Page 33 of Merry Fake Bride

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 andslurpsas 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 façade 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.