Page 17 of Baking it Merry

“Text first and see if she’s free to talk.”

Tristan: Hello, Daphne.It’s Tristan Knight.Sorry I missed you today.Was curious if you had time to talk about those proposals?

He hit send before standing and stretching and opting to grab himself a bottle of water.There was no guarantee she was going to see the text right away, so…

The phone dinged with an incoming text.

Picking it up, he grinned.

Daphne: I am!I never saw you come back through the lobby, so I figured you were busy, but I’m free now!

Daphne: Do you want me to call or…?

Tristan: I’ll call you.

Taking a quick sip of water, he sat down and immediately called.

“Hey, Tristan!”she said cheerily.“Hope your meetings went well today.”

“Um…they did.Thanks.And I guess you had another successful day and sold out of everything, right?”

“I did!I’d bring in more, but I don’t have the space.The booth has been perfect the last few years, but this year I’m just selling so much more.I can’t really afford to expand on it, so I just need to be happy with it, no matter how limiting it is.”

His mind immediately began envisioning a quick add-on that would take very little time and effort, but would give her the extra storage space.He could draw it up and…

“So, what did you think of the proposals?”she asked, interrupting his thoughts.“What do you like?Dislike?Any tweaks or changes?I have several friends you can hire for set up and break down, and they’ll also stay for the events and serve.I don’t know any bartenders, but I figured your mom would probably have people you could reach out to if you needed them.”

“I do,” he agreed, scrolling through her email again.“Honestly, Daphne, you nailed this.Everything you suggested sounds perfect.”

Silence.

“I haven’t shared it with anyone—not even my mother—but I already know she’s going to be thrilled.”

More silence.

Tristan gently cleared his throat.“The illustrations were very helpful.I’m a visual guy and I know in my line of work, my clients definitely need to see the designs I come up with.So I appreciated the fact that you do that as well.”

And still more silence.

The next thing to come out of his mouth was something he had never admitted to anyone.

“This whole thing…well…I really need…I mean… I seriously just need a win.You have no idea what it’s like to be the only person in a family of successful architects and engineers to never…you know…do anything big.Making these parties a success just…it would make me feel a little less like a failure.”When she didn’t say anything to that, he asked, “Um…are you still there?”

He heard a sniffle right before she quietly replied, “I am.”

“Are you okay?”

“Mm-hmm…I’m just…you have no idea how much I’ve been bracing myself all day for you to tell me I got it all wrong and criticize what I came up with or to say you were never serious and then yank the whole thing away.I guess part of me believed you were just messing with me and…and…”

Dammit.

Raking a hand through his hair, he felt like a freaking ogre.“I would never do something like that.I know you don’t have any reason to believe it based on my previous behavior, but I meant what I said to you yesterday.This is very important to me and my family, and I’m very sorry if I made you feel like I was doing this simply to mess with you.That wasn’t my intention at all.”

Another sniffle.“Thank you for saying that.When I didn’t see you for the rest of the day, I thought maybe you were avoiding me.Then when you texted, I figured…this is it.He’s going to tell me he found someone else or he made the whole thing up.But hearing you say you liked what I did?”One more sniffle.“It was the greatest compliment ever.You have no idea how happy my heart is right now.”

It would be wrong to point out how sad she sounded, so he let it go.

“Well, I meant what I said.Everything in this proposal just sounds exactly like the sort of thing my mother would have planned herself.So, what happens now?”

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