Page 7 of Operation Sunshine
Maybe he was exactly what this place needed.
Or maybe he’s exactly what I need.
Franco sucked in a deep breath, rolled his shoulders, and brushed his hair back from his forehead.
“Careful,” he muttered to himself. “He isn’t your new project—or your new rescue dog either.”
But even as he said it, he knew he’d already decided.
Franco Rossi didn’t believe in staying quiet, in playing it safe. He believed in messes, in second chances, in people’s soft underbellies. And in throwing your whole heart onto the table, consequences be damned.
If Ben Whitaker wanted to find something real here, Franco would make damn sure he found it.
Even if it meant letting Ben find Franco, too.
Chapter Two
Ben sat at the table in the corner, unnoticed by the staff as they went about their daily business. Or at least, they pretended not to notice him. He wasn’t sure which was true.
The lunch rush had unfolded like a symphony played entirely on pots and frying pans: too loud, too fast, yet somehow still beautiful.
Raj barked orders with the calm authority of a ship’s captain steering his vessel through a storm. Franco zipped in and out, balancing plates, stealing mouthfuls of sauce, hugging guests he apparently knew from yoga or the farmers market or God knew where.
Helookslike a man who does yoga. Franco’s wide shoulders and narrow waist hadn’t escaped Ben’s attention, although he tried his damnedest not to be caught staring.
With some effort, Ben dragged his focus back to the rest of the staff.
Willow tripped over a stray bag of flour twice, cursed fluently in three languages—Ben was impressed: one of them sounded like Swedish—and somehow managed to seat a party of ten with noreservation. Mina dashed from table to table with dessert trays piled like precarious wedding cakes. Ollie took one look at a broken glass behind the bar and sighed, as if he’d already used up his annual emotional allowance.
From his vantage point, Ben catalogued each misstep: the unordered cases of wine he’d spied cluttering the dry storage, the hand-written rosters stuck crookedly on the fridge, the inconsistent plating, and the servers hollering across the dining room as though they were in a pub brawl. He saw customers waiting longer than they should, receipts disappearing into random pockets, and cooks improvising specials mid-service because they ran out of an ingredient.
Back in Melbourne, if a junior associate had run a presentation this chaotically, Ben would have fired them before they’d reached the second slide.
He pressed his palm flat to the wall beside him, as if to steady himself.
This place isn’t a boardroom.It was alive, shambolic, loud, and pulsating with warmth. And yet every instinct in him itched to fix it: streamline the workflows, digitise the ordering system, implement scheduling software, restructure the chain of command…
He tried to imagine these people responding to a quarterly Key Performance Indicators review.That’s assuming they’re even acquainted with KPI.Willow would probably throw her pen at his head. Franco would write love sonnets on the margins. Raj might just walk out and start a roadside stand selling those thin pancakes made with crushed lentils and rice, the ones Ben loved eating every—
Ben pinched the bridge of his nose.
This is exactly what you wanted, remember?To leave the sterile glass towers behind, to stop feeling like a well-dressed ghost haunting his own life.
He hadn’t expected the transition to taste like panic and honey at the same time.
From the doorway to the kitchen, Franco shot him a grin so bright it knocked the breath from Ben’s lungs for half a second. Francotossed him a wink and twirled back toward the kitchen, his apron strings fluttering.
Ben’s stomach flipped.
He’s an unstoppable force of nature.Watching him move was reminiscent of a tornado, all wild energy and impossible grace, leaving Ben dizzy and breathless in its wake. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, even as his heart pounded like a fist against his ribs.
Stop. Staring.
He glanced at his watch, a habit he hated and couldn’t break. 3:47 p.m.What would I be doing right now in Melbourne?Probably on a conference call with a London client, discussing budget cuts and headcount reductions. Then he gave an internal snort.
A call to London? At what would be before seven in the morning UK time? No client isthatkeen.
Instead, he was sitting in the corner of a restaurant he barely understood, fighting the urge to either run away or roll up his sleeves and reorganise the entire operation overnight.
