Chapter 8
EIGHT
NADIA
I woke to sunlight streaming through pink candy-striped curtains and the smell of coffee, disoriented and wondering where the hell I was.
Then I spotted the ceramic cats and doilies, felt the unfamiliar weight of the comforter, and everything from last night came rushing back.
The dinner with Sofia. The garden walk. The whiskey. The sex. The confession.
Not a declaration, though. I'd noticed that. I'd handed him the most reckless sentence I'd said to anyone in years, then watched him reach for a matching one and come up short.
I'm not going anywhere.
The words a man gives you when the other words won't come.
It should have stung. Maybe it had for a second. But then he'd done the thing I hadn't expected. He'd told me the truth about it.
It's not everything. It's the part I know how to say.
I'd been lied to by experts in my time, and I knew how it sounded when a man told me what I wanted to hear. But that hadn't been it.
My heart did something unexpected, anyway.
I sat up, pulling the sheet with me, and found Daemon standing in the doorway, holding two mugs of coffee. He was already dressed for work, jeans and a Lucky Break t-shirt, his hair still damp from the shower.
"Morning," he said, a smile playing on his lips. "Thought you might need this."
I took the mug, inhaling the steam. "What time is it?"
"Six-thirty. I've got to be on site by seven, but I didn't want to leave without..." He trailed off, looking uncertain. "Without making sure last night was real."
"It was real." I took a sip of coffee, buying myself some time. "All of it."
He sat on the edge of the bed, close but not touching. "Any regrets?"
I thought about that. About waking up in his bed for the second morning in a row.
About learning he'd been to jail for fighting, and for the betting machine behind the fighting, and discovering it hadn't changed what I saw when I looked at him.
About telling him I could fall in love with him and getting four words back that weren't the ones I'd offered.
"No," I said, sure of my answer. "No regrets. Scared, yes, but no regrets."
He watched me say it, and I watched him hear it, and for a spell neither of us moved. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice that sounded uncomfortably like common sense was asking what exactly I thought I was doing.
Two nights. That was all this was. Forty-eight hours and a dinner with his landlady, and I was sitting in a ceramic-cat-infested apartment telling a man with a criminal record I had no regrets.
The same voice reminded me that half the women in Coogan's Break had probably sat somewhere similar. That charm like his didn't build without practice. That there was a reason people talked. I'd heard the talk, although strangely, no complaints.
I'd filed it under not my business for six months and kept my distance. The question was whether the man I'd watched for six months was the same man everyone was talking about.
The one who showed up early and stayed late, who checked on his landlady before he checked his phone, and who'd looked at me every time like he was trying to solve a problem that mattered.
And now I had one more piece of data that the gossip never included. The town's smoothest operator, a man with six months of practiced lines aimed in my direction, had been handed an open door last night and hadn't been able to walk through it.
A player would have said it back. Saying it back costs a player nothing.
I didn't know yet what it meant that he couldn't. But it was the most honest thing I'd learned about Daemon Booth since I'd met him, and I was still turning it over when he spoke again.
"I meant what I said last night." His thumb moved across my knuckles. "I'm not going anywhere."
"I know." I set my mug down on the bedside table, careful to center it on the crocheted coaster. "Same arrangement as last night, then. No labels. We say things when we know them."
"Deal."
"And what I know right now is that I need to get to work. I've got a meeting with the staff at eight, and I need to shower and change first."
"Right. The meeting." He squeezed my hand. "About the Elevate situation?"
"Yeah. I need to tell my team what's happening and figure out a plan." I hesitated. "Will I see you later?"
"You want to?"
"Daemon." I gave him a look. "I told you last night. I'm done pretending."
He grinned, a full smile that transformed his face. "Dinner? I'll cook. Nothing fancy, but I can manage something that doesn't come from a box."
"I'd like that." I leaned in and kissed him, meaning it to be quick, but it deepened into something more. When we broke apart, we were both breathing hard.
"You keep kissing me like that and we'll both be late for work," he said, his voice rough.
"Then stop being so kissable."
He laughed and stood, pulling me up with him. "Come on. Let me show you how the shower works. It can be temperamental."
