Page 31 of Sugar and Spice (Glitter and Sparkle #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“He’ll be right with you,” Yvonne says as she leaves me in a private office. The woman is insane, and she went right along with the ridiculous personal pastry chef bit—she even made me fill out an application.

Wouldn’t you know it, I was selected for a personal interview.

I cross my ankles under the chair, waiting. Any minute now, Mason will walk through that door. I don’t know what to expect. It’s been three months, and we only had a few weeks to get to know each other.

This is insane.

But I don’t care anymore.

I tense when I hear voices outside the door. After a moment, it swings open, and in walks the world’s most handsome ex-member of a boy band. He steals my breath, makes me question how I could have possibly walked away from this man.

His eyes smile, though his face stays very stern. He sits across from me, the picture of professionalism. “I understand you’re here about the pastry chef position.”

I stare at him before I start to laugh. “ Mason. ”

He tries to hold back a grin but fails. “First the job. Then we’ll get to the rest.”

“Are you serious?”

Nodding, he says, “I take my pastries very seriously.”

I sit back in my chair and cross my arms. “I’ll take the job.”

His eyebrows jump, but he dons a poker face. “The hours are long—and we’ll be traveling abroad for several months.”

“All right.”

“You’ll probably end up in the tabloids a time or two.” He raises an eyebrow. “Or twenty.”

“I can live with that.”

“You have to start by the end of the week.” His face softens. “And I hope you will, Harper, because I don’t want an ocean separating us.”

I leap from my seat at the same time as he rises from his. He’s around the desk in less than a heartbeat, and I’m in his arms.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispers against my neck. It sends shivers through my whole body. “I wanted to call a hundred times, but I thought it would make it more difficult. I swear, I respected your decision, but?—”

I kiss him, effectively cutting him off. In an instant, his hands are in my hair, pulling me closer.

“You made me a poster,” I say when we finally come up for air. “With puffy paint and hearts.”

“And I wrote you a song,” he whispers.

“Which killed me.” I run my hands through the soft trimmed hair at his neck.

“Killed you? ” he jokes. “I had to sing it every day for months.”

I step closer, basking in the way his arms feel around me. We stand this way for the longest time, just clinging to each other.

“I could fall in love with you very easily,” he murmurs into my hair.

I lean back and meet his eyes. “And me with you.”

And there it is—an admission. We both know it’s too soon to say the words, they mean too much to rush them, but there’s something real here. Something worth fighting for.

Suddenly, my mood plummets. “What about school? I can’t drop out—my parents would be devastated.”

Mason shrugs like it’s a non-issue. “Study online.”

They probably won’t like that, but I’m an adult now. There comes a point in our lives when we must make our own choices. But that reminds me…

“I get my own hotel room when we’re traveling,” I say, pointing my finger at Mason so he knows I mean business.

He laughs. “Naturally.”

I take a moment to let it all sink in. I’m going to travel the world with Mason. We’ll likely go to Paris—Italy! There are so many bakeries I want to visit and baking techniques I want to learn.

“You know,” Mason says, pulling me out of my head. “I probably should have had you bake me something before I handed you the job.” He raises an eyebrow. “How do I know if you can even bake?”

Laughing, knowing I’ve made the right choice despite how crazy and impulsive it seems, I stand on my tiptoes and brush a kiss to his lips. “Well, Mr. Knight, take me to a kitchen. I’ll make you a batch of cupcakes.”