“Of course.” She grinned at him and grabbed a fork.
Some people might have trouble gorging on cake before nine in the morning, but Josie wasn’t among them. She and Richard moaned their way through the chocolate fudge ganache with a hazelnut filling, the vanilla-raspberry, and the pistachio crunch, all under Dora’s disapproving gaze.
“Did I read that you’ve been in business for close to three decades?” Josie asked around a mouthful of Boston cream.
Any hopes she had that talking about herself might soften Dora up were dashed when the woman simply nodded as she watched Richard lifting his next bite to his lips. Josie forked up another mouthful and tried again. “So what made you explode on the wedding scene so recently, do you think?”
Dora sniffed and straightened the cuff of her floral-patterned sweater. “Payoff from years of hard work.” Then she lapsed back into silence, which was broken only by the scrape of Richard’s fork tines against the plain white china.
What appalling customer-service skills. The only other human being Josie had this much trouble conversing with was her own mother—and come to think of it, the two women did seem to share a certain disdain for people in general and Josie in particular. But unlike Josie’s mother, Dora at least brought some genuinely delicious cake with her.
“So what do you think?” Josie abandoned her attempt at conversation with Dour Dora and turned to Richard. “Byron’s going to flip for the hazelnut, no?”
Dora looked up from the pad where she was jotting notes, a thin smile on her face. “And who’s Byron?”
Richard’s whole body melted into besotted joy. “My fiancé. He’s out of town for the next few weeks, but we knew we needed to…”
He trailed off when Dora stood sharply, the chair scraping against the floor.
“Byron?He?”
“Yes. He.” Richard’s voice was calm, but Josie felt his leg tense where it brushed against hers under the table. Her heart sank.Please don’t go where I think this is going to go.
Dora’s eyes darted between Richard and Josie as she connected the dots. “Well. Well, that just…” Her accusing gaze landed on Josie. “You didn’t specify the couple’s names when you called to make the reservation.”
“You didn’t ask,” she said slowly. “You just took my name and made some assumptions.” She pressed her shoulder against Richard’s in a show of solidarity. “I’m his maid of honor. Or best woman. Did we ever decide?”
“It’s your call,” Richard said in a deceptively light tone, his deep brown eyes never wavering from Dora’s face. “Are we going to have a problem here, ma’am?”
Dora began jerkily whisking the cake plates off the table, dumping them into the nearby bin reserved for dirty dishes.
“Well,” she huffed. “It was bad enough when I thought…”
Her voice trailed off as her eyes darted between Richard and Josie again, and Josie’s temper spiked for the second time in less than twelve hours. “It was bad enough whenwhat?”
Dora had no answer, but Josie could make an educated guess. She sucked in a deep breath.Keep it together. Don’t escalate, remember?
Richard was doing a better job of maintaining his calm. He casually leaned his elbows on the table, pointing first to himself and then to Josie. “It was bad enough when you thought I was marrying this pretty white girl, right?”
Dora pinched her mouth shut, but her narrowed eyes answered for her. “I think you should leave,” she blurted, circles of red burning in her powder-caked cheeks. “We won’t be able to accommodate your wedding.”
Richard flowed to his feet and spoke in a lethally polite voice. “This is a shortsighted way for you to run a business. I’d urge you to reconsider.”
Dora sneered. “I don’t need money fromyou.”
The disdain in the woman’s voice held such a strong echo from Josie’s own childhood that her fragile grip on her temper snapped. She’dhad itwith bigots and bullies today, and it wasn’t even noon yet. “Do you know what year it is, lady?” She surged to her feet, almost knocking her chair to the tile floor.
“Trouble, Dora?”
At the sound of the deep voice, all three heads whipped to the bakery counter where a man had stepped from the back room.
A mountain of a man. Afamiliarmountain of a man.
“You!” Josie gasped, not caring that she sounded like a character in a melodrama.
The big brute who’d rescued her on the L last night stood behind the counter, swathed in an apron, dusted with flour, and wearing those damn earbuds again. Not even a flicker of recognition registered on his face, and for a split second, Josie was crushed that she was so forgettable. But this particular moment wasn’t about her.
“Talk some sense into your boss please,” she snapped. “Refusing to bake cakes for two men in love is vile.”
