Page 44 of Rematch
“Justin loves the little munchkin as much as me,” Ethan started.
“Thank you. But no. My plan remains the same. I’ll live with my parents until summer, once we’ve gotten the bakery off the ground, and then I’ll find a place of my own. Ellen and I are hanging in there just fine.”
They were hanging in there by the skin of their teeth, but admitting that wouldn’t help her win this debate with Ethan.
“So, let’s talk kitchen equipment.” Chelsea pointed to the list she’d compiled, ready for a new subject.
The bakery was a major bone of contention between she and her mother, who disagreed with Chelsea’s decision to use the inheritance to start a business. Oddly enough, Mom wasn’t pushing Chelsea to use the money to move out. Probably because that would limit her attempts at controlling everything Chelsea did as a mother.
Instead, Mom thought the money should have been put into a college savings fund. And while Chelsea had done that with some of it—Agnes had been an extremely wealthy woman—she ultimately decided she wanted to honor Agnes’s request that the money be spent toward the bakery. After all, Chelsea could spend the next however many years of her life working barely better than minimum-wage bakery jobs, or she could turn the money into an investment, offering a better future for her and her baby.
For the next hour, she and Ethan debated which pieces of equipment they absolutely needed prior to opening the shop and which were things that could wait until they were more established.
“Dough sheeter? What the hell is a dough sheeter?” Ethan asked.
Chelsea was about to explain why that piece was on her must-have list when the front door to the shop opened. The bell Ethan hung above the door approximately five seconds after they got the keys to the place—claiming it was old-school charming—rang out.
“Sorry,” Ethan said, glancing toward the front. “We’re not op?—”
Chelsea looked up from her list when her best friend stopped talking, her attention sliding to the door.
She gasped, momentarily distracted by Ethan gasping as well.
Surely her eyes were playing tricks on her.
She rose slowly, afraid to blink in case she was imagining his presence, aware Ethan was doing the same, his moves mirroring hers as if they’d choreographed it.
“Preston,” she and Ethan said in unison.
What the hell?
Ethan didn’t know Preston. He hadn’t been at the holiday party.
Then, Ethan did her one better, because he didn’t stop speaking, adding a last name to the first.
“Jacobson.”
Chelsea’s gaze flew to her best friend. “You know him?”
“Of course,” Ethan replied, not taking his eyes off Preston until…
She saw the second the light went on as her best friend’s back straightened, Ethan’s gaze traveling from Preston, to her, to the sleeping baby in the stroller behind them.
“Preston?” Ethan asked her.
She nodded just once, before turning as Preston walked into the bakery, the door closing behind him. He hadn’t said a word. Rather, he looked curious—and confused—by her interaction with Ethan.
Meanwhile, she couldn’t stop herself from drinking him in, because how the hell did he manage to get even hotter in the last year?
“Chelsea,” Preston said, as he approached the table, standing close enough that she could reach out and touch him. His gray eyes were locked on her face, and she got the sense he was having the same trouble. Too afraid to blink, to believe. “I never thought I’d?—”
A tiny cry distracted him, and Preston’s attention went to the stroller he just now noticed. His brow furrowed as she turned, bending over to pick up the baby, before facing him once more.
“Hey, hey, little man,” Ethan said, stroking the side of the baby’s face. “Don’t cry.”
Preston was studying them closely, but damn if his poker face wasn’t rock solid. She didn’t have a clue what he was thinking.
She cleared her throat. “Preston,” she said, though his name came out rough and tight, as she fought to speak. All she wanted to do after discovering she was pregnant was find him so she could tell him about the baby.
