Page 18 of Never Kiss and Tell

“I’m sending Christian down there, right now. He’s already been instructed to pack his things.”

My heart hammers in my ears and I turn away from Charlie. I can’t look at him and get yelled at by my mother at the same time.

“No. Please. I’m fine. Charlie’s staying right next door. I’m sure he won’t let anything happen to me.” I take a deep breath to steady myself. My hands shake as I gather my laptop and coffee mug. “Besides, youshouldbe worried about Savannah.”

Mom sighs and I picture her rolling her eyes.

“You worry about you and allow me to worry about Savannah.”

Figures. Savannah can never do any wrong. IthoughtSpikewould have been enough to send Mom over the edge, but it seems I was wrong.

“If anything, you need to take this time to do a little soul searching and see where you can improve upon yourself. I’m getting really tired of always making excuses for you to Marcus.”

Ouch.

“I have to go Mom. I’ll call you this weekend.”

“And away from that Charlie boy. I don’t like him. The last thing you need is to get knocked up by some — somebadboy that has no money, no morals and no way to take care of you.”

I grit my teeth.

“Fine, Mom. Whatever you say.”

“Trouble in paradise?” Charlie asks as soon as I hang up the phone. He’s still lounging against the wall, watching me with those handsome grey eyes and incredibly egotistical smirk. ThankGodhe couldn’t hear my mother. I would sink so far into the earth, I would come out on the other side of the world.

“Just perfect,” I murmur, stalking past him to the house.

“I’m not going to play bodyguard for you,” he calls out after me.

I flip him the finger over my shoulder before slamming the door on a faint chuckle that made my toes curl.

Charlie

I’m practically on fire by the time I reach the Lafayette’s — Dad’s pride and joy and now mine, too.

It’s humid in the kitchen as I pass by the guys prepping for today’s dinner rush. Bruno, the morning sous chef bobs his head to the music blaring in his head phones while he kneads a lump of dough for French bread. A couple of the regular prep guys are cutting up boudin and vegetables for gumbo while Star, head chef, counts the meats for the day.

I wave to her and go to peak my head into Dad’s office, finding him going over numbers from the night before. Dad is a chart man and a number of graphs are drawn up on the computer in front of him. I can’t read them. I prefer hard, concrete paper, giving me the exact numbers so that I can compare this year’s earnings to last year’s.

“How’s it looking, Pops?”

He glances at me and then back at his computer, his reading glasses sitting low on his nose. He refusesto believe that he needs bifocals.

“We’re up eleven thousand dollars from last year for the week, already.”

My chest swells with pride. The longer we’re open, the better we seem to do. With a highly trained kitchen staff, nothing beats our food and the bar always garners a lot of attention on Bourbon Street.

“The bar is up about five.”

Dad nods, taking a bite of the egg white sandwich next to him. Andi’s been getting on him about his eating habits since he’d had a heart attack last year. I think Mom’s death scared us both, but Andi took it especially hard.

“This tastes like cardboard,” he grumbles, tossing the sandwich back on the plate.

I step inside and close the door behind me. “Now, I know Star made that for you. She’s the best cook we have.”

Star is younger than the rest of the cooks, but she knows her shit. She can turn a five-star plate of food around in less than ten minutes. Her kitchen runs like a well-oiled machine.

“There’s no flavor in egg whites. I might as well suck on an ice cube.”

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