My Husband Won't Charge His Relatives, So I Smiled

My husband and I opened a restaurant, and every single day his little sister brought a whole crowd in to eat and drink, and never once did she pay.

I couldn't help mentioning it to him, and in an instant he flared up.

Leila James is my own sister. How could you have the nerve to make her pay? How did I, Benjamin James, end up with a wife this cheap?

My mother-in-law laid into me too.

"Our family has always been generous. Don't go bringing those petty, penny-pinching habits from your backwater town into the James household."

"We never take money from family!"

I nodded and said nothing more.

Then I turned around and sent the restaurant's address to my family group chat, tagging everyone.

"This is the restaurant I opened. Come eat anytime you like, everyone. It's all free."

The next day, my husband and mother-in-law were dumbstruck.

"Benjamin, Cordelia Henson, I brought a few card buddies I just met. Come on, get us some tea."

The moment dinnertime hit, Leila's voice rang out from the doorway, right on schedule.

I looked up.

There she was, breezing in through the door like she owned the place, seven or eight people trailing behind her.

The second she was inside, Leila acted like she'd walked into her own home, leading the whole pack straight to the big round table by the window, laughing as she waved them over.

"Sit wherever you like, don't be shy. Order whatever you want. Everything today is on me!"

Seeing how open-handed Leila was, her card buddies traded looks, and a few said, a little embarrassed, "Leila, we only just met at the card room today. You treating us to a meal already, isn't that too much?"

Leila waved a hand, breezy about it.

"What's too much about it?"

"My brother owns this place, so it's basically my own restaurant. Eat and drink to your hearts' content, no need to save me any money."

As she spoke, she picked up the menu on the table, didn't so much as glance at the prices, and started rattling off orders to the waiter beside her.

"Three pounds of the signature lobster, one crab each, and this luxury seafood chowder, make it two of those, and bring out a few of the most expensive specialty dishes you've got."

"On top of that, two bottles of top-shelf whiskey."

"And hurry it up, we've still got mahjong to get back to after we eat."

Once she'd rolled through the order like a pro, Leila fell into laughing and chatting with her card buddies at the table.

Listening to the noise from over there, I sat at the front counter, worn thin.

This was Leila's seventeenth time at the restaurant this month.

The first time was opening day, at the start of the month.

She'd brought her husband, her mother, and her kid to show support. Four of them, seven dishes, a bill over eight hundred.

Once they'd eaten and drunk their fill, she wiped her mouth, turned around with the whole family, and left, without the faintest intention of settling up.

Since she was my sister-in-law, I let it go.

But I hadn't expected that, from then on, she'd come every single day.

One day it was her girlfriends.

The next day, coworkers and friends.

The day after that, the neighbors.

In the space of half a month, she'd paraded every person she knew through here for a meal.

And every time she came, she ordered the finest liquor and dishes, each visit pricier than the last.

Yet she never paid a single cent.

This time, though, she'd actually dragged in card buddies she'd met only that very day.

Soon, one top-tier dish after another arrived at the table.

Lobster, crab, and luxury seafood chowder covered the whole round table, and the top-shelf whiskey was all laid out too.

Seeing the spread, Leila's card buddies swallowed hard and dropped every last bit of restraint.

Gorging themselves on the food and drink, they kept heaping praise on Leila.

"Leila, you're too good to us. Just met and you're already this generous with everyone."

"Right? Treating everybody to a casual meal on this kind of scale. That's what happens when your family owns a restaurant. A whole different level."

"It's an honor to know you. From now on, whenever you want to play cards, just call us, we'll be there in a heartbeat."

Leila soaked up the flattery, thoroughly pleased, and her talk swelled bigger and bigger.

"It's just a meal, no big deal."

"From now on, whenever you all want to eat, I can bring you here for free every single day!"

At those words, the group's eyes lit up, and they fell over each other to flatter Leila even harder.

The whole table clinked glasses, talking and laughing, shouting and carrying on, loud enough to fill the room.

The other customers, who'd been eating quietly, couldn't stop frowning at all the noise.

Several groups about to come in took one look at the racket and turned right back around.

A prime dinner rush, and she'd wrecked it into a mess.

It was past nine before they'd finally eaten their fill.

Leila's card buddies got up, tossed her a careless thank-you, and pushed straight out the door.

Leila followed right behind them, and as she passed the counter she lifted her chin at me, proud as anything.

"See you, honey. Next time I'll bring even more people to support the place."

And with that, she swept out.

I looked at their table, half the food wasted.

Then I looked at her tab for the night. Seven thousand, seven hundred and eighty-two dollars.

