Christopher had sent me a short message with the address the night before.
CHRISTOPHER
Someone will meet you at the gate.
I’d texted back a thumbs up and then immediately regretted the thumbs up, because who sends a thumbs up to Christopher Vale, and then I’d typed out three different replies that were all worse and deleted them and kept the thumbs up because at that point the damage was done.
The drive took me through neighborhoods I’d never been to. Streets got wider, lawns got greener. The houses got bigger until they weren’t houses anymore, they were estates, set back behind walls and gates and hedges that saidyou can’t afford to look at thisin the language of landscaping.
The address led to a gated property that made me gulp. I rang the intercom. The gate opened. I walked up a stone path through gardens that were manicured to a standard that required a staff, not a single gardener, and tried to imagine the grandmother who lived here.
I’d been building her in my head all weekend. Stern, probably. Rich, obviously. A woman who wore her wealth like armor, expected perfection from the help, and called the chef by her last name. I imagined pearls, the faint smell of expensive powder, and a voice that could freeze water at fifty paces.
I imaginedwrong.
The front door was already open when I reached it. And standing in the doorway, silver-haired, pearl-earringed, and smiling at me with an expression that was half surprise and half delight, was Eleanor.
The woman from the legal aid event who helped Vicky and me fight Aunt Eliza for the trust fund. I stared at her, equally stunned.
“Ma’am?” I managed.What do you say when you find out the woman who attended your community cooking classes and tried to set you up with her grandson is your new boss?
That grandson wasChristopher Vale.
“Now, dear. Don’t be polite now.”
I stood on the stone path with my bag in my hand and my brain performing an emergency reboot. Every phone call. Every cooking class. Every time she’d said “You’d love him” and I’d laughed and changed the subject. She was talking about Christopher. She was always talking about Christopher.
“Miley?” Eleanor said, then she laughed. “Well. Isn’t this something?”
“Eleanor.” My voice came out faint. “You’re… he’s… your grandson is…”
“Christopher. Yes.” She was still smiling. “I was wondering when you two would finally meet properly. Though I’ll admit, I imagined it would involve less kiwi and more of a proper introduction.”
“You know about that?”
“That my grandson nearly died in your restaurant? Sweetheart, the whole country knew. But I didn’t know it was your restaurant until I saw the interview.” Her eyes went soft. “You defended him beautifully, by the way.”
Heat rose in my cheeks. “I told the truth.”
“I know. That’s what made it beautiful.”
She opened her arms. I walked into them because Eleanor’s hugs were the kind that made you feel like everything might actually be okay, and right now I needed that more than oxygen.
She held me the way she’d held me the first time we met, at the legal aid event, when I was a twenty-four-year-old trying not to cry in front of strangers because my aunt was trying to steal my parents’ money. Eleanor had pulled me aside, handed me a tissue, and said “Tell me everything.” I had, and she’d fixed it.
She pulled back, held me at arm’s length, and studied my face—same as ever, warm and missing nothing.
“Look at you,” she said. “My beautiful girl. Come inside. We have a lot to talk about.”
I followed her through the door, and behind me, the gate closed, and I had the distinct feeling that I had just walked into a story that was much bigger than a cooking job.
CHAPTER 9
Miley
Eleanor gave me the tour like she was showing off a grandchild’s first painting, proud and detailed and slightly biased.
Every room had a story. The living room had been redesigned three times because Eleanor couldn’t decide between modern and classic and eventually told the designer to do both, which resulted in something that shouldn’t have worked but did. The sunroom was where she read and drank tea, the garden had a lemon tree she’d planted the year Dominic, her first grandson, was born and a rosemary bush she talked to when she was stressed.
