He offered me his arm and walked me down the sidewalk toward a neon sign that read, Restaurant.
How good could this place be if it didn’t even have a real name?
My steps slowed as I became filled with resistance.
Storm steadied me. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m a little nervous.”
He looked around and up at the restaurant, realization dawning on him. “I get it, it’s a rough area. But trust me, the people here are kind and good to their cores. Better than the bastards you’d run into on the wealthiest streets of the city. I promise. I practically grew up here.”
Bullshit. You grew up on fifteen acres on one of said wealthiest streets in the city.
As if sensing my hesitation, Storm released my arm and instead took my hand, knitting his fingers through mine. “Tell you what. After five minutes inside, if you’re still uncomfortable, we’ll leave. Easy as that.”
“Five minutes?”
“Promise.”
I agreed. We walked the rest of the way, passed under the neon restaurant sign, and stepped through the front doors. We were immediately hit with the smell and sound of frying onions. The air was humid but not intolerable. Ten tables crowded a small front-of-house dining area, and a small bar lined the back wall beside a door into the kitchen.
The door swung open and a man in a white chef’s jacket emerged, drying his hands on a towel. He had dark hair slicked back with a copious amount of oil or gel, a giant smile, and a single gold tooth.
The man bellowed into the kitchen. “Arabella! Storm is here! And he has a pretty girl with him, too.”
Storm laughed and released my hand to throw his arms around the chef. He stepped back and introduced me. “Laila, this is my second father, Guillermo Penning. Guillermo, this is Laila Hunt. We’re friends through work.”
Guillermo, a giant of a man, clasped my hands between both of his. “Miss Laila, a pleasure to meet you. Please, sit, sit. Make yourselves at home. Arabella will be right out to say hello. What can I get you? Starters? Wine? Beer? Whatever you want.”
Storm led me to a table by the window. A single tealite candle flickered in a short red dish.
“Surprise us, Guillermo,” Storm said. “We’re not in a rush.”
Guillermo, delighted by this news, threw his arms in the air before sweeping into the kitchen, singing an Italian opera song that sounded familiar.
Storm leaned forward. “What do you think? Do you want to leave? Guillermo won’t mind. We can go—”
“No,” I said, smiling around at the quaintness of the place—at the framed pictures on the wall of the restaurant in all phases of life pre and post construction, of the smiling faces of staff and family, a handful of which had Storm in them. “I’d like to stay.”
CHAPTER 11
STORM
I’d never brought someone to Arabella and Guillermo’s restaurant before, let alone a woman. For the longest time this place had been something I never wanted to share with anyone, but Laila was different. I felt that she would see it for what it was, not what it seemed to be.
She would overlook the roughness of it, the lack of money, of investments in good furniture and décor, and instead see the real wealth in the kindness of the owners and the quality of the food and service.
Guillermo and Arabella were Luke’s parents, and I’d known them since I was eighteen. After they found out that I’d spared their son from being arrested by the police, they insisted he bring me to their restaurant, where they made me an epic meal that left me wanting more a few days later. I’d left the estate and returned. That night after the restaurant closed, I sat with Luke and his parents, and we played cards for hours.
I’d never done such a thing with my own family. Hell, I couldn’t recall a time we’d all sat around a table together except for the obligatory holidays with extended family.
From the very start, they’d made me feel welcome and like I belonged among them. Through all the ups and downs of managing my home life as a young adult, they’d been my rock, and they never batted an eye at where I came from.
My father never knew about them. I wanted to keep my two lives separate. Luke understood and was more than happy to share his family with me. After my mother died, they saw me through the worst of the grief. And after my father died, they were there to provide a safe place to land after I sorted everything out with the estate.
I’d tried to give them money once, and they shut me down. It was the first and only time I’d ever argued with them. Guillermo insisted that he wanted nothing to do with my money. He claimed wealth handed over brought bad mojo. If he were to come into money, it would be because he earned it with his own two hands.
At first, I’d been insulted. After a few weeks passed and I spoke about it with Luke, he helped me see that money wasn’t a fix-all material for all people. For some, it caused nothing but problems. His parents were happy. They had their health, a roof over their heads, and a successful business—even if the restaurant didn’t look or feel like the kind of success I was used to. They had each other. They didn’t need or want anything else.
So I never offered them cash again.
Laila pulled me from my thoughts when she started humming the same Italian tune Guillermo was singing in the kitchen. While she hummed, she played with the sleeve of her shirt and stared out the window. Even without words, I could tell she had a beautiful singing voice.
I leaned back in my chair. “What are you thinking about?”
Her hazel eyes flicked up to me. “How much my mother would have liked this place. In her youth she’d probably have tried to get a job here.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “She always used to talk to me about energy. She said she could feel when a place was good or bad, and when she found a good one, she was always trying to find a way to spend as much time there as possible. She took pieces and ideas from other people’s lives and brought them into our home to curate her own good energy. She was a bit of a wild child, according to my father.”
“It sounds to me like your father was a lucky man.”
Laila ran her fingers through her dark silky hair, taming it down from the wind. Pieces fell into place and tumbled around her shoulders, and as she shook her curls out one last time, I caught a whiff of her lemon shampoo. “My dad gave up everything to be with my mom. They met when she took a trip to Montreal, up in Canada. That’s where my dad is from. He was a simple man then who never saw himself settling down. He had a lot of hobbies, mostly related to cars and motorcycles. Anything with a motor, basically. He met my mother at a bar in downtown Montreal one night and found out she had just landed a job singing on Broadway. She blew his mind, of course. He’d never met anyone like her. To this day he still tells me and my sister it was love at first sight.”
“He followed her to New York?”
“He did.” Laila grinned out the window with her chin in her hand. The red glow from the neon sign outside painted her face pink. “My mother wasn’t super interested in him at first. She had dozens of suitors, you see. Men would wait for her after the show with flowers and gifts—anything to get her attention. My father showed up with a cooler of beer, and that won her over. She took him backstage to meet her friends, and the rest was history.”