He winced. Right, back and forth. Give and take. The thing he’d always been bad at.
“You’re so lucky that I talk enough for three people.” She snagged another forkful of cake. “We’re a match made in heaven actually. You, strong and silent. A Great Pyrenees. Me, little and yappy. A Chihuahua.”
She batted her long lashes at him, and he bit his lip to hide a smile. This was the strangest business meeting of his life, and he wasn’t supposed to beenjoyingit. She was a client, and he had a career to get back on track. It was definitely time to stop lingering.
“I should go.” He lurched to his feet, and she looked up at him in surprise.
“Oh, okay. Sure.” She frowned and started to replace the lids on the cake containers, but now that he was standing, he wanted to get gone. Being with her unsettled him, and he no longer had an orderly kitchen where he could retreat to find his center.
“Just keep them,” he said. “Too complicated.” Unwilling to consider whether he meant the GladWare or her, he turned on his heel and left her sitting alone at the table with some of the finest cake he’d ever baked.
Six
“Are you kidding me?”
Josie let out a frustrated scream and slammed her laptop shut on the email that had just landed in her inbox.
Thatharpy. Thatfucking harpy.
All those hours she’d spent on the proposal for the clothing boutique opening in Streeterville, and Valerie had swooped in and snagged it. Valerie, who hadn’t had an original idea in two decades, would be the one overseeing the new business rollout from the ground up, likely with the launch plan that Josie herself had created. Good ol’ team player Josie, who’d shown her brilliant ideas to Val when she’d expressed an interest.
She squeezed her eyes shut to banish the burn of tears. What an idiot, thinking she’d finally get the chance to lead a project of that size. And she’d been so well suited to it too. Who better to launch a business devoted to fashion than someone who’d devoted herself to mastery of the topic out of necessity since she was a tween?
Only one thing might ease the bad feelings. Josie left her bedroom and shuffled to the kitchen, where she stopped short at the ghastly scene she encountered. “Finn! You didn’t!”
Josie’s roommate muted the old episode ofBarbarian Time Brigandsshe was watching and twisted around on the couch to face the kitchen. “Didn’t what?”
Josie brandished the empty, unwashed cake container she’d found on the counter. “Did you or did you not finish the last of the peach goodness?”
“Umm,” a disembodied voice said, “was I not supposed to?” Finn’s boyfriend Tom popped up from where he’d been reclining with his head in Finn’s lap, his brown hair mussed.
Josie leveled a flat look at him. “I don’t know, were yousupposedto eat the last piece of the best cake I’ve ever had in my mouth? The piece I was saving for breakfast before I lost all self-control ten seconds ago, only to be disappointed?”
He offered amy badgrimace and disappeared behind the couch again. Seconds later, his words floated back to reach her ears. “Worth it!” he called as Finn twisted around again to mouth an apology.
Josie flounced to the sink, where she looked longingly at the sad little icing smear that was all that remained of Erik’s magnificent dessert. With a sigh she pulled from the soles of her feet, she turned on the water and scrubbed the empty container, leaving it next to the counter to dry.
Then she flopped onto the chair next to the cuddled-up couple. “Is it not enough punishment that Tom fell in love with my roommate the day after I went to all the trouble of picking him out and bringing him home for myself—”
“Not quite how that happened,” Finn objected, a blush spreading across her face.
Josie eyed the way her prim-and-proper roommate’s fingers tangled in Tom’s curls. “Oh, I’m sorry, are younotin love?”
“We are.” Tom cracked one eye open and slid his free hand under the hem of Finn’s shirt. “Disgustingly so. Right, Huck?”
Finn’s blush deepened, but Josie ignored all the lovey-doveyness to vent about her latest disappointment. “So get this: my nemesis snaked the lead on the boutique project I thought I had in the bag.”
“Val.” Finn hissed the woman’s name with all the venom a best friend should.
“Val,” Josie agreed gloomily. “Bright side, I’ll have tons more free time over the next few months since I won’t have my own team to manage, which is good because Richard just texted this morning that their florist had to cancel.”
“Bad luck,” Finn said.
“Yeah. Something about a date mix-up and a conflict with the mayor’s nephew’s college graduation party. So yay,” she said flatly. “Now I just need to find somebody who’s magically free on the last Saturday in June.”
Tom’s wandering hand paused in its exploration of the hidden mysteries of Finn’s stomach. “Why not just skip the flowers?”
“Ugh, you’re such aman,” Josie grumbled.
