Page 5 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
“Fine. And by the way, the woman in white isn’t Darcy LaFontaine. The woman who’s hugging the woman in white is Darcy LaFontaine.”
I raise my brows. Across the restaurant, the woman hugging the woman in white is, for want of a better word, large. So are her hair, her jewelry, her handbag and the abstract red flowers splashed all over her dress. The dress, in fact, is the only thing about her that isn’t big; low-cut and tight as a sausage casing, it might have fit her perfectly thirty pounds ago.
I don’t envy the seams. Even from where I’m standing, I can see how hard they’re working to keep it all together.
Suddenly she throws back her head and laughs at something the woman in white has just said to her. It’s a belly laugh, loud and unselfconscious. Startled by the volume, several people waiting for a table turn and stare. Darcy ignores them and keeps right on laughing, even when two razor-thin blondes nearby snicker and lean their heads together to whisper to one another.
Instantly, I like this larger-than-life Darcy LaFontaine. It’s patently obvious she doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her. I admire a woman who isn’t afraid to be herself.
Bailey turns to me with a catty smile. “Does she look like she loves to fuck?”
The cattiness irritates me. There are few things less attractive than a woman who’s a turncoat to her own gender. I snap, “I don’t know, but she definitely looks like she loves to eat, which in my book is just as good.”
Bailey, who thinks eating is a necessary evil and would rather get her daily energy needs met by consuming the souls of men, glares at me again. When she opens her mouth to speak, I cut her off abruptly. “Ass in gear,” I say quietly, holding her gaze. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”
Her face reddens, but she doesn’t argue. She knows me well enough to know that when I get quiet, it’s best to clear out. Without another word, she turns and flounces off toward the kitchen. Heads turn in her wake.
Careful what you wish for, boys, I think, noting all the admiring eyes trained on her trim behind. Even the shiniest apple can be worm-eaten inside.
A lesson I’ve learned the hard way, one too many times.
I slowly make my way toward the hostess stand at the front of the restaurant, nodding at people I know, shaking a few hands, schmoozing the crowd but never losing sight of the intriguing woman in white. She and Ms. LaFontaine are being led to an oval banquette against the far wall. It’s the best table in the house, which makes me hot under the collar. I specifically told the hostess earlier tonight to place the LaFontaine party at table five near the front, a good table but not the best. I refuse to be one of those restaurant owners who fawn all over food critics.
No matter how much I’m inclined to like her, if she doesn’t give us a good review unless we massage her ego, she can go fuck herself. And the high horse she rode in on.
I reach the hostess stand just as Jenny, the hostess, returns.
“Mr. Maxwell!” Behind her glasses, her eyes are huge and blinking, like a baby bird’s. “How are you, sir?”
I get the sense she’d like to curtsy. I don’t enjoy terrifying the staff, but I admit it comes in handy sometimes. My commands are rarely questioned. Which makes this situation even more odd.
“I was doing well, Jenny, right up until I saw you lead Ms. LaFontaine to table thirty.”
I stare at the hostess. She gulps.
“Oh…I…uh, yes, Mr. Maxwell.” She starts blinking again, and then speaks in a rush. “I know you said to put Ms. LaFontaine at table five, but Victoria Price asked if that was the best table, and I said it was a pretty good table, and then Ms. Price said she insisted on the best table or she’d tell Gloria Tartenberger there was a cockroach in her salad, and then we’d get shut down, and then you’d really be mad—”
“Stop.”
Jenny’s mouth snaps shut.
“Who is Victoria Price?”
Jenny swallows. “The lady with Darcy LaFontaine.”
My gaze flashes to the banquette at back of the restaurant. There sits the woman in white, gazing steadily back at me, cool as ice. She turns her head and motions for the waiter, but not before I see her lips lift in a slight, derisive smile, there and quickly gone.
“You’re telling me that woman threatened to call the head of the health d
epartment if you didn’t give her the best table in the house?”
Glancing around, Jenny leans closer to me and whispers, “She said Gloria Tartenberger was a client of hers, Mr. Maxwell. That they were good friends.”
My jaw flexes as my teeth grind together. “And you believed her?”
For a moment, Jenny looks confused. “Well…yes. I mean, she’s Victoria Price.”
She says the name as if it’s self-explanatory, but I have no idea what she’s talking about, or who that woman is. What I do know is that no one throws their weight around in my place, with my staff, without blowback.
