“Not even Bran. But then again, his sweet tooth is milder than mine.”
“That surprises me,” he says before taking one more bite, and I wait before asking.
“That I don’t share or that I have a sweet tooth?”
“That you have a sweet tooth.” He takes the plate and scoots back to rest against the sofa, and holds it up to catch any crumbs. “This really is great. I thought I’d found thebest cupcakes in the city, but these beat them. Where are they from?”
I debate for only a second whether to tell him or not, but then again, Harry and I have gone to great lengths to hide our relationship, and no one knows Theo’s the baker anyway.
“It’s called MP. It’s in?—”
“Soho, right?” He nods sagely. “I knew that place couldn’t be beat. It’s my favorite too. Well, it used to be when I lived in Manhattan.”
“I need to work hard on my self-control so I don’t go there every day,” I tell him, and do my damndest to hide the pride I feel for my nephew. He really is the best?—
“Did you know that no one knows who the baker is?” he asks excitedly and sits up a little. The new light in his eyes is a more muted version of the one he had when he walked out of the bank this morning.
“No one?” I play dumb, liking this side of?—
“Well, I do,” he says and tilts his head in a mock bow.
“You do?” I can’t quite hide the panic I feel at that, but I guess he doesn’t notice it, or maybe mistakes it for surprise.
“Yes.” That excited twinkle gets brighter. “A colleague of mine was a lifestyle reporter and did a piece on it, that’show I found out about it. One of the things that she said was that no one knew who the mystery baker was, and just for fun I went to take a look, fell in love with the sweets, and then spent a few weeks investigating during my free time.”
“How did you find out?” I think I even manage to sound mildly amused this time, but fuck, this could be really bad.
“Wow, you’re really intense about your sweets, huh?”
“What do you mean?” I might need to work on my poker face around Colby.
“You’ve just got this hyperfocused look right now. But anyway, I went and looked at the city records first, and saw the building used to belong to the Crawford trust, which is not a lead at all since basically everything used to belong to them at some point.” I’m so glad he focuses on the last couple of bites of his cupcake instead of me. “And now it belongs to the same company that owns the bakery. So then I looked into the tenants of the building, because a few people who own buildings in Manhattan live in them, but no dice there, everyone had jobs I could verify.
“Then I canvased the building for a few nights, trying to see if anyone came in or out multiple times, but that was a bust too. Until I went in one day, and who was there but a very famous athlete. I got in line and overheard him talking to the employee at the counter. And that’s how I found out the baker is the athlete’s partner.”
I breathe easier when he doesn’t say either Mike or Theo’s name, or the word husband. That would be close to a dead giveaway, because even now there aren’t many athletes with husbands.
“You won’t tell me who it is?” I ask, feeling like testing him a little, and with the safety of my family on the line, I don’t feel even a little bit sorry.
“No, I won’t,” he says, his voice going higher-pitched, but he laughs a little when his eyes clash with mine. “I don’t want you to threaten the baker’s family and kidnap her to come live here so you can get treats twenty-four seven.”
Sneaky, sneaky, Colby.
I can’t help but smile.
“I like that you know when to keep a story in the dark.”
“Well, duh.” He shoves the last bite of his cupcake into his mouth. “I’m in the business of ruining only bad people’s lives.”
“Then why don’t we dig in?”
I nod at the printer that’s finally finished—or maybe it ran out of paper, who knows.
“Let’s do it.”
He sounds as excited as he was over the cupcake, and dammit, despite how tedious it’s bound to be, I’m excited too.
Later that night, after we’ve highlighted a few bank accounts for Seamus to check out as soon as he gets here, when I’m sure Colby is in his room and won’t be coming back down, I take out my family phone and call Harry. We need to do something about Mike giving away the identity of his husband.
