Page 44 of Baking it Merry

Rolling her eyes, she yanked the door open and pulled him inside.“Stop being so loud!What is wrong with you?Don’t you have any respect for anyone other than yourself?”

“Good Lord,” he said with a hint of disgust when he looked around.“Why is this entire place lit up like this?It’s barely seven a.m., Daphne.Do you really need to be in the middle of a Christmas display at all times?”

This was getting them nowhere.“Why are you here?Didn’t you get my text?”

“What text?”he demanded, pulling his phone from his pocket.After a moment of tapping and scrolling, he held it up to her.“No text.”Raking a hand through his hair, he let out a huff of annoyance.“I never pegged you for a woman who snuck out in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, good grief…” Without a word, she went back to the kitchen and sat back down.Naturally, he followed.“I meant to send a text,” she said wearily.“I told myself I’d do it when I came home, but then I got distracted and took a shower, started laundry, and once I sat down with my coffee, I was solely focused on work.I’m sorry.”

He sank down onto the chair opposite hers.“I don’t get it.Why’d you leave?”

It was only the second time he’d ever sounded this vulnerable, and it shamed her that she had essentially run off without an explanation.

“I wake up early every day.Even on my days off,” she told him.“There was no way I was going to wake you up just because I was awake, so that would have meant staring at the ceiling for at least a couple of hours with nothing to do but worry about how awkward things were going to be when you woke up.”Sighing, she felt miserable saying the words out loud.“We got caught up in the whole play-acting thing.We both know that we never would have ended up in bed together without…you know…the fake dating.”

His head lolled back briefly before he looked at her.“I get what you’re saying and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it that way too.It sounds wrong, though.You probably won’t believe this, but…I’m not that shallow.I don’t sleep with a woman just for the sake of sleeping with her.”Pausing, he gave her a lopsided grin.“I know it’s what maybe led us there, but I genuinely wanted to be with you.”

“Tristan…”

“Look, I get it.I’ve been rude and disrespectful, but you’ve been a bit of a pain in the ass too.”

She rolled her eyes so hard she swore she saw her own brain.“If by pain in the ass you mean I was merely trying to earn a living, then yes.I’ve been a pain in the ass.”

“You know you’ve argued with me just as much…”

“I was defending myself!”she argued.“You instantly disliked me because you felt my business wasn’t classy enough for your building!A building you don’t own or manage and one where no one else has a problem!Gah!You are so annoying!”Jumping to her feet, she paced for several moments and thankfully, he didn’t say anything.“No matter what you think of me right now, the one thing I’m not is a poor hostess.Would you like a cup of coffee?”Turning her back, she took a mug down from the cabinet.When she turned again, Tristan was right there, caging her in against the countertop.

“Okay, we will have to agree to disagree on a few things.I can’t help how I feel and as an architect, it’s all about lines and symmetry and how things look.Well, they’re not everything, but they’re very important.I happen to love the lobby of that building.It’s sleek and elegant and…” He shrugged.“I get that this is only for two months and I need to just let it go.I’m working on it, I swear.”

“But…”

He grinned.“But…you can’t tell me that you haven’t gotten a little bit of perverse joy out of making your gingerbread house almost comically…it’s…it’s a bit of an eyesore.I’m sorry!”

Being offended was the obvious choice for a reaction, but knowing how uptight and rigid he was about things—and looking at it all from his architectural viewpoint—shesupposedshe could see why he hated her booth so much.

“Fine.Ididget a little bit of pleasure knowing how much you were going to hate the decorations and the music,” she murmured.“But I was only rude to you when you were rude first.”

Luckily, he nodded.“You’re right and I apologize.”

“Thank you.”They were standing so close, and she could feel the heat radiating off of him.His hair was a bit of a mess, his jaw was heavily stubbled, and she just knew that he had rolled out of bed and directly came looking for her.

It was kind of a turn on.

Ugh…what is it with me?

“So, um…coffee?”

The lopsided—and yet somehow sexy—grin was back.“That depends.”

“On?”

“Do you happen to have any muffins?Blueberry in particular.”

Her lips twitched.“I might have one or two of them in the freezer.It wouldn’t take much to defrost it in the microwave.”

“I would like that, but…after,” he said gruffly, before leaning in and trailing soft kisses along her jaw.

“Mmm…after?”Daphne’s eyes drifted shut as she shivered with delight.Tristan pressed his body up against hers as his hands toyed with the tie of her robe.

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