Page 93 of Meet Me at the Fudge Shop

“I don’t know how to say this,” Dani said.

Nothing good ever started out that way. No one ever saidI don’t know how to say this, but you’ve won the lottery. I don’t know how to say this, but you’re the lost heir to a throne. I don’t know how to say this, but you’ve been promoted to master chocolatier.

“Lily, I’m so very sorry,” Dani said.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Lily asked.

Patrick cleared his throat, but Dani held up her hand to him. “No. Let me.” She wrung her hands together. “It was brought to the council’s attention that the original rules agreed to for the fudge shop competition stated that the winner would be the person who sold the mostfudge.”

“Fudge,” Patrick said. “Not ice cream.”

Oh, thanks for that.Like she hadn’t understood the words herself.

Lily didn’t need to open her books back up to know that Declan would have her beat. He’d had a good stream of buyers for the entire festival, and without her ice cream sales…

“I didn’t win?” The full weight of the truth caused Lily to sag back against the display case.

She’d lost her family’s shop.

Gone.

The door opened and Declan and his parents walked in. His jaw was drawn tight, and his lips were pressed into a thin line.

Lily moved her attention back to Dani. “That’s ridiculous. This is my family’s fudge shop. There never should have been a competition in the first place.”

“But there was,” Tara said, sympathy in her expression and voice. “Everyone agreed to it.”

Lily’s eyes met Declan’s, and her feet stupidly took her closer. So close, she could smell his aftershave and see the flecks in his blue eyes. And that made it hurt so much more. “Aren’t you going to tell them how unfair this is?” The question came out a whisper, a raw scrape.

“I…” His lips flat-lined, and he glanced over his shoulder at Patrick, who watched them both with a shrewdness that made Lily want to disappear. “The rules…” He closed his mouth, swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up then down.

She got the eeriest case of déjà vu—sure, maybe she wasn’t standing on his parents’ front porch in the rain surrounded by wet trees, but it was still him once again standing by while his parents dismantled her world.

Unbelievable.

“I can’t do this right now.” Lily turned on her heel, rounded the counter, and smacked the kitchen door open with her palm. Hopefully it would swing back and hit Declan in the nose, because oh yes, he was following her.

“Come on, Lily. Let’s talk about this.”

“Why bother?” She reached for her bag on the counter. She needed space, room to breathe, to think.

“Because we’re in a relationship.”

Lily headed for the alley door. “Are we?”

“So you’re just going to run away again?”

Halting, she spun and strode across the kitchen, her finger lifted in the air. “Don’t you dare say that to me. You’re the one who wouldn’t speak up for me out there.”

“I’m in a weird spot.” He pushed both hands through his hair. “And the rules were clear.”

“Yeah, and very convenient for you—the guy who told me to sell ice cream today in the first place. What I think is, you’re weak. Underneath all that polished exterior is a man who can’t think for himself.”

“Hey—!”

“No, you hey. You’ve let them push you around all your life, afraid to go against the family.” She finger-quoted her words. “And I get it. I do. But I’m not going to play the game anymore. I’m done being your dirty little secret. Your mistake.”

He reached for her elbow. She twisted away, not caring now that tears burned her eyes.

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