Kaitlyn couldn’t argue any of these statements, so she took a minute to rally her thoughts while Gray stomped around the counter to fix the coffee machine. Giving her a black look, he emptied a bag of espresso beans into a funnel she hadn’t noticed before. Suddenly the angry chomping noise became a gentle whirling grind.
“I don’t like him,” she finally admitted when no other logical arguments came to mind. “He’s—arrogant.” He unnerves me, was what she meant. Arrogance had practically been a job requirement to work in a New York City restaurant. She had her share when she tied on an apron, slicked back her hair, and picked up her knife. She’d learned to handle men with master-of-the-universe complexes, so what was it about Landon’s kiss that got under her skin? Was it just their shared past, or—
“Kait?” Gray said in a way that made her think it wasn’t the first time, and she realized that he was offering her a cup of coffee.
“Thanks.” She took a sip and frowned. “It tastes—”
“Like you burnt out the gears on the grinder?” he finished pleasantly. “I agree. Drink up.”
Kait didn’t ask if he’d heard her before. She could tell by the faint frown lines creasing his forehead as he drank his coffee that he had, that he was thinking about it. Trying to figure out if they could do it without him. Hope bloomed in her chest, along with an aftertaste of something she didn’t recognize. It couldn’t be disappointment. That wouldn’t make any sense.
“Listen,” Gray said finally, meeting her eyes. “If you tell me that you’re scared of Landon, that he reminds you of...anyone...then it’s done. I’ll give back the money, and we’ll make it work somehow.”
It was her way out, Kaitlyn knew. And it would have been so easy. She could see how uncomfortable Gray was even bringing anyone up. All she had to do was avert her eyes, swallow hard, and nod, and she’d never have to think about Landon James again. Gray would make sure of it. But that would have been an unconscionable lie. Landon was many terrible things, but he did not remind her of what Gray couldn’t say aloud. She had no trouble stretching the truth to call his parents murderers, but she couldn’t go this far.
“No,” she finally sighed. “That’s not it. I just don’t like him.”
The tension broke, and she could hear relief in Gray’s laugh. “Then I’m sorry, Kait. We need him too much. But I don’t think you’re going to see him around all that much. He’s going back to the city tomorrow.”
“I’m not coming back to the city,” Landon said by way of greeting when Carter picked up.
“The fuck you aren’t,” Carter said. “We have a meeting with Sunwise tomorrow, and we start the merger on Friday.”
“I’ll call into the meeting,” Landon said. “You can handle the merger.”
“I can handle it,” Carter agreed. “But that’s not how we do things. I can’t be good cop and bad cop. If you aren’t there, I’ll end up firing all of their people and sleeping with the CEO’s wife.”
Landon laughed. “Are you saying I’ve been playing good cop all these years?”
“Obviously.”
Carter’s voice was muffled, and Landon knew him well enough to know that he was brushing his teeth. Carter had the nicest teeth in New York City, and he treated them better than he did his girlfriends.
“What’s so important in New Canton anyway,” Carter said after he spat out his prescription-grade whitening toothpaste. “You usually don’t last this long when you go back.”
The memory of Kait’s slim body in his arms flashed across his brain, but he couldn’t tell Carter about her. His friend liked natural redheads too much. “Family shit,” Landon said instead and waited again while Carter flossed and rinsed. “If you really need me, I’ll come back. But if not—”
“No,” Carter cut him off. “I’ve got it. But don’t blame me for what happens on Friday. I did warn you.”
“We’ll celebrate your banging the CEO’s whole family on Saturday,” Landon said and hung up.
For the first few hours they were at Baratellis, Kaitlyn was on edge. Every time the door opened, she expected Landon to stride through it. But as morning became afternoon and she got used to the crew Gray hired banging in and out, shaping up the restaurant much faster than the two of them could have ever managed, she relaxed.
It helped that Gray had unpacked their parents’ cookbooks, and she had enough time to pour over them while she took a late lunch. They weren’t just her parents’ cookbooks, really. They stretched back generations. They were a hodgepodge of handwriting styles, scraps of yellowing paper in varying sizes, and written in a mixture of French and English. “We might need to hire a translator,” she called to Gray. “Can we afford that?”
Her brother’s sigh reached her all the way from the bar where he was working on the booths. “Right now, we can afford Google Translate,” he called back. “Try that first.”
Reluctantly, Kaitlyn pulled out her phone. The screen was cracked from a careless night out, and the battery only held a charge for a few hours, but it was serviceable. Once LeClarks was making a profit, though, a new one