He Kept the Firm, So I Booked His Engagement Dinner novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Table

Cora goes to The Larkspur, where Nadine pulls her card off the booking and the owner, Tobias Radcliff, tells her he asked for her by name at the Pembroke and was told she had quit.

I took the elevator to the roof of The Larkspur at eleven o'clock, two hours after my marriage ended.

The restaurant was empty and the sun was coming through the glass walls I had drawn three years ago.

Nadine met me at the host stand with a tablet in one hand and a coffee in the other.

She gave me the coffee first.

"Look at this," she said, and turned the tablet toward me.

The reservation was for forty-three guests, this Friday at seven. It had been entered on the fourteenth of July.

The name on it was mine.

"Who took the booking?" I asked.

"A woman called the line in July. She knew your date of birth and your mother's maiden name."

"That's half the family's passwords."

"She also left a card." Nadine tapped the screen. "Five thousand dollars held as a deposit. The card is yours, Cora. It's the one tied to the account your father's money went into."

I had not seen that card in two years.

I had put it in a drawer at home and told Rodrick to use it for the firm's expenses.

I looked at the number and felt my stomach tighten.

"Cancel it," I said. "Take my card off the booking and refund the deposit."

"And the table?"

"Keep the table."

Nadine set her coffee down slowly.

"You want to keep a dinner for forty-three that you aren't paying for."

"I want every one of them to sit down at it."

She grinned.

"The wagyu is nine hundred a plate with the pairing," she said. "I'm going to recommend it to everyone."

"Recommend it twice."

"Cora." She took my hand. "Are you all right?"

Forty-two people had not asked. She had asked first.

"No," I said. "But I will be by Friday."

I took out my phone and moved my flight to Santorini from tomorrow to Saturday morning.

Nadine squeezed my fingers and went to find the manager's override.

I walked along the glass toward the back, where I had put a staircase to the roof garden.

It was a spiral in steel and oak, with the rail turning left, because the left turn put the view of the lake in front of you at the top.

A man was standing on the third step with his hand on the rail.

He was tall, in a dark suit without a tie, and he was looking at the underside of the stair, not at me.

"Whoever drew this," he said without turning, "knew that people slow down on a spiral and wanted them to."

"They slow down because you can't see what's at the top."

He turned.

He had a short brown beard with some grey in it and a steady, level way of looking at a person.

"You drew it," he said.

"I did."

"I thought so. The Linden has the same left turn. The Sparrow has it on the lobby stair." He came down the steps. "I'm Tobias Radcliff. I own this place."

I knew the name. It had been on the first page of the deck Kelsey tried to hand me that morning.

"Cora Arrington," I said.

"I know." He held out his hand. "I've been trying to find you for two years."

His palm was warm and dry. He did not let go the moment he should have, and I did not take my hand away.

"You're the Radcliff Hospitality client," I said. "My husband's firm is bidding for your lakefront hotel."

"Your ex-husband's firm, as of this morning." He glanced at Nadine, who was suddenly very busy with her card reader. "Nadine told me the date. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I haven't decided how I feel yet."

"Good. Don't decide today."

His voice was low and plain. Nothing in it asked me for anything.

I took my hand back anyway.

"Why have you been looking for me?"

"The pitch deck came in three weeks ago." He picked up a folded sheet from the host stand and held it out. "I don't read decks. I read the drawings behind them."

It was a floor plan, a lakefront lobby, a sweeping stair at the center of it.

It was a bad drawing. The stair had no landing and no rail, and the people in it would have fallen in three directions.

"That's not mine," I said.

"I know that. I said so in the meeting. They told me the senior designer had been replaced by a better one." He folded the page again. "Two years ago, at the Pembroke dinner, I asked the room for the woman who drew the suites. I asked for her by name."

My mouth went dry.

"Your husband stood up with a glass and told me you had quit."

I had been on the fourth floor of that same hotel, pinning up a ceiling plan, while Rodrick was downstairs accepting a toast.

"I never quit," I said.

"No," said Tobias Radcliff. "I didn't think you had."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend