A Perfect SEAL

I don’t, of course. I’m not actually a crazy person.

None of the staff can afford a day off, so, I’m making the best of a bad situation. Spring cleaning it is. All the nooks and crannies that never get the attention they need. With the water shut down, the flooding in the kitchen has stopped. No one saw anything, of course. That would be too easy. I’m certain someone in my kitchen has been paid off, but what can I do? Fire them all?

It will take three days for a plumber to come in. Luckily, I know a plumber, though he’s about two hours away. Imagine that. My pipe busts at the precise moment that every single plumber in town is mysteriously busy for the next week.

The two events are linked in my mind, and even if they had nothing to do with one another, I can’t separate them now. Worse, I keep thinking about Jake Ferry showing up at my lounge when his father’s place is right across the street, and the fact that I turned him down. And right when this crisis comes down, who do I see peeking at me, smoking a cigarette like a smug bastard?

Jake. Fucking. Ferry.

Once, when I was about thirteen, I was experimenting with a recipe. I had read about using lemon and orange zest, but all I had in the house were grapefruits, so I used grapefruit zest. At first, it actually tasted pretty good. So good that I added a little more, and then a little more. A whole bag of zested grapefruits, in fact.

I cooked the dish, and poured the sauce over it, and was surprised when it actually tasted really good. So good I had two helpings.

Then, I got sick.

Weeks later, I went to cut a grapefruit in half. I got a whiff of the skin and like some Pavlovian reflex my stomach turned over and I was sick again. I haven’t touched a grapefruit since.

If Jake Ferry was under my skin before, well… now, he’s a grapefruit. Problem solved. Right?

He walks out of Ferry Lights as I watch the doors, stumbling down the broad stairs to the curb where he chucks the new valet on the shoulder and laughs. I should be sick to my stomach. Instead I’m watching his easy humor and the way he actually talks with the kid instead of just treating him like shrubbery like most of the guests do. How can a man like that do a thing like this?

Well, he probably didn’t do it himself. Must have been one of the Ferry thugs, but surely Jake knew about it. Had it happened that night he visited? When I was distracted?

What was it about Jake that had me so attracted to him? I’m not a shallow girl. Well — I’m just as switched on by a hot guy as any other girl with eyes, but I’m not in short supply for suitors and wannabe boytoys. So why Jake?

The valet leaves to get his car, and returns in a low, sleek yellow Jaguar that I can hear idling even from behind closed doors. Ridiculous. Jake passes the kid a tip, and then peels out.

Look at the kid, staring after Jake Ferry like he’s just met his hero.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I glance over my shoulder, at the staff inside busy vacuuming and dusting and scrubbing tables and chairs. No one’s looking at me just now, so I take the moment while I have it.

Through the doors, down the sidewalk and then around the side of the building to a little nook in the wall that’s hidden by tall bushes. There’s a pile of cigarette butts in one corner. Guess I’m not the only one who knows about this little spot. I’ll have to talk to someone about that, maybe put an ashtray here.

It’s out of the way, and that’s all I need right now.

I get as far as letting my eyes burn with almost-tears. My throat tightens and aches, and I can feel so much more underneath — but this is as far as it gets. Leaning against my building, I hang suspended in the near release of what I know would be a cathartic crying session if I could only get it started. It’s supposed to be therapeutic, they say.

My rational mind steps in, though, and short-circuits my emotional one like it always does. I’m overreacting. I’m above this. Janie Hall doesn’t cry; she gets to work.

The pipe will get fixed, and I’ll be back in business. Already texts and emails are coming in with messages of support, my higher-profile clientele all talking about having a back-in-business soirée. Hell, maybe it would be a good night to roll out the hot sauce samples and make it a big event.

And that thought is the one that sends me back up, out of the depression and the doubt for a little bit. That’s what I’ll do. Get the place open, announce the event when I do… it might take a little longer to get the samples produced, but I can spin the back-in-business event to market the big reveal, and maybe even roll out some of the chef’s new dishes in advance. It would take a few extra catering staff. Maybe Chester could come up with some shots or cocktails using the milder hot sauces.

Then again, that assumes I’ll make it that far. I want to be confident; I want to believe that I can do this no matter what I have to overcome. I’ve already gotten so far and believe me, I had a hell of a lot of hurdles to leap and hoops to dive through.

But none of those hurdles was ever a petty billionaire with a vicious streak and a bone to pick with me.

Chapter 34

Jake

As if busting a pipe in the kitchen wasn’t enough, Reginald smirks at me as he reveals the two in the one-two punch he plans to deliver against Janie Hall and her establishment.

“Nothing hurts public image worse for a woman like Miss Hall than finding out she slept her way to the top,” he says, laughi

ng like he’s made some kind of joke.