Playing with Piper (Menage MfM Romance Novel) (Playing for Love Book 3) (4 page)

“
I
can’t believe
how late she was.” Wyatt still sounds pissed when he storms into my office Monday.

“She showed up eventually,” I argue from behind my desk, though I’m more than a little irritated with Piper myself. “She was late, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” Wyatt’s voice rises in outrage. “That’s all? She showed up at eight to a seven o’clock meeting.”

I cock my head to one side, and watch Wyatt pacing restlessly in front of me. “She’s getting under your skin, isn’t she?” I’ve seen Wyatt around Piper. He can hide it from other people, but I know him too well. He’s fighting his attraction to her. Half of his grouchiness is just an acute case of blue balls.

“Fuck off.”

My lips twitch. “Are you free tomorrow night? Saturday was a bust, but Piper really needs some help. I thought we could start with the menu.”

He comes to a dead halt in front of me. “Had we not agreed to invest, I’d be tempted to walk away, Owen,” he says bluntly. “There are a thousand restaurants in the city that we could work with. Instead, we’ve managed to pick a rich Southern princess who thinks this is a game. I don’t like wasting my time.”

“Why do you think she’s rich?”

“Her handbag is Prada and it costs three thousand dollars. I should know - I bought one for Maisie last year.”

“Really?”

He nods. “How does a chef whose restaurant is empty more often than it’s full have enough money to buy a Prada bag? And if she has money, why doesn’t she use it to fix the restaurant? Three thousand dollars would go a long way in that place.”

“If she spends it on the restaurant, she attracts attention.” Mendez might be on the right track with his suspicions, after all. I wonder what Piper Jackson is mixed up in.

Wyatt sighs. “I shouldn’t have told you that. You’re determined to investigate this, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“Fine. Let’s meet Piper tomorrow night. Might as well get it over with.”

“That’s the spirit,” I say dryly. “Talking about Maisie, did you see her blog post today?” I turn my screen toward him. “She’s managed to talk Yelp and the Hell’s Kitchen business association into sponsoring a reality TV-style contest for local restaurants.”

Maisie Hayes, Wyatt’s ex-girlfriend, runs a very popular food blog in New York. I haven’t seen her in a while, but I read her blog regularly, as does everyone in the industry. She’s entertaining and very insightful.

“What?” Wyatt looks surprised, and he’s silent as he reads the announcement. “Good for her,” he says when he’s done. “She’s wanted to expand into television for a while. She must have been working on this for months.”

I nod. Say what you want about Maisie, but she doesn’t shy away from work. “Incidentally, did Celia tell you that Carl wants to meet? The restaurant next to him just shut its doors. He’s going to pitch an expansion to us.”

Wyatt glances at his phone. “Yes, it’s on my calendar at two tomorrow.”

I frown. “I thought she was going to book it for today. Carl said the competition for this lease is going to be fierce.”

Wyatt looks uncomfortable. “She probably tried, but I’m busy this afternoon. I’m meeting Stone Bradley in an hour.”

His admission surprises me. Last week, Wyatt’s plan had been to bury his head in the sand and pretend his father didn’t exist. “To try to find your dad?”

He nods reluctantly. “I decided to get Bradley involved over the weekend. I don’t like feeling out of control. I don’t know where my father is or what he wants. It’s time to fix that.”

I snort. Wyatt likes being in control? Talk about stating the obvious. “You don’t know anything about Piper either,” I quip, rising to my feet. “How come that’s not bothering you?”

A stupefied expression crosses his face. I laugh and leave him to it. I’m prepared to bet that we’ll have a dossier on our new partner by the end of the week.  

Stone Bradley is exactly on time. “How’s it going, Mr. Lawless?” He shakes my hand and pulls up a chair. “How can I help you?”

Bradley’s a consummate professional. I don’t have to warn him to be discreet or caution him that what I’m saying is private. I pay him an exorbitant sum of money for two things. He’s entirely trustworthy, and he gets results. “My father attempted to contact me a few days ago.” I take a deep breath. “Prior to that, I haven’t heard from him in twenty years.”

“Ah.” He pulls out a notebook from his briefcase and leans forward, his pen poised to take notes. “His name?”

“Jack Lawless.”

“Age?”

“Sixty-six.”

“You have a recent picture of him?”

“Footage from the security cameras in the reception area. I’ll arrange a copy for you.”

