I Love You More

by Stacy Finz

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

In this thoughtful, intimate novel centered around a San Francisco family restaurant, two estranged sisters get a chance to rediscover their bond in the face of personal upheaval—if they can let go of the past and embrace new beginnings . . .

To an outsider, television morning anchor Tess Stone’s life looks like glossy perfection. Ambitious, beautiful, and married to a major league baseball player, Tess seems invincible—until an on-air catastrophe puts both her marriage and career in jeopardy. Retreating home to San Francisco from New York to take stock seems like the best move. But that involves a challenge of its own: confronting her sister, Avery.

Unlike Tess, Avery has pushed her own dreams aside in favor of running the family restaurant, Stones, dutifully adhering to her father’s unchanging menu of stick-to-your-ribs traditional fare. She has mixed feelings about her sister’s return. After all, Avery’s fiancé, Bennett, loved Tess first, and it’s impossible to shake her jealousy and dread—especially as Tess begins stealing attention left and right once more.

But while both sisters have been immersed in their own lives, their parents have been keeping secrets of their own. And the curveballs keep coming—throwing into question all their relationships, the restaurant’s future, and their long-held assumptions about love, family, and especially, each other . . .

Release date: February 6, 2024

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 320

Sample

Tess

I can barely see the teleprompter, my vision is so blurry. And for a second, I fear my mascara is smudged. Then I realize I don’t give a rat’s ass, not about smudged mascara or my hair, or looking perky at the ass crack of four.

All I can think about is revenge.

My hands shake as I shuffle the papers in front of me, her voice still in my head.

“It’s two in the goddamn morning, this better be important.”

For a moment I thought I had the wrong number, then quickly realized I’d used automatic dial. It was Kit’s private phone, the one reserved for family, the one reserved for me, his wife. “Who the hell is this?” I snapped.

There was a long pause, then, “Oh shit, I picked up the wrong phone,” then a lot of background noise, then Kit. “Tess?”

An hour ago, I was a happily married woman, getting ready for work, calling to tell my husband I missed him and that I couldn’t wait to see him tonight. Sure, it was early, too early, but I’d tried all night and he never picked up. I assumed he was partying after the team’s big win and hadn’t even gone to bed yet. And of course, there’s the superstition—Lord knows Major League Baseball is full of them—that if I don’t call him before he boards the team plane to wish him safe travels, something terrible will happen.

Ironically, something terrible did happen. To me.

I tell myself to focus on the broadcast. There’s only a couple of hours left. Afterward, I can throw something, tear up Kit’s clothes, sell his Gold Glove Award on eBay. But in the meantime...Grin and bear it.

We have a new set today. The NBC designers have been working on it for months. The Good Morning New York backdrop has been changed from yellow to bright orange and we no longer have chairs, just a curved white couch that’s supposed to make it look like you’re in our living room instead of a studio in Manhattan. The table is Lucite, so we actually have to wear something presentable from the waist down, not our pajama bottoms.

The massive arrangement of fresh flowers is a nice touch, and under ordinary circumstances I would appreciate how the orange hue of the lilies is a perfect match to the backdrop.

I’m sure some high-paid consultant told station executives that we could up our ratings if the set looked more like a high-end hotel lobby than an actual newsroom. Next week, they’ll hire another consultant who will tell them train cars are trending and the set will be reconstructed to look like Murder on the Orient Express.

Roy is at the weather map. Another hot and sticky day in New York.

The biggest thing I miss about San Francisco, besides my family of course, is the cool, foggy summers. Here, I have to scrape off my makeup and reapply new as soon as I get from the car to Rockefeller Plaza. If it wasn’t for the fact that someone might recognize me—even at the ass crack of four—I would show up sans makeup and turn my face over to Cindy, my stylist.

While we go to a package on how to make the most of the city during a staycation, I check my phone. Kit has been calling nonstop, even though he knows I’m on air. His plane leaves in less than ninety minutes and he’s begging me to “calm down” before word leaks to the front office.

At this point, I’m not too concerned about his career. If truth be told, I’d like to take a baseball bat to it, then to his balls, where I’m betting my launch angle would be better than his.

