by Jamie Pope
“Lillian is coming out for it,” Jackson continued. “We need to show the community that we make the best product. There are cooking demonstrations, wine and food sampling. It’s the opportunity to bring in a wider variety of consumers.”
“Which is why I called you all in here for a taste test,” Mariah said.
“Yes,” Everett, Mariah’s new fiancé and Amber’s former boss, walked in just then. Amber saw Mariah’s heart jump into her eyes. She was in love with Everett and he was just as crazy about her. He walked over to his future bride and softly kissed her on the mouth, not caring if her entire family witnessed it.
Everett was a young widower raising a son alone. Mariah, with her good heart, was just the woman he needed to open his heart to love again.
“Mariah has been bouncing recipe ideas off us for days now. I don’t think I have tasted so many odd concoctions in my life.”
“You liked my potato chip cookies.”
“I did. I like everything you do because you are brilliant.”
“This is why I’m marrying the man.” Mariah grinned at her future husband. “But I called you here so that you can taste these.” She picked up the small covered tray she had placed on Chase’s cabinet and removed the top with a flourish. On the tray were small, perfectly decorated cupcakes that looked as if they could be consumed in one bite.
“You’re including me in this?” Amber asked her, surprised to be included with the family.
“Yes.” Mariah nodded. “We’ve become tight. You’re important to me. I wanted to have the people most important to me here when I revealed my cupcake bites.”
“Thank you,” Amber said, feeling honored. “Those are adorable.”
“They look good, but I need you to taste them. If the flavors aren’t perfect, we can’t have them at the Bite of Seattle. So I need for these to be perfect. I call this one cherry cordial. It’s chocolate cake with a cherry filling, chocolate mousse icing and a chocolate-dipped cherry on top.”
“Wow.” Jackson sat up and studied the creations closely. “My teeth hurt just looking at them.”
“Just try one and tell me what you think. Be honest. No sparing my feelings.”
“We’ve been your brothers all your life,” Chase said, reaching for one. “I think you should know us well enough to know that we would never spare your feelings.”
Mariah grinned at him and handed out the tiny cupcakes. Amber bit down into it and an explosion of flavor filled her mouth. There was no other way she could describe it. The rich chocolate, the slightly tart cherry filling, the creamy mousse. Amber had been around some great baked goods in her time as a barista, but Mariah had something special. She must have inherited it from Lillian.
“Damn, Amber,” Jackson said. “We should put you in commercials for the bakery. The way you eat a cupcake will make people come running to Lillian’s just to try one.”
“What?” she asked, feeling slightly self-conscious.
“You look blissful,” Chase said in that smooth voice that she loved to hear. “I agree with Jack. I think men would line up just to watch you eat.” He looked back to his sister. “The cupcake is a winner Mariah. We’ll debut it at the Bite of Seattle. I’m sure it will be a hit.”
“Great.” She looked at him and then back at Amber with a suspicious look on her face. “This is the only solid recipe I have so far. I would like you and Jackson to come up with something, as well. Three Drayson siblings—three cupcake bites. All premiering at the festival in a couple of months.”
“I want mine to have bacon in it.” Jackson stood up and walked toward the door. “Bacon and bourbon cupcakes. There’ll be a line down the block to get those.”
Chase shook his head. “What do you think, Everett? Will you be able to stand the next two months of Mariah trying out a hundred new recipes? Because I know my brother will come up with the craziest thing he can think of, and Mariah will try to accomplish it.”
“I can take it.” Everett grinned back. “But I really came to take her out to lunch before we have to get EJ from school.”
“I would love to go to lunch.” She took his hand. “Remember, Chase, come up with something good for your bite. Think outside the box. I know that can be hard for you sometimes.”
“I’ll try my best, sister dearest,” he said drily.
“You want to walk out with us, Amber? I know your shift is ending soon.”
“Oh, no thanks. I’ve got to talk to Chase for a moment.”
“Do you?” Mariah raised her brow.
“I do.” She smiled at Mariah’s not-so-subtle attempt to figure out why she wanted to speak to Chase.
“Okay.” Mariah sighed. “Call me later.”
“I will.” She waved at them and then turned her attention to Chase.
“They’re gone,” Chase said, standing up to close his office door. “Has my sister grilled you about us yet?”
“No,” Amber said, swallowing. They were in his office alone. Away from everyone else’s view but not safe from everyone’s gossip. It wasn’t even that she cared about that kind of crap. She was more concerned about herself, about her irrational, insane attraction to him. She wasn’t sure she could trust herself around him. “Why? Has she grilled you?”
“She saw us walking in together the other day.” He sat down beside her again, close to her even though he didn’t have to. “I guess I picked up your hand to study your bracelet and that made my sister very curious.”
“She hasn’t said anything to me. We haven’t really gotten the chance to talk lately. I know she has been busy with Everett and EJ.”
Chase nodded. “She’s always wanted a family of her own. And now with Everett she’s found it. I think she’ll be a great mother.”
