“What do you think?” Shanice asks.
I blink at her. “About what?”
She glances at Alice and smiles. “A black truffle vinaigrette over the foie gras instead of a champagne vinaigrette? A champagne vinaigrette might be too crisp.”
I nod vigorously. “You’re absolutely right. A truffle vinaigrette sounds perfect.”
She nods and retreats to her workstation as Alice ends her phone call and heads toward her own station. I fight the urge to pull Alice into the walk-in again, to grill her on the conversation she had with her father. But I need to keep my cool.
Just a few more hours and all this sneaking around and worrying will be over.
Chapter 18
ALICE
As I enter aRoqa, a small, modern Indian eatery a block away from Forked, I spot my dad sitting in the center of the single line of tables running along the right side of the restaurant. The entire left side of the dining area is occupied by a slick bar, with a private dining room tucked away beyond that. The hostess smiles as I wordlessly indicate I’ll see myself to my father’s table.
My father has never seen me in my casual Forked-branded black T-shirt and distressed jeans uniform. I always leave for work after he’s already left for the office, and I arrive home after he’s gone to sleep at nine p.m. sharp.
He looks at me curiously as he plants a kiss on my cheek. “That’s not what I imagined you wore to work at a fine dining restaurant.”
I shrug as I take a seat across from him. “It’s dressed-down fine dining, Dad. All that stuffy sports-coat-required nonsense is a relic of your generation.”
He pretends to be offended. “Are you calling me old?”
I shake my head as I glance over the lunch specials menu. “What did you want to talk about?” I ask, eager to get this lunch, and whatever awkward conversation my father has planned, over with.
He looks genuinely offended now. “What’s a matter? You can’t make small talk with your old man anymore?”
I cock an eyebrow, not falling for the guilt-trip.
“Fine,” he says, glancing at the bartender as if he’s hoping someone will come and save him by taking our drink order. “We need to talk about your boss.”
“I knew it.”
He holds up a hand. “Relax, mija. This is not what you think it is.”
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm my fight-or-flight response. “What do I think it is?”
He purses his lips. “Don’t play dumb with me. I know you think I brought you here to yell at you for getting involved with your boss.”
“His name is Ethan,” I reply, sounding as bored as I possibly can while also refusing to deny his accusation.
And suddenly, I truly don’t care if it was Warner or Andy or Emilio or Edward who told my dad about Ethan and me. I’m tired of sneaking around like a naughty teenager.
He sits up straighter, his face hardening as he realizes I’m not going to apologize the way I usually do.
The server arrives with some ice water, and my father and I both spout off our drink and lunch orders without hesitation. She seems to pick up on our urgency and, without further ado, quickly sets off to put in our orders.
My father stares at the glossy surface of the dining table for a moment before letting out a sigh. “I’m not here to tell you what to do with your life,” he begins. “You’re an adult.”
“You just noticed?”
His mouth is pressed into a hard line as he glares at me. “Can I have a moment to speak without you interrupting me?”
“I didn’t interrupt you.”
Anger flashes across his features, and I’m reminded of how I saw that expression every time I was caught cutting class in high school.
I roll my eyes. “Fine. But when you’re done, I have some stuff I need to get off my chest, too.”
He nods. “Okay, okay,” he says, as if he can already anticipate having to listen to me telling him how much I care about Ethan.
The server delivers our drinks, and we sip in silence for a minute before my father continues the conversation.
“You have to understand that when you hurt, I hurt,” he begins, and the pain in his eyes is undeniable. “Watching you suffer after what happened with Edward was like feeling the…the pain I felt when I lost the restaurant.”
The server arrives with a basket of naan and my father flashes her a warm smile.
“I don’t like to admit when I’ve made a mistake,” he continues, pushing through despite his obvious discomfort with expressing this level of vulnerability. “I’m supposed to be strong for you and your mom. I’m not supposed to risk my family’s security with bad business deals. I’m not supposed to let something like losing my restaurant get me down. But I did. I did both of those things.
“And when you couldn’t find a job, I saw the same hurt in your eyes. You were suffering. You thought you might have to give up on your dream the way I gave up on mine. Seeing you suffering, and not being able to help you by giving you a job at the restaurant… Mija, you have no idea how that filled me with so much shame.”
I swallow the hard lump of emotion lodged in my throat. “I guess I never thought of what me losing my job looked like from your perspective… But that doesn’t really explain why you didn’t want me to get involved with Ethan.”
He looks at me like I’m crazy. “Are you kidding me? They’re twins,” he says, emphasizing the last word. “I wanted you to have a job. But I didn’t want to see you get hurt again.”
“But Ethan isn’t—”
He holds up a hand to stop me. “Think of it this way. If I told you
