“I’m meeting Skye Winchester at seven o’clock tonight.”
“Is she a real estate agent?”
“Not sure. I saw the ad online, and it looked interesting. And it was in your neighborhood”.
“Okay. Tell me if you change your mind and want me to join you.”
“I’m good,” I said. Honestly, this house probably wouldn’t work either, and I didn’t want to waste Anne’s time. But it had more potential than others I’d seen, based on the online video that was available, so I wanted to check it out.
After they left, I finished things up and made my way to the company’s headquarters for a meeting I’d scheduled with my team. The building was in the East Village, next to Tompkins Square Park. After a quick subway ride from Canal Street to Astor Place, I walked the rest of the way, just another few short blocks. As usual, it was full of tourists gaping about and locals shopping. With the Fourth of July weekend behind us, it was business as usual in the city. Having been born and raised here, I’d always wanted to come back. I’d only moved to LA the past four years because the West Coast had needed closer supervision. Since my family was located in New York, the East Coast branch had always outperformed the West Coast one. Now the reverse was true. My ex-brother-in-law hadn’t been just a shitty husband but also only a moderately competent CEO—but we’d wanted to keep things in the family, for him to feel included.
Dumont Foods was known worldwide. Besides the supermarkets and the restaurants, we also had a massive online platform that had taken on a life of its own. Customers could do everything from finding recipes to ordering gourmet products. The facility that handled the shipping and orders was in LA, and the team that was now managing it all was doing great work. I loved the business. It was in my blood.
My earliest memories were with my parents, playing in the kitchen in one of the restaurants. They had always carted us to work with them, and as kids we felt privileged to go along. My sister and I were both loyal to the family business.
Our education had been in the culinary arts and business. In this industry it was important to have knowledge of both. Anne was one year older, and we’d always done things together, except for that one year after college when I went to study in France, at a culinary school in a town where my father’s side of the family came from. She’d gone to a local school in New York, where she also met her then future—now ex—husband. I’d liked him too, I had to admit it. Nothing about him said cheating bastard. But hindsight is twenty-twenty, and Anne and I were going to pick up the pieces together, as usual. I was as close to her at thirty-three as I’d been as a kid.
Memories of my parents popped up when I entered the building. I chuckled, thinking about those times, but then schooled my features, preparing to meet the team. With my employees, I was a business-all-the-time sort of guy, and everyone knew it and respected it.
I’d invited chefs, sous-chefs, and the entire management team to this meeting. There were ten restaurants in New York, and I wanted all the staff to be aware of some changes I wanted to implement.
Everyone was already gathered on the floor of the meeting room, and they stood straighter the second I stepped out of the elevator. I was a hard worker. That was how I gained their respect years ago, working side by side with my father at twenty-six. Since I’d been gone for a while, the team wasn’t used to my constant presence anymore.
“Let’s start,” I said with a smile and nod. Most of the team was now seated on chairs. “Hi, everyone! Thank you for being here. Anne and I just completed the tasting, and we loved the changes. Great job!”
The menu would be changed regardless of whether Anne and I liked them, since it was about the customers’ desires, not ours, but it was tradition for us to taste it, and I liked to compliment my team. A few nodded, some shrugged. I tapped the laptop my assistant had set up earlier for me, projecting the content on the screen directly on the wall behind me.
“As you know, I’m taking over from my brother-in-law. I’ve been in LA for the past few years, where our restaurants are more profitable than on the East Coast. The goal is to raise profitability of this branch too. I’m going to go through the plan I devised, and I’m looking forward to your contributions. It’s July now. By Christmas I want the East Coast to match the West Coast profitability.”
I surveyed the room carefully, taking in their reactions. I could practically hear them thinking, Yeah, he’s just as difficult as we remember. Or for those who hadn’t worked with me before, He’s just as difficult as we heard.
I was hungry for success, to make my own mark on the Dumont empire. My standards were high, but I also gave 100 percent to everything I did, and I required perseverance from those who worked for me. I could be a hard-ass... but really, I was just hard to please.
Chapter Two
Skye
“Okay, everything looks ready,” I murmured, checking the time on my phone. Ten minutes until the clients would arrive and I looked a mess, but that couldn’t be helped.
The future owner would choose the house because they liked it, not me.
I’d barely made it on time from Lower Manhattan to give the place on
e last sweep. I lived next door, and when my neighbors had moved out, they asked me to handle the selling process. Their youngest daughter got very sick, so they quit their jobs here and moved to Houston, where they were from, so their families could help out. I missed my neighbors, and I hoped they’d be able to recover quickly, building a good life in Houston. The mother had already found a job there, but they were struggling financially. Wanting to help them, I’d said yes. In college, I’d worked part-time at a real estate agency, so I knew the nuts and bolts, and a friend of the family was a lawyer, so he was going to take care of the legalities. My job was to show people the house. It sounded easy, but between running the lingerie store and the commute, I’d been in over my head for the past week.
So I’d decided this time I’d schedule everyone at once with the hope that one of the buyers would work out. There were two families with kids, one guy, and an elderly couple.
I was keeping my fingers crossed for one of the couples with kids. I liked having young children next door.
Five minutes to go.
I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, combing through my hair with my fingers. My shoulder-length brown hair was in complete disarray. I had a blunt cut, with bangs that almost fell into my eyes. I loved them—they usually looked sophisticated, but now they were a complete mess and a bit curled. My black eyeliner was a little smudged under my blue eyes. I looked unprofessional, which wasn’t like me at all, but I had no time to run over to my place and reapply makeup. I did refresh myself at the sink, though—I drew the line at sweaty armpits.
At seven o’clock on the dot, the bell rang. Both families arrived at the same time, without their children. The elderly couple arrived a few minutes later.
“If you want, you can look around on your own, and then I can find you and answer your questions. I’m just waiting for one more. Or you can just wait with me and I’ll give you a tour.”
“We’ll wait,” one of them said. The rest nodded.