Page 5 of Return to Whitmore (The Whitmore #2)

Chapter Four

A t seven thirty that evening, after a full day of conversation and walking the beach, Nina got ready to leave Charlotte’s place.

She had a phone call with Will and Fiona at camp, and she wanted to double- and triple-check a few documents from her divorce lawyer, a lawyer she was calling her “guardian angel.” What she’d told Charlotte thus far about Daniel, about the woman he’d been cheating on her with, about their trip to South America to study anthropology, made Charlotte’s blood run cold.

She felt overprotective in the way of big sisters, eager to make whoever had destroyed her little sister’s heart pay for what they’d done.

“What are you up to tonight?” Nina asked, gathering her things and offering Charlotte a sleepy smile.

Charlotte touched her ear nervously. What she was actually up to tonight was her business and her business alone and nothing she wanted to bring Nina into.

More than that, Charlotte wasn’t entirely sure what would unfold when she reached her destination.

Nerves made her quiet. That, and her previous promises.

Nina had come into the equation of the Whitmore mess, and Charlotte hadn’t betted on it.

“I’ll probably chill out for a while,” Charlotte said. “Maybe watch a movie and eat a few snacks. Something simple.”

“That sounds nice,” Nina said sadly. “I wish I could stay.”

Charlotte hugged her little sister and watched from the front door as Nina got into her car and drove away, back to her little rental not far from the White Oak Lodge.

Charlotte held her breath and counted to ten, then slammed the door and raced to the dresser to get ready.

She’d said she’d be at the restaurant by eight fifteen.

It wasn’t a run-of-the-mill restaurant either, but a top-of-the-line, Michelin-starred restaurant that Charlotte had opted for because she’d assumed everyone at said restaurant would be tourists and unwilling to listen to her conversation.

Plus, she was sort of a foodie, always had been. It was in her Italian blood.

You can take the girl out of Tuscany , she thought as she scrambled into a bloodred dress, but you can’t take the Tuscany out of the girl .

She knew if she said something like that in front of Francesca, Francesca would scoff and tell her to stop being so American.

In the mirror, she smiled to herself and put on a shade of lipstick that made her look more like Francesca than she usually liked.

I can’t get you out of my head, Mother, she thought.

On the drive to the restaurant, Charlotte’s arms shook almost violently.

When she’d arranged this dinner meeting, she hadn’t known Nina was on the island, hadn’t known that everything would get so twisted up.

Beyond that, who she was meeting needed answers from Charlotte, answers that Charlotte wasn’t sure how to give.

By the time she parked in the lot outside the glowing restaurant, Charlotte had worked herself up so much that she had to sit and count her breaths.

The person she was coming here to meet, she’d never met before. How did she know she could trust them?

“I don’t,” she answered herself, then got out of the car.

A woman in a sleek black dress opened the foyer door and smiled in a way that, Charlotte knew, probably pleased all of the other high-rolling clientele at the restaurant. “Good evening,” she said. “Welcome to Chez Paul.”

Charlotte smiled back and thanked the woman, slipping into the foyer to assess the restaurant and see if her new “friend,” so to speak, had already arrived.

The restaurant itself was just as spectacular as the online photographs, with intimate, ornate tables, long-hanging lamps with soft lighting, and small plates of food that looked decadent and inventive, seafood with a French twist. Charlotte’s mouth began to water immediately.

When was the last time she’d eaten something so wonderful?

“I’m meeting someone,” Charlotte told the hostess. “I’ll wait here.”

The woman smiled and moved on to another mini restaurant emergency, one that required low tones between the hostess and servers. Charlotte had worked her fair share of restaurants over the years and knew the drill. Everything was chaos, especially on a night like this. She didn’t envy them.

If Charlotte really didn’t get funding for her documentary, would she have to start working at a place like this again? Her stomach curdled with dread.

And then a thought rang through her. Not if the Whitmore treasure is real .

What was she thinking? She laughed at herself and let herself loosen into the night. There was no treasure.

That was when she spotted someone in the kitchen.

Like many exquisite restaurants worth their weight in Michelin stars, this one had a window that showed off what was happening in the silver and glowing kitchen.

Men and women dressed in chef whites worked purposely, their sharp knives flashing, their skillets singeing.

It was a little like watching a choreographed dance, with everyone in their designated place at the right time.

But one of the chefs was staring through the window at Charlotte.

It didn’t take long for Charlotte to realize she knew him. Her heart exploded.

Suddenly, she shot away from the kitchen window and back toward the door.

She couldn’t take it. She shoved the door open and prepared to hurl herself into the night.

She could call her contact and say something came up.

She could arrange for another meeting place.

Why hadn’t she known that Chez Paul was so dangerous?

How could she have missed something so pivotal?

But when she opened the door, she discovered Addison, hurrying up the walkway.

Addison’s shiny cheeks were tear-soaked, and her eyes were tinged reddish pink.

She waved and then, very suddenly, threw herself into Charlotte’s arms like a child.

Charlotte held her, listening to the frantic thudding of her heart, as Addison spoke into her shoulder, “I’m so glad you’re here.

You don’t know what I’ve been going through. ”

Suddenly, they were in the foyer again. The hostess gestured, smiling in a way that suggested she could easily pretend that Addison wasn’t full-on sobbing. “Right this way, ladies,” she said.

