Chapter 8
KAIRO
Devon’s face hardens from such beautiful softness to a glare of ice tinged with hatred, confirming my suspicions.
She really had no idea who I really am.
As soon as she appeared on the other side of the counter and smiled at me like I was a friend, I suspected it.
I hadn’t intentionally hidden my identity, but never did I imagine that my one-night stand and the woman I got run over would be connected to this place.
A detail I overlooked given she was knocked over in this street while carrying boxes, but I didn’t see it.
Now I wish I had.
She glares at me like I’ve betrayed her, and my stomach tightens.
Telling her the truth immediately would have been the best course of action, but we were having such a nice time and after her accident, it got harder and harder to bring up the real reason I was even here.
The cat’s out of the bag now.
“What?” A cavern opens up between the two of us as Devon steps away from me and the kitchen grows cold. “You work for Silver Canopy?”
My lips part but her mother angrily gets there first.
“He’s the CEO! Devon, how could you not know?”
“How could I?” She glances at her mom. “The CEO is a Mr. Sycamore and he’s…” Cutting herself off, she looks back at me.
Eyes once filled with a welcoming warmth are now steely and cold. “Is that why you never told me your last name?”
“You never asked,” I say, painfully aware of how weak that excuse sounds. “And I never asked yours.”
“You.” She points at me, drawing her cast arm against her body as if it can protect her, and that pains me more than her glare.
“Is that why you’re here? Trying to trick me and butter me up for information so you can steal this place out from under us, huh?
What kind of psychopath tries to destroy our livelihood and then comes here to help me bake?
What kind of mind games are you even playing? ”
“Get out,” her mother snaps, moving between me and Devon. “Get out or I’m calling the police!”
I raise both hands in surrender. “I’m leaving. I’m sorry, it wasn’t meant to be—”
“Was the car accident a trick too? Were you trying to get rid of me, smother us in hospital bills? What kind of twisted game are you playing?”
“The car accident?” Her mom’s eyes widen. “Is he who…?”
“Yes!” Devon exclaims. “He’s who helped me at the hospital and he’s—”
She hesitates suddenly and then charges toward me, ushering me out of the bakery almost faster than I can walk.
Her mother distantly exclaims about the smoke in the air as we pass a very stunned Faith.
“Faith, fill my mom in on what happened with the strudels,” Devon snaps as she strides past Faith and barrels toward me.
For a woman so against my touch, she looks ready to tackle me.
“Is that your game?” she snarls the moment we’re alone and I’m backing up past a small table of cupcakes.
“You get me hurt, trap me with medical bills you know I can’t afford, and then pretend to pay them so the debt hangs over my head and you can force me to sell? You’re fucked up, you know that? I can’t believe I thought—”
She cuts herself off so I take my chance. “Devon, I didn’t know. I’m sorry, none of this is what it looks like.”
“I don’t care! Get out! I don’t want to hear another word from you and I don’t want to see you ever again, you hear me? If you need to talk, then talk to my fucking lawyer!”
The fire in her eyes isn’t as alarming as her declaration to never see me again.
Somehow, that stings more than I’m willing to accept and as I stumble down the single step and into the street, my heart pounds.
“Devon. I’m really sorry. I swear I didn’t know.”
“Fuck off!”
“I’m sorry, I am. This… this bakery won’t be yours for much longer. I’m really sorry.”
She slams the door shut in my face and the last glimpse I get of her is her eyes filling with tears as she drags down the blinds on the window.
The cold November wind chases away the last lingering warmth from that kitchen, and I stare at the door, desperate to recapture even a second of the heat I felt in her presence.
Closing my eyes, the ghost of her pulse radiates from my fingertips and the cinnamon and cream scent radiating off her still exists in my lungs.
Just barely.
“So.” Martin’s voice appears in my ear. “How did it go?”
Opening my eyes, I turn to face him and grimace. “Take me home.”
Back in New York, rain pounds against the windows like a stampede of a thousand tiny elephants and wind batters so ferociously, it’s a wonder the building doesn’t sway.
The gloomy storm matches my souring mood as I replay the change on Devon’s face in my mind over and over again.
All her defenses slammed up, and I can’t blame her.
While I had no idea she was connected to the bakery, I should have told her the moment I realized but I was selfish.
I got caught up in spending time with her rather than going there to talk business with the owners, like I’d intended to do a few days ago before the accident.
Drumming my fingers on my wooden desk, I stare down at the ice melting in my bourbon until my eyes blur.
This damn land deal is the last noose attached to my father’s memory.
There’s so much riding on it for so many people, and all I need to do is close down the bakery, sign on the dotted line, and I’ll be free to live my own life, build my own reputation and be my own, real person rather than my father’s son.
But the bakery is no longer four words on a page.
It’s Devon.
Her smile.
Her laugh.
Her sparkling eyes.
The soft uncertainty whenever I’m too close.
The lilt in her words when she laughs before she finishes speaking.
Shaking my head, I set my glass aside and pull the keyboard closer.
After typing in the name of her bakery, Just A Sweet Thing, I pore over all the new information that pops up.
Pages upon pages that’s not included in the business report because anything even remotely humane is purposefully redacted.
That bakery has been in her family for generations and not only that, but it’s also won countless awards at shows all across the country.
There are medals dating back to Devon’s grandparents’ era, as well as awards for everything from taste and timing to decoration.
My lack of knowledge on the bakery world doesn’t make this any less impressive.
I puff out my cheeks and read glowing review after glowing review.
This bakery isn’t just about the cakes.
These reviews contain heartwarming stories of kids’ tea with grandparents, wedding days made extra special by the cakes, personalized birthdays with their catering and proposals all made special by treats from this bakery.
They’re hailed as a staple of the town, and many thank the kindness and consideration of the staff and owners for being instrumental in making that bakery so welcoming.
