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)
I sink into the weight of his hand helplessly. He wouldn’t touch me like that if he was about to dump me. I hope.
“People will talk,” I say.
“Let them,” he clips.
I pull away from him and stare into his eyes, dusky blue mirrors revealing nothing.
“Dex, what the hell? Why are you here?”
“I wouldn’t drop in like this if I had a choice. Sorry.” He sighs and urges me forward. “Will you just get in my car?”
I fold my arms again, squeezing harder like I can lock up my heart and all its inconvenient feelings with just enough pressure.
“What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you as soon as you get in.” The car automatically unlocks and he ushers me into the passenger seat.
Something pink catches my eye.
There’s a Sugar Bowl box sitting there, a little crumpled with cream smeared across the edge and what looks like a mess of cake inside.
I grab it for a closer look as I slide inside the vehicle.
“Um, what did you do? What’s this about?”
“That’s what I want to talk about, Junie.” He shuts the door as the rain picks up, spitting against the windshield, hissing in the silence between us. “I was here when the men from the golf course came for their order. I followed them to Haute’s clubhouse. I went looking for your goods, but it turns out the food isn’t there to be eaten.”
I look at him like he’s started spewing Coptic Greek because it makes just as much sense to me.
“Huh? I don’t understand.”
“I snuck inside. I stole one of the boxes and found these inside your cupcakes.” He opens a napkin and shows me a bunch of numbered plates, barely bigger than coins. “Someone shoved these inside.”
“…they what? They messed with my cupcakes? Why? What about the rest?”
I’m reeling.
“I’d guess they’ve fucked with everything else, too, or else they’re planning to. Now, I don’t know what they are. Don’t know what they’re for, but it’s clearly nothing good. And almost certainly illegal.” He rakes a hand through his hair and rests the napkin on his thigh.
I cast a longer look at the metal plates, trying to convince myself this isn’t a bad dream.
They’re thin, maybe nickel or hammered steel, the small mystery numbers engraved on top.
They were in my desserts.
The desserts I thought Haute was serving to happy customers.
The desserts he swore up and down he was going to sell.
Ugh.
Where do I even start?
“I don’t… I don’t get it,” I stammer out. My thoughts are a tangled mess and words come broken. “He… he told me they were going on the menu, didn’t he? I thought he was selling them. He’s done like three pickups this week.”
“I checked, sweetheart,” he says grimly. “They’re not on the menu. Nothing besides the muffins at breakfast time.”
My head throbs.
“Holy. Shit.”
“Yeah. That’s the long and short of it.”
My heart beats like a racing hummingbird.
I’ve never been so dumbstruck in my life, aside from the day Dex came barreling in and demanded an engagement.
But he kept telling me without really telling me that there was something suspicious about Forrest Haute, didn’t he?
I never believed it.
I never wanted to believe him.
The deal he offered was too good, and it felt like something I earned because he loves our product that much. Not just an easy handout because he knows Dexter.
In my wildest dreams, I thought it could even put the Sugar Bowl back on the map.
Stupid dreamy-eyed schmuck.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Junie!” Dex growls my name. “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but I’m going to get to the bottom of this if it’s the last thing I do.”
I know he means to be reassuring. And yeah, part of me feels glad he’s being his overprotective beastly self because it means he still cares.
But the Sugar Bowl is my responsibility. And now I’m letting it down, along with everyone who works here and Nana’s legacy on top of it.
She trusted me, and here I am walking straight into the weirdest trap I never could’ve imagined.
Holy hell, I’m being used.
I’m being played like a fiddle.
Like a total freaking tool.
I don’t usually get angry, but now I can’t stop it.
It’s a hot, heavy, swollen feeling, like sitting on pine needles. It makes me throb toward the sky and pulls me into the ground.
“Junie?” Dex whispers, eyeing me hard.
My hands ball into fists.
“He’s playing us,” I whisper. “That lying fucker.”
“I know.”
“And I fell for it.”
“I’m going to find out what this means,” Dexter promises. “That’s the part we’re still missing. It’s fishy as hell, but I need to know exactly what he’s doing with these plates.”
“Count me in,” I hiss.
For a second, he stares at me, head cocked and eyes glowing. Then he tosses the metal discs on the dashboard and looks at me.
“Not a chance, Sweet Stuff.”
I blink at him. “Don’t say that like you don’t want to know what he’s doing with them, where they’re going.”