We’re back on camera. I plaster a smile on my face, though I feel like I’m bleeding inside, dying a little at a time. I nearly miss my cue to introduce a live shot until Rodney kicks me under the table. There’s a fire in Harlem, a jazz club where Billie Holiday used to perform. We have a reporter at the scene, standing in front of shooting flames as firefighters battle the blaze.

While she reports on the potential cause—likely electrical, according to the fire flack—I catch a glimpse of myself in the back-wall mirror and adjust my blouse. It’s limper than week-old lettuce. Don’t ever wear silk in 70 percent humidity. Even though they keep the studio at a comfortable sixty-eight degrees, I can’t stop sweating.

My phone vibrates with another text. I’m sure it’s Kit again but before I can look the reporter tosses back to the desk.

“Thanks, Heather. Please continue to keep us apprised of this important story,” Rodney says.

He and I have been coanchoring Good Morning New York for four years now. Kit likes to call Rodney my work husband. He’s definitely my best friend, especially now that I’m on the East Coast and Avery is in San Francisco, though things aren’t great between my sister and me. Even before I moved away, I could feel an undercurrent of resentment from her. Sometimes, I think she’s jealous of all my success.

I guess she’ll have the last laugh now. By far, Dad will be the most disappointed. He thinks Kit is the second coming of Christ, even if he plays for the Yankees, my father being a lifelong Giants fan.

We go to a commercial break. I wish I could run to the restroom and send Kit a nasty message, like “rumor around the newsroom is your slut has herpes,” but we only have a few minutes to set up for the next segment, a cooking demonstration with David Jung.

When I joined WNBC’s morning show one of my first interviews was with David. He’s a well-known New York restaurateur and we became fast friends. I like to think it’s because my father is a chef and owns a popular restaurant in San Francisco, which makes David and me kindred spirits of sorts. But I intuitively know our friendship has more to do with me being on television and my husband being the first baseman for a legendary baseball team.

As shallow as it sounds, I enjoy the fame and all the perks that come with being famous. And I’m about to take it to the next level because if things work out as planned—fingers crossed—I’m about to go network, which means my face will be in front of nearly nine million viewers nightly. Not too shabby, considering I started at the bottom at a small station in Salinas, California, and worked my way up to the local NBC station in the Big Apple. If I can make it here, I’ll make it anywhere, right?

David, who is already on set in the studio kitchen, kisses me on both cheeks. “So good to see you, Tess.”

“You too, David.” I don’t know how I’m managing to hold it together but I am.

Even Rodney appears unaware that I’m about to crack any minute. He usually knows my moods before I do.

“So, what are we making today?” I ask David, smiling broadly, like the great pretender.

“We’re doing a simple vegetable stir-fry with sesame. This is something anyone can do at home with whatever ingredients are in season. In Korea, we typically use just one vegetable. But I’m zigging a little here, using an assortment. I’ve got some parsnips, some delicious Jerusalem artichokes...”

I tune out, returning to the morning I’ve had, to Kit, to my marriage. For the first time in my life, I don’t have a plan. Oh, I want to get even all right. I want him to hurt as much as he’s hurt me. But what do I do after that? Leave Kit, who I still love, despite everything he’s done?

And hate. I hate him so much I want to strangle him.

“See what you think?” David says, turning my attention back to the show with a heaping forkful of stir-fry.

I do the thing where I take a bite and pretend to have a food orgasm on screen, when in reality, the vegetables are undercooked and too salty. Barely edible. My father would laugh his ass off.

“Delicious,” Rodney says and catches my eye, silently communicating how awful it is. “And so easy even I could make it.”

We laugh because all our viewers know Rodney is a lousy cook. Our ratings spike every time he regales them with a story about his failed kitchen escapades.

We break for another commercial. David and I make a few minutes of small talk before I have to return to the main set.

My phone chimes with another text. Kit. He’s boarding the team plane and as soon as he gets home, he wants to talk. I don’t have time to respond before we go live again, nor do I want to. Let him stew, the bastard. When he gets home, he’ll be lucky if I haven’t changed the locks.

Next up, Rodney and I talk beach reads with a romance author from the Bronx. I plaster on the face again, going through the motions, when what I want to say is romance is dead and men are whores, every last one of them. Except Rodney, Dad, and Bennett; they’re the good guys. Instead, I fake it, letting Rodney do the heavy lifting.

