Chapter Two
Ben sat at the table in the corner, unnoticed by the staff as they went about their daily business. Or at least, they pretended not to notice him. He wasn’t sure which was true.
The lunch rush had unfolded like a symphony played entirely on pots and frying pans: too loud, too fast, yet somehow still beautiful.
Raj barked orders with the calm authority of a ship’s captain steering his vessel through a storm. Franco zipped in and out, balancing plates, stealing mouthfuls of sauce, hugging guests he apparently knew from yoga or the farmers market or God knew where.
He looks like a man who does yoga . Franco’s wide shoulders and narrow waist hadn’t escaped Ben’s attention, although he tried his damnedest not to be caught staring.
With some effort, Ben dragged his focus back to the rest of the staff.
Willow tripped over a stray bag of flour twice, cursed fluently in three languages—Ben was impressed: one of them sounded like Swedish—and somehow managed to seat a party of ten with no reservation.
Mina dashed from table to table with dessert trays piled like precarious wedding cakes.
Ollie took one look at a broken glass behind the bar and sighed, as if he’d already used up his annual emotional allowance.
From his vantage point, Ben catalogued each misstep: the unordered cases of wine he’d spied cluttering the dry storage, the hand-written rosters stuck crookedly on the fridge, the inconsistent plating, and the servers hollering across the dining room as though they were in a pub brawl.
He saw customers waiting longer than they should, receipts disappearing into random pockets, and cooks improvising specials mid-service because they ran out of an ingredient.
Back in Melbourne, if a junior associate had run a presentation this chaotically, Ben would have fired them before they’d reached the second slide.
He pressed his palm flat to the wall beside him, as if to steady himself.
This place isn’t a boardroom. It was alive, shambolic, loud, and pulsating with warmth. And yet every instinct in him itched to fix it: streamline the workflows, digitise the ordering system, implement scheduling software, restructure the chain of command…
He tried to imagine these people responding to a quarterly Key Performance Indicators review.
That’s assuming they’re even acquainted with KPI.
Willow would probably throw her pen at his head.
Franco would write love sonnets on the margins.
Raj might just walk out and start a roadside stand selling those thin pancakes made with crushed lentils and rice, the ones Ben loved eating every—
Ben pinched the bridge of his nose.
This is exactly what you wanted, remember? To leave the sterile glass towers behind, to stop feeling like a well-dressed ghost haunting his own life.
He hadn’t expected the transition to taste like panic and honey at the same time.
From the doorway to the kitchen, Franco shot him a grin so bright it knocked the breath from Ben’s lungs for half a second. Franco tossed him a wink and twirled back toward the kitchen, his apron strings fluttering.
Ben’s stomach flipped.
He’s an unstoppable force of nature. Watching him move was reminiscent of a tornado, all wild energy and impossible grace, leaving Ben dizzy and breathless in its wake. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, even as his heart pounded like a fist against his ribs.
Stop. Staring.
He glanced at his watch, a habit he hated and couldn’t break. 3:47 p.m. What would I be doing right now in Melbourne? Probably on a conference call with a London client, discussing budget cuts and headcount reductions. Then he gave an internal snort.
A call to London? At what would be before seven in the morning UK time? No client is that keen.
Instead, he was sitting in the corner of a restaurant he barely understood, fighting the urge to either run away or roll up his sleeves and reorganise the entire operation overnight.
He pulled his notebook from his back pocket and flipped to a fresh page. His handwriting, usually neat and clinical, came out hurried and jagged.
— Bottleneck at dish station.
— No standard portion control.
— Inventory not updated since last week.
— Overlap on staff breaks.
— Guest complaints not logged formally.
— Weak profit margins on certain dishes.
Ben clicked his pen repeatedly, each click a small thunderclap in his head.
Change was necessary. He knew that.
But how do I fix something that seems to function on pure emotion and charm alone?
How should he rewire a place that seemed to thrive on the very chaos he wanted to tame ?
Ben closed his eyes and took a long breath, inhaling the swirl of rosemary, thyme, burnt sugar, and something distinctly Franco.
The fact he recognised the latter as such both captivated and disarmed him.
Forget the pretty waiter. Concentrate.
Except Franco left pretty in his dust.
Franco was stunning.
Tomorrow. I’ll start small. Triage first. Then structure. Then systems.
And just like that, a staff meeting loomed in his future.
Dear God, I hope I can survive it.
He slipped his notebook back into his pocket and stood.
Willow noticed his movement and came over to him. “Seen enough?”
He nodded. “Tomorrow morning, before we open, I want everyone here for a staff meeting. And I mean everyone , not just those scheduled to work that day. Can you round them all up?”
Willow smiled. “Sure. I’m used to herding this lot. Except most of the time, they’re more like cats than sheep.” She tilted her head. “I’d expected nothing less, to be honest. A staff meeting is essential if you’re gonna survive this madhouse. You need to get the lay of the land.”
Survive. The word struck him like a jolt of caffeine.
Was this really what I signed up for?
Watching the restaurant in full swing had been an experience he could have summed up in five words: Lunch rush: disaster management plan .
The place was pure chaos. Okay, so it was a different kind of chaos compared to the corporate world he’d left behind, but he could already tell that running Sage & Thyme was less about precision and more about surviving.
