There was no way he was going to work his ass off, put his personal life on hold once again, and then let someone else walk away with the prize.

  Once he calmed down he realized that, one, she said if he decided not to buy it. And, two, that she was only asking his opinion on if she could do it.

  The last thing was enough for him to be shot back into reality that his reaction was uncalled for. That she had no clue what the contract said. It’s not like she was in any position to fight it, nor did he think she or her parents would.

  So the bigger issue was the ass he made of himself with his reaction knowing how fragile Hadley could be and he felt like he broke the shield that he’d help her build.

  Yep, that was the kicker. She’d told him he was the one that made her feel like she could do it. Not just do but muster the courage to talk to him about it.

  “What’s going on with Southside?” Hailey asked.

  They were at his house. He was going into Duke’s later. Hadley would be out at four today, but he’d be at Duke’s. She had Wednesday and Sunday off. He was trying to give her the time off when he was off too yet they hadn’t even talked to know if he’d see her tomorrow or not.

  He was going to have to swallow his pride, he knew.

  “Stan and Louisa’s daughter, Hadley, works for me.”

  “I know,” Hailey said. “She’s doing the desserts and promotions.”

  “Oh,” he said. He wasn’t sure how she knew that and then realized it didn’t matter. Hailey always seemed to know everything. That was part of her job. Nothing was a secret on this island.

  “She is also the woman you’ve been seen with lately too,” Hailey said, grinning.

  “I don’t even want to know how you know that information,” he said.

  “Does it matter? It’s not like I’m telling anyone.”

  He knew she wouldn’t. “Thanks. I guess. I don’t know. Here’s the thing.” He told her all about the conversation they’d had on Sunday.

  “First question, do you think you’ll be buying Southside?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Then this is all moot,” Hailey said.

  His big shoulders dropped. “I know.”

  “I’m not sure I see the big deal,” Hailey said. “You just admitted that she had no idea of the contract. It was only asking your opinion on top of it.”

  “I know,” he said. “But I guess if something happens in the next few months and I decide not to buy it, what kind of fight is it going to be to make sure the menu is changed?”

  “It’s not the menu,” Hailey said. “It’s how the food is cooked. They can’t use your recipes. But they can serve a bacon burger just like you. All they have to do is change one ingredient, you know that.”

  He did. Rather than onion salt in the mix, they could put finely chopped onions or add more salt. Cook the burgers longer. Only one simple change and it was no longer his recipe.

  He’d added that clause more as smoke and mirrors so that he wasn’t working his ass off to have someone take back over and ride out the waves that his storm created.

  “I do,” he said.

  “It sounds to me that you might be overreacting more because you’ve got a personal relationship with Hadley and a business one.”

  “There is that too,” he said.

  “We’ve all been there,” Hailey said. “I know firsthand.”

  “Before I talk to her again, I just needed to make sure I covered myself.”

  “Nothing to cover you,” Hailey said. “Most people don’t want the legal battle or even to attempt one. More so against me. If you decided to not buy it and Stan and Louisa sold it, the next person was going to come in and make changes anyway. Not to mention, your contract is with Stan and Louisa, not another owner. They could easily give the business to Hadley and she could continue as is and I’m not so sure there is anything you can do other than make something long and drawn out. I don’t think you’re that type of person.”

  “No,” he said. Not even if he wasn’t dating Hadley.

  “It sounds to me that Hadley should get some of the credit for the way things are turning around there,” Hailey said, grinning at him.

  “She does have a hand in it,” he agreed.

  “Do you need a manager there? You are spread very thin as it is. She asked if you thought she could run the place and the question is, can she?”

  “I don’t think she has enough experience to run it in terms of the kitchen. She has no background there. She’d have to make sure she had good chefs doing that more than anything.”

  “If you take the kitchen part out of it, then what?”

  “The kitchen and the food are what keeps a restaurant going,” he said.

  “Which you are doing or training your people to do. They follow your lead. Seems as if your girlfriend followed your lead too and that is how we ended up having this meeting.”

  He wasn’t surprised Hailey would mention that. “I can’t dispute that.”

  “So back to my question. Take the kitchen out of it. Would it help you to have someone manage Southside so that you aren’t doing it? The scheduling and training of servers and bartenders. Things like that? Doing some of the ordering?”

  “Yes, it would be beneficial for me,” he said.

  He’d thought of that all day yesterday too. Funny how he hadn’t thought of it at all. Maybe because he was still in the trial phase of all of this.

  “Then I think you know your answer,” Hailey said. “Are you going to send me home with that box over there?”

  He laughed. There was a takeout box of Duke’s on the other counter. He moved and brought it over. “Two slices of chocolate cake from last night. Two fruit tarts too. I didn’t make the tarts, but I think Rex likes having fruit.”

  “He likes dark chocolate too. It’s his weak spot and I’ll gladly share with him and be the hero,” Hailey said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me,” Hailey said. “I’m just doing my job. I’m here if you need anything. Legal or otherwise.”

