The Staff Table

While Ward Capital purchases sixty percent of the restaurant chain Naomi Hale has labored for nine years to build, Naomi expects spreadsheets, firings, and strangers who view numbers where she sees people. Then Gabriel Ward shows up at the door. Charming, privileged, and fatally easy to like, Gabriel has been dispatched to familiarize himself with the business before his family makes its decision regarding the future of their new acquisition. Naomi becomes Gabriel's unwilling guide—and the woman who must evaluate the fates of thirty-one people based on what she writes down. Gabriel comes to appreciate the fiercely loyal culture created by Josephine's staff table. And his priorities change. As does his growing attraction to Naomi. From faulty equipment, botched services, unattainable revenue goals, late-night crises, and an unexpected romance, Naomi and Gabriel start to construct something very real indeed. But there is one thing about which Gabriel lies to Naomi. Gabriel convinces himself that he is doing it for Naomi's benefit. And she trusts him completely. Sometimes the worst lies start out with the purest intentions.