Page 16 of The Hampton Beach Café 4
Was this illegal?
Maybe…but she had to know.
“Thank you for helping me be nuts.”
Alex laughed. “When have I ever said no to helping you, regardless of how nutty the idea was?”
This time she let herself enjoy the warm, tingling feeling in her stomach as he smiled at her from across the table. Picking up her sweet Chai latte and leaning back in her seat, she smiled back at him.
“Never.”
NINE
Frances sat at the same small table she and Alex had sat at three days ago and watched as the cozy evening atmosphere settled into Café Bruno, sipping on her coffee as she reviewed the day's sales report that she had printed off. The café was bustling with customers, the sound of the espresso machine whirring in the background.
She was happy with the sums she saw but knew that it probably wasn't as good of a margin as she'd like if she was to invest in the company as a third party…but considering it was her own blood, sweat, and tears represented on the page, she was pretty content with the positive number.
Looking up to see a healthy number of folks still bustling about the café even now was heartening. Despite the inconvenience of no longer being able to justify closing for an hour to swap things around and do a quick clean, the smooth transition from a bright and friendly café to cozy night spot was very satisfying. She wondered if she could get away with not closing at all but knew in her heart that Kennedy wouldn't like it from a liquor licensing point of view. Though now that they were on speaking terms, it was far more likely that she could have a proper conversation about it rather than just being shouted down.
Ugh, she really did need to have the conversation about the photos with her soon. Kennedy knew she'd left them behind. Of course, Frances had called her almost immediately after the lunch, but she had been out of town for some meeting or another for several days and hadn't had the time to pick them up. Frances was just about to draw them out from the back pocket of her organizer to look at them when she heard Clarkson approach.
He approached her table with a sly grin on his face.
“Well, hello there, Frances,” he said, taking a seat opposite her. “I see business is booming here.”
“Like every day,” she said with a smile. It really wasn't fair that he was so good-looking and yet so self-centered.
Not unsurprising, but unfair.
He beamed at her as he settled into his seat across from her, his ankle resting against hers under the table. She did her best not to react to the contact. She didn’t want to give him the wrong idea, but she didn’t want to appear jumpy either. He hadn't been too pleased about the brick to the door but had very helpfully organized his preferred glazier to pop in three days faster than anyone else she had spoken to.
“How are you?” he asked, his face rearranged into a mask of concern.
She smiled wryly. He was being charming again. She didn't mind so much, he was very good at it, but with all the trouble his utterly unhinged fans had caused her, she had less than no interest in encouraging him. Who would have thought a Real Estate Influencer would even have fans at all, let alone rabid ones.
She moved her foot.
“I'm fine, Clarkson,” she said pointedly. “And how are you?”
“That's the spirit,” he said. Clarkson leaned in. “You know, I've been thinking about you a lot lately. It's a bit of a shame, really, us not pursuing anything beyond those few dates. We had fun, didn't we? Maybe we could go out again sometime?”
Frances rolled her eyes. “Clarkson, we've been over this—I'm not interested, and your fan base makes becoming interested increasingly unappetizing.”
Clarkson shrugged. “So you admit it, I'm appetizing?”
Frances ignored his attempt at flirting and rolled her eyes even more obviously than before as she went back to looking over the sales report. Clarkson took the remarkably unsubtle hint and changed the subject.
“Speaking of business, have you thought any more about selling the café?” he asked.
Frances frowned.
“Keep your voice down…” she hissed. “It's bad for business. I've considered the timing, but I'm not sure I'm ready to let go just yet. Plus, I'd like to get these margins a little more healthy.”
The truth was she still hadn’t let Alex or Vincent know that she intended to sell the place at all…Lucinda was the only person who knew. Frances glanced around, looking for her friend, finally feeling better when she spied Lucinda leaning against the beautifully carved wooden bar and chatting with Vincent and a customer.
Clarkson pulled out his phone and began scrolling through a long page of colorful graphs.
“Well, I did a little comp-style research for you. Here are some comparable sales for similar businesses in other towns.”