“Good.” He looks up. “You said you hadn’t seen your father in twenty years.”

“He left my mother,” I answer tightly. My hands clench into fists under the table.
Bradley’s relentless questions are a necessary evil,
I tell myself. “My mother is a hoarder. I guess he got tired of living in a pigsty.”

His gaze bores into me. “How old were you when he left?”

“Thirteen. Is that really relevant to your investigation?”

“You have to let me do my job, Mr. Lawless,” he says mildly. “You never tried looking for your father? Never tracked him down?”

“No.”

“And you want me to find him now?”

I don’t really know what I want. “For the moment,” I reply, “just figure out where he is. Don’t make contact.”

“Will do.” He rises to his feet. “I’ll be in touch.”

When he’s gone, I lean back in my seat and loosen my tie, trying to choke back my frustration. My father wants something from me, and I don’t know what it is. I can’t get a solid read on Piper Jackson. I don’t know anything about her — her background, her previous restaurant experience, her hopes and dreams. I’ve never gone into a partnership with someone feeling this unprepared.

I feel like I’m losing my grasp on what’s going on, and I hate that feeling.

M
y girlfriends
and I get together every week on Monday evenings to drink, eat and dish about what’s going on with our lives. We even have a name for ourselves — we’re the inaccurately named Thursday Night Drinking Pack.

So far this Monday, we’ve had a lot of rum. We’ve talked about Bailey’s two men, and we’ve nagged Gabby about her trust issues. When there’s a lull in the conversation, I lean forward, glaring at Bailey. Though I know it was my fault, I’m still resentful at the way Wyatt Lawless and Owen Lamb scolded me on Saturday, as if I were an irresponsible child.

Had Bailey not interfered, the two of them wouldn’t even know I exist. Yes, the money they’re investing is a blessing, but if the two of them persist in treating me as patronizingly as they have so far, I’m not going to be able to work with them. Already, my reservoirs of patience have been seriously exhausted. “Talking about good looking men,” I pick up from the previous conversation, “Tell me about Wyatt Lawless and Owen Lamb.”

Bailey looks puzzled. “Who are they?”

“Two guys who’ve eaten at my restaurant every single day for the last two weeks,” I reply. “Every single day. I’m not in the front of the house all the time, so it took me a while to realize it. Then on Thursday, they offered to become my partners.”

A look of guilt spreads on her face. “Okay,” she confesses. “Don’t be mad. I yelled at Sebastian for upsetting you, and he felt so bad that he promised to talk to a couple of his friends about your restaurant.”

A couple of his friends?
I keep forgetting that Bailey doesn’t know the restaurant world. She has no idea who Wyatt Lawless and Owen Lamb are. She doesn’t know how intimidated I am that they’re going to be working with me. “Bailey, do you even know who these guys are?”

“Not a clue,” she says, with a shrug of her shoulders. “Should I know?”

I shake my head. “I guess not, you don’t work in the industry. Lawless and Lamb are legendary. They have something of a Midas touch. Their restaurants are very popular.” And if Bailey hadn’t interfered, they wouldn’t have given me a second look. Somehow, that’s the bit that upsets me the most. I haven’t earned this partnership. It’s been given to me on a whim, and it can be taken away just as quickly.

“That’s good then, right?” Bailey sounds nervous. “You aren’t irritated with me for telling Sebastian?”

A hot surge of shame washes over me. I’m letting my resentment of Wyatt and Owen spill over to Bailey, and that’s not fair. She’s just trying to help. “No, of course not. You did what you thought was a good thing.”

“So what’s the problem?” Katie leans forward. “They are good at what they do and you need help. Do they want too much money? Or equity?”

“It isn’t that.” I don’t like talking about my difficulties. Even though these women are my best friends, and would never take advantage of my vulnerability to hurt me, I prefer to keep my emotions bottled up. “They just rubbed me the wrong way, that’s all.”

Wendy’s playing with her phone. “Is this them?” She hands me the device, shaking her head in bemusement. “Seriously, what am I doing wrong with my life? The only guys I meet are smarmy lawyers. Bailey finds two studs, Gabby decides to hook up and voila — she finds a couple of hotties, and now you as well?” She gulps down her drink. “Life is
so
unfair.”

“Pictures can’t reveal personality,” I snap. My cat Jasper, looks up at my tone, decides nothing is wrong and puts his head down again. “These two are smug, self-satisfied, and annoying as all fuck. You can have them.”

