Page 16 of Actually Yours

“So good!” I exclaim as the chocolate flavour explodes in my mouth. I don’t know what she puts in these brownies, but I do know they are the best I’ve ever tasted.

“Bella, you sit with Amelia and catch up. We’re not too busy now, so take advantage.”

We watch as Lilly skips away, humming under her breath as she goes, the very picture of contentment.

“She’s the best boss,” Bella says, sipping on her cup of coffee. “I’m so lucky.”

“You are,” I agree.

“So, tell me, what have I missed since I’ve been gone?”

This is it, the moment I’ve been waiting for. The chance to unload all my woes on her, and yet now that it’s here, I don’t know where to start.

“Ummm,” I start and then stop.What’s wrong with me?

“What’s wrong?” Bella sits up straighter in her chair. “What happened?”

Wishing I hadn’t been so hasty in burning that note—it would have come in handy as the perfect prop in this moment—I open my mouth to fill her in when the bell on the front door trills. Distracting me.

“What…?” Only one word comes out as I continue to be a stuttering mess, but this time with good cause. Because the ringer of the bell, the man who had just walked in the door, is none other than the man who’s been walking through all my thoughts.

My earworm has entered the building. Jake.

Bella follows my gaze and looks back at me with a confused frown. “You know Jake?”

WHAT?

“Youknow Jake?” I screech back at her, so loud that the man in question turns to look at both of us, his small smile growing as recognition flashes in his eyes.

“He’s coming over,” I hiss at Bella, who continues to look annoyingly baffled by my behaviour. “He’s coming over!”

“Hi Bella,” he greets my best friend in that deep voice of his. The one that causes the back of my neck to sweat. “Amelia.”

“You two know each other?” Bella looks between the two of us, eyebrows raised so high they may just fly off her face.

“Yes,” I mumble, looking down at the table between us to avoid looking into Jake’s green eyes. Which somehow looks lighter today, more jade green than emerald. “He’s Robby’s brother.”

Bella’s expression turns from bemusement to disgust in a millisecond. Out of all my rubbish boyfriends, Robby’s the one she hated the most.

“Oh.” Her flat response has a strange anxiety dancing in my belly. I don’t want her to feel this way towards Jake, and I also don’t want to examine exactly why I feel this way.

“By that ‘oh’, I understand you’ve met my brother,” Jake interjects before I can come to his rescue. Which is good, because there’s no legitimate reason he’d need rescuing in the first place. As far as I know, he’s just a customer here. Bella doesn’t need to like him.

Except that she does.

“Jake’s nothing like Robby,” I blurt out before my mouth catches up to my brain.

His face lights up at this, like I’d handed him a gift. “Thank you, Mille.”

Bella gives me a disbelieving look, like I’d betrayed her, and then glares at Jake, not convinced that he’s completely innocent in all of this.

“Seriously, Bella. It’s not his fault that his brother’s a douche.”

“True story,” Jake agrees, putting both of his hands up. An act of surrender.

“Your brother isnon buono,” she tells him, slipping into her native Italian as she does when she’s distracted or sad…or fuming mad.

“Absolutely,non buono,” he says, biting his lip to stop the start of a smile. “I agree.”

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