  His cousin left shortly after and he knew what he had to do. He texted Hadley and asked if they could talk. Since she was working he didn’t expect to hear from her right away.

  He grabbed his keys and decided to go see his sister. He had some questions about the financial statements anyway. Since he was stopping in last minute, he grabbed the other piece of cake he had in a box for her.

  “Yum,” Kelsey said. “Hand it over before you sit down.”

  “You don’t even know what’s in it,” he said, placing it on her desk.

  “Please,” Kelsey said. “I’m your twin. It’s chocolate cake.” She opened a drawer and pulled out a fork, then opened the box and started to eat.

  “Do you have time to go over some questions on the report you sent the other day?”

  “I always have time for you. Luckily I don’t have a call or anything planned, but I would have rescheduled it if I did.”

  “I’d never ask you to do that.”

  “What are your questions? Duke’s or Southside?”

  “Southside. Duke’s is doing great,” he said.

  “So is Southside. You are up about eighty percent from this time last year.”

  “I saw that,” he said. He shouldn’t have been shocked, but he was. “Was it mismanagement on their part?”

  “Their expenses were higher than yours for the revenue they were bringing in. They overstaffed. They were open longer than they should have been in the slow times. Their food costs weren’t great because they were buying too much and then throwing it out or buying things that were too expensive to keep on the menu.”

  “There were some items on the menu I found out only sold a few of each week,” he said.

  “Probably the food they were throwing out. So you add your food and your management of the kitchen and you can see where it’s working out.”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “And Hadley has blown your desserts out of the water. If we measure apples to apples, she is pulling in more desserts at Southside than you are at Duke’s.”

  “What?” he asked. “How is that possible?”

  “I said apples to apples. If you count units sold per week and then factor in Duke’s has over three times the tables and break it down to the same size, she is outselling you in units sold.”

  “Jesus,” he said, running his hands through his hair. He left it down like he always did when he wasn’t working.

  Kelsey was smiling at him as she shoveled in the dessert. “What’s bothering you, baby bro?”

  He hated when she said those words to him. But he needed to talk to someone else and told her everything that happened on Sunday with Hadley and then his conversation with Hailey just now.

  “It’s a mess.”

  Kelsey laughed at him. “Not a mess. You can fix it. But this does fall on you. It’s that Jell-O inside you’ve got. All jiggly and squishy at times. You spend all this time pumping people up and here she did exactly what you’ve been helping her to do and you didn’t like it. Now you feel like shit because you might have stepped down and broken that little confidence wall she was starting to build.”

  “Thanks for that,” he said.

  “Only speaking the truth and you know it,” Kelsey said.

  “Not like I need it shoved in my face.”

  “You wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t know I’d do that. If you were right, I’d tell you that. But you’re not. The success of Southside is on both you and Hadley. More you, but a good part of her too. I think her question was a reasonable one. She was in the dark about the contract and that isn’t her fault. You said she asked you to tell her. Why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I wanted her parents to do it. I didn’t want her to think I was making it up.”

  “That’s crazy, Duke. You know that. First, you wouldn’t make it up. Second, she could find out the truth anyway. Why lie?”

  “It seems I’m making a big mess out of everything.”

  “Guess that is what happens when Amore Island hits you in the face with the legend.”

  He stood up. He’d had enough. “Don’t go there.”

  “It’s so much fun to go there,” Kelsey said. “What’s your next step? Are you going to try to fix this with Hadley or just let it ride out?”

  “I’ll fix it. I can’t let her think she did anything wrong. She didn’t. This is all on me.”

  “That’s my baby bro. Good for you.”

  He scowled at her and walked out.

  When he got to his SUV, he saw Hadley had texted him that it was probably wise to talk. That was it, nothing more.

  He couldn’t leave her hanging and beating herself up. He knew she had to be doing that.

  He texted back he was sorry and that he’d explain more tomorrow. She’d done nothing wrong.

  He hit send, watched where she’d read the message and didn’t reply.

  Guess it would serve him right that he’d have to sit on that until tomorrow.

  30

  Ask Your Opinion

  The next morning, Hadley was on her way to Duke’s. She hated they hadn’t talked in days but didn’t know what else to say either.

  She knew she’d have to come up with something. She worked for him.

  But in this case it didn’t happen where she had to take that step first. He’d taken it and he even apologized. It did help her sleep a little better last night.

  She’d almost typed back she was sorry too and then stopped herself.

  She didn’t do anything wrong. She had to stop apologizing in those situations. Hadn’t he told her enough times along with her parents to stop doing that?

  Did she worry that he might be annoyed she’d left him on read with that text? She did. But told herself it was better this way.

  Was it her finding a backbone? Yeah, it was.

  No, he’d never said she needed one. He’d told her to stand up for herself and that was what she was going to do today.

  She rang the bell on the front porch after she’d taken a deep breath. It was opened almost immediately.

