Page 55 of Dirty Secret

EPILOGUE

Heidi

"You don't work today. There's a wedding or had you forgotten?" Nadyia said, the corner of her eyes crinkled with amusement.

"That's why I'm at the bakery. To pick up the wedding cake." I peered around the white kitchen. The long stainless-steel tables covered with various pastries, but nothing that resembled a wedding cake.

I knew what the cake was to look like as I helped Nadyia in the design. It's hard to imagine I've been working here for almost six months. Right after the Children's Gala, Nadyia reached out to me and wanted me for her new bakery she would open in the new year.

I nearly blew her eardrum screaming into the phone from excitement. To apologize for almost sending her to the hospital and thanking her for hiring me, I invited her to my home for dinner. Nadyia was so impressed by the restoration work and interior design I implemented in my house that she began to ask my opinion on the bakery décor.

When Nadyia's Sweet Corner opened in January, I told Max I wanted my wedding at the bakery. Kat agreed with me, but Max said it was too small for all the guests.

"I bet you're excited to head up north to start filming your baking show."

Nadyia was contacted a couple of months ago by the Food TV Channel to create her own baking show. She picks rural bakeries or diners and takes over for a few months. I wish I could come with her, but she's leaving me in charge of the bakery while she's gone. I can't say I wasn't excited for the opportunity to run a bakery.

She nodded but didn't say anything more. That wasn't like her. Whenever I brought up her show, she would go on about it for at least ten minutes.

"The cake isn't here." She turned back to the metal bowl she was stirring when I arrived.

I stared at her back, blinking in shock.

"There's no wedding cake? What happened?"

Felipe was going to lose it when he hears there won't be cake at the reception. He explained the only reason he attends weddings was for the cake.

"Some men took it." She pointed to the back door that led to the alley. "They came in here, picked it up, and left with the pale blue cake."

Then Nadyia did something that caused me to gasp, she shrugged. As if someone stealing a wedding cake was no big deal.

"And you let them? Nadyia! I paid for that cake. I made a promise to—"

Her laughter caused me to choke on my own words. This wasn't the Nadyia I had grown close to over the past year. Where was the kind, fun-loving, talented woman I'd come to know?

She turned, covering her mouth as she giggled in that cute way she always had. Her adorableness wasn't going to trick me. What happened was serious. The wedding was in two hours.

"At the very least tell me you called the police or started on a new cake? I'll go put on an apron. We can do this if we work together." I began to move to the front of the kitchen where the white aprons were hung, before her warm hand gently wrapped around my arm.

"I’m sorry. I couldn't keep it up any longer." she managed to get out between gasps of laughter.

"Keep what up? You aren't making sense." I lifted my hand to her forehead. "How do you feel? You don't seem to have a temperature."

"Max, I can't do it anymore. I'm sorry," Nadyia yelled, and I saw the plastic flaps that separated the front of the bakery to the kitchen move.

Max stepped into the kitchen, and my breath escaped my lungs. He was dressed in a black tuxedo. And it wasn't the old tux he had altered that he wore to the gala. It was a new one and fit him like a glove.

"I don't remember Felipe's wedding invitation saying black tie only?" I asked trying to piece together what was happening.

First, the cake was stolen, and now Max was in a tuxedo.

"It's not. But my father and Felipe wouldn't let me get married in anything else."

I stepped away from Nadyia. None of that made sense. Raising my hand to my forehead I realized the more questions I asked, the more confused I became.

"I think I'm having a mental breakdown. Tell Felipe I have to go to the hospital and can't be at his wedding."

When Jacob proposed to Felipe on top of a mountain in Maine, I was surprised and thrilled. The shock was more from Felipe saying yes to his gorgeous boyfriend. I never thought he would settle down.

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