“My mother and I have been good to you; we have given you free rein in this restaurant. My mother—who is not a strong woman—worked very hard to bring Onions back to its former glory, which was difficult for her to do without a husband. But somehow she did it, and she has included you in every aspect of the rebirth of this restaurant.”
His statement was so absurd that Kady almost laughed aloud. She, Kady Long, was responsible for the rebirth of the run-down old steak house, and what she’d managed to do she had done in spite of Mrs. Norman’s constant interference.
Gregory seemed to be waiting for Kady’s apology, but she just continued to look at him, so he sighed heavily, then withdrew a thick file folder from an open desk drawer. “I wanted this to be a surprise.” He glared at her in reproach. “A surprise for our wedding night, but your conduct tonight is forcing me to forgo that lovely surprise.”
At this Kady did feel the tiniest bit of guilt. What was it? Jewelry? Keys to a new car? Maybe he had put her name on the deed to the house. Or given her a third share in the restaurant that she had made into a success.
With a gesture of disgust, he tossed the file folder onto Kady’s lap, and she opened it, but, truthfully, the papers inside made no sense to her. It looked as though Gregory and his mother were buying into something along with a lot of other people. But look as she might, Kady didn’t see her name anywhere on any of the papers.
“Kady,” Gregory said in a heavy voice. “I have never told you this, but I have made great plans for us after we are married. Just recently you ridiculed me when I was hesitant about your welfare scheme. You assumed that I was a snob and a bigot, but you never asked me if the reason I was hesitant was because I had other plans for us.”
Pausing for a moment, he pointed at the folder on her lap. “I am going to take some of your best recipes, especially the ones you’ve served the President, and mass produce them.”
Kady blinked at him, having no idea what he meant. “Mass produce my recipes?”
“Yes. But you have now ruined the surprise,” he said, not able to resist another dig. “I have been working with investors, all of whom have eaten here, and they are willing to put some big money into the Norman House Restaurants that will open all over the country. My surprise was to tell you on our wedding night that I was going to allow you to develop recipes that could be produced on a large scale and very cheaply.”
It took Kady a moment to digest this information. “You were planning to franchise me?”
Gregory didn’t seem to hear the horror in her voice. “Women all over America are complaining that men think of them only as someone to stay home and take care of the kids, but I have never thought of you that way, Kady,” he said with pride. “To me you are . . .” His face brightened. “Big business. Yes, to me you are big business.” The way he said it was as though it was the highest compliment he had ever given anyone.
“You never loved me, did you?” she said softly.
Gregory rolled his eyes as though to say that was unimportant, and his voice sounded bored with the whole concept. “Of course I did. I do love you. I love what we are going to do together, what we can achieve together.”
“But what about passion? What about sex?”
“Kady, really! In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I am a very practical man. Oh, I know that my extraordinary good looks make women see me as a romantic figure, but I can assure you that I have a brain behind these eyes. And, let’s get real here, Kady, if I wanted a wife for passion and sex, I would have chosen a woman who is less . . .” He looked her up and down.
“Fat? Is that the word you’re looking for?” she asked.
“I don’t think we need to go into this now or at any time in the future, for that matter. Marriages based on passion end in acrimonious and expensive divorce. Our marriage will have a foundation of concrete.”
Suddenly, it was as though a great weight lifted from Kady. She knew she should be devastated by what Gregory was telling her. After all, she was hearing that the man she loved, the man she planned to marry, had never really loved her. He’d only wanted to get her under contract so he would have the power to bully her into helping him force yet more greasy, nonnutritional food down the throats of the American people. And he was going to call them Norman House Restaurants. Wonder if he planned to give me even a slice of the action? she thought.
But Kady wasn’t devastated. Instead, she had never felt lighter—or happier—in her life. She didn’t have to go through with her marriage with Gregory! Maybe she had known it wouldn’t work since that first day when she’d walked into the restaurant so glad to see him, only to be told not to kiss him. Maybe she’d even known while she was in Legend that she didn’t
love Gregory. Maybe telling herself that she was in love with another man made her believe she couldn’t love Cole.
From inside her pocket, she withdrew her key ring, then removed the two keys to the restaurant and put them on Gregory’s desk. “Good-bye, Gregory,” she said, then turned on her heel and started out the door.
He caught her arm before she reached the door. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” he asked, but when he saw her face, he dropped her arm and his face softened.
“Kady, I love you. I asked you to marry me because I love you. Out of all the women I could have had, I—”
Kady’s face reflected her amusement. “You chose me. You with your ‘extraordinary good looks’ chose fat, frumpy little Kady, the poor little mouse who was so grateful for attention from someone like you that she asked for nothing in return. You didn’t have to send me flowers, or take me out to fairs or on picnics. You didn’t have to buy me an engagement ring. You didn’t even have to take me out to dinner.”
“Kady, it wasn’t like that. Look, I’ve just bought us two tickets to the ice show next Thursday night,” he said as he pulled the tickets out of his coat pocket and thrust them into her hand.
“I work on Thursday nights, did you forget that?” she said as she looked down at the tickets, then saw that someone had written on one of them. “Can’t wait to see you, Greggy. Bunches of love, Bambi.” All the i’s were dotted with little hearts.
Kady looked up at Gregory and laughed. “Tell Bambi hello for me,” she said as she walked out the door, leaving Gregory sputtering behind her.
Chapter 19
“DONE!” KADY SAID WITH A SMILE AS SHE LOOKED AT THE PILE of neatly addressed and stamped envelopes. Thirty-one of them, all ready to go to restaurants and hotels all over America.
It had been three days now since she had walked out of Onions and left Gregory standing there with his tickets and his Bambi. That night she had felt free and ready to take on the world, but by morning, she was thinking, What in the world have I done? She had $6,212.32 in the bank, not much to live on until she found a job. And besides that, how did one find a job? Or at least one that Kady wanted. She had been her own boss for too long to try to work as an under chef for some bad-tempered head cook.