Page 34 of Merry Fake Bride

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’llbuildyou 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 ifIcan 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.