“Cool,” Kat says with a nod. “Not sure why she called the front of the house and not my cell.”
“She said she lost your number. She sounds a little—” Addie struggles to find the word.
“Not the brightest bulb in the shed?” Kat asks. “She’s a little dense, but she’s an excellent bartender, she’s adorable, and she doesn’t take shit from the customers who have had too much to drink. She comes highly recommended.”
“I totally trust your judgment,” Addie replies with a smile. “I’m just passing along the message.”
“Do not try to set her up with Brian,” Kat says, pointing her finger at me. “I mean it.”
“I would not do that,” I reply, as innocently as possible. “Like I would set people up with my ex-husband.” I can’t stop my lips from twitching.
“Right. Because you haven’t tried to set him up with every single woman you know, including us,” Mia replies, and rolls her eyes. “Finding dates for your ex is just weird.”
“For your information, he’s been finding his own dates lately,” I reply, and sniff haughtily. My ex-husband, Brian, is a good man, and I want him to find an awesome girl. He deserves that. I just wasn’t the girl for him, but we’re still good friends.
“Now that we’re all here,” I begin, changing the subject and opening the folder I brought in with me, “let’s talk about the expansion.”
“I can’t believe that we’re expanding already,” Riley says, eyeing Mia’s wine. “We’ve been open less than a year.”
“And we’re bursting at the seams,” I reply. “With Jake packing in crowds every weekend, and word spreading of what a fun, sexy place this is, our wait times are too long. I’ve made graphs and spreadsheets. Needing to expand isn’t a bad thing.”
“I agree,” Addie says with a nod. “And I think we’d be packing in people with or without Jake. Just don’t tell him I said that.”
Jake Knox is Addie’s husband, and a former rock star who’s been playing at Seduction on the weekends. His voice is pure sex, and is perfect for the atmosphere of our place.
“Oh God, she brought graphs,” Mia says, hanging her head in her hand. “This is all a foreign language to me.”
“I was able to talk the former owners next door down far enough that we can pay cash for the space,” I say, ignoring Mia, and pass around the report I typed up last night after Riley left and I couldn’t sleep. I’ve attached the graphs and spreadsheets to the back.
“We don’t have to take out a loan?” Kat asks, surprised. “That’s awesome.”
“You are such a great financial officer, Cami,” Mia says with a smile. “I used to hate your budgets, but it’s exactly what we needed.”
I grin. Mia’s disgust over my budgets was never a secret. The passionate chef has thrown many a spatula at my head when I told her she couldn’t have more money for extra truffles.
“Honestly, my only concern is time,” Addie says. “I don’t have time to oversee construction. I know that Mia practically lives in the kitchen, and with Kat running the bar and Riley dealing with marketing, who’s going to take the lead on this?”
“I agree, and honestly, now that Seduction is my only client, I have the time to take on the project.” I fold my hands over the folder and take a deep breath. As of two months ago, I closed my other CPA business and am now exclusively devoted to Seduction. Not that I wasn’t before, but a girl can handle working sixteen-hour days for only so long before she starts to go a little nutty.
“Are you sure?” Riley asks. “It’s going to be a busy few months.”
“I’m sure.”
“Awesome,” Mia says. “You and Landon will do a great job.”
“Excuse me?”
“Landon.” Mia grins and nods toward the entrance, where Landon is walking our way. “He’s taking the lead on the construction side.”
“Hi, ladies,” Landon says as he joins us. “I hear you have a project for me.”
“We have a construction crew we work with,” I sputter, but Mia just grins knowingly.
“Dad’s thinking of retiring, and Landon’s taking up some of the slack,” she says. “We’ll have the same crew, but Landon will be in charge of it.”
“Cami’s going to be in charge,” Addie informs him. “So anything you need, you just call her.”
“Great,” he replies, and I finally glance up at him only to find him watching me with those shining blue eyes. “I promise to go easy on you.”
I swallow and can’t help but laugh at the irony. Just when I’ve decided to keep my distance from Landon, he takes on the job that I’ll be working intimately on.
Murphy’s Law.
Fucking Murphy.
Chapter 2
~Landon~
“So, what we need,” Cami begins as she leads me into the empty space next to the restaurant, “is to expand into this space for more seating. We want to open it up and add a significant number of tables and booths so we have room to expand Mia’s kitchen. She needs more staff, and that’s impossible now, as the current kitchen is at capacity.”
I nod and follow her, trying to keep my eyes off of her ass.
I’ve been working on keeping my eyes off of her ass for more years than I can count. It’s habit.