Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 141676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 567(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 567(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
“It looks… edible,” I growl, ignoring how the fact that she made me a damn cake makes my heart twist.
“Well, duh. I made it, didn’t I?” She throws me a look that cuts me in two. “So, why did you have to rush off so early? Work?”
“Yeah, always.” I drop a kiss on her temple and the tip of her nose. “Sorry if I woke you up.”
“No, you didn’t wake me. I slept in with Sarah opening and it was heaven.” She turns back to the torte and finishes the cardinal. “I was actually planning on getting this done as a surprise, but then you turned up.”
“Sorry. Do you want me to leave?”
“I never want you to leave,” she whispers, before stilling for a second. I freeze too, and we stay like that until she unwinds and lays her instruments of sugary torture down. “I’m calling it done. Just gotta box this pretty up and head home.”
Home.
My home, she means.
Fuck, our home.
It sounds so natural on her lips now I barely stop to question it.
There’s a new normal in my big, empty house.
A normal involving this sunny woman and a self-propelled furball on a mission to plaster his hair to everything. I’ll have to start giving my cleaners Catness hazard pay.
A normal where she’s there, considering my house home.
A normal that has me smiling every time I walk through the door, expecting to see her.
“Sure,” I say, leaning back and dragging my eyes away from that bastard cardinal that looks like it knows all my past sins—and the sins yet to come.
“And after dinner,” she continues, “we can share some of this. It should go well with coffee.”
“Okay, I’m sold.” I tense and step away.
“Also, we need to talk,” she whispers, glancing up at me and away. Hesitant. Unsure. Afraid. “I mean really talk, Dex, and not about the company.”
“Okay,” I say again, and she smiles, looking down at the torte with its cardinal, an icing symbol of the unholy hold she has on my heart.
Frustration rumbles in my chest.
I think I know what’s coming.
She’ll ask questions about us, and I won’t have answers she’ll like. Hell, answers that make sense.
This day has been complicated enough.
Now, it looks like it’s ending with a choice between destroying my business or Junie’s heart.
21
SWEET HEARTACHE (JUNIPER)
I don’t know when I first started thinking of Dexter’s house as ‘home.’
It might have been the very first day of the flood, when he hauled me into his bed and I woke in his arms and felt more at peace than I had in forever.
Or maybe it was after, when I explored every inch of the house and made mad love to him on the kitchen island.
Or maybe it was when I caught myself singing in the shower like no one could hear—or at least, like no one would complain to the landlord.
When I felt like maybe this could be my life in a parallel universe—and then in this one.
Dexter and his life and his house.
It certainly feels like home now, curled up on the sofa after dinner with Catness perched at the end, snoring away.
Dex sits beside me with my legs thrown over his lap and one large hand resting on my calf. His thumb strokes absently with the same affection that never fails to send warmth through me.
“If I don’t survive this, I expect a hero’s funeral.” He holds up his coffee mug and reaches across me to cut a slice of the cake.
It’s hard not to laugh as he takes the smallest piece possible with none of the cardinal icing. I accept my plate with a normal-sized piece, too, but I don’t take one bite until he goes first.
After hesitating, he stuffs a forkful in his mouth and chews slowly, fixing his gaze on me the entire time. His sharp blue eyes give away nothing.
“Well?” I urge, leaning forward.
Finally, he swallows.
“Disgusting.”
My heart plummets.
“Disgustingly delicious,” he tells me, giving my calf a rough squeeze. “Don’t know how the hell you did it, but you’ve made me eat chocolate that isn’t a mole sauce slathered on enchiladas.”
Relieved, I take a bite.
It’s definitely not my favorite.
The intense, bitter chocolate and strong espresso feels like an assault on my tongue. But I didn’t make this beauty for me—I made it for sugar hating supergrumps like the maniac holding me.
It won’t be a bestseller if I even bother to make it available by special order, but I’m not out to make a new hit.
I made it so one man could finally enjoy my life’s work.
And maybe—just maybe—I was hoping the hypothetical delight would sweeten him up for what’s next. Because even in the silence, filled with nothing but the crackling fireplace, tension creeps in.
I’ve felt this charged silence before.
I’ve felt it on long nights after he falls asleep, wondering how something that lives in my heart so easily can be so very distant.