“Is that chef, like, having a mental breakdown?”
“Hotchef.”
“I don’t know, but she definitely is.”
“Are you getting this?”
“God, shutup!” I finally shriek. The dining room descends into startled silence, save for the instrumental music piping out of the speakers. Even Jack stops mid-sentence. He lifts an eyebrow at me, mouth twitching at the corners.
“Poppy,” he begins.
After last summer, I swore off doing impulsive shit in public.
I thought it couldn’t get worse than interrupting my dad’s toast to my sister at her wedding by fighting the caterer.
I was wrong. There weren’t any phones at the wedding; after a donation to the club, the incident went away as swiftly as it happened. This? This is my worst nightmare. Phones everywhere, recording, taking pictures, at my dad’s precious restaurant, the one with three Michelin stars and reservations booked years in advance. It’s one thing to know people are looking at my social media. Another entirely to feel their eyes in real time. Pitying me, laughing at me. Judging me and finding me lacking.
I whirl around, cutting off whatever Jack was about to say, and flee through the dining room. Phone flashes go off left and right, but somehow, I manage to hold my head up, keep the tears in, until I spill onto the sidewalk.
I wrap my arms around myself, staring blankly across the street at the park. It’s humid, typical early August weather in New York, without a breeze to wash away the garbage smell. I’m shaking anyway.
The door to the restaurant opens, then shuts. Jack joins me on the sidewalk.
“Well,” he says with a low whistle. “I’d say that tops last summer, Princess.”
It’s official. The universe hates me.
Chapter 3
Lionfish
Poppy
I turn to glare at Jack. Despite my heels giving me a few extra inches of height, he towers over me. His chef’s jacket hangs open haphazardly, matching his mussed hair.
“Seriously?” I snap.
“Poppy.” His voice scrapes against my skin like sandpaper. “Nice to see that you’re still a threat to the general public.”
I swallow, hard, and take a few steps away. Closer to an overflowing garbage can, unfortunately. “How screwed are you if you curse out a reviewer in the dining room?”
“Don’t know. I quit.” He rubs his beard. “How screwed are you if you have a meltdown in Daddy’s star restaurant?”
I straighten my spine, forcing myself to focus on anything but the tentacle tattoo peeking out from his jacket collar. That’s new, same as the beard. I wonder how much it hurt to get it inked. I can’t imagine sitting still long enough for a little baby tattoo, much less a full piece. “It was an accident. And you made it worse, charging into the dining room like a psychopath.”
“Sure, Princess.” He sounds way too amused for someone who just had a public meltdown of his own. Social media is probably having a field day with the two of us already. “Nothing’s ever your fault.”
I’d rather walk home barefoot than tell Jack Hartman about myfeelings, but my traitorous mouth doesn’t get the message in time. “I just got broken up with.”
Something in his expression flickers, softening those rainforest eyes—but then it’s gone, and I’m halfway convinced I imagined it. I’m the last person he would ever have sympathy for. “Well, I just got fired.”
“I thought you said you quit.”
“It’s complicated.” His mouth twists into a smirk. “Guess we’re both having shit nights.”
“But... my dad loves you. He wouldn’t fire you.”
Truthfully, I can’t even imagine it. Hartman might be a dick, but he’s one of the best chefs in the Winfield Group of restaurants—and New York City, period. Probably the country. Whatever happened to force Dad into that position, it must have been huge.
