by Shandi Boyes
When I enter the warm cab of my Bentley, my driver’s eyes stray to the rearview mirror. The halfhearted grin on Augustus’ face turns smug when he observes my disheveled appearance in closeup detail. I glower at him, warning him I’m two seconds from blowing my top. I’m not. I just don’t have a better defense, so I use the easy, more anticipated response.
After a quick swallow to relieve his throat of the rock my rueful glare lodged in there, Augustus pulls my car away from the curb. I wait for the lights of Harlow’s bakery to shine like a star in the sky before shifting my gaze sideways.
“Sorry,” Levi apologizes, his tone sincerer than his facial expression. “If you had forewarned me of your plan of attack, I wouldn’t have shown up tonight. I know you like getting your hands dirty, Cormack, but you left me flying blind.”
His eyes scan my egg-smeared hair and ruined suit. “Although some may say my arrival was a godsend. I’ve had a door slammed in my face numerous times the past twelve months, but this is the first time Ms. Murphy has resorted to wasting food. With how deep her books are in the red, I’m surprised she can afford the loss.”
He stops talking as his face lights up like a Christmas tree. “Ah, you’ve always been as clever as you are smart. Why didn’t I think of this earlier? Don’t negotiate with terrorists. Run them out of town. Her sales have already fallen from the makeshift bakeries we placed within a mile radius of her shop. Now we’ve got her wasting ingredients she can’t afford to replace. Sheer brilliance. That is why you are the boss and I am merely your pawn.”
Before I can respond to his inaccurate statement—the part about me arriving at Harlow’s bakery to purposely waste her products, not that we placed bakeries in her direct competition—Levi signals for Augustus to stop.
“Seriously, Levi? Again?” I ask when we come to a stop at the front of a Chinese restaurant on the outskirts of town. Although Levi’s obsession with a pretty Asian woman is well known amongst our colleagues, I pretend it isn’t, preferring to shift the focus away from me and my eggy night.
“This place serves the best dumplings in town.” Levi throws a bundle of bills to Augustus, treating him like a taxi driver instead of a chauffeur/security detail. “Drop back in around an hour. I should be done with my meal by then.”
“We all know you’re not here for the dumplings,” I grumble under my breath.
Levi shoots me a vicious sideways glare, revealing he heard my mumbled comment. “Just like I know you didn’t pretend we didn’t know each other for no reason.”
I keep my mouth shut, once again having no plausible defense. I did go into Harlow’s bakery with the intention of disclosing I am a co-owner of the corporation attempting to buy her out. I left wondering who I am.
Harlow’s bakery sits on a parcel of land I need to extend my record label from a thriving mid-sector business to a global entity. My company has been based in Hopeton the past two years, but my wish to relocate it to Ravenshoe are well known amongst community members. My investment in this region is as vigorous as my college friend and business partner, Isaac’s. Our corporation, Colt Enterprises, is responsible for the massive increase in development and infrastructure in Ravenshoe the past four years.
Although I could live off my investments until my demise, financial stratagems and real estate takeovers are Isaac’s babies. My passion has always resided in music production. I am the sole owner of my record company, Destiny Records. I am also its only talent scout. I’m so determined to see the little guy succeed, I dig through the trenches myself to find the next musical prodigy.
My methods are unheard of, but highly effective. Rise Up’s skyrocketing success will be proof of that. It will reveal that I am not my father’s son. I worked for every penny I have. I tunneled through the shit and built an empire worthy of its soon-to-be Fortune 500 listing. Despite the words my father whispered on his death bed, I am not a failure.
That is why I will secure Harlow’s bakery. Relocating Destiny Records to Ravenshoe has been in motion for years. I can’t let anything or anyone get in the way of that. To restructure my plans to exclude Harlow’s bakery would cost millions. I’d rather buy her out than hand more of my hard-earned money to the pessimists who constantly tell the optimists they can’t do something.