Charlotte dared a glance back toward the kitchen and realized the chef was still staring at her.

A part of her had hoped she’d imagined it.

The back of her neck was on fire. All she could hope for was that the hostess would guide them to a table in the back, hidden in the shadows, far away from the kitchen.

But luck wasn’t on her side tonight. The hostess showed them a table just two rows away from the kitchen window, in the midst of the overwhelmingly recommended ambiance.

Addison picked up a fancy linen towel and mopped herself up.

“I’m sorry,” she said, flustered. “I held it together from here to the airport, but the second I saw you, I lost it.”

Charlotte reached over and touched her hand, looking at Addison in the flesh for the first time. She was probably a little bit younger than Charlotte, maybe forty or forty-one, with dark red hair and a tan that spoke of her years in Hawaii.

“You don’t have to apologize.” Charlotte nervously glanced again toward the kitchen.

Addison sniffled. “You don’t know how long it took to find you,” she said.

“I mean, I had no idea about the place on Madequecham Beach. I barely knew about Nantucket at all.” She gestured wildly around her, as though they were in a make-believe land.

“It’s an entire island! In the Atlantic! And he never mentioned it!”

Charlotte wanted Addison to quiet down a little bit. Tourists or no tourists, she didn’t want their dirty laundry to be belted out and echo from the low-hanging lamps.

“You must have had a really long travel day,” Charlotte said softly. “Why don’t we get something to drink? Wine? A cocktail?”

Addison let out a nervous hiccup, just as a server approached to take their order.

“It took me an entire day to get here,” Addison said, ignoring the server.

“I guess we’ll need a little more time,” Charlotte said to the server, flashing a smile. Her anxiety spiked.

Suddenly, the kitchen door opened with a flash and brought the staring chef into the open. With a soft white towel, he dried his large, capable hands and scanned the room, looking for Charlotte. Charlotte considered dropping under the table to hide.

“Listen,” Charlotte said suddenly, her tongue dry. “Why don’t we go back to my place? We can talk there, maybe order pizza. You must be starving, and this isn’t the kind of food you eat when you’re starving.”

Addison sniffed and looked around the restaurant as though she were seeing it for the first time. At that moment, the chef caught sight of Charlotte and began to stride their way. Charlotte thought she was going to faint.

“I just don’t know what to do,” Addison warbled. “He disappeared again. It’s like, does he know what he puts us through when he does this? Does he know how he breaks my heart?”

Charlotte was on her feet. She felt as though she was about to be run over. The chef had his eyes on her, and he was unsmiling, drawing himself between the tables.

“I know,” Charlotte said to Addison, gesturing. “You can tell me all about it. At home.”

When Addison got up, it was clear her legs were shaking beneath her. Charlotte reached out to steady her and guide her toward the front door. Their server chased them down, his smile waning as he asked, “Is there something I can help you ladies with? Do you have any questions about the menu?”

“We’re fine,” Charlotte shot. “I realized I, um, don’t have my wallet?” It was the first thing she could think of.

“I have my wallet, Charlotte,” Addison said. But Charlotte knew that Addison’s money situation was bleak at best.

“I think it’s best we try another day,” Charlotte said to the server in a syrupy voice. “Thank you!”

The chef had rerouted and clipped in front of the door just before they managed an escape.

His eyes were cerulean and serious, and his jawline was sharp and masculine and tinged with an eight o’clock shadow.

From here, Charlotte could smell his aftershave, a scent that told her he was a man, now, a forty-five-year-old man.

He gazed down at her as though he couldn’t believe it.

Charlotte and Addison were stalled.

Charlotte willed herself to say excuse me but couldn’t form the words. She thought she might keel over.

The chef’s lips formed a round O of surprise. Addison peered somewhere past him, gazing into the night. Did she see him? Or was Charlotte, incredibly, imagining him? Her stress had certainly been extraordinary lately. Maybe that lent itself to extraordinary visions.

But that was when someone in the kitchen hollered out, “Vincent? Vincent, what’s up with the oysters?”

Vincent’s eyes crystallized, as though he’d let himself dive into a daydream and now needed to yank himself back to the surface. He said, “I’m coming back in a second.”

Charlotte forced herself to speak. “We have to go.”

“You haven’t eaten anything yet,” Vincent said, his voice so quiet that she was sure Addison couldn’t hear him.

“We’ll be back.” Charlotte sounded formal and strange. “It looks divine.”

What kind of word was “divine”? It was nothing high school Charlotte would have said, and it was nothing Charlotte, the current cool documentarian, would say either.

She bit her tongue and forced herself to keep looking Vincent in the eye.

The last time she’d talked to him was the day she’d left Nantucket at age nineteen.

She’d promised to meet him at their secret place yet hadn’t shown up.

She knew he’d gotten married and had children. That was all she knew.

But the fiery intensity between them dimmed everything else in the restaurant, in the world.

Suddenly, Addison let out another sob. It was the cry of a broken woman, and it forced Charlotte back to reality. “I have to take her home,” she told Vincent.

“When did you get back?” Vincent asked.

“It doesn’t matter.” Saying it made Charlotte feel as though she were breaking her own heart all over again. “It’s a beautiful restaurant, Vincent. You should be proud.”

With that, she and Addison slipped back into the inky night.