Thirty minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot behind my commercial kitchen, my mind already shifting into work mode. I had an hour before my staff arrived, enough time to change into one of the clean jumpsuits I kept there and organize my thoughts.
With that done, I set out the pastries I'd grabbed from the Skye High Pies bakery on the prep table and started some coffee. Then it was time to face what I'd been avoiding since yesterday.
I pulled up my email and scrolled through messages from clients. Three had reached out in the past twenty-four hours, all with variations of the same message. Elevate Events had approached them with very competitive pricing, and they wanted to know if I could match it.
No, I couldn't. Not without operating at a loss.
I drafted careful responses to each, emphasizing quality, personalization, and local sourcing. But I knew it wouldn't be enough. Elevate had deeper pockets and a corporate mandate to dominate the market.
By seven forty-five, my team started arriving. I had five regular staff members, all locals who'd been with me since I started the business. Good people, depending on this income.
"Morning, boss," said Tony, my prep cook, setting down his travel mug. "What's this meeting about? The text sounded serious."
"Let's wait for the others," I said. "Help yourselves to coffee and pastries."
Once everyone had arrived and settled around the large prep table, I took a breath and laid it out. The Pacific Tech loss. The supplier pressure. The systematic way Elevate was moving into the region.
"How bad is it?" asked Jen, my lead server.
"Bad enough that we need to get creative." I pulled up a spreadsheet on my tablet. "Pacific Tech accounted for twenty percent of our annual revenue. If we lose more corporate clients at this rate, we'll be in the red by the end of the quarter."
The silence that followed was heavy.
"So, what do we do?" asked Tony. "We can't match their prices."
"No, we can't. But we can offer something they can't." I thought about Sofia, about her recipes and her connections. "I'm working on a partnership that would give us access to authentic Italian cuisine. Real recipes, not the Italian-inspired stuff that the chains serve. It's a differentiator."
"That could work," said Jen, doubt in her voice at first. But she pressed on, and the doubt fell away. "Actually, that could work well for our high-end events. People are fine paying extra for authenticity."
"That's it. But I need to come clean with you. If things don't turn around, I might have to cut hours. I don't want to, but you need to know it's a possibility."
More silence. Then Tony spoke. "Nadia, you've been good to us. Fair pay, flexible schedules, treated us like people instead of staff. If you're fighting to keep this business alive, we're fighting with you."
The others nodded in agreement, and I fought back tears, harder than I ever had before.
"Thank you," I said, my voice thick. "That means more than you know. Now let's talk strategy. We've got three events this week, and I want every single one so good that word of mouth does our marketing for us."
We spent the next hour going over menus, timing, and strategy. By the time everyone got up to start prep for that afternoon's corporate luncheon, I felt a little better. Still terrified, but with backup.
My phone rang. Holly.
"Hey, sis," I said, trying to sound more upbeat than I felt.
"Nadia, I'm sorry to do this again, but Mom called." Holly sounded exhausted. "Dad's hours got cut. Again. They need eight hundred dollars for property taxes by the end of the month. I'm tapped out with the kids' expenses. Can you help?"
I closed my eyes and did the math. Eight hundred dollars, plus the five hundred I'd already committed. Plus paying my staff and keeping the lights on.
I had savings, but they were dwindling fast. And with corporate clients jumping ship to Elevate, there was no guarantee I'd be able to rebuild that cushion.
But I'd started this business to be independent. To prove I could build something on my own. Didn't that still matter?
"Yeah," I said. "Leave it with me. I'll figure something out."
"You're the best. I'm sorry, it's always you."
"It's fine. We're family." I said goodbye and ended the call.
I was still staring at the screen when it rang again. Mom.
My stomach dropped before I even answered.
"Hi, Mom."
"Nadia." Her voice was careful in the way it got when she was trying not to cry. "Something came in the mail today. From the oral surgeon."
I closed my eyes.
"I wasn't snooping," she blurted. "It was addressed to Emma, but she's fifteen, and I opened it without thinking, and then I saw the..." She stopped. "Nadia, this is a lot of money."
"It's fine. I'm handling it."
"You shouldn't have to handle it. We didn't even know she was in pain, I didn't know, and then you quietly took her and paid for everything and didn't say a word—"
Her voice broke on the last word, and she pulled it back together, years of not making a fuss coming to the fore. "I wanted to say thank you. And I'm sorry."