  “Hey,” he said. “No reason to ring the bell. Just come in.”

  “I wasn’t sure how welcome I’d be,” she said.

  He frowned. “I told you I was sorry. This is on me, not you. I should have been more worried you wouldn’t show up.”

  There she was slipping back into the role of taking the blame for something she didn’t even do.

  She wasn’t going to be the victim or that darn doormat again.

  “It smells good in here.”

  “I made French toast. The same breakfast you didn’t get to eat on Sunday. Sorry about that too.”

  “That was on me. I walked out,” she said. “Probably childish of me.”

  “No,” he said. “I had it coming. I’m sorry for my reaction. I’m going to assume you talked to your parents? If not, I’ll fill you in.”

  “I did talk to them. If I’d known, I would have never said what I did. And I was only asking anyway.”

  “I know all of that,” he said. “I want to give you a little background while I feed you. It doesn’t justify what I did or how I acted, but it might help with why I reacted the way I did.”

  He fixed her a plate and she sat down. She’d hear him out because she wanted to be heard too.

  And she wanted this yummy breakfast in front of her.

  “Go ahead while I eat,” she said.

  He smiled at her and she realized how much she missed that the past few days.

  The long blonde hair of his was loose and flowing past his shoulders. Those broad shoulders she’d told herself again and again not to lean on too much.

  “Being a Bond family member isn’t easy. Those on the outside think everything has been handed to us.”

  “I can see where that is a thought from many.”

  “I don’t have the last name of Bond, but on this island, people know who is who. You know that. You also know the wealth that each side has is different too.”

  “I do,” she said.

  Aside from most on William’s side of the family tree, the rest of the Bond family was way out of her league. All of them millionaires or more. Some billionaires. Or at least heir to a billion-dollar fortune.

  She also knew no one sat around and lived off their trust funds either. They all worked. Or so she’d heard since she’d lived on this island.

  “I went to school for what is my passion.”

  “Everyone should have a passion and go after it,” she said. “You’ve made comments like that.”

  “I have. I believe it. If you don’t go to school for it, you should still try to work toward it. I’m not trying to brag.”

  “Please,” she said. “You like to and we all know it.”

  He laughed at her. “Okay, maybe just a little. But I’m good at what I do. Right out of school, I could have just opened my restaurant. I had the money.”

  She snorted. “A trust fund?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m not going to apologize for that. I still worked hard to get Duke’s the way it is. And if I was taking the easy way out, I’d just be my own boss from the first day. But I didn’t. I wanted to learn everything I could. I worked in a few different restaurants. And in those restaurants I had people taking credit for my dishes. My creations. My ideas.”

  “When you’re the employee it happens,” she said. She’d worked in enough jobs where she didn’t get credit for her work.

  “I know that,” he said. “I accepted it to a point.”

  “This is why you encourage so many people?” she asked. “Why you tell customers that it’s my dessert and not yours?”

  “Yes. I shouldn’t take credit for something that isn’t of my doing. And because I’ve had this happen a lot I knew it was time to open my place. I can be a tough boss, but I think I’ve relaxed some. In the beginning many would tell you I wasn’t like I am now.”

  “You were building your reputation,” she said.

  She was continuing to eat and was through the first piece of her French toast. “I was. That reputation means a lot to me. I’d had a few employees leave and try to take recipes with them. They came to the island to get them and experience only to take off after.”

  “That is going to happen anywhere, I’d imagine.”

  “It will and it does. But going into Southside, I didn’t want to put the work into something, turn it around the way I knew I could, to have someone else just take over. That would make me a consultant and that isn’t how I work. Or not how it was set up. I’d put a bigger fee up if that was the case.”

  He was smiling. “Not a bad idea to do that though,” she said. “If you ever get sick of being in the kitchen.”

  “Nothing I’m interested in right now.”

  “And when I used the wording of sliding in and continue to run it, you thought I was one of those people in your past?” she asked. She didn’t want to feel bad for him, but she did understand more now.

  “I knew you weren’t. It was a knee-jerk reaction more than anything. After you left I played the conversation in my mind more about how things were phrased.”

  “That’s right,” she said firmly. “I said if you didn’t buy. And all I did was ask your opinion about if I could do it. You could have told me more about the contract and chose not to. Why?”

  “I like it when your voice gets more confident like that. I talked to Hailey yesterday.”

  She knew her face paled. He went to his lawyer. Did she make that big of a mess of things? Could she have ruined this for her parents too? “Why?”

  “Because I wanted to let her know. She put me in my place. Said it’d be hard to prove anything. That if I didn’t buy Southside, your parents could sell it to you, and you could do what you wanted. I had no recourse. The contract was with them and them only.”

  “I wouldn’t do that though,” she argued. “If I knew about it I’d never have even thought or suggested it. I only asked about it because you’ve made me feel like I was strong enough to take on a challenge like that.”