Page 12 of How to Fall for the Secret Billionaire
Maya starts plating. “I vote we eat at least one before taking them out. For quality control.”
Clara’s already reaching. “Bless this intern and her wisdom.”
I laugh and nudge her hand away. “You know the rules. We share first, then hoard.”
We load the trays—two full ones—and I nod for the kettle. Maya and Ana move in sync, filling the biggest teapots with steeped orange blossom and lemon verbena. Aunt Edie sips her coffee and hums as she rises from her chair, letting me loop my arm through hers.
We move toward the front parlor like a little parade of chaos and carbs.
The moment we round the corner, I feel it—that warm hush that always settles just before the first door creaks open. Kettle Hour is our heartbeat. I don’t know if the guests realize it, but for me, it’s the anchor in every wild day.
The front door swings open, like clockwork.
And in he comes.
Darryl.
Our town’s most charming mailman, who I think has a thing for Aunt Edie. He strides in like he’s delivering peace treaties.
“Mail for the inn,” he announces, holding up a few envelopes.
“You suspiciously always show up around the same time,” I say, eyeing him.
He blinks. “What do you mean?”
“Three-fifty-five, Darryl. Every single day. Without fail.”
“That’s when the route brings me here.”
Aunt Edie snorts quietly beside me.
Clara calls out from the parlor couch, “I called dibs on the extra crispy cones already. Darryl, if you take them?—”
“Excuse me,” he says, feigning offense as he sets the mail very gently on the side table and beelines for the teapot like he didn’t just get caught red-handed. “I’m here on official business.”
“Then why are you pouring tea?” Ana asks, grabbing a few scones and heading to her position at the drone desk. “And why are you sitting down?”
Every day, without fail, Darryl, like the rest of them, never misses Kettle Hour. He claims he doesn’t like gossip, but he never comes late and only leaves when the gossip party is over.
As conversation starts between Aunt Edie, Clara, and Daryl, the stairs creak and Amee appears. She descends with the kind of theatrical presence usually reserved for opera singers or disgruntled duchesses, holding the banister like it personally offended her. She looks around with a half-smile.
“Kettle Hour might be my favorite part of this place,” she says, drifting into the front parlor. “I’ll miss it when I leave in four weeks.”
Maya frowns. “I thought you only had two weeks left of your stay?” Another thing about Maya is that she knows everyone’s booking details by heart. I don’t know how she does it.
Amee throws her a flimsy glance. “I might extend. Who knows? Continue to impress me.” She sniffs the air—loudly. Dramatically. Then frowns.
“I don’t know if it’s the hallway or the teapot,” she says, nose wrinkled as she walks past Clara and Daryl with a friendly wave. “But something smells aggressively lemony. It reminds me of a memory.”
“Good or bad?” I ask, handing her a plate with a still-warm scone.
She takes it with a nod of thanks.
“Hard to say. My third-grade teacher wore lemon perfume and once told me my posture was ‘aggressively disappointing.’” She stares at the scone. “So… neutral, I suppose.”
“Right,” I say, as Ana nearly bites her tongue trying not to laugh behind me.
Amee heads toward her usual corner with a “Hi, Aunt Edie,” and plops down. Waffles pads over to Amee, tail wagging—ever the ambassador of goodwill.
