Chapter 17
Chapter Seventee n
T here wasn’t much to see inside. It had a window overlooking the beach, which caused my chest to tighten with envy. There was a folding card table that held an open laptop and a pile of mail. The screen put off an eerie glow into the small room that was lit only by the window. If it was on, that meant Jared wasn’t far. I should have cut and run, but with a pounding heart as if I really was one of the women in a horror film making the worst possible choice of her life, I stepped around the table and looked at the screen. His email was open.
I could barely see through my panic as I skimmed through the words on the page, picking up the general gist. Whoever had written to Jared didn’t approve of the purchase of the bakery. That it wasn’t part of the long-term plan or some business lingo nonsense. A ding came from his computer that was so familiar, my first reaction was a little excited heart flut ter before I had to remind my nervous system that it wasn’t a message for me. It was a message for Jared. Did he use the same messaging software as Ed-U?
“Oh my god, Jenna, who cares. Everyone must use that software,” I whispered to myself.
I stood up straight, trying to make sense of the email I shouldn’t have skimmed. So Jared had gone against his family’s wishes to open this baker.
I pondered if I could use this ill-gotten information to my gain when a noise echoed through the bakery. I ducked down and crawled under the card table. I couldn’t tell if the noise had come from the front or the back door, but I figured my best bet was to get to the front and pretend I had just arrived.
I crawled out the kitchen door and behind the counter. I cringed at the filth being picked up by my hands and knees on a floor that hadn’t seen a vacuum or mop in far too long, but I had to get out of there. I slid my hands along the floor, as quietly as possible, leaving long streak marks in the grime where I had been.
I was pretty bad at this, I thought to myself when I stopped short.
“What are you doing?” I had been crawling with my head down to keep from being seen over the counter. Now, I tilted my face upward and saw Jared, standing, hands on hip one foot in front of me.
“Damn it,” I muttered as I sat back on my heels which brought my face directly in line with his crotch. The thought brought a blush to my face and threatened to push out the very real dilemma I had managed to get myself in. This was not a moment to be sexualizing the man I had sworn to destroy. Nor was it a time to fall back into pathetic one-word answers. “I … dropped something,” I spoke with as much command as I could muster, which despite my endless pep talks, wasn’t much.
“What did you drop?” he asked.
I hadn’t looked up at his face yet, avoiding it to prevent my brain from turning to mush either from burning rage or undeniable attraction. I didn’t know which was worse. Instead, I tried to look anywhere but at him, but I could hear the smile in his voice. Why the hell was he always smiling? Normal people didn’t smile that much. If I hadn’t distrusted him already, the unhinged smiling certainly would have pushed me over the edge.
“I, um, dropped my pen. I thought it rolled under the display case,” I said finally venturing a look at his face.
He nodded. “Gotta be careful with these dangerously sloped floors,” he said. It was probably meant to be deadpan, but his compulsive smile prevented that.
I stood up, brushing off my jeans and trying to get the dirt off my hands. “You should probably clean these floors. I’m pretty sure this is a health code violation,” I said.
“I wasn’t expecting company just yet,” he said.
His eyes hadn’t left my face once, and I struggled to keep my composure under his scrutinizing gaze. He probably thought I was a giant idiot. Since meeting him, I had been plagued with the i nability to form coherent sentences, was covered in lobster guts, launched lobster shells at him, ran away from a kiss (what the hell was that by the way?), screamed at him about “my” bakery", and now was crawling around on the damn floor. I tried to maintain some amount of false confidence with my chin tilted upward, but I really just wanted to slink away to my bed and never come out from under the covers. I could just hole up there and order DoorDash for the rest of my life.
“You weren’t expecting me?” I asked when my brain finally processed what he had said.
“No, should I have?”
“I was told to bring you our vendors list,” I said, worrying that my mother had set me up in some way that I couldn’t quite discern.
“Ah, yes, very prompt of you,” he said, and I felt the mocking tone slither over my skin, reminding me that I was angry, not embarrassed or shy or demure.
I wrapped my anger around me like a protective armor before brushing past him. The side of my arm moved against his, and I ignored the tingling goosebumps that rose on my skin at the contact.
“Sounds like I came at the wrong time. I’ll just take the vendor lists and come back another time. Maybe tomorrow,” I said.
“No need to rush off,” he said. “Wouldn’t want you leaving before we found your runaway pen.”
“Keep it,” I said as I got to the door and lifted the binders into my arms, feeling pleased with my pettiness .
“Jenna, wait,” he said and now his voice was serious for the first time.
I paused with the door partially open, the warm air pushing against the artificial chill of the darkened bakery.
“Will you please go over the vendors with me?”