Page 1 of The Arrangement

Chapter 1

Chloe

“That’ll teach you to lick my muffin!”

I hold the last crumb-topped blueberry muffin in the palm of my hand. “Do you really think that telling me you licked this will stop me from eating it?”

Nickie laughs, setting her coffee mug emblazoned with the Brewer Air logo on the corner of the table. “It should. I’d be grossed out if I ate a muffin that someone had slobbered all over.”

“Did you have to say it like that?”

“Hey, I’m just telling it like it is,” she says.

I sit in the break room, gazing out the window overlooking the putting green the Brewer executives installed last spring. It’s a much better view than the picnic tables no one used that were there before—especially when the executives gather outside to shoot the shit.

The view is exceptional on those days.

“Listen, I live for Muffin Day,” I say. “And I put a lot of work into securing this small piece of heaven. I’m not afraid of a little spit.”

“Ooh. Sounds interesting. What are we talking about?” Jake from accounting stops beside us, stirring his coffee eventhough it’s black. I only wish that was his most annoying trait. “Swapping stories? I have a few if you want a threesome.”

He wiggles his brows as if we don’t get the innuendo.

“Keep walking, Jake,” I say, making my exasperation with his presence loud and clear.

He mutters something under his trademark garlicky breath and continues down the hall.

Nickie takes a seat across from me, grinning. “I can’t tell if Jake fears or is infatuated with you. Something tells me his dreams start with you climbing naked on top of him and end with visions of knives.”

“I have the same dream about him, minus the naked part.”

I push all thoughts of Jake out of my mind and sink my teeth into the top of the sweet, fluffy muffin. I struggle not to moan.

Few things are better than gourmet baked goods—especially when they are entirely out of your budget. I can barely afford cheap ramen and tap water at the moment. Nothing, not even Nickie’s threat that she licked my muffin, will stop me from enjoying it.

“How did you even get that thing?” she asks, watching me with amusement. “Weren’t you in the morning meeting when the muffins were delivered?”

I hold the bundle of goodness to my nose and inhale the sweet aroma.So, so good.

“It’s moments like this that I worry about you,” she says.

I peel the wrapper away from the side. “Yeah, I was in the meeting. But I slipped out at precisely ten after nine and intercepted an unsuspecting Wendy as she carried the Rolling Scones box from the front desk. I swiped the biggest muffin, hid it in the cabinet under the coffee pot, and returned to the conference room, no one the wiser.”

“You have it timed that perfectly?”

“Nickie, this blueberry muffin is the highlight of my week.”

“That’s sad.”

“You’re telling me.”

I take a giant bite, lifting a brow in response to her perfectly arched one.

My life is hard for Nickie Kennedy to comprehend. But I get it. It’s a series of unfortunate events over here. And for someone like Nickie, who leads a very full, charmed existence, imagining that someone could look forward to a muffin must be baffling. It probably seems exaggerated—like I’m making it up for a laugh.

But it’s the truth.

I’m this pathetic.