Page 7 of Sugar and Spice
“I have eyes, boss lady,” she said, flicking her fingers at her eyes. “And these eyes see a lot of things. One of those things is that you’re hot for Austin Finnigan. Always have been, and always will be.”
“That’s bullshit, just like this date.”
“You were making heart eyes at him even when you chucked his butter in the river.”
“Those weren’t heart eyes, that was battle lust,” I told her, but Piper didn’t look the least bit convinced.
“Sure it was, sweet cheeks.”
I turned from my mirror and pointed a finger at her. “You know, I wouldn’t be going on this insane “date” with Austin if you hadn’t gotten me into this mess.”
Her face fell at my words. “I didn’t mean to.”
“You left a drunk voicemail, then confirmed it with the reality show-”
“It all happened so fast!”
“And then you went to Austin to get him onboard with a fake marriage. You had weeks to come to me before him, but you didn’t.”
She bit her lip. “Okay, maybe it wasn’t so fast when you put it like that.”
“I’m gonna be honest, I still don’t understandwhyyou did it, Piper.”
“I wanted to make up for the macaron incident and I just-I thought that if I got you and Austin to stop fighting that you two could achieve so much more as lovers than as enemies.”
Her words gave me pause. Achieve what together? Austin and I had always been enemies. “Fighting is what we do best. Everyone knows that.”
“Well it doesn't have to be, and my drunk brain just went for it. I’m sorry, Daisy. I didn’t mean for it to get this big. One lie led to the next and I just kept thinkingFrontier/Citywould, I don’t know, get more interested in another story and forget about us, but then...but then they didn’t. Now they’re here in Clarity and it’s all my fault. I’m so sorry. You have to believe that.”
“Piper, hey…” I stood from my seat and walked to her, “I know you were just trying to help, but it’s not easy to think of Austin as anything but some asshole. Then there was the kiss today. I’m all turned around,” I told her, reaching out to fluff her hair on my way to grab my coat. I had a few more minutes before I had to meet Austin at Sweet Treats, and even though it was a short walk from my apartment to the bakery I needed to get a move on. I stopped at the door and looked back at her. “This date will give us an opportunity to figure out how to set everything straight. You’ll see,” I said, shrugging on my coat before flashing her a tight smile. Piper stood and held out a hand.
“Wait. There’s something else you don’t know about...about the whole thing. The real reason why I called, why it got this far. Why I went to Austin first and why you’re supposed to be pretending to be fake married.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed at my temples. This was not what I needed right now. “Explain, Piper. Please don’t tell me you told them we have kids.”
“What? No, that’s crazy.” I opened my eyes and gave her a ‘really’ look that had her holding up her hands and sighing. “Okay, fair. I deserve that ‘come on, asshole’ look, but that’s not it. This is good news. I promise. Once you know you’ll understandeverything.”
Everything was quite a lot, so I took the bait.
“Lay it on me.”
“You get one hundred thousand dollars for lettingFrontier/Cityfilm you two in all your wedded commercial bliss.”
My mouth fell open. “Come again?”
“The payout for the reality show is one hundred thousand big ones.”
“In United States currency?”
Piper nodded and took a quick step towards me. She caught my hands in hers and gave them a hard squeeze. “See, I was trying to help, boss lady. That kind of cash would change everything for Sweet Treats.”
“But why did we have to be married?” I moaned at her.
“Because the call fromFrontier/Citywas for family businesses. Besides, I knew that if I didn’t make the two of you work together then you would just end up sabotaging the whole thing for the other. You’d both make sure it went wrong if they picked just one of you. I had to do it. Drunk me knew that.”
I snapped my mouth shut and stared at Piper. She wasn’t wrong. I had thrown the man’s butter in the river. Hell, I had even switched his sugar for salt once, and the man had not once, but twice, bought out Clarity’s entire supply of dark chocolate just to spite me when he caught wind that I had big plans involving the stuff.
I frowned. Austin was such a dick. A dick that would have gotten in my way for one hundred thousand if he wasn’t supposed to be pretending to be my husband. God knew I would have done the same to him with a smile on my face.
