“Um…” I wrinkle my nose.
She slaps me again, with less affection this time. “I told you about it months ago, when we first started working on the shop, but you said you didn’t want to enter because we wouldn’t be open in time. But I knew we would, so I entered you anyway.” She lifts her phone again, beaming. “And you’re in! Look!”
I take the phone, skimming the email, a prickle of foreboding lifting the hairs at the back of my neck.
Five names down on the list of contestants, I realize why, and curse. “I can’t, Abby,” I say, nodding toward the phone. “I slept with contestant number five last night.”
Her jaw drops. “What? You didn’t.”
“I did,” I confirm. “And I want to keep sleeping with her more than I want to be the candy king of New York, so…” I try to hand the phone back to her, but she holds up both hands, fingers spread wide.
“It’s Mr. Sweet Stuff, and you don’t get it, West,” she says, shoving her dark curls off her forehead. “This is a huge deal. They only pick ten bakers from thousands who apply. Just competing is all we need to ensure an amazing launch for the shop. And if you win, we’re virtually guaranteed to be in the black by Christmas.”
I hesitate. Being in the black isn’t my primary goal—I know food service isn’t a high-return endeavor, and I have enough money to operate at a loss for the rest of my life if I want to—but a successful launch would be a good thing.
And not just for our pocketbooks. The shop is much more than that.
Abby and I have planned to open a tea shop featuring our mother’s recipes since I was eighteen and she was fifteen. We grew up cooking with our mum. While our older brothers were killing each other at rugby, Abby and I spent our afternoons in the kitchen, whipping up treats and playing board games while we waited for them to cook. After Mum lost her fight with breast cancer, we helped each other heal by imagining how, one day, we’d share her cooking with the world. Brooklyn seemed a perfect place to start.
It doesn’t matter that Abby’s a horrid chef. This has been her dream as much as mine, but unlike me, she only has a small nest egg. She didn’t follow the Byron family rules. She dropped out of her banking program at university to get a degree in early childhood education and taught primary school before moving to the states. She won’t have money to burn until my father passes and she receives her inheritance—which will hopefully be far in the future, seeing as we both enjoy our father quite a bit, even if he is a numbers guy and actively dislikes anything with sugar in it.
This competition could ensure Abby’s financial success and bringing attention to Mum’s amazing food.
I’m already wavering when Abby stabs a finger at the phone screen. “And you haven’t seen the best part yet. Winning comes with a side of vengeance.”
Frowning, I glance down to see the name of the tenth and final contestant—Frederick James Ebenezer Hawley.
Or “Hawley” for short.
Did I mention my sis’s fucking wanker of a former fiancé is also a world-famous pastry chef with his own line of gourmet frozen treats? And that, after he cheated on her and dumped her, he bragged that his eclairs were better than our scones?
Any man who would treat my sweet Abby with so little care and disparage our family recipes deserves to be defeated on the field of battle.
Humiliatingly defeated.
And I’m just the man to deliver that trouncing, with a side of fist in the spleen.
That also means my apology to Gigi might require a bit more finesse. I need to make sure she understands that I wasn’t tricking her with my perfect cock.
Though, I like that she’s put it on a cock pedestal.
Perhaps, a swim in the gym pool will clear my head. I’ll swim, work on recipes with Abby, and then spend the evening planning exactly what to say to my pie shop beauty.
Tomorrow, I’ll be ready.
9
Gigi
So sorry. Please let me explain.
The words are spelled out in Scrabble letters on my kitchen counter in front of a lovely—and disgustingly tea-centric—present. But the tea pot is so adorable and so me that it almost makes me wish I liked tea.
“But I don’t,” I say, tucking the gift and the tiles behind the toaster oven so I don’t have to deal with them right now. And so that Ruby—who just buzzed downstairs—can’t see them.
I meet my cousin at the door, cooing with excitement when I see what she’s carrying, “Oh my goodness, what is this? For me?”
“Of course!” Ruby hands over the most adorable bouquet of brightly colored lollipops, tied up with a big red bow. “It’s a congratulations on winning Mrs. Sweets present!”