Baking for the Popstar (The Bachelor Brothers #4)

Prologue

?

No is a four letter word.

Clara

“Come home with me.”

My heart cannot take this. I will crumble like vegan cake without an appropriate egg replacer. Melt like frosting in the sun. Cave like a souffle. I will cave, and I will go home with Lukas Bachelor.

And who knows what he’ll ask of me next.

Heart pounding in my throat, I cast a glance toward the party beyond the balcony doors and search for my manager. An adult. Someone who can step in and say that precious two-letter word I struggle with so completely.

Unfortunately for my blood pressure, no one so much as notices we’re out here.

Probably because Lukas dropped the curtains behind us, and I am looking through little more than a half-inch slit between the two sheets of thick black fabric.

Lukas Bachelor—known affectionately to millions by his stage name King—exercises his regality by planting a hand on the balcony railing behind me, tipping my chin up in his warm palm, and forcing my attention back to his dual-colored eyes.

Until this exact moment, I’d thought his heterochromia was part of the brand, CGI, contacts… Until this exact moment, King was an untouchable icon—a fictional dream.

Tall as he is, imposing as he is, and clothing-impaired as his flared, chest-baring trench coat is, he looks like some kind of fantasy creature. Chiseled straight from the mind of an artist with a very specific type.

The railing behind me bites into my lower back as I battle for something like distance between us, or just distance between me and terrible decisions.

“Isn’t…your home in West Virginia?” I ask, softly, like I’m totally not a stalker who is standing opposite her very specific type, and obsession, and favorite singer in the world…

Loads of people probably know that Lukas lives in a palace in Sunset, West Virginia on land that he and his three brothers own.

Loads of people also probably realize that this come home with me proposition right now really means come out back to my tour bus, baby; let’s make some music together.

But, given that a simple, No, thank you.

You are the man of my wildest dreams, but I like to think I have brain cells and restraint, is impossible for me to get out of my mouth, I am diving head-first into oblivious and stupid, hoping that Lukas Bachelor is the sort of man who won’t take advantage of that.

Whaaat? Go home with you? But we’re in North Carolina! Not the state of your abode! And I’m so busy at this catering gig for the final stop on your world tour! You expect me to leave work and go on a road trip? I don’t understand what you mean!

As far as he needs to know, I’m nothing more than a silly little blonde girl.

The worst part is I’m not even supposed to be here. I’m not a caterer. I’m not a baker, either, even though that’s the position I want more than anything. I work at an elite bakery downtown, frosting little designs onto cookies and cakes and pastries that cost a million dollars each.

I’m only here because my boss said her catering team was short staffed and wouldn’t I just love the chance to meet the Lukas Bachelor?

No.

Actually.

I would have loved to not have this experience, shocking as that may seem.

King’s music is my lifeblood. I listen to it constantly, drown myself in his beautiful voice whenever I can. But the man’s personality…scares me to death.

Ipso facto…behold. Me. Right now. Scared to death.

Lukas’s finger on my chin sends trembling sensations soaring down into my chest. He scans me, watching me shiver. “Yes, my home is in West Virginia. That’s what I mean. Come home with me. To West Virginia.”

My lashes flutter, and I might just squeak, “Pardon?”

Lukas doubles down, drawing closer, caging further. “I have a big house and an empty room right next to mine. You can stay there.” His fingers tease my hair, tucking pale strands behind my ear. “I’ll spoil you rotten. What do you say?”

No. No. No. Please, dear deities, no. I say NO.

What I actually say is, “You…want me…to move to West Virginia?”

“Yes. Drop everything, and come home with me,” he murmurs, three thousand percent concerning, according to my scale, which should only go up to one hundred.

I did not know we were serving hard liquor here.

Not that Lukas’s breath smells like any alcohol…

but still. He has to be drunk, right? I’m almost positive this isn’t how you’re supposed to pick up girls.

Not that I’ve found myself picked up by anyone who seems like they’d do it correctly.

Random men’s tendencies to corner me and try to get me to agree to things I don’t want to is largely why I make such a point of not going outside, where it’s scary.

I should have known better than to think I’d be safe tonight. Chilly September evenings at big parties are never safe. Someone’s always just out of sight, lying in wait to pop out and promise to keep you warm as though you aren’t perfectly capable of getting a coat all by yourself.