They exchange glances. I almost
never
swear. “You don’t have to work with them if you don’t want to,” Bailey says cautiously to me. “Do you want me to ask Sebastian if he knows anyone else who can help?”

Mr. O’Connor needs an extra three thousand dollars for rent. Yesterday, only ten people came into the restaurant for lunch. All day, I tried to find another way out of the situation, but there isn’t one. If I don’t want to fail, I need to figure out how to work with Wyatt Lawless and Owen Lamb. “No,” I reply, suppressing my sigh. “I’ll suck it up. These guys are really good.”

“And really hot,” Wendy adds, her eyes still on her phone.

They might be hot, but they are jerks. And I’ve never, ever been attracted to assholes.

W
endy finds
me in the kitchen before she leaves. “Are you okay, Piper?”

“I’m fine.” I force a note of cheer into my voice, but she’s not convinced. Wendy is a divorce attorney. Reading emotions is second-nature to her. Only a therapist would be more dangerous.

She takes a deep breath. “Your parents were in town this weekend, weren’t they? I might be out of line, but their visits always seem to upset you.”

I know why I have such difficulty opening up to people. As a teenager, my mother scoffed at my dreams and used my hopes as a weapon against me. When I told her I wanted to be a chef, she’d sneered. “That’s what we hire people for, Piper,” she’d said, her words dripping condescension.

I used to sneak away in secret to the kitchen, begging Maria, our Latina cook, to show me what she was doing, until my mother caught me one day. “Next time I see you in the kitchen, Piper,” she’d said to me, her voice icy, “Maria loses her job. I’m not raising my daughter to toil away behind a hot stove.”

“You think?” I ask bitterly. “They took me shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue, bought me a pointlessly expensive purse that I didn’t want, then insisted I join them for dinner. I was an hour late to a meeting with Owen Lamb and Wyatt Lawless.”

She whistles softly. “Were they still there?”

I nod gloomily. “Oh yes, they were there and they were furious with me. I don’t blame them. I’m pretty mad at myself. I’m a grown woman, but when it comes to my parents, I have no backbone.”

Wendy looks puzzled. “Couldn’t you just have told your parents it was urgent? You have a job, you can’t just take off whenever you like.”

“I did. Repeatedly. They just don’t listen to me.” I groan in frustration. “They bought me a three-thousand dollar purse. I don’t have money to pay rent at the restaurant, and I’m carrying around a Prada bag. My life’s a joke.”

“A Prada bag?” Her eyes gleam with interest. “Can I see it?”

“Sure.” I lead the way to my bedroom and pick up the red-orange leather bag. Don’t get me wrong; it is beautiful. I just didn’t want it.

“Oh, pretty.” Wendy looks at me. “You don’t like it?”

“I’d much rather pay rent.” Right now, if I can’t figure out some other way around it, I’m going to have to go to Wyatt Lawless and Owen Lamb and grovel for enough money to cover Mr. O’Connor’s increase.

“I’ll buy it from you, if you’d like,” Wendy offers.

I look up, startled at her generosity. “I was just complaining,” I stammer. “Not hinting that I needed money.”

She rolls her eyes. “I know, Piper. We’ve been friends for six years, you don’t think I know that? My thirtieth birthday is coming up, and I want to buy myself something nice to mark the occasion.” She grins. “I’ll even loan it to you when your parents come to town.”

I hug her tight. “Thank you. I was dreading having to ask Owen and Wyatt for money.”

Her face scrunches in sympathy. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m partnering with an absolute jerk of a lawyer right now on a case, so I can understand how hard it is to work with someone when you just want to punch them. Hang in there.” She chuckles. “And if they get too insufferable, call me for backup. I’m very good at kicking ass.”

She pulls out her checkbook and writes me a check for the purse. She hugs the bag close to her chest, her eyes sparkling. “See you next Monday?”

“Not unless I kill Lamb and Lawless first,” I tell her gloomily. “Be prepared to come bail me out of jail.”

If
Aladdin’s Lamp
fails, my parents will have me on a plane to New Orleans faster than I can blink, back to a life in which I felt stifled and out-of-place. If biting my tongue in front of Wyatt and Owen is the price I have to pay, so be it.
The restaurant isn’t going to fail,
I promise myself.
Not if I have anything to do with it.