“A mom who loves to bake is a pretty amazing thing to have.”
“Did your mother bake a lot when you were a kid?”
“No. She was a big fan of dessert though. She made banana pudding on the last Sunday of every month because that’s when my grandmother would come visit us for dinner. And she made this really incredible chocolate parfait thing with chocolate graham cracker crumbs, chocolate sandwich cookies and fresh whipped cream. And in the summer she would make a dessert called tangerine cream that was cool and tangy and tasted like summer. My mouth waters just thinking about it.”
He leaned forward and kissed her very gently, his hand sliding up her cheek. She shut her eyes and kissed him back. Last time she had let it happen, last time she had just experienced it. But not this time. She wanted to kiss him back and taste his lips and participate in this beautiful thing. He lifted his lips, his eyes sweeping across her face before he leaned in to kiss her once more.
It was a much shorter kiss this time, but she still felt it through her entire body. “The way you described your grandmother’s tangerine cream... It seemed like you were there at a picnic table, eating it. I wanted to see if I could taste it.”
“You’re full of crap. You just wanted to kiss me.”
“That’s true.” He grinned at her. “But the way you talked about it made me want to kiss you.”
“You shouldn’t kiss me like that, Chase.”
“I know, but I can’t help it. You’re very beautiful. All I can think about is kissing you.”
“Oh?” She hadn’t expected him to be so honest with her. If she were honest with him, she would tell him that she couldn’t stop thinking about him, too. Thinking about kissing him and touching him. But thinking about talking to him, too, getting to know him more. “Why do you think you shouldn’t kiss me?”
“Because you work here and we both know better than to get involved.”
“We do.” She nodded. Chase was cautious. He was smart. He needed a woman like him so that he could marry her and have children who were elegant and ordered just like h
im.
“But—” he leaned closer and kissed along her jawline “—just because we know better doesn’t mean we’re going to do better.”
“Quit it. We’re in here with the door closed.” She shut her eyes as his lips traveled up to that little spot behind her ear that made her knees go weak. She was trying to keep her train of thought but it was hard. “People are going to wonder what we’re up to.”
“I don’t give a damn what they are wondering,” he said into her ear, his breath brushing across her skin, making her nipples tighten painfully.
“Stop anyway. I wanted to talk to you about something else.”
He removed his lips from her and she mourned their loss for a moment, but she hadn’t come here for this. She did have a legitimate reason to stay behind after the others had gone.
“What is it?” His eyes searched her face in that way that they always did, the way that made her feel self-conscious.
“Why do you look at me like that?”
“Because I find you incredibly beautiful.”
She blinked at him, not knowing what to say, but she did feel beautiful when he looked at her. He made her feel as though there was no one else on earth, just the two of them in their private little bubble. Her mother wanted her to follow her heart and most of the time she did, but with Chase it could lead to heartbreak and she didn’t have time for that right now. “I finished the bracelets you wanted.” She slipped them out of her apron pocket and handed them to him.
He studied them for a while, turning them over in his hand, paying attention to every detail. She had to hand it to him—he really did seem interested in her work. Very unlike her ex, but she couldn’t tell if he was truly interested in what she did or if he was trying to get in her pants.
Part of her didn’t care. She thought a night in bed with Chase might be...incredibly satisfying.
“This is excellent work. It’s hard for me to grasp the fact that you made them.”
“You don’t think a girl who makes coffee can be an artisan?”
“Not that.” He looked into her eyes. “It’s hard for me to grasp the fact that anyone can take a grain of an idea and make it bloom into something beautiful like this. Mariah can dream up exotic flavors and Jackson can come up with all these great business ventures, but I can only see things in black and white. Things that are straightforward. I need projections and charts and evidence that things will work out. But you can wake up and think ‘I’m going to make something beautiful,’ and here it is.”
She wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to reach over, grab his collar and pull him into another long, slow, hot kiss.
But she didn’t because his kisses were bound to be a danger to her mental health. “You have something amazing inside of you, Chase. I know you do.”
He nodded as if he didn’t believe her. “These are really beautiful. Let me pay you what we originally talked about. These are worth it.”
“I won’t let you pay me for those. You’re helping my mother with her dream. This is the least I can do for you.”
“It’s very important for me to give you something for these. I won’t feel right if you don’t allow me to pay you for your work.”
“Okay.” She stood up, needing some space from him before she kissed him again and really got herself in trouble. “But not now. I have to go to class.”
He took her hand, squeezed her fingers as he looked into her eyes, and she was once again tempted to throw her common sense out the window. “I’m not going to let this go, you know.”
“I know. But you have to let me go,” she said as she slipped her hand from his and walked out of the room.
Chapter 4
Chase went back to his desk, prepared to return to work. Only he couldn’t. He couldn’t focus on compiling his report for Bite of Seattle or coming up with cupcake flavors or analyzing yesterday’s receipts.