Twining my fingers together in front of my apron, I murmur, “That’s a…very flattering proposition.” He’s joking. He must be joking. Inviting me into the back of his tour bus for a few hours is very different from asking me to go across state lines with him. Do I laugh?

I should probably laugh.

Except…he doesn’t exactly seem to be joking.

I slash my attention down his body, across the ridges of his abs, and go a little weak from the vibrations. Gracious. Looking at his muscles is like hitting a rumble strip on the interstate.

“Are you…checking me out?” he asks, brow arched.

I toss my head back, eyes away, off, innocent. “Wh-what?”

He hums, contemplating, then decides, “You can stare at me as long as you’d like if you come home with me.”

I do not want to stare. I do not want to go home with him.

My heathen eyes, however… They want to stare.

And my pitiful body? Well, we don’t need to talk about what it wants.

Ever. It’s insane and should not be trusted.

It’s hyped up on hormones and other such unreliable drugs.

It’s yearning like a demented touch-starved creature entirely oblivious to the danger before it.

It’s too busy relishing the attention of someone beautiful to entertain a single logical thought.

After years and years of my best “offers” being from random strangers on the street, creepy old men at work, or unattractive guys around my age, there’s an allure to this specific petition that makes my problem with saying no ten times harder.

I don’t know how to turn my boss down when she asks me to help with the catering crew.

I sure don’t know how to turn down Lukas Bachelor—the King.

His voice alone is a narcotic, seeping into my veins, turning off my frontal lobe, coaxing me toward hallucinations of wild abandon and adventure, of mere moments where I can pretend something about me is good enough for someone better than the creeps I’m used to.

This is a recipe for disaster, embarrassment—maybe legal action? I don’t know how, but I’m positive if I agree, I’m going to mess up and get myself sued.

“Say yes, cupcake,” he whispers, sweetly.

Cupcake?

That’s really so painfully cute. Rumbled in his low, sultry voice, cupcake is the sexiest endearment I have ever heard in my life.

Not only that, it fits me. It fits me so well my stupid brain wants to believe it’s because he sees something beyond my body, something about me that’s real. It’s insane. It’s idiotic.

But I’m…

I’m desperate for something like that, I think.

And this moment feels just fantasy enough to make me believe in the magic of possibly being wanted for more than the physical.

On a good day, my willpower is weak, but this? This is torture.

“I-I’d have to talk to my family,” I whisper.

“Abandon them.”

My heart lunges up my throat, and my eyes dart back to his. McScuse me?

Smile taunting, he ups the concerning levels beyond three thousand percent. “You don’t need them anymore.” His muscles flex as he leans in, even closer, lips near my ear. “Only me.”

I do fear that isn’t an entirely correct statement, actually?

Yet when he presents it in his voice, it’s sounding a whole lot like scientific fact.

“M-M-Mr. Bachelor, sir,” I squeak, but I don’t know what else I’m trying to say.

“Call me King.”

I shiver. Or perhaps shudder. Or perhaps…die?

“Maybe someday I’ll even let you call me Lukas, but…” he trails off, looks elsewhere, doesn’t bother to finish.

Oh no, oh no, oh no. Now there’s a someday in the mix?

I’m not sure I’m going to survive today.

This feels like a fanfiction. If I’m in a fanfiction, the author needs to calm down.

I am strictly built for five hundred pages of slow burn and a cinnamon roll lead.

Someone sweet and gentle and careful. Someone who understands I will break into a gazillion pieces if pressed.

Someone very…the opposite of what Lukas has going on. He’s perfect. Really, really perfect.

But I cannot withstand perfection. I need softness and caution, zero pressure.

Decidedly…not…this.

Drawing back, Lukas fixes patient disappointment on me, and my stomach drops out of my body. Carefully…manipulative, he puckers his brows and pushes back the long dark strands of his hair. “You don’t want to come home with me?”

Like a terrible reflex, I fawn and find myself capable of the word I’ve needed to say this whole time…except now I’m saying it in the complete wrong context. Great job, Clara. You idiot. “No, no. Not that.”

Exactly that! Bingo! Point to Lukas for his impressive decoding skills! Detective man he is! Rah, rah, rah, Lukas! So…why am I ruining it?

“It’s just…” I continue, shakily. “Well. We’ve only just met. Moving in with you seems a bit fast, don’t you think?”

“No,” Rocks for Brains says.

I strip him of his decoding license and take away his detective magnifying glass.

“I want you to bake for me,” he clarifies.