Matthew King has sent you a private message.
What the hell does he want? I thought I’d blocked his number after…everything happened, but I guess I didn’t block him on social media. Shock is swiftly followed by anger. How dare he contact me after everything that happened?
I still remember that day like it was yesterday.
The stares.
The laughs.
The pointing.
The humiliation.
It all slams into me simultaneously.
No. My hand tightens around my phone as I quickly delete the message without reading it. I will not give him another thought.
I left that part of my life behind in college and I refuse to go back there. Grabbing the stack of books on my desk, I get up leaving my desk and that message behind.
Chapter 2
LIAM
The buzzing of my phone is what wakes me up that morning. With a groan, I reach toward my nightstand without opening my eyes until my fingers grasp the buzzing device. Rolling onto my back I squint at the screen and then groan again when I see who’s calling. Swiping to answer, I press the phone to my ear.
“This better be good asshole.” My voice husky from just waking up.
Gavin’s chuckle comes through the line “Well good morning to you too.”
“What do you want? Don’t you have a kitchen you need to be running right now?”
“Well, I just landed in Chicago so no and I don’t have to be at Tempest for another hour or so.”
I sit up in bed. “Wait, you’re here? I thought you and Natalie were going to be in New Orleans for another few weeks.”
“Nah, I finished training Tracy, and Nat’s got the pastry chef and his crew all straightened out, so we thought we’d come home early. You’re crabby this morning. What’s going on?”
Besides being my older brother, Gavin is a world-renowned chef. He runs all three restaurants I own along with his wife Natalie, who is the pastry chef at Tempest. If it weren’t for him who knows where we’d be right now. Cooking is his passion and he’s damn good at it.
“Nothing. You know I’m running Temptation while Simon’s on his honeymoon. I didn’t get in until three this morning.”
“Ahh that explains it. Have you talked to your other brothers lately?” he asks abruptly changing the subject
“Yeah, I just talked to Grayson yesterday. He was working on lesson plans for next semester. Levi’s back early from that photo shoot in Jamaica and Gabe’s knee deep in final exams.”
There are seven of us total. Six boys and one girl. Sarah is the oldest. Gavin is the oldest boy, then there’s Grayson, Lincoln, me, Levi and Gabe. To say we’re a close tight knit family would be an understatement.
“What about Lincoln?” he asks
“I haven’t talked to him in a couple of weeks. We’ve been playing phone tag. Why? What’s wrong?”
Gavin sighs. “Natalie and I stopped in LA to check on him because he hasn’t been answering my calls and he looks like shit. I don’t think he’s coping with everything that’s happened. “
Lincoln is a firefighter and he sees more bad shit and tragedy on a regular basis than the rest of us do in our day jobs combined. About a month ago he responded to a fire where two kids and their parents were trapped in a burning building. He and his partner were the first to arrive on the scene and unfortunately the whole family ended up dying, despite their efforts to get them out safely.
He hasn’t been the same since.
“I’ll try him again later today.”
“Yeah, you do that. Hang on, I have another call coming through.”
Gavin comes back on the line a few minutes later frustration clear in his voice.
“I’ve gotta call you back, Natalie’s on the other line.”
I frown. “Everything alright?”
“Yeah, nothing major. Are you going to be at the restaurant today?”
“I’ll stop by this afternoon before I go to the club.”
“Alright I’ll see you then.”
The line disconnects.
I flop back down on my back and stare up at the ceiling. Knowing I’ll probably never get back to sleep now, I roll out of bed and decide to hit the gym.
My condo takes up the entire top floor of my building. The hickory wood floors spread throughout each room. There are two extra bedrooms just in case one of my brothers or nephew need to crash here.
There’s also a kitchen, a workout room and a living room. I only have the basic furniture needs, TV’s in my room, the living room and the workout room because I usually hate sitting in silence and a couch in the living room. That’s pretty much the extent of my furniture since lately I’m never in one city for longer than a few weeks at a time.
I toss the phone on the bed beside me and take a deep breath.
When I was younger my father opened a club just outside downtown Chicago. He ran it, as well as a restaurant and another club in Los Angeles. About six years ago, after I graduated from college, he decided to retire so that he could spend more time with my mom.
Taking a fresh idea and watching it grow into a successful restaurant or club is one the most satisfying feelings in the world. It’s addicting. So, when he left all three businesses to me, I was elated. He taught me everything he knew along the way. Over the past few years, I’ve been able to grow and open two more restaurants and three more clubs in different parts of the world.
Simon runs the club I own just outside of downtown Chicago. He
