More Than Anything (Broken Pieces #1)(52)

The duties she had expected to perform, like staff coordination, keeping track of inventories, and overseeing food preparation and service, were all very efficiently handled by Libby and Ricardo. Which left Tina to wander around, making uncomfortable small talk with some of the patrons. She soon gathered that—aside from handling their finances, paying the staff, and managing the marketing and PR—this was to be one of her main functions. She was the eponymous MJ, the “friendly” face of the business. And it was yet another aspect of the job she found herself completely unsuited for. She had briefly entertained the crazy notion of hiring someone to be Martine Jenson, but it was too late for that now. Everybody knew she was the MJ.

The thought of making cheerful small talk with strangers every day was enough to make her nearly break out in hives. She could feel her skin prickling at the very idea, her breath hitching in that awful stop-start manner that warned of an impending anxiety attack.

But it was a fleeting moment that she managed with barely a hitch. She wasn’t sure if she should be proud of the efficient way she’d fended off the incipient attack or saddened that she’d experienced so many of them in the past that she could handle the milder ones like a pro now.

She settled on satisfaction. She was happy that she’d managed to keep it together, especially after Saturday’s meltdown. Her victories were so few and far between that she’d take them where she could.

Still, it didn’t solve her immediate dilemma of being the unofficially official spokesperson for the restaurant. But she’d figure it out eventually.

She had to.

She was still making stilted small talk when the door opened and Greyson and Harris walked in. She ignored Harris for the moment in favor of glaring at Greyson, who strode in like he owned the place. Looking much more like his arrogant self in a three-piece Armani suit. Three piece! Like he needed the formality of a vest in Riversend. His hair was slicked back urbanely and side parted. He looked like he’d just stepped off the cover of GQ magazine.

“Martine,” he said smoothly when he saw her, and her glare intensified. He didn’t smile at her—then again, he rarely smiled—but soberly tilted his head in greeting.

Tina nodded at the elderly lady with whom she had been having a very uncomfortable chat and excused herself. She tried not to notice the relief in the woman’s faded gray eyes.

She clamped her hand onto Greyson’s strong forearm and led him away.

“Try not to kill him, Tina,” Harris advised calmly, and she shot him a glare over her shoulder before plastering a fake smile to her lips for the benefit of the other patrons as she practically dragged the tall man toward her office.

“I’ll just stay here and order for us,” Harris called from behind them, and Tina ignored him.

“What do you want, Greyson?” she asked, turning to face him, hands planted on hips, once they were in the privacy of the office.

“Lunch. But I suppose we’re doing this instead,” he said, his voice even and revealing little emotion. Tina was struck by how very different he was from Harris. Greyson was on permanent lockdown, whereas his brother smiled often and wasn’t afraid to show emotion, good or bad. In fact, Tina doubted the man actually had emotions.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked on a furious whisper.

“I’m here for Olivia.” He swallowed, the first sign of anything resembling uncertainty she’d ever seen from him, before adding, “And Clara.”

“You don’t deserve them.”

She suddenly noticed that his left hand was bandaged and was about to ask him about it when he spoke again. And sent all other thoughts fleeing from her mind.

“And you don’t have the right to an opinion in this matter, Martine. It’s between my wife and I.”

Oh no, he did not! Tina clenched her fists and fixed a deathly glare on him. It was time to set this bastard straight once and for all.

Harris had briefly considered intervening but in the end decided that Greyson was a big boy. He could take care of himself. Besides, Tina needed to have this conversation with him, and far be it from Harris to deprive her of that. He was perusing the menu, trying to figure out what he was in the mood for, when he heard Libby’s voice coming from behind him.

“Harris? I heard you were here . . . with a look-alike.” She cast her eyes around the room. “Where is he?”

“He was accosted by a pissed-off little redhead and dragged away into the back office,” Harris supplied and watched his friend bristle quite magnificently. Even her hair seemed to stand on end.

“She has no right,” Libby practically growled before turning to stomp off in the direction Tina and Greyson had gone, but Harris jumped up and grabbed her hand to stop her.

“Sit with me for a moment, Bug,” he invited quietly, and she tried to tug her hand out of his. But his grip was gentle and unrelenting. “C’mon, Libby, sit. Please.”

The wind seemed to leave her sails, and her shoulders slumped before she turned and plonked herself into a chair at his table. Harris joined her and smiled at her.

“Maybe he should hear what Tina has to say,” Harris suggested, and Libby shook her head.

“I don’t even know what Tina has to say. She has been so weird since we’ve moved here. She hasn’t been honest about how this place is doing, I know that. She’s been borderline bitchy to the nicest people. She went home in the middle of the brunch service on Saturday.” She shook her head in disgust at that. “Ostensibly to work. Because apparently she can’t work around a crying baby. She can barely look at a noncrying baby, by the way. She has been awful, and part of me wishes I’d never agreed to run this business with her. I’m not sure our friendship can survive it. And now this? She has no right to interfere in my marriage.”