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CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS RAINING so hard that Sloane only caught glimpses of the buildings outside the car in between broad swipes of the windshield wipers. But according to her phone’s GPS, the brick storefront barely visible from the rear window was the right location for J. Marian Restaurants’ latest franchise venture, Simone.

She grabbed her compact umbrella. “Thanks,” she told the driver, opened the door—and immediately stepped into a gargantuan puddle that soaked her black pants to midshin.

If this was seventy-five and sunny like the local news had forecasted, then Sloane was the queen of England.

Rainwater sloshed in her black flats as she scurried under the awning and through the heavy wooden door.

This couldn’t be right. The inside of this café was nothing like J. Marian Restaurants’ other prototypes—usually sunny and cheerful with modern decor, bright flowers and lots of clean lines. The best way to describe this place was a cozy, inviting cavern with a modern industrial edge to it. The walls were painted a dark gray framed by exposed galvanized piping. Reclaimed wooden tables were paired with mismatched chairs. A fireplace with crumbling brick occupied one of the corners, surrounded by squashy leather couches. Definitely European. And emptier than a ghost town, except for a contractor hammering at the leg of an overturned table in the back.

Sloane cleared her throat when the hammering paused and stretched to her tiptoes, watching for signs of life in the window of the door behind the counter. There was an impressive stainless steel espresso machine, a few large glass display cases and huge chalkboard panels spread across the serving counters waiting to be written on then hung behind the cash register.

So the restaurant mogul was up on the current trends. Good. It would make her job easier.

“Sloane Bradley?” The contractor walked in her direction, pulling off work gloves to reveal tan, muscled forearms.

“Yes, I’m here to meet with someone from J. Marian Restaurants.”

They were supposed to be talking strategy about the restaurant’s soft opening scheduled for Saturday. But at this rate, it would never be ready by then with only one worker on the job.

Though he certainly looked capable enough.

“You’re from VisibilityNet, right?”

She commanded control of her wayward focus and nodded. This wasn’t how the next few months were going to go. On the clock, Sloane.

“Is anybody back there?” She pointed to the door behind the counter then clamped her hands around the strap of her bag to make their shaking less obvious.

The man paused for a beat and pushed his protective glasses up to reveal appraising, gold-flecked brown eyes.

Sloane took a step back as her brain clicked into cognition.

No. It couldn’t be.

“You’re early.”

It was. Dana had told her the Cooper family would send one of their PR suits, not their spoiled frat boy of a son. It was the face she’d seen on the magazines in the grocery checkout a few years ago, curled into a perpetual smirk. Accessorized by handcuffs, models and half-empty bottles. Only now, his pale, lanky angles had softened into serious lines.

Professional. Right. She must remain professional.

“I’m right on time, Mr. Cooper.” Sloane zeroed in on the layer of dirt that speckled his hands. “May I call you Graham?”

Don’t shake my hand. Please, don’t shake my hand.

“I go by Cooper, actually. My father is Graham.” He moved behind the counter to scrub his hands in the porcelain sink then disappeared through the door into what she assumed was the kitchen.

Sloane spun around—surely this was some kind of joke—and dropped into a chair at the table closest to the door. Better to make a quick getaway if she needed to.

Cooper reappeared right as she uncapped her trusty bottle of hand sanitizer and squeezed the gel into her palm. In his hands was a tray filled with stoneware dishes and a pair of mismatched mugs. Her stomach rumbled its appreciation for the smells coming from the tray.

Acting of its own accord, Sloane’s gaze flickered over him with the new knowledge of who he was, just long enough to absorb the muscles filling his stained white T-shirt, the two or three days’ worth of stubble lining his jaw and his brown hair mussed by the clear work glasses perched on the top of his head. Just long enough to register that he was even better looking in person as he wiped sauce from one of the plates with the edge of a cloth napkin.

But it was long enough for him to notice.

Heat spread across Sloane’s cheeks as her stomach dipped in response to him. What? Did she think this was some kind of reality show or something? And why was her body choosing now of all times to behave this way? It had to be some kind of fight-or-flight misfire.

Cooper set the tray of food in front of her. “I thought I’d give you a preview of what we’re going to serve at the soft opening in case you want to write about it in your little blog.”

Sloane raised an eyebrow. Little blog? Apparently his good looks weren’t all the gossip headlines were right about. But maybe his arrogance would serve her well. Anger and annoyance always had a way of making her less of an awkward disaster. They helped her maintain control.

She ignored his comment and reached for the crock of soup, focusing on the smell of hearty broth and some kind of caramelized white cheese.

Cooper gripped her forearm. “Careful. I just pulled that out of the oven.”

She snatched her hand back as sparks of electricity scattered up her arm. Forget the hot ramekin. His touch might as well have been the lit end of a July Fourth sparkler.

Cooper unrolled a cloth napkin and placed a fork and a spoon on a saucer, reaching across the table to hand it to her. The silverware clattered against the porcelain in her shaky grip when she took it, as if the restaurant were positioned along an unsteady fault line.

He glanced from Sloane’s hands to her eyes, a line creasing in his forehead as she reached into her bag and scrubbed the cutlery with a wipe before dipping her spoon in the soup.

“So, tell me a little about J. Marian Restaurants’ vision for this place.” She blew on the spoonful of broth, crouton and cheese, willing the soup to keep from dribbling back into the bowl since her hand still wasn’t cooperating. “It’s not like the corporation’s other restaurants, is it?”

One bite of the soup threw Sloane back with an explosive blast of flavor.

Cooper smirked at her reaction. “Does that taste like it came from my father’s other restaurants?”

“It’s fantastic,” she answered around another mouthful, already assembling her third bite. “Where did the chef come from?”