By the time we finish the segment, my stomach feels like there’s a sailboat capsizing inside of me. I keep hearing her voice in my head, then Kit’s trying to explain away everything, gaslighting me until I don’t even recognize him.

We were all out, celebrating...She was drunk and didn’t have a room...Mine had two beds...Nothing happened...I can’t believe you don’t trust me.

What does he take me for, an idiot?

We break for another set of commercials, and I have just enough time for Cindy to touch up my face and hair, which if I bothered to look must be frizzy beyond redemption. Cindy brushes out my waves and smooths each lock with her cache of styling products.

“What’s up with you?” Rodney whispers. “You’re off your game.”

“I’ll tell you later.” If I tell him now, I’m liable to break down and won’t be able to pull myself together in time for the rest of the newscast.

He nods and before he can say more, we’re back on camera. We go to another live shot of the Harlem fire, which by now has been mopped up. Heather gives us an update and does an interview with the manager of the jazz club, who hasn’t been allowed to go in and estimate the extent of the damage, blah, blah, blah. The truth is I’m barely paying attention and am relieved when we go to network for the national news briefing.

I have the sudden urge to call my sister but it’s not even dawn yet in California. Besides, I know what she’ll say. Leave him! Avery is a take-no-shit woman. She works in a kitchen full of men, including my dad. Macalister “My Way or the Highway” Stone isn’t the easiest. But Avery is every bit as stubborn as our father. And she’d kill Kit with her bare hands for hurting me.

The thing is as much as I’d like to kill him myself, I’m not sure I want my family to hate him, even if I do. And right now, I hate him so much I can’t see straight.

“Girl, you look like you’re about to wilt,” Rodney says. “After the show you want to get drinks and tell me what’s going on?”

“At eight in the morning?” Who am I kidding? A bracer sounds perfect right now and the place across the street serves a mean Bloody Mary.

“Okay, breakfast.”

“Maybe,” I say, not sure I want to tell Rodney either. He worships Kit. Everyone does. And I don’t think it’s just because Kit plays first base for the Yankees or that he’s hitting over 300.

He’s the kind of guy who walks into a room and everyone stops what they’re doing to stare at him. Not because he’s the best-looking man in the place—there are always better. Don’t get me wrong, he’s handsome enough. Six-two, blue eyes, a full head of brown hair. But he’s not Hollywood handsome or nearly as attractive as Rodney, who has a classic square jaw, cleft chin, and smooth dark skin. Kit just has a certain kind of bearing that makes him stand out in a crowd, something that says, “I can get us out of any mess there is,” and you believe it. You believe in him.

I guess that was my first mistake, believing in him.

It was easy to do. When I first met him four years ago, I’d barely started at WNBC. New job, new city and the stress of succeeding was like a pressure cooker. To say I was overwhelmed is putting it kindly. There’s only so much fake-it-until-you-make-it a person can pull off before imposter syndrome sets in. And I was experiencing a bad case of it the night I co-emceed a charity auction with Kit for the Boys and Girls Club of Manhattan.

The station had volunteered me for the event to raise my visibility. Everyone was expecting Sherita King, WNBC’s six and eleven o’clock anchor, who pulled out at the last minute. She’s an icon in New York and part of the reason guests had paid a thousand bucks a plate to attend was for the chance to rub elbows with her.

While Kit was still a rookie at the time, the buzz was that he was the next Don Mattingly. His profile was definitely higher than mine. I was convinced I’d hate him on sight. I once dated a forward for the Sharks who was a jerk and had covered enough stories about self-entitled athletes to give me a bad taste in my mouth. I figured a rising star in the Yankees had to be a towering tool.

But it turned out he was the opposite. Sensing my bad case of nerves, he took me under his wing. And our auctioneer chemistry was off the charts. We were riffing off each other, cracking jokes, acting like we’d known each other for years. By the end of the night, we’d broken the record for the most money raised, and I was a little bit in love.

For the next two weeks we were inseparable, and I was a lot in love. A year later we were married, a gorgeous ceremony and reception with three hundred guests. And though he’s away a lot, we’ve managed to keep the romance alive. Or so I thought.