"Mom. Don't apologize."
"I'm her grandmother. I should have noticed."
"Mom, she's fifteen, trying to handle things like an adult." I kept my voice gentle and even, the same voice I used when briefing my team on something I didn't want them to panic about. "The surgery is scheduled. The infection is under control. She's going to be fine."
"We'll pay you back."
"You don't need to."
"Nadia—"
"You don't need to," I said again, more gently. "That's what I'm here for. I'll call you later, okay? I've got a luncheon to get through."
After I hung up, I sat still in my small office, digesting the news. The stainless-steel surfaces of my kitchen gleamed through the window. My team moved around out there with the comfort of people who knew their jobs, and the smell of the afternoon's prep work was already drifting through.
I'd paid for the dental visit. I'd cover the surgery. I'd handle the property taxes. I'd keep the lights on here, make payroll, smile at my clients, and give Elevate Events absolutely nothing to work with.
And I would not think about the spreadsheet. Not right now.
I was still staring at the screen when it rang again. Daemon.
"Hey," I said, and just hearing his voice eased some of the tension.
"How was the meeting?" he asked.
"Rough but good. And for what it's worth, the team's on board."
"You've got this," he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. "And you've got me. Still on for tonight?"
"Wouldn't miss it for the world."
"Good. Because I'm already planning what to cook, and I need to know if you're allergic to anything."
I laughed despite everything. "No allergies. Surprise me."
"Challenge accepted."
I set the phone down and got back to work. There was a luncheon to prep, a business to save, and a man who was ready to take my mind off all the awful things.
Terrifying. All of it.
But maybe that was okay.
The luncheon went as planned. Every dish was timed to the second, the presentation was flawless, and dietary restrictions were accommodated. The client, a law firm celebrating a major case win, raved about the food.
"This is incredible," said the senior partner, pulling me aside. "Where did you get that pasta sauce recipe? It's the best marinara I've ever had."
I thought about Sofia and her worn notebook of recipes, and about her letting me photograph the page for that marinara sauce.
"Family secret," I said, which wasn't quite a lie. "If you liked that, wait until you see what I have planned for next time."
As my team packed up, I felt a spark of something that might have been hope. This could work. The Sofia partnership, the focus on quality, the personal touch. The things corporate chains couldn't replicate.
It had to work.
Because the alternative was giving up, and I'd never been great at that.
My phone rang when I was outside loading the van. Unknown number.
"Coogan's Catering, this is Nadia."
"Ms. Becker, this is Samantha Morrison from Elevate Events." The voice was smooth and professional, with an edge of steel underneath. "I was hoping we could discuss a business opportunity."
My stomach dropped. "What kind of opportunity?"
"We're very impressed with your operation.
Your reputation in Coogan's Break is excellent.
We'd like to discuss bringing you into the Elevate family.
Not as a buyout, but as our regional manager for Northern California.
Excellent salary, benefits, and the resources of a national company behind you. "
It was a fair offer. Better than that. It was everything I'd need to take care of my family and stop worrying about making payroll.
"I'm not interested in selling," I said, my response measured.
"We're not asking you to sell. We're offering you a promotion. Your business becomes the Elevate Events Coogan's Break location, you get a management contract, your staff keeps their jobs, and you get the support of a national brand."
"At the cost of my independence."
"But with the benefit of stability." Samantha's voice took on a warmer tone.
"Ms. Becker, I've done my research. Sixty-hour weeks.
Payroll every second Friday. Family obligations that don't shrink when revenue does.
Small operators carry all of it alone, and they don't have to. What if you didn't have to?"
I felt cold. She hadn't named a thing. Not my parents, not the tax bill, not Holly's kids. She'd drawn the outline and left me to fill it in, and I'd filled it in instantly, which meant she'd known I would.
"I'm not trying to pressure you," she said into my silence. "I'm offering you an option. Think about it. We'll be in touch."
She hung up before I could respond.
I stood there in the parking lot, phone in hand, feeling like the walls were closing in. She hadn't mentioned my parents. She hadn't mentioned Holly. She'd said nothing at all, and yet I'd heard every word.
This wasn't business. This was surgical.