Page 11 of Cakewalk
“You still haven’t told her who I am?”
Duh! The plan is to never tell her!“I’m going to try to ease her into it. Eventually. Maybe by the end of this century, if her mood is right.”
Griffin shrugged. “All right. I take it I’ll have to move in under the cover of night?”
“That would be prudent, yes.”
“It’s starting to dawn on me that you’re being serious.”
“Oh. I’ve been serious this whole time. I thought that much was already clear?”
Griffin whistled. “She must really hate my guts.”
I nodded. It was more like she hated his father, but I doubted she’d see the difference between the two—if there was a difference. Even I wasn’t sure what Griffin’s plans for the Marketplace Square development were yet.
“So that’s settled,” Griffin continued. “Now, about your newly unemployed status…”
I cut him off right there. “I’m all set. I’ve got a place to stay for now, so I have time to figure out my next move.”
Griffin shrugged. “If you insist. But with the economy the way it is, especially here…”
I crossed my arms. He wasn’t wrong, but…
“I can offer you a position within my company. I could use somebody with local knowledge and contacts to help me navigate a few things.”
Yeah,that’dgo down really well with my family and friends—the few I had left, anyway. “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll have to pass.”
He nodded. “I understand. I should be going. I have a few things to arrange now that I have a place to stay.” He opened his wallet and handed me five crisp hundred-dollar bills. “The down payment, as we discussed.”
When I froze at the sight of the cash as it laid precariously on top of my palm, he stepped forward to close my hand securely around the money himself. His hands were rough and warm against my skin, and the image of him running those fingers down my back and onto my hips flashed through my mind.
My cheeks were on fire as I pocketed the money and pulled out a key chain, fiddling with it to get the apartment key free. “Here. For your stealthy occupation tonight.”
He accepted the key with a humorous glint in his eyes. “She’ll be none-the-wiser, I promise.” With that, he headed off through the back alley, perhaps to that limo I imagined.
Or maybe it was a fancy imported sports car.
Or, ooh… What if it was a motorcycle? Hedidhave those tattoos.
Stop it, Jade. You’re drooling.
It was fun to fantasize, at least.
Chapter 5
Jade
Despite my very dramaticexit from my job earlier in the morning, I accompanied Courtney during the last thirty minutes of closing. I wasn’t even sure why she bothered to stay open until 5pm, as customers started dwindling by 4. But there was always a nice, chill vibe during that closing hour, and I wouldn’t miss it after the hectic morning I had.
Courtney was part way through cleaning off the surfaces, which I had tried to help her with minutes before, only to be shooed away. “You no longer work here,” she had said, so instead I paid for a cupcake and watched her from Griffin’s chair.
Sure, he had only sat there once, but I’d never think of it the same way again. “Did you call up that girl who left the resume a month ago?”
Courtney nodded, a big smile on her face. “Suzy, and yes, she’ll be starting Monday. Turns out she was waiting this entire time for a call back from me. She’s very passionate. She said our mother’s the one who got her baking in the first place, when she was only five. She said the petit fours left that much of an impression on her when she was a little girl.”
“Wow. Twelve years ago? Yeah, this place was still hopping back then.” The mill had closed twenty years ago, but Calhoon managed to keep the success going until a decade later. If only my mother knew how quickly things would die off after that.
“I think I might have an apprentice in her. No offense to you, but you don’t have the baker’s equivalent of a green thumb, whatever that is.”
