Page 16 of Baking it Merry

A rather attractive woman.

You know, if long blonde hair, fair creamy skin, and big green eyes were your thing.

But the way she looked right now—all fresh and happy and relaxed—had Tristan feeling like some sort of cartoon villain.

So he forced himself to calm down a bit before asking, “Were you serious about sabotaging my parties?Because if you are, then…”

Daphne quickly held up a hand to stop him.“I am so sorry for saying that yesterday!I don’t even know why I did!The entire ride down in the elevator, I kept asking myself why I would say something like that!I would nevereversabotage an event!Only someone who was a real…real…you know…villainwould do something like that!”Then she laughed softly.“I mean, that would just be wrong on so many levels.Especially knowing how important this is to your mom.”

It was like she was calling him a villain, but…not.

And somehow, like she was weirdly in his head.

“Oh, well…it just struck me as a possible…you know…payback or poetic justice or something.”

Her expression softened.“Okay, but…you didn’t actually get to go through with all of that with the muffins.I totally thwarted you.”She giggled, her hand going to her mouth.“Thwarted?”she repeated before breaking into another fit of giggles.“What a strange conversation to start the day!Villains, sabotage, thwarting…my goodness!”When she finally stopped laughing, she placed her hands on her counter and simply smiled.“I emailed you my proposals a little while ago, so when you go upstairs, they’ll be waiting for you in your inbox.”

“Um…thanks,” he murmured.

Daphne turned away for a moment, but when she was back, she handed him a white paper bag with the top folded down.“It’s a blueberry muffin.Faye told me you were partial to them, so…now you can eat while you look over what I came up with for your parties.”

Accepting the bag, he murmured a thank you before taking a step back.“I’ll look over everything and will talk to you about it later.I have some appointments this morning, so…”

“No worries.But with the family party being a little over a week away, we really need to start planning.”

“Got it.”Without another word, Tristan turned and strode over to the elevators because he was eager to get up to his office and read what she’d sent him.There was still a tiny part of him that wanted not to like whatever she came up with on principle, but it was childish to think like that.Basically, Daphne was saving his behind, and he needed to remember that and be a little more thankful.

Okay, a lot more thankful, but…his current mood wasn’t allowing him to feel good or thankful for anything.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t been in this kind of situation before with the city, but for some reason, this year Tristan felt like he’d hit his limit.Everyone else in his family had a “claim to fame” building in their city skyline and he was the only one who hadn’t.No one made a big deal about it, but it weighed heavily on his mind.All around him, people were making their dreams a reality, and he wasn’t.

Hell, even those people with the booths in the lobby were going after their dreams and were thrilled with their little setup down there, so why couldn’t he be happy with all his other accomplishments?He had designed dozens of buildings and homes, and yet it wasn’t enough.He wanted more.

“I want the damn skyline,” he mumbled as he rode the elevator up to the twenty-eighth floor.

No one was in the office yet when the doors opened, and he kind of relished the quiet as he made his way to his desk and opened up his laptop.Most people enjoyed using tablets, but he was a little old school and still enjoyed having a computer on his desk.Hell, he still had one over by his drafting table with two twenty-seven-inch monitors on it.He was a visual guy and he needed larger screens than he’d get with a tablet to make his designs come to life.

Walking over to his kitchenette, he made himself a cup of coffee before settling down and looking at Daphne’s proposals.

It took less than three minutes for him to realize she was borderline brilliant and had to wonder why she was working two jobs and running a damn holiday bakery booth when she was this talented.

Every party was detailed with menu, décor, color scheme, serving options, and included illustrations, so he could clearly see what she was trying to explain.

The architect part of him—the one who thrived on visuals—appreciated the effort more than anything, and he swore he almost fell a little in love with her simply based on that one little detail.Most people communicated in texts and abbreviated words.The fact that Daphne took the time to not only consider all the unique elements of each event, but to personalize them and make them fun and festive in their own right while providing illustrations was just…

“I seriously owe her an apology,” he said before taking a long sip of his coffee.And after a bite of the muffin, he was tempted to go down to the lobby right now and do it.

Instead, he read over the proposals again multiple times before Faye walked in to remind him about his first meeting of the day with one of his engineers and how they were going to have to walk the site of one of their buildings in Durham that was currently under construction.That meant he would be out of the office for several hours and wouldn’t have time to talk with Daphne this morning.

Or that afternoon.

When he’d walked out with his engineer that morning, Daphne had a line of customers, so he didn’t want to interrupt.The job site meetings ran long, and when he got back to the office, her booth was closed for the day.Glancing at his phone, he saw it was after three and wished she had an actual bakery he could go to so they could talk, but ultimately knew he was going to have to wait until tomorrow morning, email her, or call her.

“Was her phone number in her email?”he murmured before pulling it up on his phone on his way up on the elevator.Sure enough, her number was there, but he figured he’d wait until after he went over things with Faye to call.

That took another ninety minutes.

Everyone was leaving for the day and Tristan was relieved to have the place to himself.Pulling up Daphne’s email, he wondered if he should call or text.

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