He Humiliated Me in Public, So His Regret Pays by the Tear novel · Chapter 6 of 32

Chapter 6: The Investor's Table

The investor was sixty-four and did not send texts.

Her name was on the lease of two restaurants in Chicago and the sign of one in Evanston.

She sent me one on the Monday after the papers.

Come Thursday to Kral Table, seven o'clock. I am tasting the dessert program. Bring the tart. Do not tell Dominik.

I read it twice and showed it to Marta.

"Is it a trap?" Marta asked.

"It's a woman who funds restaurants. It's not a trap. It's a spreadsheet."

On Thursday I carried a plum babka tart across River North in a white box on my flat palm.

I had baked it in Marta's oven at four that morning, and it was still faintly warm.

The dining room had been set for six.

A round table by the window held the investor, the man from the bank and two other money people in good wool.

Dominik sat at the head with his hands folded.

Lena stood at the sideboard in a navy dress, holding a tablet.

She was in the middle of a sentence when I came in.

"... and so the babka tart is the signature of the program, the one I'm proudest of," she said, "because for me, pastry is about memory."

I stopped in the doorway with the box.

The investor saw me first.

She did not smile.

She lifted one eyebrow, once, and went back to her water.

"Halina," Dominik said.

He got up so fast his chair rocked.

"What are you doing here?"

"I brought dessert."

"This is a private tasting," Dominik said.

"I was invited." I walked to the table. "I'd like to show you something, if you have a minute."

Nobody said no.

I set the box down in front of the investor and opened the lid.

The tart was the color of a late afternoon.

Plum halves in a ring, poppy seed in the crumb, a brown-butter shine on the crust.

"Lena says it's about memory," I said. "That's true. It's my grandmother's dough. She made it every Saturday in a two-flat on Archer Avenue, and she taught me to fold it when I was nine."

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