Chapter 1

I was the only woman ever to serve as head chef at a national banquet. After I retired, I came to work as a cook at my daughter's restaurant.

Three full years. Not a single day off, not a single cent in wages.

I took a place that was on the verge of shutting its doors and turned it into a restaurant packed to the walls every night.

Then one day, my blood sugar dropped, and I grabbed a soda off the shelf and drank it.

My son-in-law saw, and right there in front of everyone he handed me a fine:

"Mom, the restaurant has a rule. Staff aren't allowed to take merchandise for themselves. You just drank a soda, so that's a twenty-grand fine. Cash or transfer?"

I stared at him, not believing what I was hearing.

"I've worked in this restaurant for three years, cooking twelve, fourteen hours a day, and I never asked you for a cent. And now, because I drank one soda, you're demanding twenty grand from me?"

He said it like he had every right to.

"One thing's one thing. I'm grateful you came to help out, but you took something that belongs to the restaurant. That's a matter of principle. It has to be punished."

My son-in-law's mother put her hands on her hips and chimed in.

"Exactly. This time my son happened to catch you stealing the soda, but who knows how much you've been helping yourself to when nobody was looking? Twenty grand's letting you off easy."

I looked at my daughter, thinking she'd say something fair.

Instead, she gave me this long, weary look.

"Mom, running a restaurant isn't easy for Clyde and me. Stop trying to take advantage of us. Just pay the twenty-grand fine."

I didn't shout. I didn't make a scene. Right then and there, I transferred the twenty grand to them.

But that twenty grand wasn't a fine I was paying them.

It was a lesson.

A lesson that would leave them unable to even cry.

1

"Mom, the worst thing that can happen to a restaurant is people stealing. I can't let it slide just because you're my mother-in-law. Hurry up and transfer the twenty grand."

My son-in-law, Clyde James, finished talking and held out his payment code.

When the staff heard Clyde pressing me over the fine, they all stopped what they were doing and turned to look at me at once.

The eyes on me made my whole body crawl, and my voice shook a little.

"Clyde, my blood sugar just dropped, and I grabbed a soda in my own daughter's restaurant, that's all. How does that make me a thief?"

For this restaurant of my daughter's, I'd worked myself to the bone for three full years, never taking a cent in wages, up before dawn and out past dark, standing in that back kitchen twelve, fourteen hours at a stretch until my back was too stiff to straighten.

In three years, by my own two hands, I'd taken this restaurant from the brink of bankruptcy to a place packed every single day, where you couldn't get a table.

And I couldn't understand it. Did all of that not even earn me the right to drink one three-dollar soda in my own daughter's restaurant?

Clyde frowned, cold.

"Mom, whatever the reason, stealing is stealing."

"If you're going to work here, you follow the rules like everyone else. Stop thinking your position entitles you to special treatment."

Special treatment?

If I'd really wanted special treatment because of who I was, I wouldn't have taken on the hardest work in the place and refused a single cent for it!

Something twisted in my chest. I turned to look at my daughter behind the register and asked quietly,

"Anna Fox, do you think I should pay this too?"

She looked at me, hesitated for a couple of seconds, then said helplessly,

"Mom, Clyde's right. We know you came here to help, and we're grateful."

"But a restaurant has its rules. A soda isn't worth much, sure, but once you start letting it go, everyone else starts helping themselves too, and then how do we run this place?"

"It's hard, keeping a restaurant going. Don't be greedy over something this small."

I stared at my daughter, unable to make sense of how she could think I was the one being greedy.

Had she really not seen how I'd spent these three years?

Three years ago, my daughter's restaurant had just opened.

I'd only just retired from my post as a national banquet head chef, planning to rest for a while. I was getting old, my knees ached badly, and the doctor had told me to stand less and stop wearing myself out.

But my daughter came to me and begged, over and over,

"Mom, my restaurant's failing. We lose money every day. I can't make payroll, and the cooks have all walked out. You're a national banquet chef, you've got the experience, the skill. Please, come help me."

"I promise, once the place gets back on its feet, I'll make it worth your while."

Seeing how lost she looked, my heart ached for her.

Right then I said I'd take no wages and help her for free.

To get my daughter's restaurant off the ground, for three years I got up at four every morning and made the earliest run to the farmers' market for the freshest ingredients.

At five I'd be at the restaurant, washing and chopping vegetables, prepping, simmering stock, doing every last thing myself, terrified of missing anything.

Once the prep was done, we opened for customers at eleven, and I'd stand at the range and cook for four or five hours straight, without even a moment to drink some water.

It wasn't until past two in the afternoon that I got a breath, shoveling down a few bites of cold leftovers before I had to start prepping ingredients for the evening.

Then came another round of it, the flames leaping, the grease and smoke stinging my eyes red, my arms so sore I could barely lift them.

By the time the last customer left and I'd cleaned the kitchen, it was often eleven at night.

In three years, I never took a single day off.

Even over the holidays, when everyone else was home together, warm and celebrating, I was at the restaurant, keeping the range going.

Because my daughter said business was best over the holidays, and we couldn't close.

I always told myself, this is my daughter's livelihood. The more I put in, the easier things would be for the young ones.

Later, as business kept getting better, I was on my feet all day in that back kitchen, my clothes so soaked through with sweat you could wring them out.

But I never complained. Not once.

Because it was my daughter's restaurant.

Because I wanted to help her.

And now, over one three-dollar soda, I was branded a thief and fined twenty grand in front of everyone.

And the worst of it was, in the end I got saddled with being called greedy too.

Seeing that I still hadn't moved, my son-in-law's mother, Belinda Lambert, folded her arms across her chest and said in that snide tone of hers,

"Some people look honest on the surface. Who knows what they're really like behind your back."

"This time my son happened to catch her stealing the soda, but who knows how much she's been helping herself to when we weren't looking?"

"If you ask me, twenty grand's getting off light."

Hearing that, I couldn't stop my hands from clenching into fists.

For three years I'd not only refused a cent in wages, I'd often paid out of my own pocket for the vegetables and the seasonings.

I'd given everything for this restaurant, and in the end they were treating me like some thief who couldn't stand the light of day?

I was about to speak when my daughter looked at me and said coldly,

"Mom, seeing as you're my own mother, I won't hold whatever you've done in the past against you."

"But everyone saw what happened here. If we don't handle it properly, how are we supposed to manage the rest of the staff?"

"Stop being stubborn. Just pay the fine."