The prospect both terrified and exhilarated him.
He couldn’t wait to get started.
Franco leaned against the prep counter, idly slicing a leftover lemon into thin wheels. The post-lunch lull had settled over the kitchen, that brief, precious hour when the din receded and everyone snatched a moment to breathe.
Raj stood across from him, wiping down the pass, while Lexie perched on a milk crate nearby, scrawling menu notes in a battered sketchbook. Mina lingered near the pastry fridge, munching on a broken piece of tart shell she’d salvaged.
Franco flicked a lemon slice at her, and she caught it midair with a deftness he admired, rolling her eyes.
“Any more culinary assault and I’m quitting to become a potter.” She shoved the lemon in her mouth regardless.
Franco smirked but his mind drifted past the empty dining room, the disarray of plates and smudged glassware, to the corner where Ben had sat moments before: tall, too neatly pressed even in casual clothes, his pen clicking like a metronome for his internal panic.
Franco’s fingers itched, remembering the way Ben’s eyes had darted up every time Franco came near, as though he couldn’t help himself. The way he’d pressed a palm to the wall, as though he might collapse from sheer overstimulation.
Franco recognised that I-don’t-know-how-to-breathe-in-here look. He’d seen it on first-time cooks dropped onto the line, or on kids during their first solo shift. But on Ben, a man who looked as if he could dismantle a hedge fund with a single email, it was endearing.
Devastatingly endearing.
“Earth to Franco,” Raj snapped, dragging Franco’s mind back to the kitchen. “You gonna keep slicing lemons all day or help me with the prep list?”
Franco sliced another lemon so thin it was nearly transparent. “I’m multitasking,” he said with a shrug .
Lexie snorted. “Multitasking, or daydreaming about Mr. Tall, Dark, and Spreadsheet?”
Franco’s knife slipped, nicking his thumb. He set it down too forcefully and turned to face her.
“I wasn’t—”
“Oh my God, you totally were ,” Mina cut in, her tone and expression gleeful. She leaned forward, her eyes bright. “You’ve got that ridiculous glazed look. Like when you found that heirloom tomato stall last summer.” She tossed him the First Aid box. “Get that cut covered up.”
Franco’s cheeks grew hot as he reached into the box for a Band-Aid. His thumb protected, he swiped a lemon pip off the counter with more force than was necessary.
“Ben is… interesting,” he muttered, glaring at the pip.
“Interesting,” Raj echoed dryly. Franco jerked his head up to find Raj quirking one of his bushy eyebrows. “I call that Franco code for ‘I want to lick his jawline and ruin his entire life.’”
Lexie shrieked with laughter, nearly dropping her sketchbook. Mina leaned against the fridge, howling. Even Raj’s usually stern mouth twitched at the corners.
Franco lifted his hands in surrender. “He’s just so… precise. Controlled. You know, like those little bonsais? You want to shake ’em loose.”
Raj snorted. “You don’t want to prune him, Franco. You want to climb him like a tree.”
Franco opened his mouth to argue, but no words came out. His cheeks burned.
Busted .
Maybe he did want to climb Ben. Maybe he wanted to feel that tight coil of control unravel under his hands, wanted to press him against a counter and watch that polished corporate mask crack wide open.
He shook himself. Jesus . Either I need a cold shower or an exorcism .
Before he could come up with a suitably witty or scathing riposte, Willow pushed through the kitchen doors, her cheeks flushed, her hair escaping her bun the way it always did. She looked ready for battle.
“All right, listen up, children.” She clapped her hands sharply. “New sheriff in town wants a staff meeting tomorrow morning before service. Everyone . No exceptions.”
Lexie groaned and flopped dramatically onto her crate, arms thrown wide. “I have to babysit my niece in the morning. She’s going to learn new curse words if I’m here.”
Raj frowned but gave a curt nod, as if already mentally blocking time in his prep schedule. Mina scrunched her nose.
Franco straightened, doing his damnedest not to look too eager. “What time?”
Willow squinted at him, her eyes narrowing as though she knew exactly what he was thinking. “Nine sharp. Wear clean shirts. And if any of you are late, Ben will probably make you write an essay on time management.”
Lexie kicked her legs in the air, muttering, “I didn’t leave corporate life to do essays…”
Franco only half-heard them. He was already picturing Ben standing at the front of the dining room, his spine rod-straight, his jaw clenched, that cool gaze flicking over them like a general surveying an undisciplined troop.
He bit his lip, his mind wandering to the way Ben’s throat had flexed when he swallowed earlier. The faint, involuntary shiver whenever Franco got too close.
There was something under all that stiffness, some hidden softness or heat that Franco wanted to uncover like a pearl in an oyster.
He realised too late that he was smiling.
Willow squinted at him. “Why are you grinning like that?”
Franco cleared his throat and grabbed the lemon slices, shoving them into a container. “No reason,” he said quickly.
Raj made a disgusted noise. “God help us. The last thing we need is you making heart eyes at the boss. Don’t we have enough chaos around here?”
Franco ignored him, closing the container and turning to the sink. His heart thudded, giddy and reckless.
Tomorrow. A staff meeting. An actual chance to see Ben try to wrangle them all.
Franco couldn’t wait.