Chapter One
Simone
When I found out who had placed the fresh stock on the wrong shelf in the cold store, not only would hell be paid, their wages would be docked considerably. And, if they had any issue with that, they could be thankful they still had a job. If they still had one. I hadn’t yet made up my mind.
Today was not a day where I would be taking prisoners. I had no space. And very little patience.
“Someone looks like she could do with a day at the spa.”
I raised my head over the counter and saw two of the women I considered to be my closest friends. However, if I was going to get a lecture on being too harsh on my employees and needing to find alternative ways to relax, I’d downgrade them to paying customers.
“I have no time for days at the spa.” I stood up, aware that I was wearing chef whites that were anything but white and my face definitely had a brown streak down it from an unknown source.
Vanessa and Sophie were looking as if they were ready for a photoshoot for London’s top business women with perfect make-up and what were probably designer suits. I felt decidedly under-washed at the very least.
“What time do you finish? We’re treating ourselves to lunch, shopping, cocktails and maybe more shopping seeing as Jackson has Teddy for the full day.” Vanessa beamed at me, one hand on her still softly rounded belly. The clever money said that she wasn’t making any effort to lose the baby weight because it wouldn’t be that long before she was accumulating more of it.
I shook my head, wondering what fresh hell I’d designed for myself by running two restaurants and being in the midst of opening a third. “I don’t think I will finish today. I may as well just move in here or into Toad Hall.”
“That’s a point. Why exactly are you here? I thought you were interviewing chefs at the new place today?” Sophie Slater knew all about running a business; she owned eight spas across the capital, with one specialising solely in men’s wellbeing. I’d met her through Vanessa and we’d bonded over too much vodka and her tales of terrible one night stands – mine were sadly lacking because of, again, the whole time thing.
Plus, we had five divorces between the two of us – there was nothing like sharing good divorce stories to solidify a friendship.
“I was. But Van Gogh has phoned in sick and I can’t get in touch with Jack. We have a party of ten in at one and I’m pretty sure I’ve got a food critic coming in at some point today.” Which was never what I needed. We had a list of London’s terrible tasters pinned up in the staff room, with their names, preferences, foibles and photos. One picture was currently on the dartboard but needed replacing as it was a little too holey.
Sophie raised a brow. “You have a chef called Van Gogh?”
“Victor. You know we rarely use normal names here.”
She gave a little nod, her blonde hair coming loose. “Do we need to have the working-twenty-five-days-straight-isn’t-healthy-talk again?”
“What I need is a chef who is reliable and manages to get in to do their shifts. I knew Van Gogh was starting to get twitchy. His previous employer – Donny from Haven - told me that he did four months and then moved on elsewhere. However, I was arrogant enough to think that he’d be different here. More fucking fool me.” I knew I was walking the boundary between completely losing the plot and chef-meltdown when the cuss words came out.
“And if you were at those interviews for the Tipsy Toad, you might be slaughtering two big fat birds with one stone. How many times have you tried Jack?” Vanessa sat down on one of the bar stools, picking up the lunch time menu.
Jack was one of my chefs at The Mount Street Social, probably my best chef out of the three, and possibly the most talented across both of my restaurants. He had never let me down, despite me trying to find fault for no particular reason.
“Twice. He worked last night so he might be sleeping. You two get comfy; I’ll get Rich to serve you. How’s Teddy, Van?” I couldn’t not ask about her little boy who had stolen my heart. He was three months old and as cute as peach pie with added sugar.
She gave a thoroughly satisfied smile. “He’s starting to understand the concept of sleep, which is useful. Seph babysat him last last night. We came in to find Teddy asleep on Seph’s chest and Seph desperately trying not to fall asleep. It really was cute.”
She held out her phone and showed me a picture, Seph’s sleepy eyes looking over the thick-rimmed glasses that made him look like a hot geek. Not that I was lusting after my friend’s younger brother. He was eye candy but he confided that much over food that he felt like my brother.
“I assume he’s since put that on social media?” Seph was nothing if not an attention whore.
“Indeed. I think the likes were in the tens of thousands. Jackson was calling him several names when I was leaving.” She looked at the menu. “I’m thinking a pre-shopping cocktail won’t hurt.”
“Have you stopped breastfeeding?” I knew she’d been finding it painful and difficult, having been on the end of an emotional phone call when she was telling me what a failure she was as a mother.
Vanessa nodded. “Not the easiest decision, but we were mainly on formula anyway. And he’s growing so much. I gave it my best shot.”
Sophie put a hand on her shoulder. “Stop it. We’ve had this conversation. And if you turn into a blubbering mess I will tell Jackson and you know what he’ll do.”
I smiled at Sophie. We all knew what he would do. Out of all of his brothers he was the biggest fixer and if he thought that Vanessa was still feeling down about the whole feeding thing, he’d be trying to make some huge gesture.
“I’m over it. We have a healthy son who is on the ninety-seventh centile for his height. And the rest of today is about me.”
The restaurant door opened and a mountain of a man walked through it; one that I recognised by the sound of his footsteps or even the faint scent of his cologne. Working in a kitchen was intimate. You spent fourteen-hour days together in a small confined space with a ton of heat. It was pressured: food was an essential and everyone was a critic, especially on a Saturday night when the restaurant was packed and what could go wrong would.
