McHay re-written

Chapter 9

Ste POV

I woke up happy this morning. I had a good job, beautiful kids and an adoring boyfriend soon-to-be Fiancé. John-Paul woke up about 5 minutes after I did so he came down the stairs and sat on one of the stool under the island in the kitchen.

"Are you going into work today?" John-Paul asks me as I hand him his coffee.

"Yeah. You could pop in later with the kids for lunch if you like, on me of course" I say to him hoping he is going to accept.

"I may have to take you up on that offer. So what changes are you going to make?" John-Paul says as he chugs his coffee.

"Well, The Hutch currently do table service so I was thinking numbering the tables and getting them to order at the main till and just give the table number." I say to him and he agreed that it is a good idea. I remembered I had loads of the table centre pieces left from our first wedding. They had numbers on so I could use them. I get them out of the attic and put the box in my car ready for work.

"Are you off then babe?" John-Paul asks, joining me at the car in his dressing gown. I had gotten changed into a nice suit.

"Yeah, see you later." I say giving him a kiss goodbye.

I walked into work 2 hours before opening so that I could turn the alarm off and get things set up ready for customers and set up the new table numbers. Tony and Diane walk in 30 minutes before opening.

"Where do you want us Ste?" Diane asks. She is happy now that she is going to be getting a consistent wage.

"Tony in the kitchen, Diane near main desk" I say and they take their places. Just as they get places Mercedes and Goldie walked in. "Sorry Ladies we aren't open yet" I say to them and put my hand out towards the door.

"Actually, we wondered if you had any jobs going." Goldie says. I know the McQueen girls are hard workers.

"Yeah. We have a new system to look at and see how well it works." I say to them and beckon Tony and Diane over. "So customers will now order and pay at the till. Diane, Make sure they pay first and give a table number. Tables 1,2,3 and 4 are outside. Mercedes and Goldie will deliver the food to the tables and Tony will cook. I am going to out an ad out for more chefs. I have laminated leaflets telling people to order at the till. So, are we ready" I say to them all and everyone gets into places. I turn the sign to open and customers stream in.

Business was great. McQueen girls were actually well behaved and everyone got on fine. At about 1pm John-Paul came in with the 3 kids. I joined them for my lunch. We ordered 3 kids meals and 2 spaghetti bolognaises along with 2 pints and 3 OJ's. John-Paul was telling me that they still had about 3 weeks left of summer holidays. We finished up lunch and they left. I cleaned down the table ready for the next customers. Some people also came in asking about jobs and I actually hired some people on the spot. My work force is growing and with the way business is going, I am going to have a lot of money for our McHay wedding. That is what Peri is calling it. I know have a fair few employees.

Bar Staff: Diane, Mercedes, Scott

Waitresses: Goldie, Porsche, Peri

Chefs: Tony, Cindy, Harry

Everyone rotates so everyone gets time off and lunch breaks. Everyone is surprisingly good at their jobs. At 9pm everyone had left apart from myself, John-Paul and the kids. I was just packing up everything and making sure everyone had a rota for the next couple weeks. I work in the main restaurant when I am closed and John-Paul sits next to me as I normally make us coffee.

Over the next weeks this was a habit, even after everyone went back to school. The kids finish school at 3:30pm and head to John-Paul and John-Paul finishes school at 5pm. He says the kids normally write on his whiteboards and leave messages for his classes the following day. At 5pm they all go home and get Tea. At 7pm John-Paul talks the kids to play group for an hour where he sits gossiping to other mums about other mums. Then at 8, He takes them home to get cleaned up and redressed as they are normally messy. Finally at 9pm they all join me at work as I close at 9pm. At 9:30 all staff have gone and I am left doing emails and other work. John-Paul sometimes brings his marking and the kids play in the little play corner I added as I realised a lot of kids come in here. John-Paul also helps me with taxes and finances.

"You know since you took over this place profits have more than tripled, that's all down to you" John-Paul says to me as I go over to the cash registers to put all the money in the safe in the office.

"It's down to the hard work my workforces and the encouragement from you." I say to him. I grab the kids that look so tired and John-Paul takes them to the car while I set the alarm and lock up. Over the past few weeks I also got CCTV installed so that I can monitor everything.

We got home and put the kids to bed and sat down stairs watching TV in each other's arms. I grab the box that has been in my pocket for a while. I give it to John-Paul. He just looks at me.

"Marry me. Let's become an official family. Let's get married again and make a proper go at things." I say to him. He opens the box to see a ring that he looked at ages ago. It was simple but pretty. It had a small diamond in the centre and it was silver.

"Yes I'll marry you." He says kissing me. We had to be careful as the kids were in bed. He kissed me harder so that I laid down and he was hovering over me. He kissed all down my neck leaving little marks here and there. He stops knowing we can't go too far and just looks me dead in the eye.

"Can you believe we are going to become Mr and Mr McQueen again." I say to him as he lays flat on my stomach.

"I think we should become Mr and Mr McHay. Let's join our names." He says, listening to my heartbeat."

"I like that idea. Plus after it we can change the kids names so that they feel like proper siblings and we will be a proper family." I say grabbing the TV remote and turning TV off.

"How about we let Leela pick the kids up tomorrow from school and we can celebrate our engagement." He says. I like the idea.

Unknown POV

They have ruined my life. How could they forget about me so easily? I loved him and he betrayed me. He said he would wait for me. He changed EVERYTHING. I will make him pay. It's his fault I had to go away. I could enlist the help of someone close to them. I have been stalking them for about a week now. I will ruin their relationship even if it's the last thing I do.