Olivia laughed as she started measuring out the sugar. “You have a hot billionaire who’d been letting you practically live in his penthouse, pulledALittle Princess-style makeover for your shop—”
“Just the kitchen,” I countered.
“And,” Olivia continued, “seemed perfectly happy to blow off work the whole day to help you bake and sell cookies. He’s totally into you.”
“He’s probably just looking for a rebound,” I said, cutting out pieces of parchment paper and laying them on cookie sheets. “If I sleep with him, he’ll probably have post-nut clarity, wonder what the fuck he was doing, and demand payment back for everything.” I took a swig from my coffee. “I wish this was a cocktail.”
“We are going to be spending all night baking,” Olivia reminded me. “You need caffeine, and I need the play-by-play.”
“I don’t know why he kissed me,” I fretted as we mixed up the batch of sugar cookie dough. “I’m a mess.”
“You have nice tits, you’re fun, and he gets to play the knight in shining armor. It’s like the trifecta of stuff guys like in a girl.”
“He hasn’t even met my family,” I said.
“Whoa, whoa!” Olivia paused as she dumped flour into the bowl of the stand mixer. “I was just joking about marriage.” She dusted off her floury hands. “He just came out of a terrible breakup. He’s looking for some fun. So, you’ll get a few Christmas quickies out of him and a new kitchen, then he’s probably going to have gotten over Hensley and move back into the high-end dating market.”
“So, you think he’s using me?” I asked bitterly
“I think that you both can use each other to mutual benefit,” Olivia said. “Just have fun. You deserve a whirlwind holiday romance. Just be careful you don’t fall in love with him because he’s probably not going to fall in love with you is all. Besides,” she added, “I thought you didn’t even really like him.”
“I don’t,” I lied.
Except I kind of did like Matt Frost.
Yeah, but you don’t love him, I argued.You’ve only known him a few weeks. You can’t fall in love with someone in a few weeks.
Right?
52
Matt
Merrie hadn’t shown up at my penthouse at all last night.
She has a good reason not to, I tried to tell myself as I lay awake in bed, replaying the kiss we had shared over and over. It had been so fucking hot—her tits soft, the way she had melted into me, the noises she had made. Yeah, I totally could have fucked her in the shop.
I wonder what she sounds like when she comes.
I threw off the covers. Kringle rolled over on the foot of the bed and snored.
“At least someone can sleep,” I muttered as I threw on my exercise clothes and headed to work out.
Why was I so infatuated with Merrie? An entire kitchen for her? Neglecting my work to bake cookies of all things.
You just wanted to be right.
Yes, that was all. It wasn’t like I was actually falling for her. It was a fun rebound thing, not the start of anything remotely like a relationship.
But still. Why hadn’t she at least texted me?
Merrie showedup right before filming started, not giving me a chance to talk to her. I tried to study her body language while Anastasia booted off another crying bake-off team. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Brody and Hensley.
Was Merrie mad about the kiss? She had certainly thrown me out of the shop.
But she had clearly been into it.
“I’m going to grab a vanilla bean and some berries for the trifle,” Merrie said, ducking around me to head to the pantry.
