As soon as she was gone, Anica turned to me, eyes flashing. “Was that really necessary?”
“What?” I asked innocently.
“The elaborations. The touching. The... whatever that was about challenging what you wanted.”
I shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable with my own improvisation. “Maintaining our cover story. Making it believable.”
“And the comment about my mother in prison?”
“It adds color to our narrative.” I grinned, trying to recapture the lightness of the moment. “Besides, you have to admit, it was fun seeing her expression.”
“Fun is not the word I would use.” But there was a reluctant quirk to her lips that suggested she wasn’t as angry as she pretended.
“You do look amazing in that dress,” I said, stepping back to look her up and down again.
She glanced at it, as if suddenly remembering what she was wearing. “It’s just a dress.”
“Just a dress?” I echoed Anatoly’s earlier offense. “Ms. Marcel, a wedding gown is a statement of?—”
“Oh, shut up,” she said, but she was almost smiling now. “I’m going to change. Meet you out front in ten minutes.”
As she disappeared back into the fitting room, I replayed the moment she’d appeared in the dress. The strange breathless feeling that had overtaken me. The way time seemed to stop.
It was just the unexpectedness of it, I told myself. Seeing my uptight wedding planner in something so contrary to her usual presentation. Nothing more than a surprise.
CHAPTER 7
A Billionaire Who Bakes
ANICA
“Five different bakeries have offered me free wedding cakes if I tell them who Callan Burkhardt is marrying,” Mari announced, lounging across my desk like a cat with a lollipop in her mouth. “One of them said they’d throw in a chocolate fountain if I can get them exclusive rights to your engagement photos.”
“There is no engagement,” I reminded her for the forty-third time that week. “There is no bride. And there are definitely no photos.”
“Not yet,” Mari said with a wink so exaggerated it was practically a facial spasm. “But I noticed you’re wearing your good bra to a cake tasting. The lacy one with the?—”
“For goodness’ sake, why are the two of you so obsessed with my underthings? This was the only clean one I had!” I lied, adjusting my blouse for the third time. Mari had called my wedding dress try-on my “sad attempt at playing dress-up,” but that hadn’t stopped me from overthinking everything about my appearance today. It had been five days since the tuxedo fiasco, and I still couldn’t shake the image of Callan’s face when he’dseen me in that dress. The way his eyes had widened, how his usual smirk had fallen away.
It was just a momentary lapse in his annoying persona. Nothing more. Definitely not worth the approximately seventy-four hours I’d spent overthinking it since. seventy-four hours and twenty-three minutes, but who was counting? Not me. Nope.
“I need to go if I’m going to make it to the cake testing on time,” I said, groaning as I pushed myself up from my chair.
“Wouldn’t want him to be there first again.” Mari dangled her lollipop in front of me. “Makes you look bad.”
“It does not.” I swiped at the lollipop, but she moved it too quickly. “Besides, his track record falls more on the side of being late, so I’ll be fine.”
“Whatever you say,darling,” she imitated a man’s deep voice, but choked on spit.
I flipped her off before leaving.
To my relief, I got to the bakery before Callan. It gave me time to settle and make sure things were in order without the six foot whatever distraction.
“The strawberry champagne is their signature flavor,” the baker, Eloise, explained as she arranged delicate cake samples on the tasting table. “A favorite for summer weddings.”
La Petite Pâtisserie was exclusive enough that they didn’t advertise. Their clientele consisted entirely of Manhattan’s elite, who passed the patisserie’s number around like a secret handshake. Getting this tasting appointment had required three personal favors and promising Mari she could eat the leftovers. The bakery’s tasting room was intimate, a generous description for what was essentially a closet, with just enough space for a small round table and two chairs.
Two very close chairs. The kind of close where you could tell what brand of cologne your companion wore without having toask. Callan’s was something expensive that probably had notes of “liquid cash” and “hostile takeover.”
