Love You Goodbye

Chapter 37: Roxanne

For the past three years, I was able to open the restaurant in London. I decided that I wanted to do a breakfast cafe. I used my club to advertise it. It was doing just as well as the Raven. Once that became successful, I opened a bistro in France. That was a bit harder for me to get a decent amount of customers to come in, but somehow, it was possible. After that, I opened Sapphire in Dublin.

I was scared of opening it at first because I was scared of running into Niall. Thankfully, I was able to mostly take care of business over phone calls and video calls. I really only had to come down there for two weeks to officially meet my employees and be there for opening week. From then, I would occasionally visit or do video calls to make sure everyone was doing okay when I wasn't able to visit the businesses.

In springtime, I decided that I wanted to open another business in Dublin when Sapphire was having good business too. Sapphire was actually having people line up to get in. So, I figured having a sister restaurant not too far from Sapphire might help the customer flow. The manager that I hired for the new restaurant was actually very professional and had years of experience and made my life really easy. So, from how well it was going, I decided to only come for the week of opening.

Too bad the manager and contractor's version of "well" wasn't exactly my standards.

"When will the light fixtures be installed?" I asked the contractor in charge of the restaurant. "We're opening on Friday and it's already Wednesday. The inspection officer is going to be here tomorrow too. Also, the color for the wall behind the bar was supposed to be charcoal gray. This looks too light compared to the one you sent me. Everything needs to be done before. Inspection day is right around the corner."

"The fixtures were said to come in later today, Ms. Styles. I promise you, I will have it installed before you come in Thursday morning. The paint is just on its first coat. It should darken with the second coat."

"Also, don't forget before the shelving for the bar goes on, the mirror needs to get installed too. Did those already come in?"

"Yes, they did. We should have that installed by tonight."

"Excellent," I nodded, looking around. I walked to the entrance and looked at the wall at the waiting area that was by the hostess booth. "Can we test the lights for the 'Noir' please?"

One of the workers flicked on the switch. The wall was painted black, except for 'Noir'. That was painted white. I wanted little warm white lights to illuminate the restaurant's name. It would almost look like a neon light sign, but a bit more classy because of the little lights basically being the size of those twinkling lights.

I nodded in approval, "Good. Now, where is James?"

"I'm here!" James said, coming up to me with a clipboard.

"How's the seating chart?"

"We finished it up right now. Do you want to take a look?"

I glanced up and stared at the seats from the hostess booth. The chairs and tables were an ash gray wood shade. The chairs had a white cushion to help give a bit of a pop. The centerpieces were small chrome vases that held white roses with two chrome tea light candle holders. I looked back and forth at the seating chart to the dining floor. I walked around and checked to make sure things were in my standards.

"That's better," I nodded, giving the chart back to James. "Make sure all the wait staff know the new updates to the seating chart. Also, make sure everyone is here for the meeting at eight. Did you set everything up for the meeting?"

"Yes, it's all done."

"Alright," I looked at the time. "I need to do some paperwork. After that, I need to head to Sapphire. I'll be back in time for the meeting. I'll be in the office for the meantime."