Page 44 of The Candlemaker

“Whatever you have left.”

Her eyes turned into slits. “Why?”

“Do you interrogate all your customers?” I chuckled.

“Only the ones who lie to me from the start,” she quipped and strode to the back of the room, returningafter a few seconds of shuffling and grumbling with a box of candles that she set on the counter next to me. “This is all I have.”

“And I’ll take this one.” I set the cinnamon candle on top. At least the reminder of her would be invisible to everyone but me.

“If you think buying up a bunch of my candles is going to soften me up so I back down from our arrangement, you’re?—”

“Not trying to soften you up.” Though the words conjured up a whole damn different image in my head. A soft Frankie. Soft and naked and mine?—

“What then? Bribe me?” She shook her head. “I don’t want your money or your support, Mr. Collins.”

My jaw pulsed, and without thinking better of it, I ventured into the shallow end of the truth. “My mom likes this candle,” I said, and she stopped and turned. “Your…Gigi said that you hand make all the candles, so I wanted to make sure I got whatever was left of this batch.”

“Oh.”Pink obscured the freckles on her cheeks again. “Your mom liked it?”

I shouldn’t have said anything.

“She loves the beach.”I still shouldn’t be saying anything. And so, I did what I always do, I made it about business. “What do I owe you?”

Frankie stiffened and quipped, “An inn.”

“Cute.”

Our eyes collided at the word, sparks threatening to melt every bit of wax she had stored in here.

“Just take them. They were leftover anyway,” she murmured and returned to a line of beakers on the counter, flanked by vials with droppers in them.

“Is this how you make your scents?” I wondered…and wandered closer.

“Yes, and it’s all proprietary, so you can go now.”

I fought a smile. “I have no intention nor desire to steal your recipes and make candles.”

“No?” She tipped her head over her shoulder, her eyes piercing mine. “I thought you liked stealing other people’s dreams right out from under them.”

Touché.

“I’m not stealing anything from your sister, Frankie. That’s just business.” I stood beside her, my voice lower.

“And so is this, so if you don’t mind…” Her focus returned to her work—or at least that was what she wanted me to believe.

“I’m not leaving.”

“Why not? Don’t you havebusiness?”

I rested my hip on the counter, watching her eyes lower for a second down to my waist, and goddamn if it didn’t feel like the hard hold of her stare had wrapped tight around my cock.Jesus.

“I do. And it’s right here.”

Her full lips parted and then tightened into a line. “What are you talking about? I’m not your business.”

“You are when you’re the one blocking my deal with your whole haunted inn fable.”

“Not a fable, just fact.”

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