Page 29 of Sweet Rivals

I folded my arms over my chest. I saw his eyes flick downward briefly with the movement and heat surged through me. I forced myself to focus. There was risk involved there. He was handsome, which had a way of disarming me. I couldn’t decide if it was better to be disarmed or full of heartbreak and rage. Still, I would watch this man suffer if it was the last thing I did.

“I’d like to see the budget and the renovation estimate, the business plan, and the marketing strategy that you’ve put together,” I said.

He laughed, and once again, I felt like a foolish child. I thought those were all reasonable things to want to see, but of course, I didn’t have any experience opening a bakery. I had only been dreaming of it for years. Maybe I sounded naive or something.

“Come on,” he said, not clueing me in to what the hell he was laughing at. “I have to admit, I didn’t get as far as all of that, much to the chagrin of the Wallace empire, as you would call it. But I’ll show you what I have.”

I followed him through the front-end of the bakery into the office. I let my gaze drift briefly to the window.

My beach view window—at least for now, I thought with a smirk.

No matter what he put me through or how he treated me or how many times he laughed, I was here now, and I planned to make the most of it.

We sat together at the table, and he looked from the computer to me more times than necessary before turning the screen in my direction.

“I’ve gotta get a printer,” he said. “Then you can have a copy.”

“Or you could, you know, share the documents digitally,” I said with a lifted eyebrow.

“Right.”

“You have some top-secret shit on your computer that you don’t want me to see?”

“Of course. Doesn’t everyone?” he asked.

I thought about that for a moment. The only thing that I wouldn’t want anyone to see on my computer would be my private messages with PotatoBake888. They were both too personal and too embarrassing that I had such a personal relationship with a stranger. It wasn’t the early 2000s, after all. People didn’t have relationships with strangers online—we were supposed to have more common sense than that.

“This is the overall budget.” He pointed to different lines on his spreadsheet as he spoke. Admittedly, it was more money than I had been expecting and my heart thundered in my chest a little bit at the thought of having those kinds of funds at my disposal, at least temporarily. “This is what I allotted for the renovations. Here’s the marketing.”

I nodded along. I did the budgeting for The Lobster Tail, so there wasn’t anything surprising aside from the outsized amounts. It must be nice to go through life with the kind of budget to pay your way to success in every situation.

A sinking feeling dropped through my stomach. I never had a chance at taking this man down from the outside. I would be lucky to do it even from the inside. The world catered to men like this, structured to prevent him from experiencing any hardship. I probably could have poisoned his food with laxatives and written all the nasty reviews my mind could think of, and it wouldn’t have made a difference. He could just throw money at it. That’s what he was doing now. He bought a bakery on a whim and was throwing money at it.

I sighed.

“You don’t approve?”

When I looked up from the screen his eyes rested on me. “What’s not to approve of?”.

“Of course, half will be yours to work with,” he said.

I shrugged.

“You think it’s not enough?”

I laughed. “It’s what I should have expected.”

“Is it a problem?” he asked.

I shrugged again. How could I possibly explain to him the privilege he enjoyed or why it made my blood boil?

“Could you share this with me? I’m going to need it in order to start planning,” I said instead.

“Sure,” he said. “Let me see.” He stared at the computer. “Um.”

“Oh my god,” I laughed. “Let me do it.” I reached for the computer but before my fingers so much as brushed the mouse pad, he jerked it away.

“I’ll figure it out. Just write down your email.”

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