Free Table for Two-epub by Jess Dee

until she dutifully took her first mouthful. And her second.
    All the while, he mulled over her situation.
    She gave him a small smile. “You can stop watching me. I promise to eat it all.”
    He nodded and helped himself to noodles. They ate in silence for a while, James deliberately waiting until she’d cleared at least half her plate before he picked up the conversation.
    “So you went into this thinking everything was fine?”
    “More than fine.” Liv shook her head, as though she couldn’t believe she’d been such a fool. “She painted a fantastic picture of everything she planned to do with the company. Told me she wanted to grow Beautiful Homes. Hire new designers and move to bigger offices. Maybe even open branches in Melbourne and Canberra. I was salivating before she even offered me a partnership.”
    “You wanted in?” Obviously she had, or she’d never have gone ahead with the deal.
    “I wanted to make a move. I was tired of being a paid employee. For months I’d been toying with the idea of opening up my own business. You know I love my work. I love what I do, but I was getting restless working for someone else. Then Marion comes to talk to me about this awesome growth opportunity, and asks if I’d like to be a partner in the growth.”
    “So you jumped at it.”
    Liv ate a few more bites and washed them down with her drink. “I gave it serious consideration. Figured I had two choices. I could invest the money I’d saved over the last six years in a startup business, all alone, while facing a restraint of trade so I couldn’t poach customers from Beautiful Homes. Or I could invest the same money in an established company—that I knew and had helped build. Either way, I’d be an owner, not an employee.” She shrugged. “I chose the safe option.”
    “Only it turned out to be a whole lot riskier than starting your own company.”
    “Who could have predicted that?”
    “Did a lawyer look over the papers?”
    “Absolutely. I’d never have done anything without one.”
    “So what went wrong?” James couldn’t work it out. Beautiful Homes was a successful business with an established client base and an excellent name.
    Liv dug her fork into the curry, but instead of eating, she swirled it around her plate. “She... She gambled it away. Every last cent.”
    “Pardon?”
    “Marion has a gambling problem. An addiction. She’d been…stable for a long time. Steered clear of tables for the last decade. And then, as she told me a few weeks ago, she had a moment of weakness—and won big.”
    Jesus. Marion a gambler? Just went to show how you never knew what went on in another person’s life. “So she went back for more.”
    Olivia nodded. “And more, and more, and more.”
    “And it was all downhill from there?”
    “More like a catastrophic landslide than downhill, but yeah. I found out that the money I invested went straight into her gambling debt fund—just like most of the company profits from the last six months. None of it went into the company. And now—” she waved her fork in the air, “—legal documents show I’m a twenty-five percent owner of Beautiful Homes, which means I owe all those creditors money we just don’t have.”
    Christ, what a clusterfuck. “Nope, Liv. Those are her debts, not yours. You don’t owe anyone anything.”
    “Tell that to the wholesalers and retailers who won’t stop calling. Tell my clients who want to know what happened to the furniture they paid for that hasn’t been delivered.”
    “You’re taking the fall for her addiction?”
    She nodded.
    His hands curled into fists. James didn’t believe in hitting a woman, ever, but right then he wouldn’t have minded a few minutes alone with Marion. Yeah, he wouldn’t lay a finger on her, but he’d take immense pleasure in scaring the crap out of her.
    “I’m ruined, Jimmy. I’m broke and my professional reputation has been shredded.” Liv stared at her fork for a long time, then set