Chapter 9
Quinn
I slide into my dress and zip up the back, getting ready for my final date with Justin in the staff washroom of the bakery. It’s a cotton candy color, a fun, strapless bouffant with a poofy chiffon skirt. I got it for a party years ago, and pull it out sometimes when I need a mood lifter.
I swipe on a matching pink lipstick.
I’m definitely in a mood right now.
Outwardly, I’m calm and collected, which I need to be for this conversation. My plan is to respectfully tell Justin, over dinner, that our relationship… situationship? Whatever the hell it’s really been between us… is over.
Which is more than he did for me.
Instead, he let our connection—and the promises he made to me—fade into oblivion, without telling me.
I doubt I’ll even ask him about chocolate girl. But I do want answers. I need to confront him about what Harlan told me.
That Harlan and his family now own Crave bakery. That the transaction was finalized days ago.
Meanwhile, Justin never even mentioned to me that he was thinking about selling it.
I’m angry, because I’m hurt. Justin knows how important my job at Crave is to me; how essential it is to my own cake design business, Quinn’s Cakes. He’d even talked about promoting me to management. Did he even consider how selling the bakery might impact me?
He owned it, so it was his to sell. But he could’ve at least given me the respect and compassion of a heads up.
Didn’t I deserve that much from all the times I kissed him, shared a bed with him, encouraged and supported him in his business? I was decent to him, even if I wasn’t his dream girl.
Fuck. I just need to keep calm.
I can’t let this turn ugly. I can’t afford to burn any bridges with the man who employed me for the last eight months. I might need him for the glowing reference I surely deserve after the work I’ve done for him.
But inside, I’m crushed. Because all my carefully laid plans of the last few years are threatening to unravel. All the shit jobs, working my way up to ones that at least pay better, and afford me the slightest chance to actually achieve my dream of owning my own bakery one day.
I couldn’t bring myself to explain my whole situation to Harlan, beg for my job here, because why bother? I can’t work here anymore. He made that clear.
Because his family thinks I fucked him.
The whole thing is humiliating.
If I actually had slept with him, maybe there would’ve been some kind of twisted silver lining in all of this, at least.
As it is, the whole mess just feels like a disaster of my own making.
Maybe Harlan screwed me over, without meaning to, when he dragged me into his personal shit, but I’m the one who made the mistake of counting on Justin when I shouldn’t have.
Ultimately, I screwed myself.
I leave the staff washroom at Crave for the last time, and walk through the bakery, past the table where Harlan and I talked just half an hour ago. I wonder how we looked, drawn together across the table like a couple of magnets. Our attraction seems undeniable at this point, but futile.
A cruel joke.
It’s just past six o’clock when I step outside, but Justin isn’t here yet. Of course, he’s late. I sit down on one of the wooden benches in front of the bakery to wait.
I’m still waiting at six fifteen, and decide to text him. Are you coming?
A few minutes later, while scanning traffic for Justin’s car, I notice the black Mercedes SUV that’s parked in front of the storefront next door, partly obscured by some trees along the sidewalk. I can see the driver, sitting behind the wheel.
He seems to be watching me.
Heat prickles through me, a heady mixture of shock and exhilaration, when I realize it’s the same man who drove me to Harlan’s house for dinner.
I take a breath, and check my phone, which still shows no word from Justin.
I blink back the tears that sting my eyes.
What the fuck, Justin.
When I look at the SUV again, the driver still seems to be watching me. I wave hesitantly.
My heart pounds when he nods back.
I get up and start walking toward the vehicle, thinking this is crazy. That Justin will pull up any moment. He’ll come rushing out of his car, serving up excuses for his lateness, and whisk me off to dinner at that Caribbean place he loves.
But that doesn’t happen.
Instead, the driver steps out of the SUV as I approach, and comes around to the passenger side. “Miss Monroe,” he greets me.
“Hi again,” I say tentatively as he opens the rear door.
This time, Harlan is sitting in the backseat.
When his dark eyes connect with mine, the only word for this feeling coursing through my blood is fire .
Or maybe insanity .
He’s been watching me, too?
How long have they been parked here?
“Hi,” I say, feeling weirdly shy as his gaze roams over my dress.
Did he see me almost crying on that bench, like a sad, dejected wad of cotton candy?
“What happened to your dinner plans?” he demands. There’s an air of murderousness about him, and I’m really hoping it’s not for me.
Maybe it’s for the man who was supposed to take me to dinner. I told Harlan I needed to talk to Justin tonight.
But I don’t want to talk to Justin anymore.
