Burning Down the Spouse (14 page)

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Authors: Dakota Cassidy

Tags: #Separated Women, #Greek Americans, #Humorous, #Contemporary, #Women Cooks, #General, #Romance, #Humorous Fiction, #Fiction, #Cultural Heritage, #Love Stories

BOOK: Burning Down the Spouse
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With a sigh, Kiki dropped her paws from Frankie’s chest, flopping to sprawl across her lap. Frankie gave her a loving nudge. “Fine. But if you’re jealous when I bring home a ‘handmade by Frankie Bennett’ garden gnome to Auntie Gail, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”
 
“Frankie?”
“Nikos?”
“Where are you right now?”
Cuddling the phone to her ear, Frankie decided every woman who’d been scorned and needed a pathetic, never-gonna-happen fantasy should have a wake-up call from Nikos Antonakas. It was decidedly sinful. After two weeks of working with him, she’d become a never-gonna-happen fantasy aficionado.
She burrowed deeper into the blankets, relishing the warmth of her favorite afghan and Nikos’s silken voice in her ear. “Isn’t that a rather personal question from my boss?”
“Well, I guess it would depend on why I’m asking.”
Frankie frowned with a wide yawn, setting a sleepy Kiki on her chest. “Okay, why are you asking?”
“Can I ask you one more thing first?” he whispered, delicious and husky into the mouthpiece.
The visual she had of him, sitting at his office desk, in that tightfitting black T-shirt, his chest hard, and screaming her name came to mind. He was probably gnawing on a pencil, his reading glasses propped on top of his thick head of hair while he did two things at once. So. Sexy. So, yes. Ohhhh, yes. He could ask her anything he wanted. Any—thing. “Uh-huh.”
“Wasn’t it me who hired you even though you were clearly unwilling to do anything other than feel sorry for yourself?”
Wow. What a harsh to her warm, fuzzy vibe. The haze of sleep she’d been in began to lift—and not pleasantly. “Wait a minute. I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself. I was—”
“You were moping, and you did whatever you could to get out of getting off your backside and working. That’s what you did. But I hired you anyway, and this is the kind of thanks I get for taking such a leap of faith with someone who has little or no skills?”
Leap of what? In an instant, she was wide awake. “Where are we going with this?”
“We’re going to the unemployment line if you don’t get your butt in here
now
!” he roared.
Holy hissy fit. Nikos almost never yelled. He was loud—boisterous even when the pressure was on during rush hour—but he never yelled in anger.
Frankie’s eyes flew to the alarm clock on the nightstand in panic. Ten. It was ten in the morning. She wasn’t scheduled to work until one thirty. She’d seen it with her own two eyes—right there on the board in the back room where she’d gone every day for two weeks to see the schedule.
It was also the only reason she’d stayed up so late last night, surfing the Internet on Gail’s laptop in search of a hobby. Shit. She should have known better than to let herself get sucked into that ladies’ blog about making furniture out of beer cans.
Frankie glanced at the clock again. It was only
ten
. She sighed with relief. “But I’m not scheduled to work until one thirty. So I’m clearly missing your point. Today’s my late day.” It was.
“Huh,” Nikos rasped against her ear with a sarcastic drip to his words. “Funny. I’m looking at the schedule right now, and it says you should have been here an
hour
ago. So unless you want to find yourself out of a perfectly good job you need, I’d skip your morning massage followed by eggs Benedict and fluffy, freshly baked croissants and get the hell in here fast,
princess
!” he bellowed.
The phone went dead with a crackle while she sat stunned, but only for a moment.
Frankie threw the blankets off and shot into the bathroom, ignoring her pasty pallor and puffy eyes. Jamming the toothbrush into her mouth, she scrubbed her teeth, seething while she did. She’d seen that schedule and it had said one thirty, and when she got into that diner today, she was going to show Mr. Hot Pants he needed a new pair of glasses. She stuffed her unwashed hair into a ponytail, hurled an unfazed Kiki at her aunt with a plea to take her potties, and flew out the door, still unclear why she was rushing off to a job she hadn’t wanted in the first place. Were people dying because she wasn’t there to slice onions for onion rings?
And when had a job, especially
this
job, become so important?
Oh, I dunno, Frankie. Maybe it was when you decided there was still life and oh, hormones left in your waiflike body and they were all screaming Nikos’s name?
Twenty minutes later she screeched into the parking lot, slamming on the brakes and throwing her car into park. She fought the harsh blasts of cold air, pressing her hands to her ears it was so sharp. A gust of wind later and she was inside the diner doors—the very quiet diner with only one patron.
She’d missed the breakfast hour rush—hoo boy.
Chloe greeted her from behind the front counter with a smile that never reached her beautiful sloe eyes. “Must have been some night for you to oversleep like that, huh, Frankie?”
Hector shook his head at her before gliding out from behind the counter and off to the back with a slight wave of his hand over his shoulder.
Frankie’s eyes narrowed in Chloe’s direction, catching her slender hands on her curvy hips and the glimmer of something in her gaze Frankie wasn’t quite sure she understood.
One of the customers at the counter spun around on his stool. “Is
that
her?”
Chloe’s dark head nodded in his direction. “That’s her, Ralph. Mitch in the Kitchen’s wife. Oh, sorry, ex-wife. Right here in our very own little diner. A real live celebrity, right, Frankie?”
Frankie froze, tightening her clutch on her purse. Her cheeks flushed while her feet refused to make a move for the nearest escape.
“You sure that’s her?” Ralph asked, his slender, wrinkled face clearly unsure.
Chloe nodded, waving her hand in Frankie’s direction. “Come say hello to Ralph, Frankie. He’s a big
