uh, keep in touch.” Sloane crossed her legs and smoothed her dress.
Marian nodded, her eyes narrowed with understanding. She knew there was more to it, but unlike Trina, she was polite enough not to pry.
Sloane had been back to the place she grew up, that one-stoplight Indiana town, once since her high-school graduation. And that was only to pack a few things and ship them here.
“Well, you’ve done quite well for yourself with your website,” Marian said. “I appreciate everything you do for the foundation, and when I found out your line of work, I had to check out VisibilityNet. I’m looking forward to seeing where this partnership goes. Depending how this launch fares, I think it could lead to a bigger deal with this company.”
“Wow,” Sloane injected enthusiasm into her tone. “I think my bosses would give me their jobs if that happened. They would love the opportunity for a contract with J. Marian Restaurants.”
She, on the other hand, would love to go back in time and tell Blissfully Ignorant Sloane to never take her comfy job for granted. She looked up as a figure stopped next to their table, and Cooper Sr. aimed a searing glare at her before moving on.
Yes, if she could do it over again, she’d definitely reread her contract and negotiate the whole human interaction thing before she signed on the dotted line. She glanced at Marian to see if her ex-husband looked at all total strangers like that. But the woman was distracted, stifling laughter into her napkin. The source of her amusement? Cooper angling farther and farther away from Trina’s less-than-subtle advances.
“He’s a totally different person,” Marian said, sipping her water. “Owen, on the other hand—”
An earsplitting whistle commanded the silence of the entire room.
Cooper had moved to the front of the restaurant and was seated on the counter. “Thanks for breaking bread at Simone tonight,” he said, earning the applause of his patrons. “It means the world that you’re willing to share this moment with me.”
His cell phone buzzed loudly against the counter’s surface, but he didn’t flinch.
“I want to thank my dad for supporting my vision even when we didn’t see eye to eye.”
The older Graham Cooper uncrossed his arms, the smug line of his mouth curving into a beaming grin before snuffing out.
“And my mom, Marian, for being brave enough to put all her eggs in one basket and taking a chance on that first restaurant years ago.” Cooper slid off the counter and crossed to their table. “Our family’s been through a lot, and I can’t imagine that J. Marian Restaurants would have survived without a person like you at the helm.”
While Cooper’s father was the great and powerful Oz of J. Marian Restaurants, Marian had been the mastermind calling the shots behind the curtain. And that made sense, given that it was her money that had funded the company in the first place.
Cooper bent to kiss his mother on the cheek.
“Jordan would have been so proud of you,” Marian whispered, squeezing both of her son’s hands before he returned to the center of the floor.
Jordan? Who was Jordan? Judging by the sheen in Cooper’s eyes and the way he kept glancing at his mother while he thanked his staff and did the obligatory name-dropping, he was someone special.
“Thank you for sitting with me and keeping me entertained this evening.” Marian stood as Sloane gathered her things to leave after Cooper closed out the evening. “I look forward to getting to know you better.”
“You, too, Marian.” Sloane put her hand in Marian’s outstretched one and returned her gentle, maternal squeeze.
She waved to Cooper as she joined the herd leaving the restaurant and mouthed “Thanks.” He started toward her before he appeared to remember he was in the middle of a conversation with an older gentleman. Cooper smiled apologetically and returned his attention to his guest.
As she stepped into the street where her car was waiting, for some reason Sloane dabbed at tears in her eyes. She couldn’t stop thinking about the way Cooper’s mom had squeezed her hand. A weird mixture of sadness and relief pulled in her chest as she replayed the events of the evening in the back of the car, then later as she showered and dressed for bed. As she brushed her teeth, words ran through her mind like a scrolling marquee, the restaurant review she knew she had to write now or else she’d never sleep.
Once it was finished, when she was finally snuggled into her covers in the dark familiarity of her apartment, she allowed her muscles to relax and closed her eyes—only to snap them wide-open. How could she have forgotten to schedule her social media posts for tomorrow? It was something she did every night without fail.
Maybe I can skip it. Just this once.
But visions of the chaos it would spin into her morning schedule unsettled Sloane enough that she shoved her feet into her slippers and wrapped a cozy throw around her shoulders.
After the posts were lined up, she crawled into bed with the quiet reassurance that everything was in order. Everything except for the niggling confirmation that the suspicions she’d had from the beginning of this assignment were one-hundred-percent founded.
The Cooper family was about to unravel her, bit by precise bit.
* * *
IT WAS MIDNIGHT, and Cooper sat on the leather couch in the corner of his restaurant, bathed in the flickering light from the fireplace. Still in disbelief that it was his restaurant.
His guests were long gone. The overhead lights were turned off. He’d switched the French jazz to a playlist that always helped him wind down. He’d just said goodbye to his manager, Janet—the early-fifties woman who reminded him of Simone. She was brusque and hardworking but the pinnacle of kindness when the people around her needed it the most.
The staff had swept the place clean, chairs overturned on the tables, stacks of clean dishes piled here and there. He was left with a to-do list that could probably reach Austin, including adjusting some of the ingredients on his house salad that didn’t quite suit the less adventurous palates in attendance.
But all of that could wait. For now, he would sit. He would relish the fact that he wasn’t the one bored at one of his parents’ events anymore. This was his restaurant. His pièce de résistance. Those people had all been here for him, perhaps like rubberneckers driving past the scene of a three-car pileup to witness Graham Cooper Jr.’s potential crash and burn. But they had been his to take care of nonetheless.
And, with the exception of a few people who couldn’t appreciate a good Blue Stilton in all of its pure and pungent glory, he’d had them right where he wanted them.
Cooper unpeeled the wrapper from a straw and chewed on the tip of it. He closed his eyes and blew the air from his lungs slowly, drawing up an image of the people who’d filled these seats, familiar faces he’d seen dozens of times in the news, at important events, in meetings with his father. But he’d never seen those faces flushed with satisfaction, lined with laughter, relaxed and rumpled. Lingering over his empty plates. His vision for Simone was circling the corner, close enough to reach if he leaned a little.
But he’d had to avoid his father, who’d worn a scowl most of the night and had actually pulled him and Owen aside to ask about a work issue.
