Page 14 of Love Me Tomorrow

I grin at him. “No.”

“Not even for me?”

“Not even for you.” Playfully, I punch him in his not-so-round belly, which is actually rock hard. “But thank you for welcoming me back. Hug?” I hold open my arms and swallow a snicker when he rolls his eyes, draws me into his chest for a quickie, and then releases me to head for the desk that’s been converted into a dessert buffet.

Together, Georgie and I watch as Jean reaches for one of the red velvet cupcakes—my favorite, as they are his—only to scowl, his arm suspended midair before he whirls away empty-handed.

I nudge my friend in the side. “You’ve given him a complex.”

“Better him than me,” Georgie grumbles good-naturedly. “Do youknowhow awful it’s been without you all these months? Awful, Sav. Downright awful. Last week, he even called me from Rose & Thorn and pretended that the walk-in lost power overnight and all the food went bad.” Her brows knit together. “I called in all sorts of favors. Went above and beyond and suffered approximately five anxiety attacks before he called me back and said—”

“Jokes on you?”

“Power’s back on.That’swhat he said.”

I wince. “Maybe he wasn’t screwing with you?”

Georgie leans around me, toward her desk—which is positioned front and center upon entering ERRG’s offices—and swipes a pink Post-It note from her desktop computer. She shoves it at me with a huffed breath, and when I pull the note up to read, I can’t stop the laughter from escaping.

“Oh, girl.”

Snagging the sticky note back, she points at the messy, masculine handwriting and reads out loud, “That’s for telling every woman at the bar last night that I have herpes. Now we’re even.” She crinkles the pink paper into a ball then hurls it at her desk with surprisingly good aim, considering she’s got the balance of a drunk trying to wobble her way down a tightrope. “I hate him.”

“Lies. You want to jump his bones.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be warning me against interoffice relationships?”

“Nothing a little delete button can’t fix in the employee handbook.” Playfully, I bump her hip with mine. “Don’t say I’m not down to help with the cause.”

Georgie’s gaze turns curious. “Speaking ofbone jumping, any exciting news you want to share?” She grabs my left wrist, only for disappointment to seep into her expression. “No ring? I thought . . . Well, I didn’t think the spoilers were true.”

Coward.

And there Owen goes again, tagging along uninvited.

Awkwardly, I clear my throat. “It’s a bit of a long story.”

“We can discuss over cupcakes?”

Before I have the chance to take her up on the offer, I hear my name being hollered from down the hall.Dad.Of course, he’s here, waiting for me on my first day back to the office, no matter the fact that I’ve spent the last four months working remotely from my laptop. Amelie may have had the rope slackened from around her wrists years ago, but I’ve never been so lucky.

I squeeze Georgie’s hand. “Rain check?”

“You bet.”

On my way to Dad’s office, I’m stopped for hugs and congratulations for making VP, a position I never even applied for. Here at the Edgar Rose Restaurant Group, it’s safe to say that nepotism is alive and thriving.

Though if you ask my parents about that, they’ll say it’s just business.Familybusiness.

The first Edgar Rose opened a tiny corner store here in New Orleans, in 1888. He had the wherewithal to purchase the lot beside the Hotel Monteleone, which at that point—from the old newspaper clippings I’ve come across while researching those early days in the company’s history—was nothing like the opulent hotel that stands on Royal Street today. But it was then that Edgar RoseIapparently got his first taste for fine cuisine, and that corner store started churning out red beans and rice every Monday. Soon enough, he graduated to fancy Parisian-styled food that he’d learned from the chefs next door.

By the time he passed away in 1923, at the age of seventy-four, the Roses had not one restaurant to their name but five. And in the last hundred or so years since, my family has expanded the business into the food empire that it is today.

Thirteen restaurants here in the city. Fourteen if you count the still-under-construction Bourbon Street site. Another one over in San Antonio because Dad liked Alamo Square and thought San Antonians deserved the chance to dine on Creole cuisine. There’s been talk of expanding to Florida, maybe Miami, but I’ve done what I can to pump the brakes on those plans for now.

We’re already stretching ourselves thin with fifteen establishments, and with my parents getting older, I’m not entirely sure I want to be tied to this ship for the rest of my life.

I love food. I love making people happy.

---