wasn’t doing anything to reassure her. She had been horrified to hear they were behind on payments. And to lovely Joey, whom she considered a friend.
She stood again, unable to settle, and leaned over Amira’s desk. Amira glanced down at the screen and lowered it.
“I don’t understand the issue, Amira. The restaurant is full every night. Why can’t we pay our bills?” She was stretched to the very maximum running her kitchen and being the best parent she could be to their child. She had no more to give, so if it wasn’t working out, they had a problem.
“I told you, it’s an admin error. It’ll be sorted tomorrow.”
She backed away. “It had better be. I’m going to call all our local suppliers in the morning and check their accounts are up to date.”
Amira was in front of her before she realized she’d moved from the desk. Her wife’s arm around her waist made her recoil. Amira’s amber eyes locked onto hers in full charm mode as she pulled her close. “Marianne, I told you, I’ll sort it out. Leave the money to me and focus on what you do best.”
How had their relationship disintegrated so badly that she was now repulsed by her wife’s proximity? Amira had always been a physically demonstrative person. When they’d first been together, Marianne had enjoyed being drawn into the warmth of her curvy body. Now she felt suffocated when Amira was close. Even Amira’s floral scent, which she’d once found intoxicating, made her want to retch.
She pulled away from Amira’s grip less forcefully than she wanted. “We have a three-month waiting list because of my reputation. And you seem to be intent on ruining that.” She clenched her fists hard enough she was glad her nails were so short.
“Oh, honey, you need to calm the histrionics. We both know your reputation is safe. These local suppliers need you so much more than you need them.”
“Yes, because they’re small businesses who rely on a constant turnover. It’s terrible we’re not supporting them. How long has Joey been waiting for payment?”
Amira laughed. “Oh, not too long. It’s not like they’ve grown the lobsters in their garden. They just pick them out of the sea. It’s almost a cheek to ask for payment.”
That was too much. “You fucking idiot,” she snarled.
Amira stepped back, frowning for the first time.
“You have no idea how hard that life is. Because you sit on your soft ass and pretend to manage the books when even that seems beyond you.”
“Fuck you, Marianne. Do you know how hard it is to manage everything when you’re such a temperamental bitch? I’m so sick of your shit.” Amira moved back to her desk and sat down, flicking open her laptop. “Go do your job while I sort this mess out.”
Marianne looked at her watch. She was itching to get back to her kitchen where things were perfectly in order and everything made sense. But she couldn’t ignore this problem. “I’ve got the weekend off and I’m going to sit down and go through the books. See if there are any more horrors you’re hiding from me.”
Amira barely looked up from her screen. “You kept the weekend free to take Deniz to the beach, but as usual, your perfectionism takes priority over our son. Do what you must, I’ll ask Mother if she can visit to take him out.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind. I’ll take Denny to the beach, and I’ll look at the accounts before we go.” She hated that Amira used her initial reluctance to start a family as a constant weapon in their conflicts.
She swung open the door. “Make sure we’ve paid all of our debts by the end of the day, please.”
She slammed it behind her. She could do with some fresh sea air now, before she started her day in the kitchen, but it would take too long to walk down to the waterfront when she needed to get to work. She decided to make a point of apologizing directly to Joey next time they delivered. They supplied the best quality lobsters and langoustines she’d ever worked with. She couldn’t afford to jeopardize her good standing with suppliers. Sometimes, it felt like her reputation was the only thing she had left.
Marianne rarely let other thoughts cloud her mind when she was cooking, but she reflected on her imploding marriage as she plated up the dishes, her sous chef, Colette, alongside her. It had been going wrong long before Deniz was born. A baby she had never wanted, but who had stolen her heart from the moment she looked into his eyes.
“Chef.” Colette brought her back to reality, catching her eye with a raised eyebrow. She shook herself. It wasn’t good for her staff to see her so distracted. She was always telling them to pay attention to the job at hand. She slid the plates onto the serving hatch. “Service.”
One of the servers raced to the hatch. They’d all learned the hard way what happened if Marianne’s dishes were left too long. “Chef.” He checked the table number and carried them away.
Mari allowed herself a few moments to destress. She glanced around at her team all busy at their stations. Colette tipped her head, and Marianne went to inspect the next plates on their way out. She nodded, and Colette took them to the hatch.
She walked to the sauces station where Jimmy, her most promising chef de partie, was putting the finishing touches to a glazed ham dish. “Good work, that’s perfect.”
The rest of the evening service flew by in a blur and Marianne was grateful for her staff and their expertise. She excused herself as quickly as she could and dropped into her office chair, burying her head in her hands. She was putting in too many hours. She could blame her perfectionist tendencies all she—or Amira—wanted, but she’d chosen and trained her team well; they were more than capable of delivering to her standards. The true reason was she just couldn’t bear her life upstairs.
When the restaurant had been refurbished, they’d split the upstairs quarters into an apartment on the top floor they rented out to tourists and their own rooms directly above the restaurant. She loved being so close to her kitchen, but since Denny had come along and they’d had to build a nursery and give the second bedroom to the au pair, Emma, Marianne found the lack of space suffocating. Instead of cementing the cracks in their relationship, the extra stress had added more between her and Amira after Denny was born.
So she carried on like this, working full-on in the restaurant and spending all her free time with Denny. At the end of the day, a bottle of wine or sleeping meds helped her reach oblivion. Then she’d wake up to do it all again. She knew it wasn’t sustainable, but for now it was all she could manage.
Amira would still be downstairs closing up the restaurant for another hour, so once she’d checked the kitchen was closed down to her satisfaction, she dismissed her team and trudged upstairs to shower. Wrapped in a robe, she crept into Denny’s bedroom. He was spread out on his little boat-shaped bed like a starfish. She wouldn’t be able to get into the bed without waking him, so she kissed his forehead. In her own room, she pulled on a pair of thick pajamas and downed a couple of sleeping tablets. Emma would see to Denny if he woke in the night. She pulled on the eye mask she could no longer sleep without and prayed for oblivion before Amira returned.