Page 51 of All Mine

“I bake.”

I laughed. “Quite the distinction you got there.”

“It’s not like I have anywhere to cook. The kitchen in my apartment is like one from this hotel. And cooking for one kinda sucks.”

“That’s not an apartment. It’s an attic room. You need a proper place to live.”

“But it’s convenient. I literally get to sleep until the last possible second.”

“You could hire someone to come in and start the baking process for you.”

“Would you hire someone to start the plans for one of your new buildings?”

“Maybe if I had to start them at three in the morning, I would.”

“The business is my baby,” she said, finally relaxing back onto the sofa at my side. “No one will work as hard for it as I do.”

“I get that, but I’m sure you can find a novice baker looking for experience to help.”

“Relying on others is not my strong suit.” Lauren let go of my hand and patted my knee, but she didn’t move away from me.

“You know relinquishing some control would help free up your life.”

Lauren scoffed. “Go over there, look in the mirror, and say that again.”

“But, I only have one client at a time, not hundreds a day.”

“You’re still a one-man show.”

“I have Heidi for all the clerical stuff and some research.”

“Who?”

“My virtual assistant.”

“Is this a person or a computer?”

“She’s an actual person, though I’ve never met her in real life… so she could be a realistic-sounding computer. I never thought to ask.”

Lauren’s lips turned up at the corner, and the urge to press my lips to them rose. Kissing her was an intoxicating experience that I needed again.

“Be careful. Your virtual assistant could be an AI that goes rogue and takes over the world.”

I chuckle, reaching over and squeezing her knee.

“What are you doing, Cam?” she asked in a robotic voice.

“I don’t think the AI would call me Cam.”

“Oh, it knows you hate it, so that’s why it does it.”

“We have an AI that’s irritating on purpose?” I shift in my seat, facing her.

“Well, see, it’s been learning from you.” She laughed, a smile lighting up her face, all traces of tension gone. “Makes sense.”

“Is that so?” I whispered in her ear, swiping her hair to the side, nipped her earlobe, and grazed my lips across the spot behind her ear.

“Yes,” Lauren breathed as I pressed a kiss to her neck.

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