4
BRYN
For the first time since meeting this Mitchell Dunford, I’m able to wipe that lackadaisical smile off his face, and boy, is it satisfying. It almost makes up for the apple-picking drone bullshit he tried to trick me with earlier.
Almost.
“So let me get this straight,” Mitchell says. “You want to pull all this equipment out and redo the floors? I was expecting some changes, but not a major renovation.” He has both palms on the table, as if bolstering himself.
I nod, avoiding his eyes. Now with his hat off and hair floppy and boyish, I can see how wicked he might have been in another life. He would have been the kind of guy I fell for in my more carefree days—a guy completely the opposite of me, fearless and spontaneous. But this meeting is about setting the foundation for my business, and ogling Mitchell is not part of the agenda. “Cooking classes are the focal point of this retreat, so the kitchen has to be able to accommodate multiple cooks. That means more burners, bigger countertops.”
“All right. And the floors?”
“The wood laminate will warm the space up.”
“Christ. And a pergola?”
“That sunset view is priceless. That, and the view of the vineyard behind the house is amazing. Honestly, these are what make this place like paradise. I can guarantee our guests will spend a majority of their time outside from spring till fall.”
He runs his fingers through his hair. Blows a breath through seconds that feel like days. I get it—the guy’s worried. From the research I’ve done on Dunford Vineyard, no one but family has lived on this property.
Appealing to Mitchell’s attachment, I reach my hand toward the middle of the kitchen island and point to the renovation proposal in front of him. “I promise, Mr. Dunford, I’m going to take care of this place like it’s my own home. I will leave it in better shape than when I assumed it. The things written here may seem big, but we’re not doing anything irreversible or that will change the character of the house. And the second dwelling out back is going to be up to code once I’ve renovated it, increasing Dunford’s property value.”
He looks to Rocío, who has been busy taking notes throughout this entire exchange, as if she holds the final answer. My gaze slides to my left, to Victoria, who is doodling on an empty planner page. I asked her to attend this meeting so I wouldn’t have to face this alone. Despite the confidence I’m exuding on the outside, I’m nervous. Lavenderhill is my dream property.
“How many guests do you plan to host at one time?”
“Six, seven at most.” My words quicken. “But that doesn’t have anything to do with the renovations.”
“It has everything to do with them. It makes me wonder if you need to do them in the first place.”
I feel like I’m being dragged through a maze with no opening, so I sit up straighter. “I think that’s my decision to make. Whether I have one guest or twenty, what I’ll do down here is really, for lack of better words, none of your business. Frankly, your monthly lease is higher than any of the other places I’ve previewed, and I hoped you would be the most flexible. I would not have chosen Lavenderhill if I couldn’t do these renovations. My impression from Rocío was that the renovations would be approved. I thought this was a done deal. I mean, you can see that I already brought in a load of my things, that I have a moving truck outside. I won’t, however, have any hesitation about walking away from this lease and asking for my deposit back if I can’t do them.”
My words come out steady, my intent clear. I hate getting to this point in any negotiation, but he pushed me here.
“Fine.” Finally, he spits the word out as if it were poison. “As long as the changes are nothing permanent. With the pergola, I’d like to have some say in how large it will be.”
“I can work with that.” I fight the urge to smile.
Finally, Mitchell picks up the pen next to him and flips to the back page of the lease. As he scrawls his signature, he says, “This is not a carte blanche agreement. Future changes—”
“I promise we’ll discuss future large changes.” I accentuate the word large.
He passes the lease to me, and I sign on my dotted line.
The barstool squeaks as he stands, and I scramble up and meet him around the island. I extend my hand, an olive branch. “It’s great doing business with you. I’m glad we could come to a middle ground.”
My sister lets out a mouse’s squeak of triumph.
Mitchell finally grips my hand in return, then lets his fall to his side. “It wasn’t quite the middle.”
“Honestly? You’re right.” I laugh halfheartedly, unable to rub it in. When his expression turns incredulous, I rephrase my intention. “Try to see it my way, this home will shine after the renovations are complete.”
“We’ll see.” His voice is gruff and resigned, eyes on me.
They strike me as a dare. “You will.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.” Take that.
“Thank you for your time this morning. And welcome home.” Rocío glides between Mitchell and me, cutting the tension with a sincere smile.
The group walks to the door, and I open it. “Thank you. It feels like home already.”
Mitchell snorts. “Right.”
I refuse to be taken in by his poor sportsmanship. I won and want to be the gracious winner. So I grin. “I’ll keep in touch.”
