Best Friend’s Daddy – Forever Daddies Read online Victoria Snow

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But that was something I could deal with later. We weren’t in a relationship, just having fun, like I’d said. Honestly? I was surprised that Stevie went along with it and seemed so easygoing about it. She was a bright and beautiful woman, at the beginning of her career, so maybe it wasn’t so odd. Why would she want to settle down when she had so much to deal with in her life, just graduating and getting a new job and all that?

At the same time, though, I knew her. Or I had known her. And Stevie had always struck me as the kind of person who wanted a kid, a family, wanted to find someone to settle down while. While my own daughter had been flirting with boys right and left and chattering on about crushes, Stevie had never mentioned a single guy, at least not in my presence. Whenever Brooke had brought it up, Stevie had said something along the lines of not wanting to deal with high school boys and wanting to wait for someone mature and serious.

I admired that about her. So why was she bothering to waste her time with me?

In any case, there was no use in wishing for something I wasn’t going to get, and I didn’t even need. I didn’t want a relationship. I’d said it and I meant it. My bed was just fine with me in it by myself, thanks. Or so I reminded myself, anyway, as I went downstairs to grab breakfast.

Brooke was still asleep, so I just made some toast. I couldn’t help but remember the meal that Stevie had made me for breakfast, that delicious sandwich. Maybe I could persuade her to make that for me again, if I teased her and got my hand back up her skirt…

Dammit. That woman did things to my blood that nobody else ever had. I wanted to lock us both in a cabin in the middle of nowhere and fuck her for a week straight, until neither of us could even think of walking.

I grabbed the newspaper. That ought to give me something to distract myself. I could read it online, and often did—I read a lot of restaurant publications online, to keep up with the news in the business, but there was something about getting the Sunday paper, in print, that spoke to me. Probably because it reminded me of coming downstairs as a kid and finding my father reading it as my mother read the comics section. It was her favorite, and my father had always made sure to hand it to her first thing.

Growing up I’d always wanted a marriage like theirs, and I’d thought that I’d found it with Virginia. What a lie that had turned out to be.

I opened the paper, skimming the various news articles and moving on to the food and culture section.

And just below the article on yet another damn superhero movie—there it was.

A review for our restaurant.

I hadn’t even realized there’d been a review. Usually critics liked to make it known beforehand that they were going to be stopping by at some point. Or someone made sure to send me the article once it was printed, giving me a head’s up. But nobody had said anything about this to me. And no critic had let me know that they were going to be stopping by.

Huh.

I started to read the article, and my entire good mood vanished. It was like those eight hours of delicious sleep hadn’t even happened. All the optimism I’d been feeling about the restaurant was evaporated, and instead I felt like someone had dropped a lump of lead down my throat to land heavily in my stomach, dragging me down.

This critic was someone that I didn’t recognize, so I had to look him up on my phone. Apparently he was new to the Bay Area, but his credentials were solid. He’d written for the Washington Post, had been a judge of several cooking competitions in France… this guy was the real deal.

And he was tearing our restaurant apart.

He called the new menu ‘uninspired’ and ‘both boring and pedestrian’. He said that by removing Theo’s menu that we had taken out ‘not only the artistry but the heart and soul’ out of the restaurant and that we would be lucky to stay open until the end of the year.

I’d had a few bad reviews before. It was kind of unavoidable in the restaurant business. Or, well, any business. There was always something to nitpick about the restaurant. Nothing was perfect. But this! I’d never had a review like this before. Not even when we’d first opened and Theo had been on shaky legs a little, just starting out.

This was insane. I had to do something. This was—this wasn’t just a bad review, this was carnage. This was being eviscerated. My stomach was so tight I had to shove the remains of my toast away, unable to even think about eating it.

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