Free Fortune's Just Desserts by Marie Ferrarella

discriminating eye and it was up to him to keep things operating at top levels. That was what his aunt and uncle were paying him for.
    However, when it came to Wendy, if he was honest with himself, he had to admit that he spent more time than he really should observing her.
    Marcos could feel his temper rising as he watched Wendy leaning over this latest customer of hers, who was practically drooling over her. He frowned. Deeply.
    Agitated, Marcos knew that he should just let the matter go and return to his office. After all, no harm was being done, it wasn’t as if he had nothing else to do. There was payroll to review and inventory to verify before Friday came around. Fridays were when he had to place the new orders for the coming week.
    He knew what he should do, but somehow Marcos found himself striding across the floor toward thetable that Wendy was lingering over—and toward the man with the large eyes.
    â€œEverything all right here?” he asked, struggling to sound cheerful and welcoming.
    The customer looked up and nodded with an appreciative smile. “Couldn’t be better, Marcos.”
    Marcos had actually been looking at Wendy. But now his attention was drawn to the man who had called him by his first name.
    Marcos looked at him closely, then nodded to himself as recognition whispered across his brain.
    â€œCooper?” he asked a tad uncertainly.
    â€œNo, it’s Flint.” It was Wendy who corrected him. “Flint Fortune. Seems like we Fortunes just keep turning up everywhere,” she said cheerfully. She tapped the tablet in her hands. “I’ll go see about getting your dinner started,” she told Flint, then sauntered away. Her hips moved rhythmically as she departed.
    â€œNice girl,” Flint commented with feeling.
    â€œSo the customers tell me,” was all Marcos trusted himself to say. And then he looked toward Flint. “Let me know if you need anything,” he said just before he took his leave. He had a restaurant to run. And dwelling on one temporary waitress—because he refused to think of her staying on in any kind of permanent capacity—was not going to help him accomplish that.

Chapter Seven
    W hen Wendy had first come to work at Red, she’d approached her position as a waitress as if it was all just a lark. If it worked out, fine. If not, so be it.
    Her parents had shipped her out to Red Rock thinking that she’d find both herself and a work ethic. When the first position at the Fortune Foundation hadn’t worked out, the restaurant had suddenly be come the next stop on the Wendy train to nowhere, she’d thought sarcastically.
    But working at Red had turned out to be better than she’d anticipated. She’d made friends here and was even enjoying herself, something that really surprised her.
    The one sticking point for her had been Marcos.
    Funny thing about that. The harder the restaurant manager seemed to lean on her, the more she dug in. Rather than breaking, or throwing in the towel—the way she suspected he wanted her to do—she’d decided to show him that she wasn’t the hopeless little trust-fund baby he obviously thought she was.
    Staying on had become a matter of pride, something she’d discovered, to her surprise, that she actually had in spades.
    Who knew?
    So when Marcos walked into the kitchen the next morning about an hour before they opened for lunch and looked her way, Wendy braced herself to survive yet another round of parrying and thrusting. She was, she silently told herself, getting pretty good at that.
    Nodding a greeting at Enrique, Marcos wasted no time, turning his attention directly to Wendy. She had annoyingly haunted his thoughts throughout last night’s date with Jacinta Juárez, a woman who by all rights should have completely and exclusively dominated his every waking moment with her.
    But she hadn’t.
    Hadn’t because at the most inopportune times,