And I felt it.
Five minutes with Devon in that place and the stress simply melted off me.
Maybe that was more about her than the bakery, but the connection is undeniable.
Can I really destroy all of that?
“Kairo?” Knuckles rap on the door and Ryan, my CFO, pokes his head through the door. “You’re still here?”
I grunt at him.
“How did it go at the bakery?” He strides into my office tossing an apple in one of his hands. “Are we good to go?”
Ryan and I rarely see eye to eye.
He spends most of his time flying around the country, bragging about this place to landowners and companies, claiming we’ll make them millions if they sell to us.
Nothing is off the table for him.
He’d sell his own mother if it would increase his end-of-year bonus.
A bonus he assigns to himself.
“I didn’t get to speak to them.”
“Of course not.” He groans with a sigh while perching on the corner of my desk, his thigh running parallel to my monitor. “They’re scared of you because they know they don’t have a leg to stand on and yet they’re as irritating as a pebble in my fucking shoe.”
He bites into the apple and slurps as juice from the fruit tries to escape down his chin.
“Maybe it’s more trouble than it’s worth.” A deft click of my fingers and all trace of Just A Sweet Thing vanishes from my screen.
“Hardly,” Ryan replies while obnoxiously chewing on the apple. “Wouldn’t that be the headline to close out the year?”
He raises one hand, sweeping to the side as he speaks. “Silver Canopy crashes out the new year with a several-billion-dollar loss as renovation and expansion contract tanks.”
He snorts with laughter, but I’m so disgustedly distracted by the masticated apple flesh flying around his open mouth that I forget to politely laugh in return.
He swallows audibly and takes a slower bite while frowning at me. “Shit. Are you serious?”
I glance away, fearing he’ll somehow be able to use his ridiculously good eye to see past my facade and into the real reason I’m considering it.
“Maybe it’s more trouble than it’s worth.”
A switch flicks in Ryan and he surges up from the desk.
“Kairo, you’re not serious. Tell me you’re not actually fucking thinking this is a good idea?
Do you have any idea what we would lose?
Five years this deal has been in the works.
Five years! It’s your father’s last prized project.
We’ve forked out way more money than we have.
Hell, I’ve sold eight kidneys to get some of the people we have on board with this!
We have plans and bills owed to… to apartment constructs and realtors, construction contracts, designer contracts, maintenance, electrics, hell, the fucking State of New York has to give us permission for the road closures!
Do you understand how close we are to the biggest success this company has ever had? ”
Nothing he barks at me is new.
I know all of this already and Ryan piles on the guilt as expertly as my father.
For a moment, they’re almost the same person.
“You’d be fucking over thousands of people and millions of dollars, billions even! Over one fucking bakery?” He laughs humorlessly and a chunk of apple flies past his teeth.
“We’re wiping that fucking cake topper off the face of the map and building a legend!
How can you not see that? There is no stopping this so whatever backward bullshit feelings you got for visiting the place?
Stomp them out, you hear me? There’s another bakery that can—actually, I’ll build you another bakery and you’ll see how copy-paste those shits are. ”
He can’t.
What I saw there, what I felt and what exists in those reviews can’t be copied.
Because it’s not the bakery, it’s Devon and her family.
Guilt surges.
My soul’s being torn in two directions, but I do my best to keep a lid on it and focus Ryan with a calm look. “I’m asking if I can stop it.”
Ryan aggressively bites his apple and scoffs wetly around the juice.
“No. And you try, I’ll bring a vote of no confidence down on you so fast that no one will care whose son you are. You’ll be out on the street with as much respect and honor as the last homeless bum we kicked out of the lobby.”
His voice is quiet now, void of all his cocky arrogance and carefree attitude.
Nothing makes a man like him focus harder than the prospect of financial loss.
“You think a threat like that scares me?”
I lean forward slowly and narrow my eyes. “I have more money than I know what to do with. Even your biggest threat couldn’t make a dent in my accounts.”
“Maybe,” Ryan snorts with the last bite of his apple. “But the damage to your reputation and your mother’s? You can’t put a price on that.”
He shrugs. “Seriously, what has gotten into you? This is the last hurdle. One bakery and the last five years are done and dusted. You’ve been here since the beginning.
You saw how hard your father worked. There’s nothing that can stop this, and you’ve seen who owns that place.
They’re as poor as mice and they certainly don’t have the money to even contest the land rights.
So whatever little crisis of conscience you’re having? ”
He swallows his last bite and tosses the core down onto my desk. “Box it up and move on.”
With that, Ryan saunters out with his head held high and I have to wrestle with the urge to chokeslam him against my desk for leaving his fucking core here.
It glistens at me in the low light while rain and wind continue to batter the windows behind me.
I almost want the wind to succeed, crash through the glass, and sweep this entire office out into the dark sky.
It would certainly ease the anxiety weighing heavily in my gut.
My leg bounces as I stare at the core, then I use a nearby folder to sweep the foul thing into the wastebasket beside my desk.
As it lands with a soft thump, Ryan’s last words come back around in my mind and once they settle, they don’t leave.
The land rights.
Just A Sweet Thing has been in business in the same spot for decades.
It was there long before Silver Canopy bought the land rights to the whole area, and Ryan’s right, if they’d had the money to contest it then, they likely would have won. But they don’t have that kind of money.
I do.
Drumming my fingers against my bouncing thigh, I swivel in my chair and stare out into the dark storm swallowing the city.
Maybe the key lies in our fake engagement.
Turning that into a reality would grant Devon the funds she’d need to contest the land rights for the bakery, and if she owns the land it stands on, nothing can be done.
Just A Sweet Thing would become a Silver Canopy asset rather than a stone to be kicked aside.
But how on earth do I get her to talk to me again?