Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 45966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
For the past thirteen years, I’d bent over backward for his family by running the bakery to the best of my ability. To see Nicholas in the place I called my second home was a situation I never thought I’d find myself in.
As I took him in, my mind raced with questions I had no answers for. I hadn’t seen him in so long, and there he was…
Standing right in front of me with a familiar yet unfamiliar expression and aura. It wasn’t unusual to feel like I couldn’t read him. If he didn’t want me to know what he was thinking, feeling, wanting, or needing, then that was the end of it.
He was always in control of his emotions, even back then.
After what felt like forever, I finally broke the deafening silence between us, squealing, “Nicholas!” I grabbed my apron off the counter to cover my body, finally snapping out of whatever fog I was in.
He held his hands up in the air. “I… I...”
“Turn around!”
He immediately did. “Noelle, this isn’t how I wanted us to—”
“I’m not normally naked in my bakery.” I threw on the apron instead of just covering my body with it.
“Your bakery?” he questioned, turning around, but he took one look at me and gestured to my outfit. “This isn’t any better, Elle.”
He grinned in that shit-eating way I always hated.
Those five words had the effect he sought, making me remember the spark that had always been there between us and hadn’t disappeared after all this time. We were best friends and did everything together, except we never crossed that line until a few weeks before he suddenly decided to leave Mistletoe Town a couple of months after graduating from high school.
He didn’t call me.
He never texted me.
No letters.
No emails.
Not one word in thirteen years.
I thought about all of that as I abruptly left him standing there with that smug look, annoyed he was there in the first place. I changed into clean clothes, which were a pair of black overalls and a long-sleeved white shirt. I slipped on my Converse sneakers and made my way back out there. I always kept clothes in my office in case I had an unexpected baking explosion.
Focusing on the fact that I was no longer an impressionable teenager but a grown-ass woman, I marched in there with a different tune.
He announced, “I’m here—”
“I know why you’re here.”
We locked eyes for what felt like forever.
“Still sporting overalls, I see?”
“They’re comfy for baking.”
“Are you making me cookies? You know I’m a sucker for your mint chocolate chip.”
I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “Hardly, Mr. Saint Clair.”
“When you call me that, I look for my father.”
“I’m just keeping it professional.”
He walked toward me, and I stepped back.
“How professional can we be when I just saw you practically naked?”
“Anyway…” I changed the subject. “As I was saying, I know you’re here.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding my eyes for a moment. “I assume the whole town does.”
“You, more than anyone, knows how fast news spreads here.”
“Right.” He glanced at me. “How could I forget?”
Unable to resist, I ask, “Wasn’t that the point of you leaving?”
He tapered his gaze at me. “Now that’s a loaded question if I’ve ever heard one, Elle.”
“I have no interest in playing games with you, Mr. Saint Clair.”
“I’ll test my luck, then.”
For the second time in a few short minutes, he shocked the shit out of me when he confessed,
“I’m so sorry, Noelle.”
CHAPTER 2
NOELLE
Ididn’t just stumble back, I flew. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“Is this a joke?” I aggressively asked. “Another one of your little games?”
“You used to like my little games.”
“I used to like a lot of things that were bad for me.”
He takes another step toward me. “We need to talk, Elle.”
“Obviously, or why else would you be here?”
“I could think of a handful of reasons, and that’s only referring to us.”
I sneered a snide chuckle. “Us? There is no us.”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
In one swift movement, he was in my face, catching me off guard. I faintly gasped when he was close to my mouth, only triggering all the times he caused this same response out of me.
He brushed the hair away from my face with the back of his fingers. “I didn’t know you were the baker here.”
Backing away from his fingers, I questioned, “And if you had?”
“I don’t know…”
I slowly nodded, stepping sideways. It was now or never to make my voice heard. “I understand that you’re technically my new boss, but I want to make something crystal clear to you, Nicholas.”
His eyebrows pinched together as we continued to stare one another down.
“I’ve spent years proving to your grandfather that I could run this place without having someone manage me. I’ve sacrificed a lot of my personal life for this shop and this town, so don’t think for one second that you’re going to be the boss of me.”