“Don’t read too much into it.” Sammy swept a few crumbs off the counter into his hand and disposed of them in the trash. “I helped her with something that morning and the bakery was on the way to our next stop.”
He didn’t mention Olivia would be staying with him for the foreseeable future. That was no one’s business except theirs.
“She’s beautiful.”
Sammy shrugged in response.
His sous chef persisted. “You two dating?”
“I didn’t realize we were playing Twenty Questions.” Sammy’s tone was curt. “Toss me that flour, will ya?”
Liam obliged. “That’s not an answer.”
This was what Sammy got for cultivating close relationships with his employees. Derek, his operations manager, kept telling him to treat them as employees instead of friends, but Sammy liked the camaraderie at the bakery—except in situations like this, when said employees insisted on getting on his nerves.
“We’re not dating.” Sammy stored the flour in its allotted spot. “We know each other from study abroad.”
“As in college?” Liam let out a low whistle. “Long history.”
He looked like he was about to ask another question, but Cordelia saved Sammy by poking her head through the door and yelling, “Boss, someone’s here to see you!”
Sammy frowned. Cordelia knew better than to ask him to do a meet-and-greet with a fan, but who else could be here to see him?
He checked his phone for a clue—a call or a text, maybe. Nothing.
Whatever. He’d meet the person regardless—anything to avoid Liam’s inquisitive stare.
When Sammy saw who was waiting for him at the counter, however, he wished he was back in the kitchen enduring Liam’s endless questions.
“Hey, cuz.” Edison’s eminently punchable face carried its usual semi-smirk. “How’s it going?”
“What are you doing here?”
Sammy kept his tone civil, but irritation darted through his system and formed a solid block of resentment in his stomach. Out of all his cousins, Edison had always been his least favorite, but it hadn’t been until that summer in New York that he’d vaulted to the top of Sammy’s short but mighty Most Hated list.
“To support my cousin, of course,” Edison said in an oily voice. He swung a white paper bag stamped with the Crumble & Bake logo in the air. “Nice little place you’ve got here. It ain’t NASA, but it’s cute.”
Sammy’s jaw tensed at the backhanded compliment. Edison, a corporate lawyer, looked down on anyone who didn’t have a high-paying career in the medical, legal, or engineering fields. His office was only a few blocks from the bakery but, as far as Sammy knew, he’d never dropped by before.
Sammy still remembered the other man’s sneer when he found out Sammy had turned down a job offer from NASA to open a bakery, of all things. Edison had always resented Sammy for “stealing his thunder,” as he put it when their grandparents wouldn’t stop raving about Sammy’s SAT scores (he’d beaten Edison’s score by forty points). Sammy’s career U-turn had finally given Edison the justification he needed to look down on his “rival.”
“I appreciate the business. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have business to attend to.”
“Sure.” Edison remained where he was. “By the way, Mom asked if you were coming to dim sum this Sunday. We haven’t seen you in a month.”
Sammy’s extended family ate dim sum together every Sunday. It was a Yu tradition, and he tried to attend whenever he wasn’t busy with work. Unfortunately, he was always busy with work these days, and he’d had to help Olivia settle in yesterday.
“Maybe. We’ll see.”
“Well, I suggest attending this week’s gathering.” Edison adjusted his tie. “I have a big announcement.”
Sammy flashed a tight smile. “Like I said, we’ll see.”
“Sure, sure.” His cousin chuckled. “Have a good day, cuz. See you this weekend...maybe.”
He winked at Cordelia and strode out the door, smug and pompous in his thousand-dollar Armani suit.
“That’s your cousin? What an ass,” she said the second the door shut behind him. “Are you sure you’re related?”