Page 130 of Three Grumpy Groomsmen

“Okay, thanks.” I muster up a smile for Ford. “I appreciate you taking care of me.”

“Always,” he says simply, leaning in to give me a kiss.

When he heads into the kitchen, Harrison works a martini shaker. “When I see Brad, I’m going to knock him out cold. This is all bullshit. We haven’t been able to order any supplieswithout our computers and Chef has been scrambling to come up with creative dishes based on what food we have in stock.”

“You could have just closed for a few days.”

Penelope Fraser, who is in her eighties and eats lunch at the bar every single day, pipes in from her usual stool three down from me. “I’d starve without Raw,” she proclaims dramatically. “Thank you for not closing.”

Harrison pours her a martini and hands it to her with a flourish. “I’d never let that happen to you, Penelope. Over my cold dead body.”

What I think is incredible is that if someone has dined in Raw in the last few days and didn’t have cash to pay for their meal, Harrison has just been writing it down in a notebook and telling them, “we’ll settle up later.”

He’s been paying the servers tips out of his own pocket.

When I suggested he might never get some of those tabs settled, he and Ford both laughed.

“People here aren’t like that,” Ford had assured me. “They’ll all pay.”

“That’s a small town for you,” Harrison had shrugged. “No one wants to screw over their neighbors.”

It’s yet another reason to love living here.

Penelope giggles at Harrison’s comment now. “You’re a sweetheart, Harrison. You always have been. Come here.”

He leans in obediently and she pats his cheek. “Don’t let this nonsense get you down. I can tell you’re fretting.”

“I’m fine,” he says in protest. “I can handle the Feds. I’m just worried about Ivy.”

And Liam.

That is what really has pinched his mouth and given him shadows under his eyes. He told me and Ford he heartily regrets the way he handled Liam’s decision to go back to L.A. Withouthis phone to reach out, he’s been tossing and turning in the middle of the night. He thinks he’s hiding it, but we know him.

When I suggested he borrow a phone and call him, he’d said that if Liam wanted to talk to us, he would have responded to his dad.

“Well, this business seems to be wrapping up. They told the boys they would have their phones and Raw’s computers back by tonight.” Greg lifts an oyster. “Since they didn’t find any connection between them and Brad.”

“I’ve never been so grateful to have severed business ties with someone,” Harrison says, pouring the remaining liquid from the shaker into another glass. He adds an olive and pushes it in front of me. “Here you go, sweetheart. I’m sure you could use this.”

“I do need this.” I take a tiny sip, letting the vodka slide down my throat and warm my insides. “And I’m glad Brad and I never shared bank accounts. Though I’d like to think if we had, I would have noticed huge deposits of money and called him out on it. But maybe not.”

Because honestly, I’m not sure I would have. Brad always had money, and he did paid appearances and made tons of money from the show and the restaurant. If money had appeared in our personal account, I’m not sure I would have questioned its origin.

“Five million is a bit hard to explain away,” Bill says.

Even though that number is mind-boggling to me, I still shrug. “Brad is a good liar.”

Hell, he convinced me he loved me.

But the depth of his deception is a little overwhelming. He was using the restaurant for an elaborate money laundering and Ponzi scheme. He was taking investor money and using it for personal expenses, as well as creating fake businesses and invoicing the restaurant for services that were never rendered, like electrical work and a new commercial kitchen installation.

It was bold and reckless and I sat there as the agents explained some of it to me, words like “federal mail fraud” and “racketeering” being thrown around.

“Brad is a crook,” Greg says. “I feel terrible for the Richardsons. They invested in him opening that restaurant.”

That makes me reach for my martini glass. “Oh, no! Do you know how much?”

“I think about a hundred grand.”

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