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Finally, I sigh, rubbing my jaw with my hand. “Just because you’re hurting doesn’t mean you need to go around ruining people’s lives, Neil. Doesn’t mean you can be a fucking predator.”

Neil hangs his head, glancing back at Augusta. “It’s not like that.”

Maybe not. But it’s still shitty as hell.

I look toward Reese’s office, as if it’ll give me the right answer here.

Neil follows my gaze and looks panicky. “You’re going to tell her, aren’t you? Fuck, you can’t tell her, Eli. She’ll kick us out. The show will be cancelled. I’ll be ruined!”

“I don’t give a shit about you, Neil.” But he’s right. She won’t let it fly. I look back to Nancy and Augusta. They’re huddled close together. Why should they be punished? Especially Augusta. She’s endured Neil’s bullshit for this long so as not to risk this chance at winning. To keep the show on the air.

I look at Neil again, who’s crying openly now, his face in his hands.

I grit my teeth, letting out a breath. “Neil, stop. Just stop. I’m going to sit on this until I decide what to do.”

Neil looks up, his eyes so hopeful I’m hard-pressed not to backpedal.

“This is not to save you,” I say. “This is because of Augusta, and what she’s earned here. You need to be on your best fucking behavior starting yesterday. I don’t want you to so much as look in her direction.”

“Okay,” he says, his voice wobbly.

He’s pathetic like this.

“Go,” I bark, and he jumps, scurrying off like a fucking rat.

I scrub my face with my hand, heading back to Augusta and Nancy. I explain what I said to Neil, and how he’s not going to be bothering her anymore. “But if you want, I can get him off this show. I’ll tell Reese—”

Augusta shakes her head. “No. Please.” For the first time, she looks less pissed and more panicked. “I need this show to air. I need to do this.”

“Listen,” I say, lowering my voice. “I know you want to win this thing. And we’re all rooting for you.” I look at Marcel, who’s reappeared at the next workstation, inspecting his teeth in the reflection of his chef’s knife. “I won’t tank this for you unless you say the word, okay? This is my hotel, and I don’t let shit slide here. If he tries anything—if he even looks at you or any other woman in here sideways, you call me immediately. Or Cass. I’ll fill her in right away.”

Augusta nods, wiping tears from her eyes, then holds up the knife. “Better than me using this on him.”

I smile. “Better than that.”

But as I head up the stairs back to my office, a dark cloud hangs over me. I have no idea if I did the right thing.

CHAPTER19

Eli

TRACK:Adele, “Make You Feel My Love”

That shit with Neil, on top of my argument with Cass, puts me in a foul-ass mood that lasts straight through to Friday.

Plus, now it’s been two full days since I saw Reese, and I’m getting itchy with missing her.

But I know I’m not at my best, and I don’t want her to see me like this.

The truth is, I’ve been avoiding her, because I don’t know what the hell to do about the Neil situation. I can’t hide anything from her. But Augusta more or less asked me not to share it. I could ask her about telling Reese, but another issue occurred to me after leaving the kitchen the other night, this one worse than getting the show shut down—at least in my mind. What if the Neil issue sets her back with how far she’s come? Asshole guys are a trigger for her—a mimosa in the lap, plus what she told me earlier. An asshole kept her from singing for years.

I know I have to deal with this somehow, but for right now, I’m stuck at work until this meeting with the renovation project manager happens.

The one good thing in all this is I enlisted help from Rufus the human, who’s been watching over Neil like a hawk. That makes me feel a little better about leaving the situation the way I did. I offered to pay him out of pocket to come in when filming starts every morning, just to observe, but he said he’d do it for nothing. I know that has a lot to do with Sophie, who’s one of the only staff at the restaurant who has crossover with the film crew.

“He’s walking around with his tail between his legs,” he tells me when I call him. “But the minute that arsehole even looks at a woman the way he did he’s getting a frying pan to the balls and formal action besides.”

The conversation makes me smile at least for a few minutes.