“I'm not! Besides, he's not a distraction, he's inspiration! Really, though, I want to dress him up as Mr. Darcy.”
The nextBake-Offepisode was Regency themed. That meant Jane Austin and Mr. Darcy and ices and baked apples. Now all I wanted to do was curl up in front of a fire with a mug of rummy eggnog and a Jane Austen novel.
I sighed as I walked with Morticia, looking for nice fruits. In the Regency period, Great Britain had been flexing its world power. People were experimenting more with spices in baking, though not much. Cooking and baking were still done in the home, at least in upper-middle-class homes like Austen's. Desserts like apple dumplings and pudding were popular. Ices were a big thing, too, as were starchy desserts.
Planning my dessert gave me a boost. So did the caffeine hitting my system.
When we went back to the tower, I put away my ingredients. Then I changed into a sexy costume and went out to take pictures. I had plenty of baking leftovers, and I did a photo shoot in the park of me eating cookies in a dress too revealing for the cold. I uploaded the best of the pictures to Instagram and ate a piece of cake as I walked back to the building.
An elf grabbed me as I was turning onto Owen's street.
“Stay away from him,” the elf warned.
Amber? Sloane? Nope. It was Owen's mom.
“As I’ve said multiple times,” I said in exasperation, “Owen's an adult. He can make his own decisions.”
The elf smiled cruelly. “Oh, I'm not telling you to stay away from him for his sake. I'm telling you for yours.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Hardly. Owen's just using you. He's never going to marry you.”
“I haven't really thought about marriage,” I retorted. “I'm just here for a good time.”
“Good, because so is he. He has every intention of marrying Sloane. He's just using you. Sloane is going to guarantee him a win in theTechBizcompetition. They already have a deal. You don't stand a chance.”
52
Owen
Since Holly was out shopping, I went down to my office. There were a few people in there working as well. They waved happily when they saw me. That was new. Usually my employees were a little tense around me. Holly's ideas seemed to be working.
It was relaxing in my office. The minimalist Christmas decorations Holly had put up had a nice vibe. It was, dare I say, cozy. It would have been nicer if Holly were there, though. I managed to complete several hours of work before Walker popped his head in.
“I'm heading out to Harrogate. Several of my brothers are on winter break from college. Your brothers should be out too.”
“They're doing a special engineering class, so they have to stay on campus for a bit longer. I expect I'll see them soon,” I said.
It would be nice to see my two youngest brothers, I thought after Walker left. They were almost done with university. We did need to find them something to do. What was not going to happen was them running around partying and spending money.
My phone beeped. Holly had uploaded a new picture to her Instagram. She was wearing a poofy white skirt with a low-cut top. Perched on her head was a black top hat. She was blowing a kiss to the camera. In another picture, she was biting into a cookie.
My phone vibrated with a text from her.
Holly:Don't get jealous of the picture! I saved the extra-special outfit just for you! When you're done working, come and get it.
That was all I needed to be done.
One of my employees waved to me on the way out. “Hey, Mr. Frost.”
“Owen is fine.”
“You said yesterday at the holiday party to let you know if there was anything you could do to make it better to work here?”
I nodded, trying to keep the impatience off my face.
“Well, we were thinking that if we had a restaurant here, that would really help productivity.”