Mitch in the Kitchen
fan.”
Ralph squinted his eyes. “You sure don’t look like her. She was darned pretty and had some meat on her bones. I remember because the wife and I met her at one of them there book signings Mitch had. Drove all the way to Manhattan just to see him, too. What a pain in the keister, all that traffic in the city.”
“Well, they do say the camera adds ten pounds, and you know, after her nationally televised
incident
, I imagine the stress shaved off an inch or three,” Chloe offered helpfully while Frankie stood rooted in place like a teenager caught by a cop with a flashlight, macking it up with her high school boyfriend in the backseat of a car.
Okay, so now would be a really good time to run for cover. Hide beneath her shame like the sissy-Mary she’d become these past six and a half months.
Yet neither her legs nor her desire to avoid public punishment would cooperate.
Sad—so sad, Frankie. Who are you, sister, and when the hell did you trade in your spine for hush money?
“You know what else they say, Chloe?” a voice called from behind her on a chilly burst of air. “They say waitresses are nosy bitches with no lives. Until you, I might have begged to differ.”
A hand with red fingernails attached to it planted itself on Frankie’s shaking shoulder. A sultry voice whispered in her ear, “You can stand up for yourself any time now, Frankie. I know you’re not afraid to. I’ve seen you in action with a wire whisk, among other kitchen accoutrements.”
Jasmine.
Despite Jasmine’s encouragement, Frankie’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth like it’d been tarred in place. Whatever was up Chloe’s ass wouldn’t be pulled out by her razor-sharp wit at the rate she was going. “But Chloe didn’t cheat on me like Mitch did. Anger has its degrees and all,” Frankie whispered back, grateful for the musky scent of Jasmine’s perfume and her warming presence at her side.
Chloe’s face went from sly to sour in seconds. “Oh, look. It’s Jasmine. Here to pick up another free round of coffee for your strippers so they won’t fall asleep on their poles?”
Jasmine chuckled, as though she relished swooping in for Chloe’s kill. Crossing her arms over her buxom chest, she purred, “No, kitten. I’m here for lunch. Now go be a good food service engineer and bring Jasmine some water—with a slice of lemon in it while I decide what I want you to
serve
me, please. Don’t blow it now. I just shot a wad of big words at you, and I know you confuse easily, but your tip depends on you getting it right.”
Me-ow.
Chloe’s face turned several shades of an unattractive red before she scurried off to the kitchen, and Ralph made a stunned beeline for the door without a backward glance.
Frankie’s mouth fell open.
Jasmine chucked her under the chin with a hearty chuckle. “Now that’s how you put a little viper like Chloe in her place. Next time, speak up, Frankie. What she did was cruel and unfair.”
Frankie’s breath shuddered out on an exhale. “Thank you. I—I—”
Jasmine shrugged her shoulders before removing her coat and laying it on the stool at the counter. “You need to find your tongue is what you need to do, and don’t be silly. No thanks necessary. Any chance I get to shoot down that conniving bitch makes it a beautiful day in the neighborhood.”
“Obviously,” Frankie commented, unsure if she should pry into the reasons Jasmine so disliked Chloe.
Sliding onto a stool, Jasmine patted the one next to her. “It’s a long story, but there’s no love lost between Chloe and me. That’s all that you need to know. Oh, and that she’s a jealous busybody. That’s always good to keep in mind. Now sit with me. Do you have time for a break?”
Frankie frowned, pushing up the sleeves of her bulky sweater. “I might have time for a forever break if Nikos is still around. Do they hire older women at Fluffy’s? I bet if I put on a couple of pounds what I lack in boobage I can make up for in sparkling personality.”
Jasmine’s giggle lightened Frankie’s mood. “What happened?”
“I can’t get into it now. Suffice it to say, I might be practicing my pole-dancing skills on the nearest lamppost if I don’t get back to the kitchen, but I promise to spill another time.”
“You free for dinner?”
Frankie snorted. “That was a joke, right?”
“A joke?”
“I live in a senior citizens’s retirement village with my Aunt Gail, Jasmine. You don’t have pressing engagements when you’re in bed by eight. Well, unless there’s a
Match Game
marathon. Then it’s on. So yes, I’m about as free as unwanted advice and bird watching from a park bench where the homeless gather.”
Jasmine smiled, tucking her blonde hair behind her ear. “Good. Then let’s have dinner. Anywhere in particular?”
“Anywhere but here,” Frankie said on a laugh.
“Welllllll, look who decided to work today,” Nikos said from the kitchen doorway, his muscled forearm holding the door open. “Did you get your mani-pedi all taken care of? I hope you didn’t forget that facial. I wouldn’t want you to have clogged pores or anything on account of me and my grueling requirements for eight solid hours of your precious time.”
“God, even when he’s an asshole, he’s beautiful,” Jasmine whispered with a grin.
“If only that weren’t the truth,” Frankie said back in hushed tones. “Gotta go, but I’ll call you later and we’ll make arrangements to meet.” She ducked under Nikos’s arm, sticking her tongue out at him just before she did.
Exactly when her balls had decided to make an appearance, she was unsure. Though, they would’ve been much more helpful if they’d shown up when Chloe was in attack mode.
Nikos was right behind her, stalking her like so much prey. “So, princess, what held you up this morning? Shoe shopping?”
Whirling on him, Frankie poked a finger in his chest. The title “boss” flew right out the window hot on the heels of her common sense. “I told you what happened, Nikos. I read the schedule just yesterday and it said
one thirty
. Not ten. So while I realize you probably think my fifth-grade reading skills can be attributed to some sort of confusion in my pretty, pampered head, I know what I saw.”

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