Damian Thorne finally found his voice. It was a strangled, furious rasp. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? She’s the help. Get her out of here.”
“She stays,” Genevieve Laurent said. Her voice was no longer amused. It was steel. She did not look at Damian. She looked at Eve. “Please, mademoiselle. We insist.”
Damian looked at his investors, at their set, determined faces, and realized he had lost control. He was trapped. If he made a scene, the deal was dead. If he let the waitress sit, he was humiliated. He chose the latter, sinking back into his chair, his face a thundercloud of fury. “Fine,” he spat. “Fine. But add her tip to my bill.” It was a pathetic attempt to regain the power dynamic.
Eve did not sit. Not fully. She took a half step back, a picture of professional grace. “Thank you, monsieur, madame. But I am here to serve. I am, however, happy to clarify any other items on the menu. Or otherwise.”
The or otherwise hung in the air. Genevieve smiled. “Very well.” She picked up her fork and turned her attention back to Damian, but the dynamic of the entire table had shifted. The power was no longer with the billionaire. It was with the two French investors and their new, unexpected ally.
The dinner resumed, but it was now a different meal. Antoine and Genevieve began speaking to Eve in French, asking her about the restaurant, the city, her background. Damian sat in simmering silence, unable to follow the rapid, nuanced conversation.
“You studied at the Sorbonne?” Antoine asked, his eyes wide.
“A master’s program. Yes, monsieur. In eighteenth-century poetics. I was working on my doctorate at Columbia before circumstances changed.”
“Poetics,” Genevieve mused. “And yet you understand wine pairings like a sommelier.”
“My father was in the diplomatic corps,” Eve said, a simple statement that explained everything. “One learns to host.”
Damian could not stand it. “Enough with the pleasantries,” he interrupted in English. “We’re here to talk about the deal.” He pulled a sheaf of papers from his briefcase. “The final draft, as we discussed.” He slid the document across the table to Antoine. It was thick, printed in English, and dense with legalese. “As you can see,” Damian said, “section 4B clearly outlines the protections for the artisan roles.”
Antoine and Genevieve put on their reading glasses. The mood at the table became serious. Eve, as was her job, moved silently to refill their water glasses, her eyes brushing over the page as she did. Damian was explaining the clause, but his words did not seem to match the text. “So, as you see, protected status means they are guaranteed positions within the new corporate structure,” Damian said smoothly.
Eve’s French was not her only skill. Her stalled doctorate had required her to parse dense, archaic texts. Modern legalese was, by comparison, simple. She saw the clause he was pointing to. Section 4B. It did not say what he claimed. It promised nothing. It allowed the workshops to be dissolved, the artisans reclassified, and the cultural protections voided at the buyer’s discretion. The sentence he was selling as a shield was, on the page, a trap.