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Only about half the booths were full, and the only other waiter was a young man named Paul, who spent more time dozing in an unoccupied booth than waiting tables, leaving Rose to handle pretty much the entire crowd.
She didn’t mind, though. She was just glad to have the work.
She was on her feet from two in the afternoon until 10 p.m. With closing time just an hour away, and her feet eagerly awaiting the promise of an Epsom salt bath, her last customer came through the door.
Warren Harker.
She did a double take. If she’d made a list of the top fifteen people she least expected to see in a place like this, Warren Harker would have been close to the top, along with Gandhi and Fidel Castro.
For a moment, she froze, heart pounding. She didn’t know if it was the lighting or the fact that she’d spent the day looking at guys like Dick, Al and Doc, but Warren Harker was even more slick-looking than she’d recalled. His dark hair gleamed under the fluorescent lights, his crisp blue suit—with loosened tie and unbuttoned collar—fit like a charm across his wide shoulders.
The jerk.
And now he was her customer. This was spectacularly bad luck. A quick glance at the booth she had already come to think of as “Paul’s bed” revealed that the waiter was indeed snoring away, so she was stuck with Warren Harker.
Rose took a quick breath and straightened her back. She could do this. No problem. With a little bit of luck, maybe he wouldn’t even remember her.
She walked toward him, feeling a little like a prisoner being led on the final walk down the prison hall. Of all the greasy spoons in all of New York, why why why did he have to walk into this one?
“Can I take your order?” she asked, laying on the Brooklyn accent a little thick and keeping her eyes averted.
Her efforts were wasted. Apparently Dick was right in saying they didn’t normally have women waiting tables here, because Warren looked up from his paperwork with surprise.
“Hey, you’re new,” he said.
She barely glanced at him. “Just started today.”
He gave a laugh. “Wow, I don’t know when I last saw a women working here.”
Oh, no, he was a regular?
That was it; she was doomed. She was going to lose another job and, given the trouble she had had in finding this one, she didn’t know where she’d go next.
“So what can I get you?” she asked, keeping her tone short.
“Just a coffee, thanks. And real cream, not milk. Doc’s always cheap with the cream.”
So he was a regular. “Sure thing.” She turned to get the coffee, thanking her lucky stars he hadn’t realized who she was. Yet.
But she was stopped in her tracks not three feet away.
“Wait a minute.”
She closed her eyes, dreading what was coming next.
“I know you, don’t I?”
She could feel his eyes on her back, sending a tickle straight down her spine.
“Don’t think so,” she answered without turning around.
“Come here.” It was practically a command. Apparently he was so used to having people jump when he told them to that he felt perfectly comfortable bossing everyone around.
She took the coffee carafe from the counter and turned to go back to his table. She kept her eyes downcast, in the ridiculous hope that if she didn’t look at him, he wouldn’t see her. Ostrich logic. “What is it?”
“I know we’ve met.”
She shook her head. “Don’t think so.” Then she made the mistake of glancing at him.
His blue eyes looked her over for a moment before he snapped his fingers. “Serragno Catering.”
“I—”
“You’re Rose Tilden!”
Chapter Three
“What the hell are you doing here?” he went on, before she’d even had a moment to respond.
His tone was so sharp, so downright accusatory, that she was taken aback. “I’m working here.”
“What?” He looked around, as if trying to find confirmation that this was true.
“I’m working here.”
“That’s impossible.”
She tightened her grip on the coffee carafe, tempted to assure him that his wallet was safe from her. But she bit her tongue and instead tried to be mindful of her job. “Do you need more sugar?”
He looked at her for a long moment, before shaking his head. “I don’t do sugar.”
You don’t do sweet, either, she thought pouring coffee into his cup. “Well, is there anything else I can get you? We’re closing up soon.”
“Nothing,” he said, distracted. “How long have you been working here?”
“Are you investigating me, Mr. Harker?”
“Should I be?”
Good lord, he sounded serious! “Of course not!” she responded quickly. “I was joking.”
“That’s reassuring.” His tone remained even. Cool.
Accusatory.
“Mr. Harker, are you implying something? If so, I really wish you’d come right out and say it.”
“Hey, now, what’s going on here?” Doc came out of the kitchen and ambled over to the booth. “You two know each other?”
“We’ve met,” Warren said, keeping his eyes on Rose.
Her heart pounded as she wondered what else he would say to Doc and if she would lose her job because of it. For a moment, she stood there, suspended in time, filled with anxiety at the thought of what Warren might reveal.
Then she decided she would just tell Doc the truth herself. There was no point in standing around wondering if someone else was going to control her future; she had to do it herself.
“I worked for a caterer at one of Mr. Harker’s parties,” she said to Doc. “I was falsely accused of stealing and lost my job because of it, but I promise you I didn’t do it.”
Doc laughed and patted Rose’s arm. “You’re as wound up as an old alarm clock, aren’t you? I know you wouldn’t steal anything.”
Her shoulders slumped in relief. “Thank you.”
“What sort of idiot accused you of stealing?”
She glanced uneasily at Warren.
“No!” Doc exclaimed. “Not you!”
Warren gave a small shrug. “The evidence was, as they say, overwhelming.”
Doc looked at Warren incredulously. “What are you, crazy?”
“I’ve been called worse than that,” Warren said. Then he frowned and added, “I think I’ve even been called worse than that by you, Doc.”
