Preparations and Trepidations

Emma~

For the past twenty-four hours, I’ve been covered in goodness knows what. My hair has taken on a life of its own, and the clothes I started out with are now unrecognizable. The pans are naturally piling up, and the temperature in here is steadily rising, which is causing my face to have a permanent flush.

Father has sent some of the servers down to help me, just like he promised, but I find that explaining what they can do takes up just as much time as doing it myself. I’m a one-woman show now, and the curtain goes up very soon. I just hope it all comes together.

Currently, I’ve still to cook the meat, make the starters purée, all while my crème brûlée hasn’t even set yet. With two hours to go, I'm cutting it rather fine, and it's fair to say that I'll be sleeping like the dead tonight. I'm absolutely worn out, and I've not even started the main stretch!

My brother has come down a few times to check on me, no surprise there, but what does seem strange is how nervous he is, much like our father was last night. I know why I'm nervous, but what's up with them?

He keeps looking out the window above the sink and ‘checking if the back door has been oiled.’ He’s not fooling anyone, and my curiosity is killing me.

After the third visit, I make the effort to ask one of the serving boys, Derek, if they know who is arriving in between browning the lamb. If I get this wrong, it could dry out the whole dish, but I’ve done it enough times to feel confident about multitasking.

His face lights up with shock when realizing that I still don’t know, and I either take it to mean that fresh women are coming, or it’s someone really important. Both would explain Owen’s behavior.

“Orion Neville is coming! He’s a major crime boss that took over five companies by force last year, and that was just on the books. The man’s notorious...” His voice dies down to a whisper as a door closes upstairs, and a chill runs down my spine.

The fact that I’ve heard that name before says enough. There never seems to be any good news in the papers these days, and if taking over another company by force is the only thing good enough to be left on the books, what sort of things happen behind the scenes?

I just don’t understand why my father is meeting with him, and why did he say this man was a client?

“Notorious for what?” I hesitantly ask.

While I’ve heard the name, I don’t know much about crime and usually, I’d prefer to keep it that way, but the look on his face won’t allow me to let this go. I mean, really, do we need to be worried here?

“Let’s just say that the last CEO to refuse him something lost a head... and a few other parts before he was done.”

Derek’s face pales while retelling a few more examples, and for the first time in hours, I feel the heat in my cheeks fade as well. How does he know all of this? How could something so vile be common knowledge and not have the man arrested? I actually feel sick from some of it.

I’m suddenly glad that I’m not expected to take my usual place by my father’s side tonight. I’ll be serving along with the others to make up for Betty’s missing number, and I’ll make sure to nab their side of the table. Not because I’m scared, but because I refuse to serve such a creature.

“I can’t believe that my father invited him here,” I say, unable to hold in the comment and knowing that others will be thinking the same.

Derek hesitates before speaking again, probably wondering how much he should say in front of the man’s daughter, not that I’ve given him much reason to fear me. “Apparently, he wasn’t invited, he requested to come here.”

In shock, I drop the tongs used to manage the meat and splash myself with oil in the process. I’m used to burns by now, but this is so not the time to be getting sloppy, and I mentally scold myself.

If it wasn’t by invitation, then why is he coming here? I think suddenly before shaking my head. No, I can’t think like that, not right now. I’m too distracted, and I can’t afford any mistakes.

Changing the subject, I wipe my arms with a tea towel and turn back to Derek with a calm face. “You better run along then, you have a stain on your jacket, and my father will want us looking our best tonight.”

I point to the flour now covering his sleeve from where he was resting against my work table. He jumps up at the sight, probably with no clue how to get rid of it on such short notice, and I laugh at his reaction while running the cold tap.

“Rinse it under here before it turns into dough, and then Camilla should be able to help you scrub off the rest.”

Hell, if I had a penny for the number of flour stains I’ve had over the years, I’d have my own restaurant by now. Sadly, it’s still just a dream though, and our family isn’t going to feed itself.

“Thanks, Emma,” he grins, and I wave him off while turning back to my work.

If that man is as infamous as Derek implies, I don’t want to be giving them any reasons to complain about the food. But with that said, I wonder if it would have been better to try and fly under the radar this time. If it’s not too cocky to say, I do tend to get a lot of compliments on my food.

The thought of having one of them come down here to ask for the chef has my stomach doing flips. He sounds absolutely horrible, and I’ll be counting the minutes until they leave again.