“I don’t know,” is all I say.
“Well, where is he?”
“I don’t know.” I glance over my shoulder, where I still see no sign of Justin or his car.
“Get in,” Harlan growls. “We’ll drive you home.”
Suddenly, I want to be anywhere but here, waiting for a man who can’t be bothered to show up for me.
I slide into the backseat and murmur, “Okay,” fighting back the pressure of tears.
I give the driver my address, wondering if he already knows it. Surveillance.
And I wonder what this would look like to Harlan’s siblings, if they happened to see me getting into his car with him. But if he doesn’t care, I guess I won’t, either.
What does it matter? I don’t work for Vance Industries anymore.
As the driver shuts the door, my phone chimes with a text message.
I tell Harlan, “I guess I should check this.”
He says nothing, just clenches his jaw, but the tension rolling off him is extreme. I’m not sure how I’ll handle sitting in this small space with him, I’m so flustered already.
At least we’re not alone; the driver is right there in the front seat. My place in East Vancouver, just off Victoria Drive, is only about twenty-five minutes away. I can survive that without saying or doing anything embarrassing, right?
I check my phone.
Justin: Sorry babe. I can’t make it tonight. Reschedule?
I stare at the words, letting them sink in exactly as they are. For once, I don’t even try to sugarcoat the way he takes me for granted. I see it for what it is.
I close my eyes. “He can’t make it.” I add quietly, “I was going to break up with him at dinner.”
Harlan doesn’t reply.
I take a deep breath. “He’s been sleeping with someone else, behind my back. I don’t think he even knows I know.”
“Turn off your phone.” His voice is low and deadly.
When I look up, there’s a quiet fury in his expression that leaves me breathless. “If a man doesn’t give you the attention you deserve,” he growls, “don’t give him yours.”
I decide he’s right.
I turn off my phone, and breathe through the pinched feeling in my chest. Justin really doesn’t fucking care. He’s been showing me so, in so many ways.
Why has that been so hard to accept?
He’s not the man I hoped he’d be.
I don’t think he’s a bad person, either. I just think I’m incredibly low on his priority list.
Maybe Harlan understands that I’m going through it here, because he doesn’t say anything else. We drive in silence, leaving downtown over the Georgia Viaduct and heading south along Main Street, then eastbound on Broadway.
All the while, I can feel his restless energy next to me, tense as hell. It’s like sitting next to a wolf who’s struggling to be tame.
“You really bought Crave?” I finally ask him, when I think I’ve settled enough that I can talk about it without melting down in waterworks.
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand why he’d keep that from me.”
“Same reason he didn’t tell you he was sleeping with someone else…”
I’m afraid to ask what that is, but I don’t have to, because he doesn’t pull this punch, either.
“So he could keep getting out of you what he wanted. Also,” he mutters, “because he’s a coward.”
I blink back tears as I let that sink in. Because I know it’s true.
No more sugarcoating.
I force myself to hold Harlan’s gaze. It’s not easy looking at him this close. “Do you have any idea how terrifying you are?”
He frowns, like that genuinely confounds him. “Terrifying?”
“Intimidating.”
I can see that the computer in his brain is struggling to process. “Right now?”
“Always.”
“I’m not trying to intimidate you,” he says uneasily.
“What were you doing in your car in front of the bakery just now?”
He scans my face. “You were upset.”
That really doesn’t answer my question.
But my pulse races. I feel one of those Harlan-induced hot flashes coming on.
He was concerned about me?
“Of course I’m upset. He lied to me.”
It’s about so much more than that, though.
The tears are creeping up again, burning in my eyes. Everything I’ve been holding together so tightly feels like it’s seeping through the cracks, as all the pressure I’ve been under for months on end finally begins to unravel me, right here in Harlan Vance’s car.
Shit.
I’m a mess.
The tears spill over before I can stop them this time.
Next to me, Harlan stiffens as I dab the tears from my cheeks with the hem of my poofy skirt.
“Tissue?”
I look up to find the driver handing a box of tissues over the seat.
I reach to take it. “Thank you.” I’d forgotten he was right there and could hear all of this. “I’m sorry,” I sniffle, dabbing the tears from my face with a wad of tissues. I don’t know what I’m trying to save my makeup for anyway. “I didn’t even say thank you for driving me?—”
“Don’t thank us,” Harlan cuts me off.
“But I appreciate?—”
“Stop now.” His tone is so cold, it’s like an icy hand around my throat.
I swallow my words.
“He didn’t mean that as rudely as sounded,” the driver says.
