Bitter Truth (Hawthorne Vines #1)

When the kitchen door opens again, my gaze shifts past my brother and lands on Wes, who’s emerging, a half apron wrapped around his waist.

I turn away, feigning interest in the view out the windows, unable to look Wes in the face.

“All right, why don’t we all take a seat and talk?” Memphis motions to one of three tables that are currently upright.

Each of us snags a chair from the row lining the edge of the room and brings it to the table. My brother comes with a stack of papers and a binder, Wes with a single notebook, and me with a forced smile.

“I guess it’s time to really and truly kick things off since we’ve got”—Memphis looks at his phone—“just under four weeks until opening. Now that Murphy is here to provide some additional hands, I think we’ll be able to really get things moving.”

I want to roll my eyes at the “additional hands” comment, as if I’m some rando he’s hired to work on extraneous projects around the property. But I force my eyeballs to remain where they are. The last thing I need to do is pick a fight with Memphis on my first day of work.

“Wes and I have had a chance to chat about a lot of this, Murphy, so I’ll just take a few minutes to bring you up to speed.”

At that, he opens the folder in front of him and pulls out a few documents in duplicate, and he hands each of us a copy.

“The plan is for us to provide lunch and dinner on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and lunch on Sunday, along with wine tastings and private parties. Chef Hart has already been here for about a month. He’s been curating a menu that will pair well with our wines, and as you can see, we’re nearly done with construction and design.”

I glance around again as my brother provides some highlights about each space—the kitchen, the dining room, the special event room, the bar—as well as some of the logistics about seating and serving.

“Any questions?”

I shake my head, because the only question I have is how he plans to fill this dining room with enough people to make the financial investment worth it.

Not that I’m a numbers girl or anything. Realistically, I have no idea what a place like this would cost to create, let alone put into business. Maybe I’m overreacting.

But I doubt it.

“Okay, so mostly we’re meeting so you have a chance to review what your job responsibilities will be before things really get moving,” Memphis says, drawing my attention back to where he sits on the other side of the table. “I know in our earlier conversations when you were still waffling about moving back here, we’d discussed you overseeing a kind of ‘small events’ program. My thoughts had originally been to have you put together charcuterie plates and decor for small parties and bachelorette events, stuff like that.”

I clench my jaw slightly. My shoulders tense. I can already feel the direction this conversation is going. He made it clear on Friday evening that Wes was going to be in charge of this restaurant—a facility I didn’t even know they were building—but he never further clarified what kinds of things he’d like me to oversee.

And with the way he’s downplaying the charcuterie plates and decor and stuff like that, I can already tell he’s approaching this with a very different mindset than he had before.

In our original conversation, Memphis made it seem like my return home would be a serious help. Now, his tone sounds a lot more like he thinks he’s doing me a favor by giving me a job at all.

“With how the restaurant concept has grown, Wes will be overseeing all aspects of the kitchen and dining experience. Outside of the business pieces, of course, like finances, which will be on me.”

I blink a few times, glancing between the two of them, and my eyes catch just briefly on Wes’s arched brows before they smooth out along with the rest of his face.

“So … then what am I going to be doing?”

“Wes’s background in restaurants of a high caliber is an indicator that he has the knowledge and experience to set things up in a manner consistent with those other restaurants. The way I see it, since you’re just a waitress, that’s the job I’ll have you do.”

The sides of my face flame red at his words and the realization that comes along with them.

Just a waitress.

I nibble on the inside of my cheek, considering him for a moment. I’m trying desperately to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I can’t help the way my eyes narrow as he continues speaking, irritation beginning to bubble up inside my chest.

“Now, the intention isn’t for you to waitress alone. Clearly, with the size of the space and being open for lunch and dinner several days a week, we’ll need additional staff. A few servers, one or two hosts.”

There we go. I’ll at least be managing the front of house with a few employees.

“I’m going to be placing Wes in charge of the hiring and training of the serving staff since a primary responsibility will be selling the food and upselling the wine.”

My vision grows fuzzy as I glare at the table between us, unseeing, and almost unhearing, my brother’s continued speech about the restaurant. All the expectations and blah blah blah go in one ear and out the other.

This is absolute bullshit. Wouldn’t it make more sense for me to hire and train the serving staff? After all, I have been just a waitress for nearly ten years.