Page 28 of Wintertime Love (Holiday 2)

Finn looks amused. “What about it?”

“What do you intend to do with the place?”

He leans back in his seat and now, I see the shark-eyed businessman take over the charming flirt who’s been trying to talk me into his bed. “I’m considering opening a branch of Expresso House there.”

My hands tremble for a second before I firm them. “The renowned coffee house?”

Of course, I’ve heard of it.

It’s started up in the UK and then took the country by storm, cheap prices and it’s quality outstanding. It opened several branches in D.C., Chicago, and San Francisco, over the past three years and it has been a hit. If a branch opens here, its low prices will steal away my customer base.

I suddenly feel queasy.“You – You bought the franchise?” I say, faintly.

Finn raises a brow, “Bought it? Darlin’, I own it.”

My body stills as I know I just went white in the face and I try to keep my wits about me but it’s hard to keep my tone steady when he has just snatched the floor from under my feet. “S-So, why here? Wicca Springs is in the middle of nowhere.”

He shrugs, watching me carefully. “This town gets a lot of tourists and I wanted to see if one of our branches could survive in a small town like this.”

An experiment. He’s playing with my livelihood because he wants to conduct an experiment.

I want to be angry, to rage at him, but I have no right to. And that stuns me.

Why should he care whether my business will suffer or not? He’s a businessman. I’m no one to him, just a woman he wants to sleep with. My mood dampens and my smile lacks luster. “I see.”

He doesn’t seem to notice. “This town doesn’t have many coffee shops. Maybe four or five? I had my people look into it and conducted some research myself. This is an ideal place.”

“It is,” I whisper, my chest tightening.

It’s getting harder for me to breathe. But I don’t want him to know my state or how upset I am. This man is planning to crush everything I’ve worked for these past

few years, all my hard work, all my sweat and blood, and that leaves me dazed.

And here I am sitting like an idiot, having dinner with him. A normal café wouldn’t have hurt my business that much but Expresso House is one of the best coffee places I know about. I’ve seen their layout when I went to D.C. last year. Compared to it, my diner looks like a hole in the wall.

I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to listen to him talk about this. I don’t want anything to do with him. But I can’t get up and walk away as well. So, I sit there, rooted to my chair by invisible chains, my heart breaking piece by piece. If I lose my business to him, there’ll be nothing left of me to put back together.

The dinner goes on and I put on a smile and play the perfect date.

When he takes me home, I avoid his kiss and then make an excuse and retire to my room.

I’m not much aware of anything as I stumble into my room in a daze, and then sit on the bed.

I cry myself to sleep that night.

Chapter 6

The next few days, I make it a point not to avoid Finn. I don’t want him suspecting anything. But I also make sure to never be alone with him. He’s charming, sweet and intense but looking at him hurts. It feels like betrayal although he doesn’t owe me anything. He shouldn’t mean enough for me to be so upset by his actions.

So, under the guise of damage control to lessen the impact on my business, I lock myself in my office for hours after closing, talking to suppliers, coming up with plans to cut costs so that I can match the prices that the new coffee shop will be offering.

I’m not stupid. I know a proper coffee shop opening right across from my diner will draw customers away who will want to linger in the glossy new shop. Students will prefer to go there, people who usually hold casual business meetings will shift it to the coffee shop which will provide them with a larger space, a more organized sitting area. I’ll lose a large chunk of my profits and I need to start making changes now so that by the time that place opens, I will be offering services that are at least similar to theirs. But this is the kind of planning that will require a lot of investment and I don’t have that kind of money.

I look down at the numbers, torn.

How am I supposed to dredge up such a large sum of money?

It’s impossible. Even with the profits coming in, this amount is too far out of my reach.

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