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Jillian stiffened at the sound of Clark Newsom’s voice behind her. She turned. His tone was filled with the same arrogance as the tilt of his chin and the slight lift of his left eyebrow.
“Sure,” she said, aware of the furtive looks of her staff.
With a stiff smile, she followed the short and slender man in his three-piece suit to his office at the rear of the restaurant. She allowed herself a playful moment as she wrinkled her nose at him. “What’s this about, Clark?” she asked the restaurant’s manager once she entered the office and he’d closed the door to move past her to take a seat behind his desk.
The menu.
“The menu,” he said, echoing her thought.
Jillian slid her hands into the pockets of her coat as she eyed him. “It was a special request, Clark,” she said, already knowing that when a patron gave her carte blanche for the side dish with their chicken, she prepared her Lyonnaise potatoes—something not on the menu.
He looked grim and released a long drawn-out breath.
“I am the executive chef, Clark—”
“Of your first restaurant that is part of an international brand,” he said, cutting her off.
Jillian fought the urge to rotate her head to release the sudden tension. “When will the training wheels come off, Clark?” she asked, keeping annoyance from her tone.
He stroked his chin. “When you prove you will not let what happened to your first restaurant happen to this one,” he said.
Jillian stared at him. Hard. Unrelenting. Cold. Even as the heat of embarrassment warmed her belly. “Until you step from under the protection of the Cress brand and attempt to build something on your own—to fly without a net and risk it all—then don’t you dare sit there in your feigned glory and fool yourself into thinking you can look down your nose at me.”
“And yet here we both are with that Cress safety net,” he countered with a smug look.
Jillian gave him a withering glare before she turned to leave his office, slamming the door behind her. She paused on the other side, hating that he was right. She felt constrained by the reins Cress, INC. had on her culinary creativity. Being watched and scolded. Judged and found lacking to some degree.
But here I am.
She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.
And I chose it over Cole.
Her regret was visceral.
Jillian pressed a hand to her belly as she made her way back to the kitchen.
The next morning, Cole drove his all-black vintage Harley-Davidson motorcycle through the streets of Manhattan, enjoying the feel of the wind as he dipped in and out of traffic. Outside of cooking, he felt the freest on the back of his bike.
He slowed to a stop at a red light, sitting between a Land Rover to his left and a white convertible to his right. At the soft beep of a horn, he turned his head to the right to look through the tinted visor of his helmet at a beautiful caramel beauty with freckles and shocking red hair. She slanted him an admiring smile. He raised the visor to reveal his face.
Her smiled widened.
He gave her an appreciative look just as the light turned green, and she pulled off with a wink and wave. He chuckled before he lowered his visor and accelerated forward as well, guiding his bike between vehicles to leave her behind eventually.
By the time he reached the underground parking garage of the Midtown Manhattan building housing the Cress, INC. offices, he had forgotten the red-headed beauty. The moment of flirtation had been nice, but his focus was not on the sweet intimacies of a woman. Parking his Harley in his assigned spot, he locked it and made his way across the spacious, filled garage in his jeans, boots and a long-sleeved black button-down shirt of crisp cotton. Unlike his brothers, Cole shunned office attire—partly to annoy his father and partly because he found suits constraining and only wore them when necessary.
He rode the elevator up to the fortieth floor. Cress, INC.’s corporate offices occupied the entire floor of the towering building housing offices, a test kitchen, cafeteria, conference room and private dining room for the family. On days his mother wasn’t at her renowned culinary school and worked from these offices; she prepared lunch for the family and staff. He stepped off the elevator and crossed the polished floor, pausing as the frosted automatic doors slid open.
Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.
He pulled his phone from the back pocket of his pants.
“Good morning, Mr. Cress,” someone said.
“Morning,” he said, raising his hand in greeting at the passerby as he looked down at his phone.
His mother was calling.