He nods. “Nice to meet you, Victoria, Mary.”
Victoria snickers then slides her eyes to me.
“Right. I’m Bryn. Mary is my legal first name, but I’ve always gone by Bryn.”
“Interesting. Well, Bryn. I’m right up the road, should you need me.”
Don’t worry, I won’t is the first thing I think of, but I don’t answer and simply close the door behind them. Through the windows, I watch the pair as they walk up the hill to Mountainridge. The hunch in Mitchell’s shoulders is evident, and a small part of me feels sorry for the guy. He was ill-prepared for this meeting, and I pushed him to his limit.
Then again, he has my money. I’m paying him top dollar to live here, and it’s within my right to negotiate the best for this retreat.
Who is he anyway, this Mitchell Dunford? He’s just a guy with a silver—no, gold—spoon in his mouth. The recipient of a legacy and likely a trust fund I can only dream of. He already has what I’m barely clutching on to, this bit of an idea that if I put in hard work and sweat equity—and every dime I have—I’ll get the so-called American Dream. To call something truly my own. To create something out of nothing and make a living out of it.
“That was tense.” Vic heads into the kitchen and clears our glasses of water from the countertop. Humor tinges her tone. “If you ask me, it sounded like there was something fishy in your negotiation. Like you were getting back at him for spilling coffee on you or something.”
I follow her in, humiliation creeping up my spine from the embarrassment of being schooled that there was no such thing as apple-picking drones. “You’re wrong, Vic.”
“Uh-huh.”
Admittedly, it started with his drone comment. Mitchell tested me—teasingly, sure—but instead of the competent business owner I aspire to be, I felt like a fraud. I thought that my experience working full-time and getting my MBA part-time would’ve prepared me for the challenges of starting my own business. But the road thus far has been rough, starting with this expensive piece of land that was hard to find, and now its nosy landlord.
But at our meeting, I showed him. He’s not messing with an amateur. “I have a feeling Mitchell Dunford’s going to be up my ass for as long as we live here.”
“Quite honestly? I couldn’t focus on anything he said. Did you see how beautiful he was?”
“Pfft. All I saw was someone trying tell me what to do with my business.” My voice is accusatory, but my body hums in agreement with my sister. Mitchell is beautiful. He’s sexy in a mischievous way. Which bodes worse, because while he might be the kind of man I’m physically attracted to, I can’t hang with the jokester type for any length of time—as evidenced by today’s meeting. “And speaking of . . .”
My brain flips over as I grab the whiteboard from my things at the corner of the room and perch it on the kitchen counter. Since we still need to unpack the rest of the truck, hire crucial staff, renovate this gorgeous home, and fill it with retreat-worthy furnishings, all with a timeline of opening by mid-August, it’s going to take fourteen-hour days.
What my sister doesn’t know—and what I don’t want to say aloud—is that beyond what Mitchell Dunford said, he made me feel something. Anger and frustration the first day we met, and then today? An irritation that has left me restless. His presence, like a night watchman, doesn’t give me heartsease. He puts me on edge. I want to prove him wrong, just because.
Yes, it’s irrational. Yes, it’s stupid.
It sure didn’t help his cause that he initially treated our meeting with an easygoing attitude, a hands-in-his-jeans-pocket-aw-shucks vibe people like me abhor. People like me who scrubbed floors, washed dishes, waited tables, cooked food, and took our jobs seriously.
Gauging my thoughts, Victoria brushes past me to get the coffee started. She grinds the Kape Barako, the coffee beans my dad brings back from the Philippines. “Fine. I’ll order pizza for lunch. I know that look. You want to work.”
The coffee starts brewing, and its nutty, ethereal scent unlocks my creativity. On one half of the whiteboard, I scrawl our hard dates with a black dry-erase marker: furniture delivery date, garden rehab for our fresh vegetables, pergola construction start date, small dwelling reno, opening. On the other half, I brainstorm people to hire. Because what I have in organization and project management, I lack in actual skill and time.
Chef
Housekeeping
Groundskeeping
“Food will be delivered in thirty minutes.” Vic sets down a mug next to me. It’s the perfect light brown color from the coconut milk she mixed in. Everything stops for this first taste; superstition tells me a great cup of coffee leads to an even better day.
“Mmmmm . . .” I groan, satisfied when I bring the cup to my lips. It’s abso-freaking-lutely perfect.
