Page 98 of Operation Sunshine
“You mean you don’t belong withus,” Lexie shot back, her voice sharp enough to make him flinch. She narrowed her gaze, her body stiff. “This is because Franco went off to Florence, isn’t it? He’s gone, so now we’re not enough for you. Is that it?”
Ben’s jaw clenched. “This isn’t about Franco,” he said evenly. “This is about what’s best for me—and for the restaurant.”
“Bullshit,” Lexie spat. “You don’t get to decide what’s best for us like you’re crunching numbers on a spreadsheet. We’re not data points. We’re not disposable. We’re—”
“A family,” Mina whispered, her voice cracking.
The word tore through Ben, but he forced himself to stand straighter. His chest felt too tight, his ribs aching with the effort to keep breathing. “No,” he said softly, shaking his head. “That’s the problem. Because families don’t play games with each other.”
Confusion flickered across a few faces. Ollie stilled, the glass of water in his hand slipping slightly. Willow’s eyes widened, panic flashing in them.
“I know about Operation Sunshine,” Ben said quietly, but his words carried through the room like thunder. “Or should I call it what it was to begin with? Operation Distracto?”
Silence fell again, heavier than before. Lexie’s mouth droppedopen. Ollie’s knuckles whitened around the glass. Willow’s lips parted, her face paling.
Raj was like a statue.
“I’m sure you thought it was clever,” Ben continued, his voice low and controlled. “Get Franco to… occupy me. To stop me being so difficult, make me easier to deal with. A joke, right? A bit of fun. But it wasn’t a joke to me. It was my life. My trust.” He swallowed. “My heart.”
Willow sucked in a sharp breath, as though he’d struck her.
“The people I thought I could rely on,” Ben went on, his voice catching despite his best efforts, “the ones I believed were on my side, turned me into an experiment, into something to be managed.” His throat tightened. “I thought you respected me. Hell, I thought youlikedme. But clearly, I was just a problem to be solved.”
“Ben…” Lexie’s voice was softer now, her face flushed, her chin quivering.
He shook his head, cutting her off. “I’m not saying this because I want apologies or even excuses. I’m saying this because it made me realise I can’t stay, not when the foundation is already cracked.” He scanned their faces. “Not when the people I trusted most were willing to treat me like a punchline.”
Mina pressed her hand against her chest. “Ben, I… I didn’t know. I swear I had no idea.”
“I believe you,” Ben said quietly. He moved his gaze to the others, lingering on Willow, Lexie, Raj... “But the rest of you?Youknew. You probably laughed about it. I don’t know, maybe you didn’t mean it to go this far. Maybe you thought it was harmless. But that doesn’t alter the fact that you still did it.”
Lexie lowered her arms, her shoulders sagging. “We didn’t think,” she admitted, her face tightening.
“I know,” Ben said, his voice rough. “But knowing doesn’t erase the hurt. It doesn’t change what I felt when I realised I’d been made into a game.” He drew in a long breath. “That’s why I’m selling. Not because I don’t care, or because I don’t love what we built, butbecause I can’t keep standing in a place where my trust was so easily broken. Where what Ithoughtwas loyalty was in fact a joke.”
The words hung in the air, thick and heavy, until Ollie finally set down the glass he’d been gripping like a lifeline. “It seemed harmless,” he said at last, his cheeks burning, his breath hitching. “A bit of fun. I never thought it would hurt you like this.”
Willow’s eyes shimmered. “Ben, I’m so sorry. We thought… we thought we were helping. We thought we were making things lighter for you. We never meant to—”
“Intentions don’t matter,” Ben said, not unkindly but with finality. “Actions do. And those actions made me realise I can’t do this anymore. Not like this.”
He looked around one last time, at the stunned, guilty faces of the people who had once felt like family. His chest tightened, but he held on firmly to his resolve. “So, yes, the sale is happening. Hopefully soon. I need to protect what’s left of myself, even if it kills me to walk away.”
Silence closed in again, broken only by Lexie sinking into a chair, rubbing her temples. “We… we really messed up, didn’t we?”
Willow closed her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks.
Ben stood in the middle of it all, consumed by the hollowness of victory. He’d spoken his truth, but it didn’t feel like relief.
It felt like loss.
Ben closed the office door behind him and leaned against it for a moment, his forehead resting on the wood, trying to breathe past the ache in his chest. The murmurs of the staff outside were muffled but insistent, like the low thrum of a storm he couldn’t shut out.
He sat heavily at his desk, the chair creaking under his weight. The laptop screen glowed with the documents he’d pulled up: valuation reports, lists of potential buyers, emails he’d drafted andredrafted but never sent, numbers, contracts, options, exit strategies, all the things that used to ground him.
Today they blurred together.
His eyes skimmed rows of figures, but nothing stuck. His hands hovered over the keyboard, useless. Every time he tried to think of the restaurant’s worth, of what he could walk away with, Franco’s face intruded. Franco’s laugh, low and warm. Franco in his kitchen, his sleeves rolled up, his eyes bright with mischief. Franco’s body pressed against his on that last night, when he’d let Ben see him fully, unguarded, open, raw.
