Chapter 1

I've run my restaurant for five years.

One customer of mine booked a private dining room with me every holiday.

She was doing someone a favor, so she reserved a full seafood banquet ahead of time, and I charged her only my rock-bottom price of $999.

She looked at the bill, then turned right around and went to another place, and started making snide little comments in the group chat.

"Some restaurants, huh. Once business gets big, they start gouging the loyal customers."

"Same exact dishes, and another place quotes you half the price. Now that's a restaurant that knows how to do business and actually has a conscience."

I stared at that other owner's name for a few seconds.

A five-hundred-dollar seafood spread, out of season?

Right.

If she can stomach it, fine by me!

1.

I'd barely finished the quote when my head chef couldn't help speaking up. "Boss, seafood's priced by season. What you're charging is straight cost. There's no profit in this at all!"

I just smiled.

Lucretia Lambert was one of our regulars. She came in every holiday to give us business.

The dishes she ordered were almost all seafood, and once you counted labor, water, and power, this table barely earned a thing.

I chalked it up to giving something back to a loyal customer.

Not long after I sent the quote over, Lucretia's message came in.

"Boss James, is this discounted or not? lol"

That threw me for a second. Did she think I'd shortchanged myself somehow?

"Lucretia, you're one of our regulars. This is the lowest price I can give."

She didn't reply for a while.

It was the dinner rush on my end, and I had my hands full anyway.

When I saw her message a bit later, I paused.

"Lowest price? Boss James, you're gouging me, aren't you? I only booked with you because I trusted you."

Those words didn't sit well with me.

Still, she'd been a customer for years, so I kept my wording gentle.

"Lucretia, there's no way we'd ever gouge a regular. Seafood really is seasonal, and the way you want some of it prepared is pretty involved."

She had the typing dots going for several minutes, and finally a message came through.

"Fine, I believe you. Here's the deal, on top of this you throw in two extra dishes for me. I'm hosting an important friend that day. It's settled."

Before I could get a word in, she transferred the deposit and made the call for me.

Fine.

I run an open business. No point in offending a regular.

I agreed.

The day she was hosting her friend happened to fall on a holiday, and she'd booked it nearly half a month in advance.

One way or another, she'd saved herself a good chunk of money.

Someone in the kitchen couldn't help grumbling. "This customer really knows how to milk a deal. Same thing every time, always squeezing free dishes out of us whenever she comes in."

I'd always known Lucretia had her little habits.

But since she'd been coming in to support us ever since I first opened, I never felt right saying anything.

Before I knew it, purchasing day was almost here.

Then Lucretia messaged again out of nowhere.

My right eyelid twitched hard.

"Boss James, I just want to check, that bill is the final version, right?"

I replied yes, uneasy.

"You can't knock a little more off?"

I pressed my lips together. The waters had been rough lately, and seafood prices were sky-high.

Buying everything for her table, there was no profit in it at all.

I laid it out for her plainly.

The next second, she snidely tossed me another restaurant's quote.

Exact same dishes, half the price of mine.

I asked her what she meant by it.

"And you call this not gouging? Same stuff, but yours is somehow so precious! Boss James, and to think I trusted you this much. So this is how you've been fleecing me the whole time!"

With a blame this big dumped on me, I laughed out of pure anger, and half my heart went cold.

All these years she'd given me plenty of business, and I'd turned a blind eye to the way she milked me.

Now I couldn't bring myself to care about any of that.

"If that's what you think, then you can find someone else for this order!"

I didn't defend myself, and I couldn't be bothered to go back and forth with her anymore. I just refunded the deposit.

I wasn't taking this order!