Page 47 of Morally Black Betrothal
“For the kiss,” I clarified, though I wasn’t sorry for that at all. “Or for both of them. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You want to tell me why you did?” Simone set a second tray on the counter and started moving the loaves to a cooling rack on an opposite counter. “Not that I, um, didn’t enjoy them.”
“You enjoyed them?”
That smile appeared again. “Well, sure. I don’t get kissed like that every day.”
I rubbed my face. Every time she looked at me like that, I felt like I’d been smacked. “Right. Well. It won’t happen again.”
It couldn’t. This wouldn’t work otherwise.
I didn’t have time to address the flash of regret that crossed her face before she nodded. “Of course. So, how did you find me?”
I stalked you, I almost said, then wondered where the fuck my filter seemed to go with this girl.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
No. I had to follow my instinct.
“My family keeps a private investigator on retainer,” I said. “I had him and my chief of security run a profile.”
Simone looked legitimately surprised. “You keep a PI? To what, snoop on everyone you know?”
“We tend to be…targets.”
“For violence?”
I shrugged. “We have security for that. But when your family owns one of the largest corporations in the world, people are interested. It makes sense to find out as much as we can about those we do business with.”
One golden brow lifted as she pulled out another tray of bread. “Is that what you’re here for? Business? Did you want my services as a bartender, candy striper, or baker?”
Now was the time.
Or not.
It was difficult to focus when that saucy little smirk made me want to turn her over her own kitchen table and show her what other “services” we were both capable of providing together.
Christ.Get it the fuck together, Black.
“How long have you been living here?” I asked. Mostly because I was a coward and couldn’t quite get out the request I’d come here to make.
“A while. It’s not much, I know, but it had the space I needed. It used to be a catering business, so it already had some of the equipment.” She gestured at the oven. “The landlord is…flexible.”
Another word for slumlord. JP had been on the rise for decades, but certain pockets were still like this, where landlords did nothing to maintain their properties while they waited for a developer to overpay them for the land rights, knock the building down, and replace it with a high-rise. Blackguard had a whole division dedicated to the practice, mostly stewarded by Owen. We were responsible for half the gentrification of New England.
I’d never felt the slightest bit bad about it until now.
I was also wondering why none of this had appeared in the report the PI had produced on her. It had included her address and the jobs she worked at the hospital and the bar. Single, clean credit, no record (though her sister was a different story), along with confirmation of the story she’d told me about her family farm. Granted, I’d only given Gavin a few hours to get it done instead of the usual week, but an under-the-table bakery seemed like it should have been an obvious find.
“Who is the bread for?”
She moved the trays to the enormous sink on the other side of the counter. “I do a pop-up at a local cafe. When it does well, I tuck a bit aside for saving.”
“Toward what?”
“Maybe my own bakery one day.”
I looked at the bread. “Seems like you’re on your way.”
