The Billionaire And The Waitress (gxg)

06 - a deal

    MUSE still did not have a job, and it had been a week. 

    Clutching her resume to her chest, she pushed open the door to Applebee's. She hadn't heard back from anywhere, not even Denny's. Did just one incident, involving a billionaire and a pot of fondue, really have the ability to ruin her forever? How on earth could everybody know what she'd done? It felt like being blacklisted. 

    Muse approached the front counter. Maybe the manager at Applebee's had been living under a rock for the past seven days. "Um, hi. Are you guys hiring?"

    The woman behind the counter―her name tag read Martha―scowled. Not a good start. But she pulled out a stack of papers from somewhere beneath the desk and slid them over. "Fill this out."

    Muse brightened. Finally. 

    Except, as soon as she spelled out her name in pen on the first paper, Martha craned her neck and squinted. Her eyes widened. "Does that say Muse Gardner?"

   "Yes?" Maybe Muse's best bet at this point was a new identity.

   Martha yanked the sheet of papers away from Muse and put them back under the desk. "We're not hiring."

   "But I just―"

   "We're not hiring. Please leave this fine establishment."

    This was Muse's twenty-third attempt at a job application. What the fuck had Julien Vitale done to her reputation that Applebee's wouldn't even hire her? How did one man even have that much power? 

    Muse slammed the pen onto the counter. "Since when has Applebee's ever been considered a fine fucking establishment?"

    Martha just narrowed her eyes, and Muse left before she could make things worse. She'd made a scene, but the anger didn't make her feel better in the slightest. It didn't do anything to dissipate her rising sense of dread. If nobody wanted her as a waitress, she'd have to resort to other, more demeaning jobs. She'd been a prostitute for two years once, and she'd vowed to never do it again. But what choice did she have, except to leave New York City? 

    The city was her home. But Muse drew the line at prostitution now. So if this meant living somewhere else . . . starting over in Ohio or Oklahoma or whatever state would take her . . . 

   No. There had to be at least one restaurant that would hire her. Julien Vitale couldn't have that much influence.

   As Muse shoved her resume into the safety of her jacket and strode out onto the crowded sidewalk of New York City, she thought about her name. Muse Gardner. That alone had been enough, it seemed, for twenty-four restaurants to dismiss her. It wasn't like Julien Vitale had personally gone to every Applebee's and Denny's and East Side Mario's in the city, so what had he done? Put yourself in his place, Muse thought. And if she was a billionaire who hated someone, if she had friends in high places, she'd probably talk to the CEO of every restaurant chain in New York. 

    That would explain how her name had been ruined. If the CEO of fucking Applebee's passed out a warning, everybody in the chain of command would get it.

    Muse really shouldn't have gotten on the bad side of a billionaire.

    Maybe her problem, this whole time, had been going for the enormous restaurant chains. Sure, they were bigger and had more financial security―less chance they'd fuck her over or fire her suddenly―but then, maybe a family-owned kind of place wouldn't outright dismiss her.