With my family’s name granting me access to over six billion dollars in assets and funds, I could forgo the dream I’ve been inching toward since my college days. But with the blood of a fox and the determination of a hound, I refuse to back down. I don’t want my dad’s money. I don’t even want his last name, but I do want Harlow’s bakery, and I’m willing to do anything to get it.
I’ll even woo it away from her if I must.
Chapter Three
Harlow
My eyes roll skyward, unappreciative of Izzy’s giggle at my rumbled appearance. I’m so dead on my feet today, I’m shocked I’m standing upright.
“If they taste as good as they look, they’ll be worth the lack of sleep,” Izzy praises as she glances at four boxes of cupcakes stacked to her right. “Did you lick them so he can sample what he missed out on last night?”
If I had the strength, I’d poke out my tongue, but I’m too exhausted to do something even as mundane as that. After Cormack’s brisk departure last night, my muddled mind had me scaling the stairs tucked at the back of my kitchen. I wasn’t planning to sleep. I was just hopeful a long, hot shower would unbind the knot in my stomach. I nearly kissed a man for the first time in years. If that wasn’t already a strong cause of confusion, he was a man I only met minutes earlier.
It was only during my play-by-play rundown of our exchange did reality dawn. I had six dozen cupcakes to bake in under ten hours. It sounds easy, right? You just whip up a batch of batter and throw them into the oven. It’s not hard, so why am I complaining? A normal person could do it in a couple of hours. I could as well, if I had an oven capable of handling more than a dozen cupcakes at a time.
With my industrial cooker on the blink the past three months, I’ve resorted to using a standard household oven. Add that to the fact I refuse to use pre-whipped or refrigerated batter; I must make each batch within minutes of it hitting the oven. That means I’ve been slaving in the kitchen since I begrudgingly stomped down the stairs a little after 10 PM last night. It is now 6:11 AM.
If I weren’t so anal about making sure every cupcake is perfect, I could have gone to bed hours ago. But since this order is for a man I almost kissed, and desperately hope one day to kiss, I baked more than triple Cormack’s order. At least I put insomnia to good use for once. My display cases haven’t been this stacked with products in months.
I finish tying the last bow onto a bright pink cupcake box before raising my eyes to Izzy. “What are you doing up so early anyway? Mr. Dark and Dangerous keeping you awake?”
Now it’s Izzy’s turn to roll her eyes. I’m not the only one in a sexual rut, but mercifully, my lack of male companionship is my own choice. So is Izzy’s, but more because she refuses to acknowledge the sparks firing between Isaac and her. If I had a way of bundling up their energy when they’re in the same room and disbursing it in a safe manner, my worries of filing for bankruptcy would be non-existent.
I don’t understand Izzy’s reluctance. She’s single. Isaac’s single. She’s a receptionist. Isaac is a businessman. She’s gorgeous. Isaac is nearly as attractive as Cormack. She and Isaac would make a beautiful couple, but for some reason unbeknownst to me, they keep pussy footing around their mutual attraction.
The only good thing that has come from their public game of cat and mouse is that I don’t need to stick my nose into a book to feed my love of romance. I get it by meddling in Izzy’s private life.
It is funny how Izzy and I became friends. It kind of just happened. Probably more to do with the fact she was new in town, and I’m the only one our age who didn’t pack up and leave after graduation. There are still some locals mingling around, but not any I call my best friend. They are mainly guys—hot
guys, but guys all the same—so they were friend-zoned years ago.
“I was just thinking. . .” Izzy pauses, like it is perfectly normal for her to act ditzy. It isn’t. She is as smart as she is beautiful. I just wished she trusted me enough to reveal the secret her eyes are hiding. Izzy was a stranger months ago, but I already know her well enough to know her massive chocolate eyes are hiding a big, dirty secret.
“Thinking?” I prompt with an arch of my brow.
She drags her teeth over her lower lip. “My birthday is next month. I don’t want a raging party or anything, but you only turn twenty-five once, so I think we should do something? I don’t want to go dancing or anything, but thought maybe we could have dinner? Or. . .?”
I place my hand over her balled one, stopping her blubbering midsentence. “Leave it to me. I’ll organize everything.”
