Page 28 of Cupcake of the Month (Just Add Peaches #2)

“I’ll miss you.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll miss this.” He skimmed her jawline with one finger, sending shivers over her skin, then replaced his touch with his mouth in a sweet, tender kiss.

“And I’ll miss this.” He hugged her close. “Just being with you, Jordan.”

“It’s only for a couple of days.” She rested her head on his shoulder.

He was content to hold her, with her warm and alive in his arms. Too soon, he pressed a kiss against her forehead and stood up.

“I have to go.” He channeled his desire by smoothing a thumb across the soft skin of her cheek. He grabbed his keys and forced himself to leave the stables.

First stop was his post office box, which was thankfully empty.

Next he stopped at the grocery store for pasta and vegetables, planning to scour the online job listings and apply for more sous chef positions that afternoon.

With this additional experience at Fountenoy Hall, maybe one of the restaurants would hire him.

For once Berry didn’t poke his head into the hallway when Josh passed through the front door. He’d gotten so used to seeing the building’s unofficial watch dog that his absence felt weird. The man was probably doing repairs somewhere on the premises.

Josh climbed the steps to his apartment and paused outside, hearing the steady staccato of someone using the punching bag. He opened the door to see Zach beating the shit out of it, his hands covered, his muscles tight, his lips compressed in a thin line.

Berry sat at the kitchen table. An opened envelope and letter lay in front of him, decorated with Marian’s swirling handwriting. A heavy dread settled in his stomach, and pin-prick chills crawled over his skin and his face. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

“Hey, guys,” he said, feigning the casual. “Berry, what are you doing here? Did something break?”

“Zach needed company,” Berry said, his fingers flicking to the letter.

“Yeah, okay. Thanks for coming up.” Josh swallowed around the tightness in his throat and put the waffle and vegetables in the fridge. He unpacked the remaining groceries, waiting for someone to say something. Anything.

Berry gave Josh a sympathetic smile, then patted him on the back and left the apartment.

Zach stopped punching and turn toward Josh. His blue eyes, so much like Josh’s own, blazed with anger and betrayal.

Shit.

Josh picked up the envelope on the table, giving it a casual glance. No return address. Of course. “What’s this?”

“A letter from Mom,” Zach said. His voice trembled.

“From Mom? Wow.” He forced cheer into his voice. “This is great.”

Josh took the vacated chair and smoothed out the paper, buying time while his mind raced. Play it off like this was the first and only. Read it fast to see if Marian mentioned other letters. Or, damn it all, stop being a selfish coward tell the truth. Come clean and confess to Zach what he’d done.

And shit, there it was, on the second line: Things have changed since our last few letters.

He wiped his palms down the thighs of his jeans. Could this get any worse?

Never mind. Josh didn’t want to know the answer.

Zach knocked his hands together, the gloves making a dull thud, before attacking the punching bag again. Fat tears fell from his eyes. “You kept them from me, Josh. How could you?”

Each tear was an arrow piercing Josh’s skin.

He had fallen into a trap of privilege when his mom married Clint, not realizing how they got their money until investigators came knocking at his apartment.

Josh resisted at first, unable to believe what he was hearing, but eventually ratted out his mom, getting her and his stepdad arrested. How could he tell this to Zach?

“I’m sorry, buddy,” Josh said. “I know this has been rough on you.”

Zach answered with a scathing glance and went back to punching the bag.

Their first letters were full of their wants. Their needs. Instructions on how to get loans for appeals and riddled with demands on Josh to make up for helping convict them. Nothing on how to care for a child barely more than a toddler or an acknowledgment of their own selfish actions.

“They said this is all your fault. Christ, Josh, what’s wrong with you?” Zach landed several hard blows, then stopped, panting. A bead of sweat ran down his brow and dripped onto his shirt.

“I thought we had a good thing going here.” Josh didn’t want to flat out place the blame on their parents, preferring to carry the burden that Zach’s parents had ditched him.

His brother didn’t need to know. Josh tried to smile and reached for him, but was met with a stony face and a retracted body.

“Mom asked if we have any money to send to them. For their appeals and stuff.” His brother’s eyes took on a sheen, and he lifted his shirt to wipe his face. “They can have the money I got from helping the Sumners and Lucy move their furniture.”

