Every Breath You Take by Judith McNaught Read Free Book Online Page A

stop.
    She looked down at the title of her new list, and her hand trembled. Donovan’s Restaurant would be forever linked in her mind to her father. Located downtown, Donovan’s had begun as a little Irish pub founded by her father, and over the next thirty years it had repeatedly expanded and transformed until it was now one of Chicago’s most elegant, and most popular, restaurants. Daniel Patrick Donovan had always been a fixture there—a witty, charismatic man who mingled with his special customers while keeping an eye on every minute detail involving food and service. He had been the spirit and life force behind Donovan’s, and now it was up to Kate to try to carry on without him.
    Struggling to keep her emotions under control, Kate went to work on her list. According to the maître d’, the restaurant was booked solid with reservations for the next eleven days, and the waiting list was longer than the usual number of cancellations. Kate needed to learn every detail about the restaurant’s operating budget, and she needed to set up safeguards to make sure she stayed within it. … She needed to have weekly meetings with the staff for a while, until they were confident she could actually take her father’s place—and until she was sure of it. She also needed to see if the new menus her father had chosen were on order. He’d liked those padded maroon leather menus with the word
Donovan’s
deeply embossed in gold.
    He liked maroon leather chairs with shiny brass nail heads, she remembered achingly. …
    And waiters in freshly pressed dinner jackets …
    And sparkling cut-crystal glassware …
    And gleaming brass foot rails in the bar …
    Kate stopped writing and pressed her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose to hold back the tears stinging her eyes. A chorus of laughter rang out from the patio and rippled through the interior of the restaurant. Kate blinked and lifted her head.
    “Compliments of the young gentlemen,” the waiter announced.
    “Take it back to them and tell them I don’t want it,” Kate ordered, her voice ragged with emotion. She flicked an apologetic glance at her audience within the restaurant; then she bent her head and turned to a new page in her notebook. She began a list of things she had to do at her father’s house.
    On the patio outside, the boys let out a groan of dismay when the waiter walked out of the restaurant carrying an untouched glass of tomato juice on a tray.
    At the table beside them, Mitchell Wyatt turned his head to hide his amusement and encountered laughing looks from several people on his left. By now, everyone seated on the patio was privy to the boys’ repeated amorous attempts to make an impression on the woman inside.
    Although Mitchell had a view of her sitting at the bar, she was in deep shadow, so he had no idea what she looked like. According to the boys, who’d repeatedly expressed their opinion to everyone within hearing, she was “Soooo hot” and “Such a fox.”
    The waiter put the glass of tomato juice on their table and sternly informed them, “The lady does not want another glass of tomato juice.”
    Trying to ignore the outburst of laughter and the youthful exclamations of disappointment that followed the waiter’s announcement, Mitchell picked up the estimates his contractor had given him, but the youngest boy evidently decided to seek advice from an older, more experienced male. Leaning toward Mitchell, he held up his palms in a gesture of helplessness and demanded, “So, what would you do?”
    Mildly annoyed at yet another distraction, Mitchell eyed the glass of unappetizing tomato juice and said, “I’d add a stalk of celery and a shot of vodka, if it was for me.”
    “Yes!” the kid exclaimed excitedly, looking at the waiter.
    The waiter looked questioningly at the bodyguard, who was seated at the table with them and trying to read a newspaper. The boys looked hopefully at the bodyguard. “Give us a hand here, Dirk,” one