Free Candlelight Conspiracy by Dana Volney Page A

relationship, and … I made a mistake.” She paused, and he saw the sadness lower her shoulders. “But, we weren’t in a great spot. Obviously. Which was both of our faults.”
    “Yeah.” He couldn’t argue with that. They were good together—hell, they were going to get married, and he’d been happy with that decision for his future. Five months ago.
    Now, having met Sophie and the desire she stirred in him and a whole mess of other feelings he hadn’t even been able to sift through yet, he wasn’t so sure Felicia had been wrong to leave him.
    “Have you thought about us?” she asked.
    “I don’t know what to say to that.”
    Yes. No. He’d actually tried really hard not to think about them or the years they’d spent together or walking away from the restaurant he’d help build.
    Did he want to get back together with Felicia? She seemed to want to patch things up between them. Would she move to Casper? Would he move back to Tacoma? This was a turn of events he hadn’t seen coming when he’d brought spaghetti home for lunch yesterday with Sophie.
    Sophie. What about Sophie?
    “Have dinner with me tonight.”
    He glanced past her to metal artwork of a cowboy waving his hat and riding a bucking bronc on his entrance wall. “I can’t. I work dinner service.”
    Misery washed over her face. He owed her.
    “Meet me here at ten.” He couldn’t traipse Felicia back to his place with Sophie next door.
    Maybe she was right, and he’d been too hasty to accept her leaving and not fight. Was there still something between them to restore?
    • • •
    What a holy mind-terror of a day.
His ex-fiancée showed up, he didn’t see Sophie at all, and he had another meeting with Felicia tonight. If there was ever a day that he wished he’d slept through, this was it. He really could’ve used seeing Sophie during his quick break between Felicia’s visit and dinner service. Sophie would’ve put things in perspective. She would’ve made him laugh and asked some ridiculous questions and sang a song that would’ve made him want to kiss her all night long. Okay, so maybe all of those things wouldn’t have happened by bumping into Sophie in the hall. But he’d sure been thinking about those scenarios for hours. And visions of getting back together with Felicia—those were more confusing than happy. He plated the mozzarella-pesto chicken as his sous chef finished sautéeing asparagus for a four-top.
    He double-checked the completed plates before putting them up for the servers, watched them leave the kitchen, and then grabbed the new tickets. “Two chicken, one steak,” he called out to his kitchen.
    His staff worked efficiently; they’d resolved the kinks by now and had found their rhythm. He didn’t watch the clock, he focused on the food. Because when ten o’clock came around he didn’t know what would happen. The only thing that made sense to him was food—the women in his life, because now there were two to consider, and how he felt about them only scrambled his brain.
    • • •
    By the end of the shift, Marc had worked himself to the bone. The kitchen had been cleaned, the front of house was being tidied, and Kurt had retreated to his office.
    Exhaustion pulled at his neck, and he rubbed his forehead only to look up and see Felicia walk through the metal kitchen doors.
    “Hey there.” Her warm smile made him feel a little better.
    They were just going to talk and hopefully not fight. Anything could happen. He’d decided nothing.
    “How was dinner service?”
    “Great. We had a good number of people for a Monday.” He was happy with the turnout.
    “Yeah. Dad still says Mondays and Tuesdays are the worst.”
    “I bet he does.”
Calm down. She didn’t mean anything by it.
It had been his choice to leave; he hadn’t been forced out, and Felicia’s dad had paid him fair market value for his half. The buyout money was what he used to start Sizzo’s. He couldn’t fail because he wouldn’t have