That wasn’t going to happen. “There are no appeals, Zach. They embezzled money. Stole thousands and thousands of dollars. You know this.”

“They’re innocent, Josh. Mom said so in her letter. That their investors knew it was risky.” Zach slumped into a chair. “We could help them. Please, can we help them? I haven’t seen them in eight years.”

Acid burned in Josh’s gut, and he reached for his brother’s gloved hand. “Zach, listen to me. They committed a crime. They have to spend time in prison.”

Zach glared at him. “If my money isn’t enough, I can get a job. Mowing lawns or something.”

Visions of Zach’s future, of college, of getting out of this hellhole, crashed in Josh’s mind.

Marian and Clint had used their home for bail collateral and Josh and Zach’s college savings to pay for the attorney, all the while hoarding their own money and making plans to run.

“Absolutely not. They’ve taken too much from us already. ”

“You don’t get to decide that,” Zach said. “They’re my parents, too.”

“The courts put me in charge. It was and is most definitely my place to decide.”

“I hate you!” His eyes had turned the shade of ice-blue that copied Josh’s when he was angry. The visual made Josh’s blood freeze in his veins. “When Mom sends me the information on where they are and how to get there, I’m going with or without you.”

***

The comfortable chairs in Shoenover Strategic Management’s waiting room were covered in stacks of papers when Jordan walked into her office the next morning.

She put her hand on a turquoise wall to ground herself, relieved to be there and away from her hovering parents.

She barely escaped that morning, promising to be home in time to clean up and attend shul for Yom Kippur.

After working out of a cramped room for a couple of years when getting her business off the ground, she’d finally had enough clients and referrals to rent office space and hire an assistant.

Her mother had petitioned for beige walls to keep the area neutral, but this wasn’t her mother’s business.

It was Jordan’s brains, reputation, and experience that kept her clients coming, and she refused to surround herself with dull.

The money to start her business had come from her trust fund, but its success was all her.

And she had wanted colorful walls to celebrate.

Now those vibrant walls held nothing but chaos.

Her assistant Mark came into the lobby and covered his mouth with his hands. “As I live and breathe! Is that Jordan Shoenover? I thought she had been abducted by southern aliens, bless her heart.”

“It’s good to see you, too.” She handed him a take-out cup from her favorite coffee place down the street and shrugged out of her fall jacket, irritated when she had to tug it over her brace. She hadn’t had to worry as much about the weather in Georgia. “Pumpkin-spiced chai latte.”

“Aren’t you about as sweet as pecan pie?” His fake southern accent contrasted with the heavy sweater he wore from his constantly-expanding collection. At least this one didn’t have neon flashes or glittering snowflakes.

She held up a hand. “Please stop. Now.”

“Well, that just salts my melon.” Mark took a swallow of his drink. “Not as good as homemade moonshine, but it will do. What happened with your wrist?”

“It was either bust my wrist or bust my face.” She toasted her own cup against his. Mark had been a constant presence in the office from the moment she hired him two years ago.

“Did you get started without me?” She waved her hand at the chaos.

Instead of answering, he handed her a small stack of index cards.

She raised an eyebrow and flipped through them. Names of people and businesses were listed on each one.

“If you checked your voicemail more often, your soon-to-be clients wouldn’t insist on dictating their messages to me.”

“I check it enough for someone who’s not working.

” She clenched her jaw, then forced herself to relax.

It was sweet of Mark to try to raise her hopes of salvaging her reputation, but she couldn’t afford to buy into it.

Not until the lawsuit was settled. “I’ve listened to the messages, and I told them what I’m telling you: I’m not taking new clients right now.

You know that.” She tried to hand them back, but he dodged her.

“Some of them have been calling me daily. Bordering on harassment. It’s giving me worry lines.” He pulled at the skin near his eyes. “Right here. See them? They weren’t here when you left.”

“Got a magnifying glass?” She tapped the cards against her palm and took in the boxes containing her notes that had been subpoenaed. Josh had told her to look to the future. Maybe she should do that. “Okay. I’ll be in my office.”