CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY FOUR – UNEXPECTED FRIENDSHIPS

It was during one such lull, as they worked side-by-side prepping vegetables for the evening rush, that Tony suddenly broke the silence with a surprising query. "This lad of yours," he rumbled, not bothering to look up from the pile of carrots he was methodically slicing. "He treating you right, is he?" The unexpected question caught Charlotte so off-guard that she nearly sliced her finger open, her knife skidding perilously close to the pad of her thumb. "Richard?" she managed once the initial shock had passed, carefully setting her knife aside before daring to meet Tony's inscrutable gaze. "What makes you ask that?" The chef shrugged, his broad shoulders rising and falling like granite boulders. "Just an old man's curiosity, I suppose," he grunted. "Seen too many lasses in my time waste their affections on lads who didn't deserve so much as a second glance, let alone their whole bloody hearts." There was a gravity to his words that gave Charlotte pause, prompting her to regard t