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He shook his head. “Disagree.”
“You’ve heard my version of ‘Heart and Soul.’ I don’t remember you falling all over yourself at my talent,” Violet teased.
“Speaking of piano,” he said, reaching out and tilting the watch on her wrist toward him. “We’ve got to go if we want to catch the 2 a.m. set.”
“Oh, right,” she said with an affected bored tone. “This jazz you claim rivals New York City’s scene.”
“Duchess, you’re not just about to discover jazz headquarters—you’re about to see its birthplace.”
Cain hauled her to her feet as he had at the restaurant, only this time he stayed close a moment longer, his eyes searching her face. “You deserve it.”
“What, to learn piano?” she joked.
He didn’t smile back. “All of it. You deserve to have everything you want, Duchess.”
Twenty-Two
After a solid thirty minutes of badgering and threatening to drop his coffeepot off the balcony if he didn’t concede, Violet had eventually gotten her way and convinced Cain to let her tag along on his workday.
So far, Cain’s workplace was everything he’d promised: loud, intense, and a bit overwhelming. The warehouse—actually, more like a compound of warehouses—was simply enormous. There were forklifts backing up in every direction, workers shouting greetings and orders at one another, and yet even to Violet’s untrained eye, she could see it was organized chaos.
There were no near-collisions, supervisors wearing red vests and carrying tablets oversaw every movement, and as far as she could tell, the constant crisscross of pallets of tomatoes, iced seafood, loaves of packaged bread, and stacks of linens all made it onto the right trucks.
The strict organization, the lack of mistakes, the general worker satisfaction and good moods had a source too: Cain.
She’d known he was the co-owner, but she hadn’t known what that meant. Hadn’t realized, until a chatty group of workers on their break had brought her up to speed that one of the owners was the figurehead, the man whose name was on the Parker Distribution sign out front. Cain, though, ran the show. She’d learned that apart from the last month when he’d taken “personal leave,” he was the sort of boss who put in longer hours than his employees. He was the guy who was always around, ready to lend a hand loading trucks when they were short a man, and the boss who was there to listen to an employee having an off day because he’d had to put his dog to sleep. He ironed out arguments, took out the trash, and made the tough call when a food delivery came in short and they had to decide between delivering the limited inventory to a longtime small customer or their brand-new big customer.
Violet hadn’t doubted for a second that Cain was competent. She’d known within a day of meeting him that he was more observant and quick thinking than he wanted people to know.
But she hadn’t expected him to be so revered.
Most disturbingly of all, she’d never paused to think that maybe he missed it or that he loved his work.
And it was increasingly obvious that he did love it.
She’d felt his excitement during the car ride when he’d hummed along with the music and in his buzzing energy as they’d pulled through the gated security fence.
And it wasn’t just the work. It was in the way he’d instantly relaxed when he’d stepped back into his apartment. The passion in his voice when he pointed out lingering signs of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, and the almost boyish energy when he tried to sell her on the fried oysters and the city’s jazz.
Which, to his credit, had been every bit as good as promised, even if she was paying the price this morning with only a couple of hours of sleep.
Violet started to make her way back to the main office space, and several wrong turns and requests for directions later, she let herself into the reception area, where the receptionist was typing and talking on the phone at the same time. She gave Violet a distracted smile, then returned to explaining the impracticalities of a Sunday evening crawfish delivery.
Violet intended to settle in the waiting area with the book Cain suggested she bring, but she slowed when she heard Cain’s laugh and noticed one of the doors was open. She didn’t mean to snoop; she was just curious. The room had a small window, the miniblinds open just enough to make out Cain leaning back in a chair, booted feet up on a desk and laughing with a short, stocky woman standing in front of a white board.
Neither of them noticed her lurking.
“I’m seriously so sorry—”
“I swear to God, Megs, if you apologize one more time, you’re fired,” Cain said with a grin.
“I’m—” The woman huffed. “Fine. I’m just pissed with myself. You trusted me with everything. It was going so well, it’s just… fuck Mardi Gras. It’s like the hotels and restaurants don’t know it comes every year.”
