Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 89238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
More like candy-aisle cocoa.
But…what’s next? “So, now what?”
Kenji preens, blowing on his nails. “This is where the hacker comes in. I maybe, possibly hooked them up with Silver. I thought she might want to know about how Mister I Make My Own Chocolate From The Very Best Beans is actually not making his own chocolate.”
“And I brought them to meet with Silver this morning,” Margo puts in. “Hence, the getaway driver.”
“And what’s Silver doing?” I ask.
“Making another video,” Eliza says with utter glee in her voice.
As if on cue, there’s a knock on the door, and it’s Silver, dressed in black with her signature silver eye shadow bright on her glowy skin. She waltzes into the store. “Hey, besties. I posted it,” she says, waving her phone as she comes over to join us at the table. She sits down with a certain charismatic panache. “If you’re gonna imitate me, I’m gonna call you out.”
Take that.
“Already, the video’s at more than five thousand views and I posted it a few minutes ago. Pretty soon, word will get out that he’s using the cheap chocolate we all use at home.”
Kenji parks his hands behind his head. “And that, my friends, is what you call karma.”
I sit back, still amazed at this turn of events. But not entirely surprised. A man who’d threaten me the way he did is exactly the type of person who’d lie to all his customers in forty shops across the country.
Then, a dark cloud passes over me. I can’t revel in his hoodwinkery.
We lied too.
But lying to customers and the world about the product you sell them is entirely different than lying about who you go home with at night.
I glance at Gage. He looks relaxed, content, and happy. He’s running a hand along my back, and enjoying the company of all of us—this ragtag crew. I think about our secret dates. The roses, the lattes, the ferry ride, the art museum. The beautiful care this not almost romantic man—this most romantic man—took in recreating our fictional dates and turning them so very real. I think, too, about Friday’s snow day for my sister. Our girls. The joy they found in it. The joy he put into making it happen for them.
My heart stutters then speeds up. It’s racing inside me, beating in overtime as it rushes headlong toward this man.
Nothing between us is a lie. And I suppose our romance has never truly been a lie either.
There’s just one little issue. “But Sebastian might still be working next door to me,” I say.
“He won’t last,” Gage reassures me, then snaps his gaze to the door. Samira is rapping on it while checking her watch, then glancing back down the street, urging me to come closer.
“Give me a second,” I say, then hurry over and step outside.
“I’m sorry to go cliffhanger on you,” she begins. “Like I was saying, that was my new tenant, and I didn’t want to leave her hanging.”
“About that. I’d really like the chance to match…” My brain replays the last pronoun. “Wait, did you say her?”
“I did.”
“It’s not Sebastian Roberts and The Chocolate Connoisseur who’s leasing the space?”
She pffts. “Of course not.”
“Why of course not?”
“You run a chocolate shop and the store to the right of me is a lingerie boutique. I’m a smart businesswoman. I’m not going to lease the space to another chocolate shop. I want all of you to drive business to each other, not take away.”
Oh. Well. That does make perfect sense. “Who’s leasing it then?”
“Risqué Business is opening another shop,” she says, her eyebrows wiggling. “I’m a devotee.”
A smile takes me hostage and I don’t ever want to be freed. “Me too.”
“Doesn’t that sound simpatico? Chocolate, lingerie, and sex toys,” she says.
It sure does.
It sounds a lot like karma too.
An hour later, Kenji and some part-timers are handling Elodie’s while the rest of us take cocoa ingredients and cookies over to the Sunday pop-up.
As I set up a display tray of mouth-watering chocolate chip cookies at Special Edition, a throat clears.
It’s Amanda. Eliza’s next to her. For a few seconds, I worry it’s bad news. Maybe I always will. But Amanda just crosses her arms. Then rolls her eyes. “So, listen. We know you two tried to trick us.”
I steal a glance at Gage, asking what now with my eyes.
He just shrugs.
“Yeah, but we’re pretty smart. We know you two like each other,” Eliza says.
“We knew it was real all along. And we think you should go on a real date. So we booked Grams to hang out with us on Tuesday night so you can go to dinner.”
“Before my dad and I go to Darling Springs.”
I feel like we just got parent-trapped, and I don’t mind it one bit. I look to both of these young women. So strong already. So passionate. So damn determined. “You two are pretty smart. And you’re right.” I turn to Gage. Meet his eyes. Answer them as I look at him. “It’s all real.”