The Blue Bistro by Elin Hilderbrand Read Free Book Online

. . . I like it.
“Diaphanous” didn’t mean transparent. You certainly couldn’t see anything. Besides, she was wearing a very sturdy, very modest beige bra. And her shoes—what, exactly, was wrong with her shoes?
    Adrienne did
not
like the idea that while she was getting moved into the cottage, setting up her bank account, and strictly adhering to all three of her rules, someone she’d never laid eyes on was down here talking about her. News of the diaphanous top and the inappropriate shoes had probably already made it back into the kitchen. What would Fiona say to
that
?
    Thatcher appeared, holding a flute of pink champagne. “You’re all done.”
    It wasn’t a question, though Adrienne still had food on her plate, and she didn’t want to be separated from it. He nodded toward the front door. “Service starts in ten minutes. Mr. and Mrs. Parrish will be here
at
six. There are some other things I have to explain.”
    Adrienne cleared her plate into three bins the way she’d seen others doing, though it killed her to throw food away. She followed Thatcher, who was holding the champagne out in front of him. “You liked dinner?” he asked.
    “It was delicious.” This felt like a gross understatement and she wondered what words might convey the physical pain she felt at scraping her plate. “Did you eat?”
    He laughed, the old karate-chop “ha!” It was a noise he made not when something was funny, she realized, but when something was preposterous. “No. I eat with Fee after service.”
    Is she your wife? Girlfriend? Can someone please turn on the lights so I can see? Is this the restaurant’s last year because you’ve split up? Is the fact that I’m a woman going to be a bigger problem than you initially anticipated?
Adrienne followed him silently, but not silently at all. Her shoes were making a tremendous racket against the wooden floors.
    “I’m clomping,” she said.
    Thatcher turned to her. “Yes. The shoes. I told you. You have to watch the way you walk. Tomorrow night, different shoes. A soft sole. Slippers or something, but elegant, okay?”
    Adrienne deducted another hundred dollars from her rapidly diminishing savings for elegant slipper shoes. Fine for pants, but the dress she’d bought would look funny without heels.
    “Taking this job was a mistake,” she said. “Behind the front desk of a hotel, no one could even see my shoes.”
    They reached the oak podium, home to the phone, the reservation book, a Tiffany vase with a couple dozen blue irises. A shallow bowl of Blue Bistro matches. A leather cup containing three sharpened pencils and a funny-looking wine key. Thatcher held up the champagne flute.
    “This is a glass of Laurent-Perrier rosé,” he said. “We sell it at the bar for sixteen dollars a glass, ninety-five dollars a bottle. This is what you’re going to drink on the floor.”
    “I
said,
taking this job was a mistake.”
    “We both took a gamble,” he said. “Please give it one night. I promise you will love it so much you will be countingthe minutes until you can come back. If you don’t feel that way, then we’ll talk. But we can’t talk now. Right now, I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen, okay?”
    His okays were purely rhetorical.
    “I want to brush my teeth,” she said.
    Before she knew what was happening, Thatcher leaned over and kissed her. Very quickly, very softly. “You’re fine,” he said. “I detect a trace of vinaigrette, but it’s really very pleasant.” He held the flute out to her, and as it gave her something to do other than fall over backward, she accepted it.
    “My father is a dentist,” she said. If her father had seen what just happened—well, she could hear him now.
These are not people who floss, honey.
Adrienne looked at Huck Finn, the professor, resplendent in his watch and shoes, a yellow linen shirt and navy blazer. He did not seem at all fazed by what had just happened.
The professor kissed me! It was really