She peers up at me, blinking and mute. “You’re not going to do anything fancy, are you? Just something casual, right?”
I wave my hand around our surroundings. “Do I look like a snob?”
She purses her cupid-bow lips, acting funny. She truly is the only woman I’ve met who sees the value in junk. Maybe that is why we are friends? She knows everything has a worth; you’ve just got to wade through the gunky stuff to find the treasure beneath.
“It’ll be fine. Now get out of here.” I shove her toward the back entrance she snuck through while taking a shortcut down the alleyway of my building. “I’ll see you when I’m actually open. Six mochas, two lattes, and one anal straight black with two lumps of sugar.”
She giggles at my last comment. I know she isn’t a fan of her boss, so I use it at every opportunity, most particularly when I am aiming to shift the focus off me.
“Hey, Harlow?” Izzy’s girly voice echoes in the alleyway.
When I pivot around to face her, she says, “There are five reputable bakers in Hopeton. He didn’t place an order with your company for no reason.”
She thinks she is weakening the knot in my stomach. She isn’t. Not in the slightest.
While waiting for a batch of cupcakes to cool, I conducted a quick google search on both Cormack and the location of his business. There is a cupcake store only three doors up from Destiny Records. I’m proud of the quality of my products, but this seems a little suspicious to me. It will cost Cormack over a hundred dollars to have my cakes delivered on site. He could have purchased an additional twenty cupcakes for that, and they wouldn’t risk decimation during transport.
“What did you tell me last week?” Izzy asks, bringing my head back down from the clouds. “‘Stop overanalyzing everything and start enjoying it.’ It’s time for you to take your advice.”
I inwardly gag, hating that I’m on the receiving end of my own advice. I love dishing out relationship advice, but I hate accepting it. “This is different. You and Isaac have been tiptoeing around each other for months. We interacted for barely an hour.”
“So?” Izzy replies with a shrug.
I huff, “I spent more time cracking eggs on his face than I did talking.”
Izzy fights with all her might not to smile, but the sneakiest one still creeps onto her mouth. “You’re a baker. Maybe that was foreplay?”
If I didn’t need the last of my eggs to stock the bakery cases, I’d peg one at Izzy’s gleaming face.
“I love your grumpy face, Harlow. It’s nearly as cute as your cheeky one.”
Stealing my chance to reply, she dashes down the alleyway. When the big dong of a clock alerts me to my tardiness, I also get a wiggle on.
I arrive at Destiny Records with barely a minute to spare. The traffic surrounding Ravenshoe has always been thick, but as house prices climb, so do the number of commuters.
Unlike what I foresaw, Destiny Records is a sleek building of steel and glass. Cormack was dressed to the nines last night, so I expected an eyesore like the many popping up around my bakery the past two years. I like the casual sleekness of this building. It is modern yet classic, if that makes any sense?
While digging out the boxes that survived the forty-mile commute by the skin of their teeth, I risk a glance at my reflection in the tinted windows of my sedan. Since I didn’t have time to wash my hair, my unruly waves are wrangled into a messy bun an inch from my nape. A few wisps of auburn strands frame my oval face, and the thick coat of mascara I threw on during commute helps conceal the dark circles rimming my greenish-brown eyes.
For someone who hasn’t slept in almost thirty hours, I look remarkably put together. It probably helps that every mile traveled made my cheeks blush more. I’ve never been short of confidence, but even I know I’m swimming in waters out of my depth. I nearly kissed a man whose arm has escorted supermodels, actresses, and socialites just to name a few. If I hadn’t spent an hour scrubbing spoiled egg yolks from my skirt at 4 AM, I’d still believe last night was some weird, demented dream.
I peer over my stack of boxes when the entry doors of Destiny Records fail to open upon my arrival. With my mind a little hazy, it takes me a good thirty seconds to realize automatic doors don’t operate outside of business hours.
In an unladylike manner, I kick the glass door with the toe of my stiletto. Although I can’t see anything over the hot pink boxes I’m juggling like a clown on a unicycle, I’m sure the bakery owner three spots up is in a fit of giggles. Who turns up to deliver cakes wearing four-inch stilettos, a tight tank top, and a skirt I almost popped the seam of just to squeeze into?