We’re on again and it’s almost time to wrap up the broadcast, thank God. I don’t know how much longer I can maintain the charade of the perky blond morning show host when all I want to do is cry into a Bloody Mary with Rodney or go home and start breaking stuff. Kit’s stuff.

“Gavin Hunter, the man who invented Quizle, the trivia game that’s taken the country by storm, is here with us to talk about how it all started as an anniversary gift for his wife.” The camera pans in on Hunter, who’s joined us on set.

I turn to Rodney and give him a collegial shove. “You love this game.”

“I’m addicted. Seriously, it’s not healthy.”

“Gavin, did you ever expect that this sweet gesture to your wife, who as I understand it, is a huge Jeopardy! fan, would become an American pastime?”

“Never in a million years.” He laughs. “It’s a little overwhelming.”

“Tell us how you planned this surprise for your wife and how it ultimately exploded on the Internet?”

Gavin goes into a dissertation while I disappear in la-la land. Oddly enough, I’m thinking about my father’s pot roast. About how just the mere scent of it bubbling on the stove top could warm my insides like the greatest kiss on earth. About how when Avery and I were kids it was the cure-all for everything from a bad grade to a broken heart.

And suddenly I want to go home, to my parents, to San Francisco. To Avery. If it wasn’t sweeps, I’d board the next direct flight to SFO and head straight to my father’s pot roast. But the station has a strict no-vacation policy during the ratings season, especially for us anchors. The show must go on.

Gavin, game inventor extraordinaire, has exited the set and the floor director is winding his finger in the air to wrap it up.

“Speaking of games,” Rodney says in that overly chipper banter we use to close out each show. “That was one heck of a battle last night against the Twins. Twelve innings.” Rodney lets out a low whistle. “Kit’s game winning hit...he’ll never have to buy another drink in this town again.”

I doubt that but the suits love it when we talk about Kit and me on air. The all-American couple, beautiful, prosperous, living the dream.

What a joke.

“You know how he celebrated?” I ask, unable to staunch the well of anger and disappointment I’m feeling, unable to let common sense and self-preservation prevail. “He spent the night and the wee hours of the morning fucking none other than our very own Annabel Lane. That’s right, Rodney, Annabel isn’t just covering the team, she’s fucking them.”

I feel Rodney’s hand pressing hard on my leg, but I can’t seem to stop myself from ranting about infidelity, about Annabel, about Kit, about what a swine he is.

It isn’t until later that I realize audio cut my sound. But by the time they’d made the split-second decision to drown me out, it was too late.

Avery

It’s barely dawn and the streets are empty, only a few delivery trucks and an occasional dog walker. The city won’t wake up for another thirty minutes or so. But bakers keep strange hours.

I pull my car into the narrow driveway behind Stones, the restaurant that has been in my family for three generations.

In the beginning, under my grandfather’s helm, Stones was near the water, where tourists traversed the piers, dining on the catch of the day. But after the Loma Prieta earthquake, when the Embarcadero Freeway was torn down and that part of the city got seedy before it got good again, my father relocated the restaurant to the Financial District, where it became something of a San Francisco institution.

I go inside, turn off the security alarm, flick on the switch, and stare at my ring finger, admiring the way the diamond sparkles and glows in the illumination of the light. I move my finger from left to right, bedazzled by the prisms of gray and white. The ring feels heavy and foreign. I shouldn’t have worn it to work, not when I’ll be elbows deep in dough and chocolate all day. But the temptation to show it off is too great to leave it at home.

In about an hour, the staff will start trickling in to prepare for the lunch service. For now, though, I have the place to myself to do my baking.

I hang my bag on a hook, place my phone on the counter and wash my hands in the large sink, careful that my ring doesn’t slip off and wind up in the drain. Wearing this rock is going to take some getting used to, I think as I wiggle my finger.

My phone vibrates, piercing the silence of the empty kitchen, and I glance down at the screen. Ten heart emojis from Bennett, which makes a smile blossom in my chest.

Five seconds later, he calls.

I dry my hands and cradle the phone between my ear and shoulder. “Hey, you’re up early.”

