Page 9 of Sugar and Spice
Her head jerked up and her eyes locked on me. “What? Carey’s? Why would you want to go there? It's going to be packed tonight.”
It was true. It would be. It was a Friday night. That was exactly what I wanted.
“All part of the plan, sweetheart.” I reached out, catching her hand in mine and headed back towards the door. “Let’s get a move on. We have reservations.”
“Why are you holding my hand?” she asked, her voice changing from the soft tone she’d had a minute before. “Austin, let go!” she growled. That was more like it. I understood this Daisy.
“Nah, don’t think I will.” I marched us toward the door and didn’t stop until we were standing on the sidewalk. I nodded at the door. “Lock up. Like I said, we have reservations and they’re in a few minutes.”
Daisy’s eyes narrowed for a split second before she was looking away and towards the door. “Fine,” she said and jabbed her key in the door, locking it with a quick twist. “But I think you should really let go of my hand.” She pulled, digging her heels into the snowy sidewalk, and I almost rolled my eyes at the stubborn woman.
“It’s a lot easier to sell we’re married if we’re holding hands on the way to dinner at the fanciest place in town. This cannot look like a business meeting,” I told her.
I felt her relax slightly, and though she did it with a loud sigh she stopped pulling back her hand. “Why are you even helping me pull off Piper’s lie?” she asked. I glanced down to see her looking at me curiously, her brown eyes on me once again. I held her gaze in silence for a few steps before I smiled at her. Any other person would have looked away, but not Daisy. No, the woman stared right back at me while she waited for my answer.
“Why not?” I said with a shrug.
“It’s the money, isn’t it?” she asked. The Christmas lights bathed her in a wash of green, red, yellow and blue as we walked. The different hues played in her hair and my fingers itched to reach out and comb through her dark curls. She had great hair. I’d wanted to touch it since we were in elementary school, but the one time I tried, she’d socked me. That might have also been because I hadn’t just touched it, I’d pulled it.
I laughed but kept walking towards the restaurant that was now in sight. There was a crowd there already, people milling about on their way to dinner, or home after enjoying their meal. “Yeah, it’s the money,” I said. “What else would it be?” I was lying. I was doing it for her. For Daisy and her incessant need to break free of Clarity.
She’d never liked it here. We all knew it. I’d been surprised to see her back in town the summer after graduation, everyone in town had, but then it had come out that her father had cancer and it all made sense. She’d come home to help take care of him. It had always been just the two of them after her mother had cut out of town when she’d only been a little kid. I think it happened in the second or third grade but my memories were fuzzy in the way that memories were looking back on childhood. What I did know was that her mother had vanished without a thought to her daughter at Christmastime, but I’d only heard about it in whispers. Clarity wasn’t the kind of place where people talked about shitty parents out in the open, and if it bothered Daisy she’d never let on about it.
But the thing people did talk about plainly was Daisy’s wandering spirit. It’d surprised everyone in town when she’d opened Sweet Treats. Putting down roots of some kind was out of left field for her, but it had made sense to me. She’d needed it with her father’s illness. She’d made the best of her decision to stay after he’d gotten better. I understood why she did it. Anyone would need an escape if they were stuck in a place they’d always planned to leave.
I glanced down at her and sighed. Daisy deserved a chance at making her escape. A hundred grand would go a long way to do that. Besides, I was getting a cut off the top according to Piper. The purse fromFrontier/Citywas actually one hundred twenty five big ones, not one hundred even like we had agreed on giving Daisy. The reality show was going to be in town filming for the week. That meant that I had five days, the promise of a hundred grand, and a reality show forcing us together to make Daisy realize one very important thing.
I wanted her.
And it had fuck all to do with the money. But for now she could think what she needed to think to believe my part in all of this. I had a lot going against me: our long time feud, the fact that Christmas put her in a sour mood, and that all of Clarity knew she couldn’t stand me. Some men might give up in the face of such odds, but I liked to think I had more will than most, and I was willing to risk it for a shot with Daisy.
“I knew it,” she said and nodded at me. “And I get it. It’s a ton of cash, and we are splitting it 50/50 before you get any funny ideas, Finnigan, so don’t even dream of hustling me for a cent more. Got it?”
I snorted at her stern voice. This was more like it. “Yeah, got it, sweetheart.”
She sighed and then shook her head. “Sorry. I mean-I meant that I want to split it down the middle with you. Fair and square.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it going any other way. Come on,” I said nodding at the door to Carey’s. “Now get your game face on. People need to believe we’re married or they’re going to rat us out the first chance they get. We can hash this out at the table I reserved. It’s private, but we need to be a team, Daisy.”
She pulled a face at me, but then nodded, fixing a grim smile on her face. “Yeah, got it,” she said, jerking her chin towards the door. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
“That’s the Christmas can do spirit.” She scowled and I grinned at her. “Oh, come on, you can’t go around hating Christmas on television, Daisy. They want America’s Sweetheart, not a Scrooge. Think about the money,” I coached her and her smile warmed slightly, becoming something that halfway resembled happiness.
“Money, money, money. Money is good. I love money,” she whispered quietly to herself as she followed me into Carey’s. The restaurant was busy, normal for a Friday evening at seven pm, but the second we entered the place, it fell silent. Every eye in the place was on us with servers nearly tripping and dropping their serving trays and diners making no secret of turning around to look at us.
“They’re staring at us,” Daisy whispered through her fake smile. I cleared my throat and tightened my grip on her hand when she made to pull away from me.
I bent down, lips close to her ear. “Let them stare. We want them to stare,” I murmured, making sure to keep my voice low as I spoke. I glanced over her head to see the hostess staring at me with an open mouth and I flashed her a grin. “Lean into it, sweetheart.”
“But I just-”
“Lean into it, because I am.”
I felt her body go stiff, shoulders going tight, her fingers flexing on mine for a beat before I moved in front of her. She blinked slowly up at me, those big brown eyes I’d stared into for years looking at me now, forcing me to move forward and into her space.
“What do you mean?” she whispered.
I didn’t answer her, instead I moved in closer, my hands coming up to cup her face, tilting her head back before I slanted our mouths together in a kiss. I had five days to make this happen, and I wasn’t wasting a second of it.
