“—and as my name is featured prominently on most of the dishes on your menu, I’d expect you’d be more accommodating—”

“Technically, Boudreaux is your family’s name, correct?”

“—because I make it my business to protect anything with my name on it—”

“Excuse me, how did my menu suddenly become your property?”

“—and if your food is as bad as everything else I’ve experienced so far, including your attitude, I won’t hesitate to speak with my industry contacts, along with my attorneys about your infringement on my family’s trademark.”

My mouth dropped open. I stared at him in horror. “You’re threatening to sue me? You can’t possibly be serious!”

For an answer, he narrowed his eyes at me. A low, dangerous growl rumbled through his chest.

Oh, no. Oh, no, he did not just try to scare me with that wild animal act!

I closed the final foot between us, looked straight into his cold blue eyes, and said, “I don’t care who you are, Mr. Boudreaux, or how much bad press you can bring me, or how many overpaid attorneys you have. Your manners are atrocious. Growl at me again and I will throw you out.”

I stepped back and met his burning stare with a level one of my own. “You’ll get the next available table. In the meantime, have another drink on me. Maybe the alcohol will turn you back into a human being.”

Fuming, I spun around and walked away, convinced Jackson Boudreaux was the most arrogant, stuck-up, bad-tempered man I’d ever had the misfortune to cross paths with. The only thing I could ever feel for him was disgust.

As it turned out, I was wrong about that, too.

TWO

BIANCA

Jackson stayed for four hours, straight through the third seating, sampling almost every damn dish on the menu, right down to two servings of blackberry-and-bourbon cobbler for dessert.

He ate the same way he talked. Mechanically, as if he took no pleasure in it, like it was a nuisance, one more thing to endure in the long, joyless span of his day. Still aggravated by our interaction, I watched from the kitchen as he sat alone and wolfed down plate after plate of food, eyes lowered, ignoring all the curious looks sent his way.

Stopping beside me to follow my gaze, Eeny exclaimed, “Looks like that boy hasn’t eaten in a year!”

I sourly harrumphed. “Only the souls of all who’ve displeased him.”

She chuckled. “I see LaDonna Quinn would like to give him somethin’ else to chew on besides your spicy baby back ribs. Lawd, that dress she’s wearin’ is so tight you can almost see her religion.”

For the third time, the newly divorced brunette sashayed by Jackson’s table, hips swaying, toying with her hair and fluttering her lashes. She might as well have been invisible for all the attention it got her.

“Ooh—and here comes Marybeth Lee struttin’ her stuff!” exclaimed Eeny gleefully, pointing to the bombshell Marybeth, man-eater extraordinaire, whose glossy blonde locks and hourglass figure never failed to turn heads. She emerged from the ladies’ room and took the long way back to her table, gliding by Jackson’s table with a sultry smile directed his way.

He sent her a withering glance and went back to his dinner.

I mused, “Maybe he’s gay. I’ve never seen a man immune to Marybeth’s double Ds.”

Eeny cackled. “Judgin’ by the way his eyes were glued to your behind when you were stormin’ away from him at the bar, I’d say that boy is definitely not gay.”

Outraged, I gasped. “He was looking at my ass?”

Eeny looked me up and down, her brows lifted. “What, you need to introduce a man to your mama before he’s allowed to get an eyeful of your booty?”

I sputtered, “No, that’s not—he’s just—what a jerk!”

Eeny does this thing when someone isn’t making sense where she squints one eye and looks at you sideways. She did it to me now, crossing her arms over her chest. “Don’t tell me you don’t think he’s handsome.”

I grimaced. “Handsome? How could I tell? It’s impossible to see past the forked tongue and the horns!”

Eeny pursed her lips. “Mm-hmm.”

“Don’t you have some work to be doing, Eeny?” I said, exasperated by the turn in the conversation.

She shrugged. “I’m just sayin’, if LaDonna and that scandalmonger Marybeth are spendin’ so much time throwin’ their hussy selves in his direction, it ain’t because he’s ugly.”

“No, it’s because he’s stinking rich. And besides, you called him a werewolf. You can’t think he’s handsome!”

She clucked like a hen. “Oh, honey. I think all this time you’ve been without a man has made you blind.”

From across the kitchen, Hoyt let out a hoot of laughter.

I looked at the ceiling and sighed. “Lord, why do I even employ these people?”

Hoyt hooted again. “I’m guessin’ that’s one of them ‘moot’ questions, ’cause we both know you wouldn’t have a dessert menu worth eatin’ if it wasn’t for me—”

“Oh, shut your pie hole and get back to work, Hoyt!” bossed Eeny, propping her hands on her wide hips. “I swear, if I have to hear one more time about your mad skills with pastry dough, I’ll keel over and die!”

Hoyt, who’d been in love with Eeny for going on sixty years and had been getting rejected for just as long, sent her a lazy grin and a wink. “Aw, c’mon now dawlin’. You know it ain’t my dough-kneadin’ skills that make you weak in the knees.”

“Ack,” said Eeny, rolling her eyes. “You’re delusional, old man.”

Hoyt grinned wider. “And you, suggie bee, are a sassy li’l blackberry. C’mon over here and give old Hoyt a kiss.”

“Pffft! Don’t hold your breath!” said Eeny with a flip of her hand.

Then Pepper breathlessly burst through the kitchen doors.

“Bianca! He’s asking for you!”

My stomach turned. I didn’t have to ask who she meant.

I peered out to Jackson Boudreaux’s table, expecting to see him throttling one of the busboys, but he was just sitting there with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring daggers at nothing in particular.

The man gave the term resting bitch face a whole new meaning. He looked like his face had caught on fire and someone had tried to put it out with a fork.

I said, “What does he want? Did Marlene already bring him the check?”

“Yes! And then he called me over and gave me this!” Pepper triumphantly held up a crisp hundred-dollar bill. “And when I asked what it was for, he said all meanlike, ‘I don’t like to see a woman cry.’ Can you believe that?” She giggled in delight. “If I’d known I’d get a Benjamin as a tip if I cried, I would’ve been bawling on the customers from day one!”

I ground my teeth together. The nerve of that man, trying to buy Pepper off for him being an overbearing prick!

Unfortunately, it was working.

But I wasn’t about to let him start throwing his money around as payment for his terrible behavior. I might not be rich like him, but I had my pride. Nobody was buying me off. All his wealth didn’t impress me one bit.

In fact, he could take his money and shove it right up there with Pepper’s bucket of crawdads!