My Husband Won't Charge His Relatives, So I Smiled

At those words, the group's eyes lit up, and they fell over each other to flatter Leila even harder.

The whole table clinked glasses, talking and laughing, shouting and carrying on, loud enough to fill the room.

The other customers, who'd been eating quietly, couldn't stop frowning at all the noise.

Several groups about to come in took one look at the racket and turned right back around.

A prime dinner rush, and she'd wrecked it into a mess.

It was past nine before they'd finally eaten their fill.

Leila's card buddies got up, tossed her a careless thank-you, and pushed straight out the door.

Leila followed right behind them, and as she passed the counter she lifted her chin at me, proud as anything.

"See you, honey. Next time I'll bring even more people to support the place."

And with that, she swept out.

I looked at their table, half the food wasted.

Then I looked at her tab for the night. Seven thousand, seven hundred and eighty-two dollars.

Add in the sixteen visits before it, and Leila had eaten more than eighty thousand dollars in the restaurant this month.

I let out a long sigh, waited until the last customer had gone, then found Benjamin taking inventory in the storeroom and said softly,

"Leila brought seven or eight card friends today. They ordered over seven thousand in food and didn't pay a cent."

Benjamin didn't even look up. "It's just one meal. If she wants to eat, let her eat."

I drew a breath and kept my voice as level as I could. "This isn't about one meal anymore."

"She's brought people in seventeen times this month, always ordering the expensive stuff. In half a month she's eaten more than eighty thousand, and she's never settled a single tab."

Benjamin's brows drew together. He looked up at me, his tone cooling. "Why are you counting all this day in and day out?"

I felt helpless. "How do you run a restaurant without keeping the books straight?"

"Rent's twenty thousand, stock is thirty thousand, staff wages are twenty thousand. Our total revenue this month is a hundred and fifty thousand, and your sister alone ate eighty thousand of it."

"Take out all the odds and ends of overhead, and after all this work, we've actually lost a good deal of money."

"If this keeps up, the restaurant really can't hold on."

Benjamin's face darkened. "So you're blaming Leila for eating our place into the ground?"

I didn't want to fight. I kept my voice gentle. "I just want you to have a word with your sister. Ask her not to keep bringing people to eat and drink for free every day. If she really has to come, let her settle a little of the bill. Even just cost price would do."

I'd kept my tone as calm as I could, but the moment Benjamin heard it, he lost his temper anyway.

He hurled the inventory sheet in his hand to the floor and rounded on me, his voice rising.

"Cordelia, Leila is my own sister. How do you have the nerve to make her pay?"

"It's just a few meals. What restaurant doesn't lose money when it first opens?"

"And now you want to charge her cost price? You have no shame, and I'm the one who feels humiliated!"

The words jammed tight in my chest. "I'm doing this for the restaurant too."

"We're only just getting off the ground. Her bringing people in to feast every day, not paying, and driving away plenty of customers on top of it, is doing real damage to business."

"At this rate, how much longer can this place stay open?"

Benjamin waved his hand, impatient. "Quit making excuses. I think you're just petty and calculating."

"Never mind that she's only eaten for half a month. Even if she came in and ate like this every day for the rest of her life, I'd never take a single cent from her!"