Chapter 2 - The Forty-Two-Dollar Dinner
Emma looked up from the menu.
“I like seafood.”
“That sounded suspiciously like a hostage statement.”
She almost smiled.
“I just wasn’t expecting the prices.”
Caleb closed his menu.
“Then don’t look at them.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
The words escaped before Emma could soften them.
Caleb’s expression changed.
Not offended.
Interested.
“Fair point.”
Emma glanced toward the bar again.
Tessa was pretending to study a wine list upside down.
Brooke whispered something that made Marcy laugh.
Emma felt heat creep up her neck.
Caleb followed her gaze.
“Friends?”
“Coworkers.”
“They’re watching us.”
“They’re waiting.”
“For what?”
Emma stared at the candle between them.
“For you to realize I’m not supposed to be here.”
Caleb stopped smiling.
Emma immediately regretted saying it.
“Forget it.”
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
“What does that mean?”
She hesitated, then told him.
Not dramatically.
That made it worse.
She explained how Tessa had arranged the date, how they had described him as awkward and desperate, how the three women had secretly reserved a nearby table.
“They thought this would be funny,” Emma finished.
Caleb looked across the restaurant.
Tessa immediately turned away.
Something cold entered his face.
Emma noticed it.
“Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Do whatever rich people do when they’re angry.”
His eyebrow lifted.
“What do rich people do?”
“I don’t know. Buy the restaurant and fire everybody?”
Caleb laughed.
Actually laughed.
Several diners looked over.
Even Emma smiled.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “I left my restaurant-buying checkbook at home.”
The waiter approached.
Emma ordered soup.
Only soup.
Caleb looked at her.
She gave him a warning expression.
He ordered steak and asked for an additional seafood entrée “for the table.”
Emma knew exactly what he was doing.
“You’re sneaky.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
Dinner became easier after that.
Caleb asked about Maple & Rye.
Emma expected polite boredom.
Instead, he wanted to know why she liked working there.
“I don’t,” she admitted.
He blinked.
She laughed.
“I like the people. Some of them. I like mornings before everyone arrives. Bread comes out of the oven, the windows fog up, and for about twenty minutes the whole world smells like something good is about to happen.”
Caleb stared at her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was definitely something.”
He leaned back.
“I spend my days in meetings where people use forty words to say absolutely nothing. You just made bread sound like a reason to wake up.”
Emma looked down.
No one had ever listened to her like that.
Not as though her ordinary thoughts deserved space.
She asked what he did.
“Whitmore Urban.”
Emma nearly dropped her fork.
Everyone in Chicago knew Whitmore Urban.
The company had transformed entire blocks of the city with hotels, apartment towers and retail developments.
“Whitmore?”
Caleb winced.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The moment people realize.”
“Realize what?”
“That my last name has a stock price.”
Emma stared at him for two seconds.
Then she said, “That sounds inconvenient.”
He laughed again.
Behind them, Tessa’s smile disappeared.
The date was supposed to end with Emma humiliated.
Instead, Caleb Whitmore had laughed more in forty minutes than Tessa had ever seen him laugh in photographs.
She took out her phone.
Brooke leaned closer.
“What are you doing?”
“Fixing this.”
Tessa opened the bakery group chat.
A photograph had been taken earlier that afternoon.
Emma stood in the supply room wearing her work apron, holding a tray of damaged pastries destined for the shelter.
Tessa cropped the picture.
Then she typed:
Guess Cinderella found herself a billionaire. Wonder how long until he sees the real version.
She posted it.
At the table, Emma’s phone began vibrating.
Again.
Again.
Again.
She ignored it.
Caleb noticed.
“You need to get that?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“For once, yes.”
Dessert arrived.
Emma protested.
Caleb ignored her.
The chocolate cake came with two forks.
Halfway through it, Emma relaxed enough to steal the larger strawberry from Caleb’s side.
He stared at his plate.
“Did you just rob me?”
“You weren’t protecting your assets.”
“I’m beginning to understand why you asked what rich people do when angry.”
Emma laughed so suddenly she covered her mouth.
Caleb went still.
There was nothing glamorous about the gesture.
Nothing practiced.
Yet he felt something inside him shift.
He had spent the previous six years dating women whose families knew his family, whose résumés looked impressive in charity biographies, whose photographers somehow appeared outside restaurants at exactly the right moment.
Emma had borrowed her dress.
She worried about ordering a forty-two-dollar entrée.
And she had just stolen his strawberry without caring that his family owned half a dozen buildings visible from the window.
He liked her.
That realization should not have frightened him.
It did.
When dinner ended, Caleb paid before Emma could argue.
Outside, the rain had stopped.
Tessa, Brooke and Marcy rushed past them, pretending they had not been watching.
Tessa paused.
“Oh my God, Emma! You were here?”
Emma stared at her.
Caleb stared harder.
Tessa smiled brightly.
“We had no idea.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” Caleb said.
Silence.
Tessa’s smile cracked.
“Excuse me?”
“I said you’re a terrible liar.”
Emma touched Caleb’s arm.
It was small, instinctive.
But he stopped immediately.
Tessa noticed that too.
Her eyes dropped to Emma’s hand.
Jealousy flashed across her face.
Caleb opened the car door for Emma.
She shook her head.
“I’m taking the train.”
“At eleven at night?”
“I take it every night.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
That answer silenced her.
Thirty minutes later, his car stopped outside Emma’s aging apartment building.
She unfastened her seat belt.
“I had fun.”
“So did I.”
She opened the door.
“Emma?”
She turned.
“I’d like to see you again.”
Her heart stumbled.
“This wasn’t exactly a normal first date.”
“Good. My normal ones are terrible.”
She smiled.
“Goodnight, Caleb.”
She disappeared into the building.
Caleb remained parked there longer than necessary.
Then his phone rang.
His grandmother.
“Tell me everything.”
He smiled.
“You knew.”
“Of course I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That she was special.”
Caleb glanced at Emma’s dark apartment window.
Then a light appeared on the third floor.
His smile faded when his grandmother continued.
“There’s something else you should know.”
“What?”
“The woman Emma takes care of.”
“Mrs. Brooks?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“What about her?”
His grandmother’s voice became serious.
“Evelyn Brooks worked for your grandfather for thirty-two years.”
Caleb straightened.
“And three days ago, she called me.”
“Why?”
“Because someone is trying to force her out of her home.”
Caleb’s expression hardened.
May you like
His grandmother spoke the next sentence slowly.
“The company buying her building is Whitmore Urban.”