Vic curtsies, then opens her planner, filled with stickers and washi tape and doodles. It’s a stark contrast to my whiteboard planning, Excel spreadsheets, and email signature, which reads simply Best, BA.
When my father says Vic and I are yin and yang, he is never, ever kidding. My sister’s creative skills, her writing, are like my mother’s ability to turn clay into pottery, canvas into paintings, ingredients into food. On the other end of the spectrum, my father and I are all about lists, problem solving, planning, and deadlines. To them, no is something to maneuver around. For us, no isn’t a limit.
No is fuel.
Which totally explains why I can’t stop thinking about Mitchell Dunford. Because of his attachment to this house, he could potentially be my greatest obstacle, and I must handle him with kid gloves.
Although my sister would probably argue that my current preoccupation with the man is because he’s tall, dark haired, and undeniably handsome.
After three sips of coffee, I set my cup down. “The priority at the moment, besides the renovation, is to get a chef on board. We need to follow up with our leads for a Filipino chef who’s willing to teach the basics. I caught wind that Chef Reyes of Asiatica is looking to relocate from Dallas.”
Vic jots down notes with a purple gel pen. “I’ll find her contact info so you can call her. Also, I can write up job descriptions for the rest of our staff and post them on online job boards. And oh, I reposted the interview you did with Food Business Magazine on my blog, plus some tidbits about Paraiso.”
“Awesome.”
“I’d really like for you to do a guest post for me every once in a while. Give an update, a recipe, maybe pictures?”
My lips flatten into an expression Vic catches immediately.
“You have to play the social media game, ate. You know, smile for the camera, write for blogs like mine. You’re literally starting from scratch out here. Having a website and joining the chamber of commerce won’t be enough.”
“I hate to be under a microscope. I don’t want anything like the drama from last year.” I’m referring to the social media fiasco between True North and a food truck owned by my future cousin-in-law, Camille. She’d parked her truck in front of the family restaurant, causing an upheaval that almost ruined her relationship with my cousin Drew.
Our family still doesn’t really talk about it, and I don’t have any doubt it will turn into a family secret by the next generation.
The bottom line: social media can hurt as much as it can help.
The smile Vic returns is reassuring. “I believe there’s a happy medium. You don’t have to put emotion into posts if you choose not to. Facts, dates, location, events. Keep it simple.”
We plow through the rest of our brainstorming session, breaking only for lunch, and draining our coffee cups twice. We settle on initial job descriptions for our staff and post an update on our growing social media page. And we discuss class descriptions and downtime events for our guests.
As we call it an afternoon and decide what to make for dinner, my phone rings for the first time in a week.
The face of my silent investor, Peter Luna, flashes across the screen and my heart hammers in my chest. Peter is a former MBA classmate who decided to invest in my business after he heard my plan pitched in one of our classes. He moved out of California after graduation and is now living in Oregon with his pregnant wife. All of our correspondence has been via email and text, because who picks up the phone these days?
So I know immediately he’s calling for either fabulous or devastating news.
I force a cheerful voice when I answer. “Hi, Pete.”
“Bryn. Hey.” Then, after a protracted beat of silence, he says, “I’ve got some bad news.”
Fuck. My chin drops to my chest and I shut my eyes. Useless, I know, because deductive reasoning tells me this is about his end of our deal. “What’s up?”
“Shitty things, actually.”
“Oh?”
“My financial situation has changed. The money I gave you last month is the only money I’ll be able to give you.”
“What?” My back leans against the counter. My fingers find my temples as I try to decipher the story he begins to tell: he and his wife bought a house at auction in hopes of flipping it. It’s a mansion, with more problems than they expected. Over the last few weeks, they’ve lost money hand over fist. And now they’re broke.
“I’m sorry, Bryn. And we’re about to have a baby. Surprise! You know?” His voice cracks, which prompts an answer from me. My empathy is juxtaposed with the panic bubbling through my veins, because I’ve taken on a lease for the next five years I could barely afford with Pete’s promised money.
And yet, being pissed won’t exactly help the situation now with him bawling on the other end of the line.
“You’re gonna be okay, Pete. You will. You’ll figure it out.” My voice is robotic, because while I’m trying to console this guy, I’m thinking through how I’m going to hustle for next month’s rent. Pete asks me if I’m okay, and I mumble an answer. We end the call haphazardly, barely a goodbye said between us.
“What’s wrong?” Vic is pouring herself a third cup of Barako. “Ate?”
“Remember when I said taking this place was a huge risk? And nothing can be gained without it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, it’s time to test that theory.”