I catch his eye in the rearview mirror, and he gives me just the hint of a smile. There’s empathy in his eyes.
I glance sidelong at Harlan. “How can you be sure?”
“Been working for him for years,” the driver answers. “You should see him when he’s in a really bad mood.”
I swear I can feel the man next to me ticking like a bomb about to go off.
“I hope not to.”
“You’re a smart woman, Miss Monroe.”
“What’s your name?”
“Manus, ma’am.”
“Well, thank you for the ride home, Manus.”
“My pleasure, Miss Monroe.”
I watch as a partition of blacked-out glass rolls up between the front seat and the back, cutting us off from Manus. And sealing me into the back with Harlan.
“What was that for?” I ask him. “We were having a conversation.”
“Yes. I enjoyed being discussed as if I’m not here.”
“You could’ve joined in.”
“ Quinn. ” It’s a low, warning growl that probably should intimidate me.
Instead, it turns me on. The response between my legs is unmistakable as he stares me down. It’s like now that we’re truly alone, my sex parts think it’s time to play.
I can’t blame them for being confused.
I’ve never met anyone so obnoxiously controlling and so sexy at the same time.
I lift my chin and force myself to maintain eye contact when I ask, “Do you like me?”
“That’s a childish question.”
“It’s a straightforward question.”
He seems to consider his options, then answers. “No, I don’t like you.”
“You’re a liar.”
“Yes. I am.”
Jesus. It’s like talking to the Riddler. “Is everything a game to you?”
“No. Everything is a problem to solve.”
“That’s how you see me?”
“That’s how I see everything.”
“Then what problem were you solving when you bought Crave from Justin?”
“Frankly, I paid more than it was worth. I suppose he needed the money. The bakery was struggling, financially.”
I knew that. Though I didn’t know it was that bad.
Just another thing Justin didn’t tell me.
“Okay… so that’s his problem. Why would you care?”
“I didn’t say I care.”
Ugh. I’m getting dizzy from these circles he spins.
“Why did you buy the bakery, Harlan?” I press.
He glares at me, nostrils flaring. I’m determined to win this standoff, though. I want an answer.
Finally, he blinks. “Because you worked there.”
Oh. My god.
Did he just speak the truth? It stuns me every time he does it. But I swear, I’m starting to be able to tell when he’s not bullshitting.
“You bought it because of me?”
His jaw works for a moment before he answers, “Yes.”
“Why?”
He looks at a loss again, like the computer upstairs just crashed. And he forgot his password.
“I don’t know.”
We stare at each other.
His fingernail picks at the armrest on the door.
“Ummm. You just told me I can’t work there because you and your family now own it. I lost my job because of you. I’d appreciate a little more explanation than ‘I don’t know.’”
His gaze drifts to my mouth. “I felt… compelled.”
I blink at him. “Compelled?”
His eyes narrow with intensity, locked on my face. “Do you have any vices, Quinn? Like… a bad habit that you have a particular inability to resist? A weakness. Say, when you want to do something that you know you shouldn’t? And then… you do it.”
What is he talking about? And what does this have to do with the bakery?
“I mean… I guess so. If you put salted caramel ice cream in front of me, it probably doesn’t matter how full I am. I’m gonna eat it.”
“Yes. That. That indulgence that feels beyond your control. It’s like… a compulsion.”
“So you’re saying… this is your vice? You have a compulsion… to acquire businesses in the blink of an eye?”
He hesitates. “Something like that.”
Why do I get the feeling that he’s the one who’s sugarcoating now? Trying to make the truth behind his words more palatable, for me…?
“But you said you bought it because of me. So, you felt compelled… to own another business where I work? You want to be my boss?”
He seems to war with something in his head, before finally answering, “Yes.”
I consider this, trying not to freak out. Trying to convince myself that this is not at all alarming.
“But… then your family said you can’t be my boss.”
He’s glowering again.
“You don’t like that they have power over you,” I conclude.
“My family doesn’t control me, Quinn,” he says darkly. “I’m the one in control here.”
Then why do I get the distinct feeling that whatever’s really going on, he’s losing control of it?
When we turn onto my street, I have Manus take the back alley and pull up behind my house. I thank him again, thank Harlan—which earns me a scowl—and open my door.
I’m pretty sure that if I never see Harlan Vance again, it would be a great idea.
Very healthy.
“Well, it’s been really weird knowing you,” I tell him. “Good luck with solving all the problems.”
I scoot out before he can say anything else, planning to hightail it to the house, but then the music hits me. Mom has Loverboy’s “Turn Me Loose” absolutely cranked in the house. The screen door is shut but the solid inner door is open, so is the kitchen window, and I can already smell the marijuana.
