“Amazing, isn’t it?” he said. “A pair of fiery Latins in designer suits. It looks like an outtake from
“No, Tuck,” I mumbled. “It looks like we’ve got Der
Madame appeared just then. She was moving toward Matt from one direction. Breanne was closing in from another. The two women’s eyes met and they both stopped dead in their tracks, just short of their goal.
If I didn’t step in, Matt was going to flatten this guy— unless Hernandez flattened Matt first. Either way, it was a lose-lose situation for my ex because Hernandez would certainly have diplomatic immunity. That realization spurred me forward. If nobody else was going to stop this, then I would!
I launched myself out of the crowd—only to be jostled aside as Federico Gostwick pushed by me.
“Back away, Matteo,” Ric warned, stepping up to face Hernandez.
“Oh, god,” I whispered, and held my breath. A silence fell over the room. Everyone in the know wondered what Ric Gostwick would do to the nephew of the man who’d exiled his family and destroyed their legacy.
“Let me handle this, my friend,” Ric told Matt. His tone actually sounded calm and reasonable.
The tendons in Matt’s neck continued to twitch, but he didn’t move. A tense moment passed. Finally, Matt stepped away.
I expected him to stick around, but he didn’t. Pushing past Hernandez, he stormed towards the stairwell door, which I knew would take him directly down one flight to the restaurant’s kitchen.
“First, let me apologize for my friend’s reaction,” Ric said to Hernandez. “Matteo has only my best interests at heart.”
Ric scanned the faces in the room. When he spoke again, his voice was loud enough for everyone to hear. “Let me also say that
A smattering of applause greeted Ric’s words. He nodded, accepting the support. Then he placed his hand on Carlos Hernandez’s shoulder. “Please enjoy the tasting.”
As Ric personally led Hernandez into the restaurant, I found Gardner Evans. “Do me a huge favor, Gardner?”
“What’s that, Clare?”
I took his tray from him and pointed to the grand piano at the side of the room. “Play something.”
“Sure... Anything in particular?”
“Upbeat.”
He smiled. “I’ve got just the tune for this crowd.” Gardner sat down and began playing jazz riffs on the song “Java Jive.”
The tension was finally broken, and the room’s buzz of conversations resumed. A few minutes later, Ric found me. “Help me out, love,” he whispered, pulling me close. “Ellie hasn’t arrived yet and we can’t wait any longer. Find Matt. Tell him I’ll need his help during the presentation.”
“All right.”
Ric released me, and I moved through the crowd, making a beeline for the door to the stairs. I found Matt in the stairwell, on the damned cell phone again. I folded my arms and waited for the conversation to end. I could tell Matt wanted privacy, but I refused to budge. After listening for a moment, he interrupted the speaker.
“Look, I have to go. I’ll call you back in twenty minutes.” Obviously still boiling with anger, he closed the phone and glared at me.
Hands on hips, I glared back. “Matt, for heaven’s sake, what’s gotten into you?”
“Not now, Clare,” he snapped. Matt tried to brush past me, but this time I was the person doing the blocking.
“Oh, no,” I said. “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what’s wrong. This is your big night, yet you’ve been on the phone since you arrived. You hardly said hello to your mother, and you haven’t lifted a finger to help with this party. And then you instigate an international incident with a relative of a Latin American dictator? It’s crazy. Irrational.”
“Clare, I—”
“Do you want to get us all in trouble?”
“I’m brokering a big deal, Clare. The timing is bad, but it can’t be helped.”
“You’re brokering coffee
Matt shrugged and looked away. “Not everyone is in the same time zone.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “But I don’t have time to figure out what you’ve really been up to. You’re needed upstairs. Ellie Lassiter is a no-show, and Ric wants your help to begin the presentation.”
Without another word, Matt climbed the steps. I watched his broad back rise then disappear through the heavy, metal door. With a sigh, I collapsed against the cold stone wall and massaged my throbbing head.
A young sous chef from the room service staff appeared in the hallway. Noticing my distress, she asked if I wanted something to drink.
“I could use an aspirin,” I replied.
“No problem. Come on in.”
I followed the girl into the crowded kitchen. We kept to the edges of the busy room, away from the ovens and grills.
“Here,” she said, shaking two pills into my palm. Then she poured me a cool glass of a syrupy golden beverage to take with the medicine. “Apricot nectar,” she explained.
She wasn’t much older than Joy, and she projected that same kind of sweetness I saw in my daughter, despite her pierced tongue and scarlet hair under a mesh net.
She pointed to the apricot drink. “My grandmother swears by the stuff.”
I knocked back the pills and the nectar, which actually did make me feel a little better. I thanked the girl and headed back upstairs, arriving just in time to help Tucker close the burgundy curtains that framed the plate glass windows. Ric wanted to block the stunning view of midtown skyscrapers so his audience would focus solely on his presentation.
As Tucker and I brought the curtains together, I glanced outside. Rain showers were moving in over the city, and dark clouds were forming all around us. The omen wasn’t lost on me.
Between Ellie abandoning Ric at the last minute and Matt causing a scene with a visiting dignitary, I had a dreadful premonition that the gathering clouds would bring more than one storm before the night was done.
Nineteen
“I’m sure everyone here knows that the market for decaffeinated coffee has exploded in the past few decades. One in five coffee consumers prefer it at least some of the time...”
While Ric spoke, I oversaw the preparation of the French presses at the bar. The Gostwick Estate beans had been burred in the kitchen to spare the guests any unpleasant noise. Now my baristas were pouring steaming water over the grounds, sending the aroma of the rich, earthy decaffeinated beans through the crowd.
“The decaffeination process was started in Germany over a century ago,” Ric continued. “Though effective, it is far from a perfect method.”
Ric was a natural salesman. He moved around the room with ease, holding the attention of a jaded audience, most of whom had heard more than their share of presentations and sales pitches.
“Refinements and new techniques have been made, but all of these technological processes—Swiss Water, Royal Select, the solvent method, or pressurized gas—rob the bean of its freshness and complexity, its pleasing gusto.” He stopped and grinned. “At my family’s estate in Brazil, I think we’ve discovered a better way.”
Matt stepped forward, holding the cutting. The sprig had been planted in a mocha-colored ceramic pot filled with topsoil. It seemed like such a small thing, yet it had the potential to transform the coffee industry, not to mention put processing plants in Switzerland and Mexico out of business.
