Page 63 of Sweet Rivals

He started walking toward the bakery and I had no choice but to follow. I couldn’t even begin to guess what the hell he wanted me to see. But as soon as the bakery came into sight I gasped, stopping dead in my tracks as my stomach fell down to my feet. I blinked several times. There on the bakery, below the awning, a wooden sign read: The Baking Chick. My heart raced in my chest as my mind struggled to keep up.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

I turned to him, eyes wide, really seeing him for the first time as all of the coincidences I was too blind to see over the last week clicked into place. Jared always knowing where I was, making me chocolate chip scones, knowing all the horror movie references, his dog's name, calling me a rock star. Now that I saw it, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before.

Tears turned in my eyes. “You,” I said, my voice shaking with emotion.

“Me,” he said with a nod as he lifted his hand to cup my cheek and wipe my tears with his thumb.

“I feel so stupid,” I said.

He laughed, “You have never been stupid. I have been an absolute idiot though.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“I appreciate you keeping me humble,” he said.

I shook my head, still trying to catch up to the reality that my best friend online was the man standing in front of me. They had been the same person all along. Waves of emotions crashed through me so quickly that I couldn’t catch up.

“Jenna, I have been a fool. I fell in love with you online. You were unlike anyone I had ever met: smart, funny, driven, creative, kind, grounded. You have so much passion. You have more passion in your pinky toe than most people have in their whole bodies. I looked forward to our conversations every day. So much so, that I felt like I couldn’t possibly live without knowing more of you. I came to Cape Shores for you. But then, you couldn’t stand me. You had talked so much about a bakery by the ocean, so I thought I could win you over with it, but then you hated me. I mean really, really hated me. And I didn’t know what to do,” he shook his head. “I didn’t want to compete with you. I would have gifted you the damn bakery from day one, but you are so goddamn stubborn. I thought if I showed up here, I could make you see that. I could confess my love, and we could live happily ever after in our bakery by the beach.”

“Love?” I whispered, new tears clogging my throat as my heart stuttered in my chest.

He sighed. “Yes, Jenna, I know you hate romance and think it can’t possibly exist in real life, but I am desperately, hopelessly in love with you. I defied my whole family to buy a defunct bakery. For you.”

My brain couldn’t catch up with my heart as it fluttered, giddy at his touch. “Wait,” I said. “You still rigged the preview because you didn’t believe in me.”

“That was stupid, but not because I didn’t believe in you. It was because I just wanted to hand you the bakery. I know, I sound absolutely insane. I probably am.”

“It’s all those horror movies,” I said.

“Maybe it’s the romcoms,” he said.

I still didn’t think I had fully meshed the two men in my mind, PotatoBake888 and Jared, but his warm hands against my neck, his thumb rubbing along my jaw, and his lips inches from my own, made it hard to think. This man had bought a bakery for me. If that wasn’t commitment, I didn’t know what was. Then all thoughts fell out of my brain as he kissed me, pulling me hard and tight against him, his lips hungry and forceful.

“Plot twist,” Cat shouted.

Chapter Forty-Four

Ipulled away from Jared to see Cat standing at the stairs of the boardwalk, smiling mouth agape.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“You told me you were walking into certain death. I had to come save you,” she said crossing the planks to join us in front of the bakery.

“What did you tell her?” Jared asked.

“That I was meeting a stranger, because if you recall, I was supposed to be,” I said, giving him a glare.

Cat looked between the two of us trying to figure out what she was missing. “I have been worried to death about you all week. Jared texted me that he was worried about you, and then you wouldn’t even respond.”

“You text with Jared now? The enemy?”

“Wait, am I still the enemy?” he asked.

“Doesn’t look that way to me,” Cat said, wiggling her eyebrows.

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