“I’ve got a presentation at eight and thought I’d get in a workout. What’s cooking, good looking?” He always says that and as corny as it is, it always makes me smile. Every single time. “You tell anyone?”

“It’s barely six in the morning. No one’s here yet.” I laugh.

Last night, Bennett Lamb asked me the four words I’ve longed to hear from the moment I laid eyes on him.

I’m not going to lie, the road to here has been long and bumpy—and even torturous—but we’re exactly where I always wanted us to be. And Bennett is trying so hard that it no longer seems important that I wasn’t his first choice.

Take his proposal for instance. It was the cutest of all time. After dinner last night, he carried me piggyback from the kitchen to the baby grand piano that takes up our entire living room and played me a jingle. His jingle, the one that unbeknownst to me he’d been working on for two solid weeks.

At first, I thought he was testing out one of his new ad campaigns on me. But when he asked me to marry him to the tune of something that sounded vaguely like the Folgers in your cup commercial, I cried. And after I said yes, we laughed until our sides hurt, and I made him sing the jingle all over again.

“Let’s celebrate tonight. I can come to Stones, and we can raise a glass with the family, then come back home and get naked,” he says, and my stomach flutters the same way it did that first time.

I’m not exaggerating; from the minute I saw him sitting in the restaurant five years ago, I knew he was the one. The Italians call it the thunderbolt because that first meeting is so powerful, so intense that it reverberates in your chest like a burst of lightning. It sounds crazy but that’s exactly how it was. At least for me.

“Naked it is,” I say. “I’ll call you when I tell everyone.” No way will I be able to keep it a secret until tonight. Mom will take one look at the ring and scream and the whole restaurant will know by lunchtime.

I hang up, shrug into my chef’s jacket and get to work. Today, it’s chocolate layer cake, apple pie à la mode (I made the French vanilla ice cream yesterday, even though we’re closed on Mondays), butterscotch pot de crème, which my father insists we label as pudding on the menu, and cheesecake with a caramel sauce.

On Wednesdays, I take things up a notch with carrot cake and go fancy on Fridays with a bananas Foster that’ll blow your mind. Occasionally on Saturdays I’ll do a baked Alaska as a throwback, my homage to midcentury modern. And the kids get a kick out of seeing me light it on fire.

I’ve been making these desserts so long I could do it in my sleep.

Like our savory dishes, the desserts here are classic, nothing too out of the ordinary or too challenging. I went to one of the most respected culinary schools in the nation and my pastry repertoire consists of desserts a fifties housewife would’ve made.

But my father’s philosophy is less is more. He likes to say, “Why push it? Stick with a good thing and they’ll come.”

And they do.

Even before farm to table or sea to fork was a thing, Stones used fresh and local ingredients. My grandfather believed that all food should taste like the food his grandmother used to make, using produce she grew in her garden or canned in her kitchen.

How we differ from the scores of four-star restaurants in this town—and believe me, there are a lot of them—is that we’re not especially cutting edge or even striving for interesting. Our menu doesn’t change daily. No trendy small plates, because Dad believes that even an appetizer should feed a family of five. Sous vide and foams would be laughed out of the kitchen. People come here because they want to eat their nonna’s dishes, not haute cuisine.

That isn’t to say we aren’t best in class. No one does a seafood stew, meatloaf, or pot roast like my father.

The truth is, you can’t operate a restaurant in San Francisco unless the food is topflight, even if it’s simple fare. You’d be run out of the city. And at Stones, people line up for our stick-to-your-ribs menu. Even Northern California’s Michelin-starred chefs hang out here in their off-hours, gobbling up Dad’s cioppino.

Stick with a good thing, right?

And not to toot my own horn or anything, but part of the reason Stones is so popular is because of me. Sometime in the last decade, San Francisco’s culinary kings decided the layer cake and its ilk were dead. I brought them back to life with a vengeance.

My cake is so popular that people call first thing in the morning to reserve a slice for fear there won’t be any left by the time they get here. The New York Times called it one of the best chocolate layer cakes in the country and “maybe the world” (their words not mine) and year after year it ranks in the top ten recipes chosen by the Times’s readers.

So clearly my father has a point. Elevating a classic to best in show is a winning formula, even if it isn’t all that exciting.

I let the sheer pleasure o. . .