Add in the sixteen visits before it, and Leila had eaten more than eighty thousand dollars in the restaurant this month.

I let out a long sigh, waited until the last customer had gone, then found Benjamin taking inventory in the storeroom and said softly,

"Leila brought seven or eight card friends today. They ordered over seven thousand in food and didn't pay a cent."

Benjamin didn't even look up. "It's just one meal. If she wants to eat, let her eat."

I drew a breath and kept my voice as level as I could. "This isn't about one meal anymore."

"She's brought people in seventeen times this month, always ordering the expensive stuff. In half a month she's eaten more than eighty thousand, and she's never settled a single tab."

Benjamin's brows drew together. He looked up at me, his tone cooling. "Why are you counting all this day in and day out?"

I felt helpless. "How do you run a restaurant without keeping the books straight?"

"Rent's twenty thousand, stock is thirty thousand, staff wages are twenty thousand. Our total revenue this month is a hundred and fifty thousand, and your sister alone ate eighty thousand of it."

"Take out all the odds and ends of overhead, and after all this work, we've actually lost a good deal of money."

"If this keeps up, the restaurant really can't hold on."

Benjamin's face darkened. "So you're blaming Leila for eating our place into the ground?"

I didn't want to fight. I kept my voice gentle. "I just want you to have a word with your sister. Ask her not to keep bringing people to eat and drink for free every day. If she really has to come, let her settle a little of the bill. Even just cost price would do."

I'd kept my tone as calm as I could, but the moment Benjamin heard it, he lost his temper anyway.

He hurled the inventory sheet in his hand to the floor and rounded on me, his voice rising.

"Cordelia, Leila is my own sister. How do you have the nerve to make her pay?"

"It's just a few meals. What restaurant doesn't lose money when it first opens?"

"And now you want to charge her cost price? You have no shame, and I'm the one who feels humiliated!"

The words jammed tight in my chest. "I'm doing this for the restaurant too."

"We're only just getting off the ground. Her bringing people in to feast every day, not paying, and driving away plenty of customers on top of it, is doing real damage to business."

"At this rate, how much longer can this place stay open?"

Benjamin waved his hand, impatient. "Quit making excuses. I think you're just petty and calculating."

"Never mind that she's only eaten for half a month. Even if she came in and ate like this every day for the rest of her life, I'd never take a single cent from her!"

Hearing Benjamin say that, my heart sank.

"So you really intend to let your sister eat and drink for free at the restaurant for the rest of her life?"

He nodded without hesitation, firm.

"That's right."

"I'm not like you, counting pennies over a few meals."

"You'd even go after my own sister's money. I don't know how I, Benjamin James, ended up with a wife as petty as you."

Before I could say anything, my mother-in-law came hurrying out from the back kitchen, where she'd been cleaning.

She'd clearly overheard our whole conversation from outside, and the second she stepped through the door she rounded on me.

"Cordelia, don't take this the wrong way, but you really are narrow-minded and far too calculating."

"Leila brings people in to eat here every day. That's her being kind, drumming up a little business for us."

"You can't even bother to thank her, and instead you're haggling with her over a few dollars of food?"

I was speechless.

"Mom, she brought seventeen groups in over two weeks, always ordered the most expensive dishes, made a scene every single time, and scared off every paying customer we had. How is that drumming up business?"

"This is her using the restaurant to buy herself goodwill, playing generous with our money, dumping every cost and every bit of pressure onto us!"

Her face darkened at once, and her voice went cold.

"That's just how favors between people work."

"If you ask me, growing up poor out in the sticks left you scared of spending a dime. You've got no vision, no sense of the bigger picture."

"You've married into the James family now, so learn from us. Be generous. Stop making us sick with those penny-pinching habits of yours."

"Our family has always been generous. We never take money from relatives!"

Benjamin chimed right in.

"Exactly. Between family it's about loyalty. I'd rather the restaurant lose a little money than charge my relatives for their meals."

"Don't ever bring this up again."

"I won't have people thinking the James family's gone so broke we're shaking down our own relatives for money."

Watching the two of them play off each other like that, I suddenly had no desire to argue.

The restaurant wasn't mine alone anyway.

Since they were all so generous, why should I stick my nose in?

I nodded calmly.

"Fine. I understand."

Seeing me stop arguing, Benjamin assumed he'd talked me around. He looked down at me, smug.

"See? You should've come around sooner."

"The one thing you never do between family is scheme. Learn a little from the way the James family carries itself, and your life will go a lot smoother."

My mother-in-law picked up the thread, sneering.

"Exactly. Otherwise, with that shortsighted country-bumpkin outlook of yours, you'll never amount to anything in this life."

