Page 62 of Holly Jolly Cake Fight
Right. Despite Pauline’s attempts to be as French as possible, she was only as French as her many years since moving to America allowed. Manon was French through and through, a product of French boarding schools and French university. She didn’t know how to hold back.
But Laurin had a British upbringing. He could handle this with a pop of a single eyebrow and a “hmm.”
She crossed her slender arms over her apron and tossed her auburn hair over her shoulder with a more dramatic humph.“The Hobart died again this week,” she said, switching to French. She didn’t like that the family bakery was falling apart any more than the rest of them did. They did good business, but the ends never seemed to meet well enough to invest further. The curse of any bakery, really. The baking competition truly was the last chance Laurin had to keep hold of both the house and the bakery, and even if he downsized to a smaller house to finance upgrades on the bakery, the bakery could still fail. They could lose everything.
The house and the bakery were all he had left of his football days.
“We brought in mom’s KitchenAid, borrowed a couple others, but they’re so small and we can only run them so long before they overheat. I’ve been kneading everything by hand.” She waved her wrists at him, and though they looked like any other pair of wrists, he was sure they were aching.
“I’m back now, I can take that over until we can get it serviced.” It wasn’t the answer Manon wanted, he knew that, but it was what he could give her.
“Your girl got it fixed,” Manon said so smoothly Laurin almost missed the embedded jab. “But I don’t think it has many fixes left, and there’s already a mountain of orders for this month. I’ll be surprised if it lasts through the New Year.”
“Noted,” he said, not to be rude but because he wished they weren’t wasting their time on such a grim topic.
“You have to win this. Kate says you have a real chance at it.” Probably because Kate wasn’t about to put any of her support on Candace, but Laurin didn’t get a chance to protest before Manon was wrapping her arms around him, giving him a chance to relaxfinally. “I love the way you look at her, Laur. And I like her a lot. So does mom. But I’m scared she’s going to break your heart.”
Laurin hugged her right back. “She’s not what she seems like on TV.”
“I know. That’s why I’m worried she’s going to break your heart.”
Chapter 22
Candace didn’t knowwhat to expect of Laurin’s bedroom when she sneaked into it. The rest of the house was feminine, definitely his mother’s, and he was just living here with her. The kitchen was modern, an upgrade he explained that he paid for when he was still overseas and on the cusp of major product sponsorships. The rest of the shared spaces were floral and kitschy, all soft pastels and delicate knick-knacks.
It was a surprisingly spacious five-bedroom, four-bath, with an additional wing for an in-law suite. Atlanta was notorious for its mini-mansions; this would have been one of them if it had been on the right road. The suburb they lived in had an expensive feel to it, so Candace couldn’t imagine it was worth any less than seven figures.
She didn’t want to be rude, but she’d lived the bakery life long enough to know how little money came with it. When she nudged at the topic, Laurin said the entire place had been a gift from him in his World Cup days. He’d bought and paid for the bakery, too, when the landlord threatened to hike the rent, and there’d been a housekeeper once upon a time. He’d had a grand notion of a place to host events for his teammates when they were in the states and to sprawl on family holidays, only for Pauline to get saddled with him and Vivvy instead. He said it sheepishly, but she could tell it was more in jest than anything. Pauline had been divorced for nearly a decade and had been in the house by herself for three years before Laurin’s return. She’dmade it her own space. Vivvy’s dolls and tea ware had taken over the corners. There was no sports memorabilia or oversized recliner, no fancy bar or game systems, nothing to indicate anyone but a grandmother and granddaughter lived here.
So when she knocked on Laurin’s door and he opened it, when he pulled her into his arms and she looked over his shoulder, she forced herself to pay attention to the room.
It wasn’t what she expected from him. He’d admitted that he was more of an athletic wear guy at home, no surprises, but this room was surprisingly rustic. Gigantic, ridiculously large for an in-law suite, with hardwood floors and muted ivory walls, just like the rest of the house, but everything in this room blended into it deliberately. A dark green rug, an earth-toned quilt on the king-size bed, a cherry headboard to match the cherry dresser. Two corners had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and yes, the recliner she’d been looking for was there as well, with Laurin’s little gray cat, Minoue, curled up on the seat. On the stand next to it was a small stack of books, the print too small to read the spines, but she could see the accents. It wasn’t that she hadn’t believed him before when he said he was French, but until today, it came off more like her saying she was Scandinavian when really, that was so many generations back that she wasn’t sure which country or if it was a mix of all of them. He’d even said he was only French because his mother was French.
Laurin truly was French.
Candace held back a laugh about how silly and inconsequential it was. She was here in this room for a reason, she had a plan, and she couldn’t get distracted by something like Laurin reading in French. She could get distracted by the fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt, though, and how low his pajama pants were slung on his hips. He loosened his grip onher to kiss the crown of her head, and she took the space as an opportunity to run her hands down his smooth chest to his sculpted abdomen, around to his hips to dip into his waistband to squeeze his butt.
He had a great butt.
Laurin made a sound somewhere between a purr and a chuckle before peeling away, leaving only a hand on her back to rub it briskly. “Like I said before, we can just sleep. I feel like you must be exhausted after today.”
He could have said it with a bit of smarm. A surly wink and a fluff of hubris. Her ex-husband pulled that kind of machismo for far less noteworthy bedroom activities than what she and Laurin had done in the past twenty-four hours. But he didn’t. Regardless of what Laurin thought or hoped this was between them, he was sincere in his words, concerned and, if Candace read his big green eyes right, genuinely anticipating sharing his bed with her, not just for the brownie points he would earn in thinking of her comfort.
But she wasn’t here to sleep, so she dug deeper into his pants, dropping them down a few critical inches.
Laurin’s laugh was hoarse. “I’m also down for that.” He glanced down at where her hands were, at the way his waistband and erection were in a bit of a tussle. “Or up for it. But can we talk first? I feel like we need to do that, and we keep getting distracted. In really great ways, but time isn’t on our side right now, and I don’t want to mess things up—”
Candace let him ramble in that surprisingly but endearingly nervous way for a moment as she eased away from him. She allowed herself to paint a picture of the two of them sinking into that recliner together, her on his lap, sharing playful kissesand touches and laughs as they found a future for themselves together, one that would just magically work for her and wouldn’t mean giving up what little was left of herself, a world of happily ever afters and all that.
But she wasn’t here to talk, either, certainly not to plan a future. She wasn’t rewriting her life for a man who couldn’t rewrite his life for her. She couldn’t start a relationship at a disadvantage like that. And they’d known each other for two high-adrenaline weeks. She was already a terrible enough judge of character as it was.
So as Laurin rambled, she fiddled with the tie of the robe that matched her most attractive nightgown and dropped it to the ground, showing Laurin that she hadn’t put on the gown at all.
His words faded, and his eyes drooped. One hand went straight for her breast, and she didn’t mind at all. He had said he liked her boobs, after all.
“We can talk later,” he said, his voice silk on her ear, before bringing their lips together.
Only for a moment, though, before Candace put her hands on his chest and pushed him back toward his bed. He graciously stepped back — Candace wasn’t foolish enough to believe she could actually push him like that — and sat on the edge, parting his knees so she could fill the space.
