Page 46 of Conquered Obstacles

“Better than expected, but I have a feeling that has more to do with the ancient vampires and minions of your brothers hovering and itching to take their heads,” he admitted, nodding when I couldn’t hide my shock. “Your brother made it very clear that he thought it best to wipe the slate clean and just be done with it.”

“Sometimes I don’t think he’s wrong.”

“My mother said the same, but there shouldn’t be much of a need for real leadership besides if there’s a problem. Don’t be stupid. Don’t try to control a goddess or try to take over the world. Is that really so fucking difficult?”

“Apparently,” I drawled.

“I cannot believe Zeus was there and thought it was all a meeting of supes and gods to overthrow him,” he blurted after a few moments.

I sighed. “Hera used to feed that paranoia to make herself look better and how loyal she always was. We’d argue with him and she’d do whatever he wanted and that would be how she’d stir things up after he had another affair. His paranoia is now to a ridiculous level. It’s…” I shook my head.

Ridiculous really wasn’t a strong enough word anymore.

We had a really good conversation though even if we talked about serious topics. And those men for the business meeting did show up. She wouldn’t even greet them and finished her meal, paying and leaving after calling them petty assholes with inferiority complexes.

Nice.

And somehow, she would be “difficult” and “problematic” or “emotional.” Colton said the whole thing was disgusting, and he’d walked her to the elevator and gone back to chew them out and warn them that if they ever embarrassed him with their games and bullshit, he’d bury them in his next project.

That they’d lost his business, and their lack of professionalism was beyond ridiculous. They hadn’t even called or texted to apologize, say they were going to be late. They just strutted in like they owned the place and everything was fine. Their inability to handle something as basic as being on time for a prospective meeting should make them feel humiliated.

And he planned to make sure people knew that was how they handled business so they were.

I smiled as he talked. That was part of what had made me like Colton so much. He was so passionate and honorable. He never let people get away with playing those sorts of games or flexing their muscles to demean others. Whoever those men were wanted to look down and put a former lingerie model in her place.

Colton Knight wouldn’t ever be party to that, and he would die on that hill instead of letting something like that go.

I had—and still did—find that extremely attractive.

No, I wasn’t ready to let Colton walk out of my life. Maybe I was being an idiot and repeating past mistakes. I didn’t think so.

I was probably making new ones.

12

Starting Thursday, we had several order pickup locations around Massachusetts as far as Springfield which was far west almost to New York. The one most requested to add was closer to Cape Cod, so we added one there. We also had two in New Hampshire and branched out into Providence, Rhode Island which seemed like it would be a madhouse from the amounts.

But everything was already picked up by Costco and all we had to focus on was the orders. And if I made extras with my power, that was fine.

The media was a bit mixed about us giving cookies to prisons and churches, but we also gave a lot to hospitals again. Some were complaining that we didn’t give to schools, but it was a religious holiday… But so was Christmas, so they weren’t wrong that I was being a bit hypocritical.

But it was also a bit different. Rationally, we all knew that.

Easter was different than Christmas. Really, it was.

Still, a few reminded people of the reports I was trying to add to child obesity, and maybe that had something to do with why I didn’t give to schools again? So they should blame themselves and the kids should be upset with them.

Apparently, they were.

Oh, boy. Well, that wasn’t the goal, but I couldn’t have seen that coming or handle all of the crazy always. People just looked for reasons to complain, and I had too much on my plate to worry about it all.

We did get a lot of good PR about selling our base cakes frozen to other bakeries and how it cut down on their costs. Even the cupcakes as well. It was all over social media that they were using our cupcakes and tagging us how they decorated them. Mary and Kary said we were trending like crazy and that helped with the orders.

We had cut off everything, but people were still planning to show up to locations to see if we had any extras like we had for St. Patrick’s Day. Sure, we could make that work.

I ended up popping all around and reloading trucks in a way people wouldn’t notice. A few basically left when empty and hid for an hour before showing up completely reloaded again. They were fridge trucks, so if nothing else, they could count towards the next day’s orders since the drivers knew they might be sleeping over with the cargo.

They were fine with it. They all needed the money and wanted extras to take home to their covens or friends.

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