Me—the desperate loser who’s forgotten every rule in Harlow’s New Quest of Life Handbook but one:
Rule 102: It’s not desperate if it gets you off.
When the glass doors suddenly spring open, I fall forward at a rate too fast to save both the cupcakes and me. While silently praying the Eiffel Tower teetering in my hands doesn’t topple, I take three steps forward before taking another two back. This could only be more embarrassing if I hadn’t swapped my granny panties for a more risqué pair. It is lucky the constant replay of Cormack’s request to kiss me streamed through my head all night or underwear I deem unacceptable for public would be moments away from a headlining act.
Just before the cupcakes crash to the floor, a large hand slaps the top box at the same time another ones slides under the bottom one. Although I’m fairly certain the syrupy smell filtering through my nose is compliments of Cormack’s palm flattening the top layer of cakes into pancakes, I can’t testify to that. Because it’s not just sugar I’m smelling. It is also spice. Sugar and spice, hmmm, one mighty enticing combination.
“Are you okay?”
I want to pretend Cormack’s question is sincere, but it isn’t. His chest is heaving with too much laughter to be serious. I don’t know what it is about this guy, but he makes me a moronic klutz. Clumsy, awkward skits are cute in the romance books I devour, but in real life, I resemble a newborn giraffe taking her first steps. It isn’t the look I want to portray. Not in the least.
“I’m fine. Thank you.” My tone is curt, yet professional. I can’t say the same thing about my heart. Cormack is once again wearing a suit, but he lost the jacket and tie he donned last night, instead opting for a more casual look with rolled-up sleeves and undone buttons.
“Where do you want me to set these up?” I ask, trying to tear my eyes away from the smooth skin stretched across his pecs still glistening from a recent shower.
My attempt to act oblivious is a woeful waste of time. Two more buttons, and a romance book cover model would be at the ready. And let’s not forget the stream of wicked images of him showering flooding my depraved mind. I’m practically panting, torn between demanding he remove his shirt so I can see the skin it’s hiding from my perverted gaze or shredding it off myself.
If I weren’t here in a business sense, I’d settle on the latter, but since my professional ambitions should always supersede my personal aspirations, I harness my desires—narrowly!
Cormack’s heated gaze reverts my focus back to the task at hand, albeit h
esitantly. “Set them up?”
“Yes. You don’t just get sweets when you shop at Harlow’s Scrumptious Haven. You’re awarded the entire package—eye-catching displays and all.” I smile, hoping he’ll miss the sexual ambiguity laced in my tone.
“Oh. . .” He didn’t miss it. “This way.”
He leads me to a large boardroom halfway down a hall on our left. It is a generous room that would hold at least a dozen people, but it doesn’t give any indication of why he ordered six dozen cupcakes. I love a sugary treat as much as the next person, but even I can’t consume more than three cupcakes in one sitting.
I stop frozen just inside the conference room door, unsure where he’d like me to place the cakes. From a commercial standpoint, prime and center in the middle of the boardroom table seems like the ideal choice, but its poor visibility from the hub of Destiny Records makes it less viable. With the hope of turning one order into many, I need as many people as possible to see my display. Word of mouth is a critical marketing campaign in any industry, but when you’re counting pennies at the end of each day, you must flaunt it for all its worth.
I purse my lips when I spot a wooden counter stretched across the back wall. Although it is not ideal, the glass wall opposite it will ensure my set up remains visible even during proceedings. It also has a little more room for me to place some business cards and flyers next to the display stands.
Happy with my decision, I meander to the far side of the room. My quick strides dwindle to a snail’s pace when the glass wall responsible for my decision frosts over. Although disappointed my yummy treats will be hidden from hungry, prying eyes, a weird excitement brewing in my gut keeps my disappointment at bay.
With my eyes locked to the front, I murmur, “Expecting company?” My voice is high with nerves, but not fear. I’m on edge with anticipation, just like last night.