Amber.
He had kissed her again. Kissed her pouty, soft-looking mouth when he told himself that he was going to keep his distance from her, stay away, ignore her altogether to lessen his fixation on her. But that plan had gone out the window when Mariah called the meeting in his office and sat Amber next to him on his small couch. Doing that was like telling him that she wanted them together. Amber smelled slightly of caramel today. He knew she used it a lot in her coffee drinks. The scent of it stayed on her skin and gave Chase the strong urge to lick it off her.
But he resisted, settling for her arm brushing his and her leg pressed against his thigh. He noticed that she leaned more toward him than Jackson, that she looked him in the eye when she spoke to him, never breaking contact. He’d thought there was something there between them, that it was not just one-sided and he’d known for sure the moment he kissed her and she kissed him back. It wasn’t the kind of kiss you gave somebody new, but a kiss you gave somebody you had known for a long time. The kind of kiss that excited you because you knew what was coming next and it was always so damn good.
There was an email from Mariah waiting when he finally turned his attention back to his computer. She must have sent it before she got to the car. He laughed. The subject line of her email told him exactly what was on her mind.
What are you up to? In your office alone with Amber?
Chase thought about ignoring the email because his love life was really none of his sister’s business. But he didn’t.
THERE IS NOTHING GOING ON.
A moment later there was a reply from his sister.
Then why did she want to speak to you alone?
He replied again.
It’s none of your business.
Not ten seconds later there was another reply from Mariah.
Amber is not the kind of girl you have a fling with.
It was true. She definitely wasn’t. He wasn’t looking for a relationship. He wasn’t even looking for a date. And yet he had kissed her. And yet he wanted more. And yet he knew that he wouldn’t be satisfied until he had her. He was going to try to resist her. Chase Drayson was a man who had never failed at anything in his life, but he knew that this time he might.
* * *
Amber tried to hide her yawn as another customer walked up to the counter. She hadn’t gotten home till almost eleven last night. She’d had a late class and a few of her classmates had stayed after for a little while to study for the big final they were having next week. It was important that she do well on this final. She was having a bit of trouble in this class and hadn’t done as well on some of the assignments as she had hoped. She wasn’t in danger of failing. She would be damned if she let that happen, but she wanted to do well, wanted to keep her grades as high as possible, just to prove that the jewelry designer with the wild curly hair had a brain in her head and knew her stuff.
“Hello. What can I get for you on this fine spring day?” she said to the customer who appeared to be somewhere in her seventies.
“Oh, there is so much to choose from, I just don’t know what to get.”
“Well, maybe I can narrow it down for you.” Amber stepped from behind the counter and looked at the menu with the woman.
“Hot or cold?”
“You have cold things here?”
“Yes, ma’am. We have a beautiful peach green-tea lemonade and six other flavors of tea. I could make you an iced coffee if you would like.”
“Iced coffee? I’ve never had that before. That might be something I try when it gets a little warmer. Let’s go with hot coffee today.”
“Okay. You sure you want coffee? I can brew you a lovely cup of tea.”
“Yes, coffee. I like to have tea in the morning.”
“Well, I suggest you come back in the morning, too, because Myers does tea as well as coffee. Do you like a bolder dark roast or something a little milder?”
“Milder, please. It’ll be better for my reflux.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. Would you like something plain or a little fancy?”
“Fancy?”
“Yes, ma’am. You’d be surprised to know what I can do with a cup of coffee.”
“We’ll go fancy then.”
“Last question. Do you like your coffee sweet?”
“My daughter likes to say I have a bit of coffee with my milk and sugar.”
“You’re my kind of girl.” Amber smiled at her. “I know just the thing for you.” A few minutes later she presented the woman with a beautiful mug of coffee topped with whipped cream and drizzled with chocolate syrup.
“That’s a work of art. What it is?”
“I like to call it ‘So Sue Me.’ It a light roast coffee with a mix of white chocolate and tiramisu syrup with whipped cream and a chocolate drizzle on top.”
“Thank you, honey.” She took a bill out of her wallet. “I think I’ll enjoy this.”
“If you don’t, let me know and I’ll fix you something you do.”
She watched the woman walk away, feeling good about the transaction. Her job wasn’t just about serving good coffee. It was about good customer service, too. She knew how it put a damper on her day whenever she received bad service. She didn’t want anyone else to have their day affected negatively because she was tired.
“I know you are planning to hit it big with your jewelry business, but even if you make millions of dollars a year, could you stay on as our barista?” Mariah rested her head on Amber’s shoulder for a moment. “You’re the best one we have.”
“Thank you. When I was a little girl, I dreamed of one day making fine coffee drinks in one of the best bakeries in Seattle.”
“No, you didn’t.” Mariah grinned at her. “None of us dreamed of being here. I wanted to be married to a wealthy prince and live on a tropical island.”
“Everett may not be actual royalty, but he could buy you a big house on a tropical island.”