I turn to shut the SUV’s door, but I’m too late. Harlan is getting out, presumably to walk me to the door.
He has to pick right now to decide to be a gentleman?!
Trying to stuff him back into the vehicle would just be awkward, not to mention futile, so I do the only thing I really can and march onward. I cross the small backyard and climb the old steps to the tiny, rickety porch.
Harlan walks slowly up the steps behind me, probably wondering why I live in a frat house circa 1980.
It’s not a frat house. It’s just an old rental house. Mom and I occupy the main floor, with other renters above and below. But if you could only hear it and smell it… frat house.
Except for when cupcakes are baking in the oven, which they currently are not. Unfortunately.
There’s no way I’m inviting Harlan in, so I turn to face him, blocking the way. “You really didn’t have to walk me to the door. But thank you.”
He frowns as he looks past me through the screen, into the kitchen. I cast a glance over my shoulder.
Yikes.
My cozy but crazy kitchen looks like a tornado whipped through it. And tore the oven out of the wall.
That tornado would be named Lorraine.
I don’t see Mom; she must be in another room. But it appears that she’s been “organizing” again.
“Uh, it’s not usually like that.” Sort of. “The repair guy came today to try to fix the oven. And we’ve been reorganizing. It’s really not as crazy as it looks.”
I look at Harlan in his fine suit, so sharp and precise, and completely out of place on my sagging, plant-covered porch, piled high with mom’s pottery projects of yore.
“I just don’t exactly have a place for everything,” I ramble, “so the kitchen is a bit… overflowing. I bake here sometimes, and Mom bakes amazing cupcakes for our clients here. And I store all my extra baking supplies here…”
I’m immediately flooded with stress at the prospect of having to bake all my client cakes here. Which I now will. The number one reason I took the job at Crave, before Justin and I started dating, was because he gave me permission to use the ovens for Quinn’s Cakes on the side, after hours.
I don’t want to tell Harlan how much I depended on those damn ovens. Or how much trust I put in Justin, when I shouldn’t have. He doesn’t need to know how many mistakes I’ve already made, how many poor decisions and backwards steps, while struggling to get Quinn’s Cakes off the ground.
It’s embarrassing. He’s the CFO of a multibillionaire dollar company, and I can barely make ends meet.
But like he said, problems are for solving.
The oven issue is my problem, and it’s mine to fix.
Just like all my other problems.
“It’s kind of been a work in progress,” I conclude. For six years.
Maybe I expect criticism. But Harlan looks more bewildered than judgmental.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I say, “but there’s a system to it.”
He’s been studying every inch of the kitchen he can see, but his eyes finally meet mine.
“I can assure you,” he says in a low voice, “you don’t know what I’m thinking.”
I blink at him while my cheeks heat. Why did that sound so sexual?
Maybe it’s the guitar solo wailing behind me.
We’re still talking about my kitchen, right?
I swallow. “It’s messy, not dirty.”
“It’s chaos.”
“It’s not chaos,” I protest.
“How do you get any work done in that?”
I shrug uneasily. “Cakes are my passion. I can just focus on what’s in front of me, and everything else just… falls away.”
He stares at me. “I believe that’s called obsession.”
“It’s prioritizing.”
He’s silent for a long moment, and I know there’s something going on in that brain of his. I just don’t know what it is.
Problem solving?
“Hey, um, this is embarrassing.” It is, but since this might be my last chance to mention it, and I kind of forgot with all the drama going on… “I lost a diamond tennis bracelet at your place. I think. I don’t know for sure where I dropped it. But I got it at Holt Renfrew. It was pretty expensive.”
I don’t even want to admit that he actually paid for it. If I find it, I should really drop it off at his office.
He stares at me for a long moment, and I have no idea what he’s thinking. But I hope he’s not thinking this is just some ploy so maybe I get to see him again.
“I’ll have my staff alert you if they come across it.”
“Great.”
“I wish you luck, Quinn Monroe,” he says softly. I almost don’t hear it, under the blaring music. “With your bakery, I mean.”
Okay… He remembers what I told his family at dinner, about my dream of one day opening my own bakery? That’s kind of… sweet.
“Thank you.” I’ll need it.
“Goodnight, Quinn. And goodbye.”
“Yeah. Goodbye.”
I watch him walk across the backyard and get into the SUV, and for some reason, I hold my breath. He glances at me before he closes the door.
Then Harlan Vance drives out of my life, for good.