The two of them went back and forth, every line belittling me while puffing up this so-called James family class of theirs.

I gave a faint smile and said nothing.

Fine. Since you're all so generous, I'll help you live up to it.

I went completely calm.

No matter how my mother-in-law and Benjamin lectured and blamed me, I just nodded and agreed with every word.

Seeing me so meek, they left the restaurant satisfied and went home, leaving me alone to clean up and close.

After a quick tidy, I quietly took out my phone and opened my family group chat.

There were a hundred and fifty people in that chat.

Not one of them was ordinary.

Back when Benjamin and I were dating, his family didn't have much, and he was especially sensitive about it.

To spare what little pride he had, I'd always hidden my family's wealth, telling him I came from an ordinary rural family with no money and no connections.

But the truth was, my family was no ordinary country family at all. We were a genuine dynasty of wealthy business people.

My father was the eldest of the Henson sons, with three younger brothers and two younger sisters beneath him.

On my mother's side, there were three older brothers and two older sisters.

Between both sides, my aunts and uncles alone numbered more than a dozen.

Add in their spouses and children, and it came to a hundred and fifty people, every one of them worth a fortune, with connections spread across the whole country.

When they learned I was going to marry Benjamin, none of them really approved.

My parents opposed it hardest of all.

They thought Benjamin could work his whole life and still never reach our heels, and they told me not to go looking for hardship I didn't need.

But I was swept up in love back then, and I wouldn't listen to anyone.

I resolutely gave up every bit of the family fortune and opened this restaurant with Benjamin.

The startup money was what the two of us had saved over the years.

I wanted to use this restaurant to prove to my parents that we could build a good life on our own effort.

So from the day the restaurant opened, I was up before dawn and working late into the night, never stopping.

I'd pinned all my hopes on this place.

But I never expected it. Because of Leila, my hopes were crumbling, piece by piece.

What chilled me more was Benjamin's attitude.

All my effort had earned me was him and his mother jabbing their fingers in my face, calling me a country hick, small-minded, always scheming.

In that moment, it suddenly became plain to me.

He and I really weren't a good match.

Since the James family cared so much about treating relatives to meals, then it was high time I gave my relatives a proper welcome too.

I opened the group chat and dropped the restaurant's location straight in.

Then I tagged everyone and got right to the point:

"This is my restaurant. Come eat whenever you're free, everyone. It's all on the house."

The moment the message went out, the quiet family chat exploded.

My uncle was first to reply:

"Wow! Cordelia opened a restaurant? We have to show up. The whole family's coming out tomorrow."

My aunt jumped in right after:

"I've been dying to find a good place to eat lately. Tomorrow I'll bring the whole household over for a proper taste!"

The cousins, one after another, all chimed in:

"We'll be there right on time tomorrow."

"Cordelia, you'd better bring out your best and priciest dishes for us."

"Right, and don't you dare wince when we eat you out of house and home."

My whole family had been raised in silk and fine food since childhood.

They always went straight for the most expensive, the best.

And that was exactly what I wanted.

I looked at the screen full of messages and smiled, satisfied:

"I'll be waiting for you at the restaurant tomorrow."

"Come hungry and eat all you want."

Early the next morning, the second I got to the restaurant my phone started buzzing nonstop.

The family chat had already blown up.

My aunt posted a photo from the airport, where she was waiting for her flight:

"Cordelia, your aunt's flying back all the way from Miami just for this meal. That's love, isn't it?"

Then my uncle sent a message:

"On my way. Brought a dozen of the company's top execs. We're all counting on your place for lunch today."

My parents said nothing in the group, but my mother messaged me privately, just three short words:

"Made up your mind?"

I stared at those words for a second or two, then wrote back:

"Yeah. I've made up my mind."

She didn't press further, only said, "Your father and I will be there at noon."

I put my phone away and looked out the restaurant's front door, calmer than I'd ever felt.

Noon came soon enough.

Benjamin and my mother-in-law strolled in right on time, ready to start greeting customers.

The moment he walked in, Benjamin reminded me:

"Leila's coming later. Don't go making an issue of her bill again."

"I, Benjamin James, run this place. I can afford to lose a little."

My mother-in-law added, looking down her nose at me:

"I know you grew up in the country, that you've never seen much of the world, and nobody ever taught you what a big picture looks like."

"But since you married up into the James family, you can put away that penny-pinching, scheming little heart of yours. Remember, no matter how much our relatives eat, we would never take a single cent."

The words had barely left her mouth when a commotion broke out at the door.

I turned to look, and smiled faintly.

The real show was about to begin.