He sat up straighter in his seat and crossed his arms, his expressionless face the final brick in the wall he’d put up between them. “I’m the chef.”

Sloane nearly choked on her soup. Certainly, her ears had failed her. Graham Cooper Jr., a chef?

“I trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and worked in kitchens that made Gordon Ramsay’s seem like Girl Scout camp.”

Wow. His speech had the scratch of a broken record, as if he was used to giving it to naysayers. What did the heir to the Cooper dynasty have to prove anyway?

Sloane cleared her throat and pulled a pad of paper from her bag so she didn’t have to respond, making notes as she sampled the rest of the food in silence. There was an apple and brie panini, a chocolate croissant, a hybrid between a French dip and a croque monsieur, a salted brown butter and berry tart. The food was divine—all of it. She had to stop herself from clearing the entire tray. If she was in business mode, this food was putting up an involuntary out-of-office reply for her. The only thing that kept her in check was the mental tally of calories she’d have to plug into the app on her phone later.

“It was all very good.” Sloane squeezed another dollop of hand sanitizer into her hands as her own white flag of surrender to the food. “You’ve obviously done a lot of work with these flavor profiles.”

The corner of Cooper’s mouth curved into a crooked smile. “No offense, but what does a blogger know about flavor profiles?”

Sloane’s pulse pounded in her ears as she stared at the amused individual across from her in shock.

His grin faded to wide-eyed panic. “Wait. I’m sorry.” He leaned his head on his hands, realized he was still wearing his work goggles and set them on the table. “I think that came out the wrong way.”

“Whatever. It’s fine.” Sloane stared at the goggles. What else could he have meant? He was surely trying to placate her because he didn’t want to be inconvenienced by hurt feelings. She pulled her shoulder blades together. “Can we get back to work now? I’m sure you also have better things you could be doing right now.”

Two could play at that game.

“Go ahead.”

“So, Mr. Cooper. I asked you about the vision for this place. I take it you spearheaded the development yourself?”

Cooper laced his fingers behind his head, studying Sloane through heavy-lidded eyes. “Yes, ma’am. I wanted an answer to my father’s way of doing things, which works for him, I guess, but in a different way.”

Sloane scribbled the keywords that would help her remember their conversation later. “So you basically set out to create a restaurant that will cause a stir with how your father usually does things.”

Cooper frowned and shifted in his seat, scanning her pad of paper. “I wanted to create an atmosphere that said Stay awhile and a cost-effective, sustainable menu that said Savor. You can read into that whatever you want.”

“That’s very European. And the name? Where does Simone come from?” Some bimbo he’d met while enjoying the Parisian nightlife?

Cooper’s expression clouded. “Someone who was very special to me in France.”

For how long? A week?

“She taught me how to appreciate food and enjoy cooking it. More important than anything I learned at Le Cordon Bleu.” His words became more flavored with French as he spoke, as if saturated by the remnant of this woman in his mind.

“And, let me guess, she was a little reluctant to leave the motherland?”

Cooper looked up, his forehead creased. “No. She died right before I moved back.”

Died. The word snapped against Sloane like a whip. “Oh. Wow. Well, she must have been...something...to, you know, name your restaurant after her and everything.”

She focused so her breath didn’t release in shredded gasps as Cooper launched into a story about Simone. Something about standing next to her over her stove top.

But Sloane’s mind could only focus on one thing.

Aaron.

She’d unintentionally wandered into an area of Cooper’s life she didn’t have security clearance for. And the intrusion only served to land her square in the middle of the place she kept under lock and key in her own life. Every instinct told her to take cover from the impending explosion.

“Can I use your restroom?” She stood so abruptly that her chair clattered to the floor.

“The water’s not connected—”

“That’s okay. Just tell me where it is.”

Cooper furrowed his eyebrows and pointed to a hallway on the far side of the kitchen.

The door to the restroom closed with a thunderous crash when Sloane heaved her hip against it. She pulled the jade-green sleeves of her cardigan over her hands and clutched the pedestal sink, leaning into it. Deep breaths.

She willed her racing heart to slow, trying to abate the pressure of backed-up tears.

Refold short stack of hand towels.

Angle off-center soap dispenser.

Normally she could handle talk of death just fine. It happened every day. But sometimes the jolting blow of emptiness sneaked up on her when she least expected it, even more than a decade after her best friend’s death. The days and weeks surrounding his birthday were always terrible—agonizing at best and unmanageable at worst. Well, she’d have to learn how to manage it better if she wanted to keep her job. Even if it was clear Cooper wasn’t a fan of the arrangement either.

With a few more deep breaths, the pressure softened a little, leaving a dull ache in its place.

Sloane straightened and watched in the mirror as the peach undertones returned to her pale skin. Her fingers worked with practiced precision to tame the stray strands in her blond braid. And then she was ready to face the world again. Ready to give Graham Cooper some lame excuse and retreat to the safest place she knew.

But she wasn’t ready for the look on his face. For the way he stood and stepped in her direction when he saw her walking down the hall. For the trace of remorse in his confident facade that made her knees shake when he asked if she was okay.

“I’m fine,” Sloane said. “But I need to be somewhere right now. Unless you have anything else to tell me, I think I’ve completed everything on the agenda for today.” And, unfortunately, a bit more than she’d bargained for.

“No, of course. I think we’re good.” Cooper started gathering dishes as Sloane packed her bag. He disappeared into the kitchen then returned to walk her out.

Sloane paused in the doorway, a sputtering explanation forming in her mind. Maybe she could tell him she had a situation with her contact lenses. Or something to dispel the truth he’d certainly picked up on that she was a total wreck. But she fled with a flick of her hand the instant his eyes met hers. Before the tightness in her chest could escalate. Before the moisture in her eyes turned from annoying drip to full-fledged leak.