He walked over and tapped the desk. “You’re lucky you have me. Without my talent, without this restaurant’s success, you’d still be wearing rags and milking cows. I gave you a life, Elena.”
Elena looked down at her simple sweater and jeans. She smiled faintly, a sad, knowing smile. “Yes, Mark. Very lucky.”
Mark didn’t know the truth. He didn’t know that the “investor” who had found this prime location for dirt-cheap rent wasn’t a fan of his cooking—it was the executor of the Hale Family Trust.
He didn’t know that the building they were standing in, worth $40 million, belonged to Elena.
He didn’t know that the monthly “profits” he spent on watches and trips were actually subsidies Elena transferred from her inheritance to cover his operational losses.
She had done it because she loved him. Because when they met, he was a passionate, starving line cook with a dream, and she wanted to be the wind beneath his wings.
But somewhere along the way, the wind had turned into a storm, and Mark had forgotten how to fly without stepping on her neck.
“Just make sure the lights stay on,” Mark muttered, checking his reflection in the glass of a framed award. “I have VIPs coming tonight. The critic from the Times might drop by. I need perfection.”
“I’ll handle it,” Elena said. Under the desk, she signed a personal check to Con Edison for $4,500 to prevent a shut-off notice from being executed tomorrow.
Mark left without a thank you.
