Chapter 20
Dexter
I give it three days.
Three whole days of impatiently ordering food I despise and waiting for her to show up in the flesh, only for Juniper Winkley to freeze me out like the arctic ice witch she is.
By day four, I’m done waiting.
I’m done trying to talk nice with her, too.
If she won’t meet me while I’m paying a princely sum for her pastries, then I’ll say what I need to in a letter sweetened with a check.
A disgustingly large check worth more than any big wad of sugar ever churned out of her shop.
I almost reconsider this idiocy, but I can’t.
There’s no talking my way out of an engagement I flippantly announced to a man with our future in his greedy hands.
If I blow this deal with Forrest Haute, his big mouth could easily do collateral damage, too. Word gets around in this biz, especially when you’re rising stars in the Kansas City rental market.
So I seal the damn envelope with the check and stick it in my car. She has to come out of that store sometime, and when she does, I’ll be there.
Not to talk to her, of course. Clearly, she isn’t into that.
If she’ll just take the money and buy her store some help, we’ll all be better off.
I pull up outside the Sugar g
Five minutes to s
and kill the engine.
which
means I shouldn’t miss her.
She’s not the type to leave early. It’s too easy to imagine her cleaning or hunched over an ancient computer in the back office or maybe a battered old stack of recipe books, combing their pages like a proper ice witch looking for lost culinary magic.
She has a work ethic, at least.
When six o’clock hits, I
Just like I thought.
Now I just need
to
see a shadowy figure approach the glass door, swinging the Open sign to Closed. The neon lights flicker off.
wait for her to leave, either through the front door or the little side door that leads down the alley to the back of the building.
A couple minutes later, as
settling in for the long haul, an older woman stops in front of the store and glances up at the sign. The lady squints at it like she’s trying to decide if this is the right address.
I sit up straight.
If she even thinks about-
Without even a second’s hesitation, she pushes her way through the door and heads inside.
Fuck, that does it.
I do not have time for this.
If Sweet Stuff has time for a casual visitor or some Jenny–come–lately picking up a cake, then she absolutely has time for a giant idiot who’s busting his balls to pay for her products just to jack up his employees‘ A1C scores and pray for an audience with her highness.
“Ready or not,” I mutter, “here the fuck I come.”
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Love Betrayed: A Journey of Separated
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Chapter 21
Chapter 21