Doc furrowed his brow. “Then you deserved it, I’m sure. Now it sounds like this little lady has been through enough. You ease up, Harker, or you’ll find yourself drinking some mighty cold coffee in here.”
Warren took his wallet out, opened it and left a twenty on the table for the dollar fifty check. “Your coffee isn’t that good to begin with, Doc.”
“Hmmph.” Doc crossed his arms in front of his barrel chest. “You drink too much of it anyway.”
Warren laughed, then headed for the door without looking back at Rose. “See you next time.”
“Be nice to my waitress,” Doc called after him, then turned back to Rose. “See? He’s not so bad.”
“Maybe,” she said doubtfully, watching the dashing figure of Warren Harker walk out the door and into the night. “Does he come in here very often?”
“Few times a week. He’s been in quite a lot lately.”
Her heart sank. This was going to be trouble for her. “Why? He doesn’t live near here.”
“Nah. Just likes to hang out here, I guess.” Doc gave her an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry about him. He may be a big shot up in the city, but around here he’s just another fella looking for a cup of coffee. Now let’s wake Paul up and get out of here. Got another day of work tomorrow, you know.”
Warren Harker leaned back against the leather seats of his Town Car and watched the drizzly gray city pass by. It had been unseasonably cold and rainy all day, and his mood had grown worse by the hour, along with the weather.
Now, on what promised to be a long wait in traffic on the drive to Brooklyn, he sat back and tried to figure out what was troubling him so much.
It came to him in two words: Rose Tilden.
For two days, he hadn’t been able to get her off his mind.
What was she up to? What was she doing at the Cottage, of all places? There was no way it was just a coincidence and although Warren didn’t like to draw the worst conclusion, it was inevitable. She had to be some sort of corporate spy. Some clever and strange variation on the theme—a cross between Mata Hari and Donald Trump. He had heard rumblings that something like that was going on, but at first he had dismissed it as rumors. Now he wasn’t so sure.
If her contact with him had just ended with the caterer, he never would have suspected a thing. Whoever had sent her, if indeed someone had, had been smart to take that route. If he were a less honest businessman, he’d be jotting it down in his notes for future reference.
But once she showed up at the Cottage…well, that was bad planning. It was just too specific to be chance, wasn’t it? Of all the tiny, obscure little places she might have gotten a job, why the Cottage? He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d seen a woman working there. Maybe never. It was in what was generally regarded as a slightly unsavory part of town. That was one of the reasons he was spending so much time there. In fact, the neighborhood was still a diamond in the rough. He could buy property for a song and turn it around in no time.
Which was exactly what he intended to do.
He could think of three adversaries right off the top of his head who would have paid big money to find out what and where he was planning to develop next.
Had Rose figured it out? The real reason he was spending so much time in that booth at the Cottage was that he was planning to buy the building opposite it just as soon as he could get the owner—a creaky old man who ran a dry cleaner on the ground floor that never seemed to have customers—to sell.
Warren couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t accept any of his offers, though there were rumors of money laundering and vague Mob ties, so he had to keep an eye on the place to watch for changes. As soon as the old guy relented, and surely he would eventually, Warren had to pounce.
Then he’d tear the building down and use the space to build one of his luxury apartment complexes. More and more people were moving out of the heart of the city, for more and more reasons. Now was the time to bring the Harker touch to the suburbs of Manhattan.
Unless, of course, Monroe Associates or Chuck Donohue or Apex got wind of his plans and sabotaged them somehow.
The question was, who among them would go so far as to hire a beautiful woman to spy on him?
And had she figured out anything about his plans yet?
Rose’s first two weeks of work flew by. She liked being busy. And the truth was, she was enjoying working in her old hometown, a stone’s throw from the nostalgic beauty of Coney Island. It was still hot for mid-October, and there were a lot of tourists who kept the place hopping.
Toward the end of her night shift one Thursday night, it occurred to her that Warren Harker hadn’t been in for days. That led to a long series of troubling thoughts about the man; mostly troubling because once she started thinking about him she couldn’t stop.
“What’s on your mind, Miss Rose?” the busboy, Stu, asked. “You look sad.”
She sat down at the counter, glad to take a load off her aching feet. “Stu, do you know Warren Harker?”
He pressed his lips together and looked up and to the left, as if trying to see something very far away. “Mmm…I don’t think so.”
“Yeah you do,” Paul said with a yawn as he passed by with some plates in his hand. “Mr. Harker.”
Realization lit Stu’s eyes. “Oh, yeah, Mr. Harker. Sure. He’s in here all the time.”
Rose tried to keep from smiling. Stu was just like a child. It was going to take a while to get used to it. “Has he been here a lot?”
“Sure,” Paul said, clattering the dishes into the sink and turning back to her. “Few times a week. Always sits in that same booth.” He pointed to where Warren had, indeed, been sitting the last time she saw him.
“Why does he come here do you think?”
“Best food in Brooklyn,” Stu said.
“Horse manure,” Dick called from his booth several yards away. “If this is the best food in Brooklyn, Brooklyn is in trouble.”
At this point the short-order cook, Hap, poked his head out of the window from the kitchen. “Then why are you in here all the time, you big lug?” he asked with a bright, red-faced smile.
Dick gave a grumpy shrug and turned his eyes back to the racing section of the newspaper. “Close to home.”
