Page 21 of Emma and the Grumpy Baker

Grady almost caught himself with a face full of flour for asking such ridiculous questions, though. How Liam and my history had anything to do with my bakery or had any relevance to social media content was beyond me. It was embarrassing, because I felt my face heat up when he asked if we would ever get back together. Anne had even looked at me in alarm with that question, because she knew how I felt.

Conflicted.

But ultimately, what I’d said was the entire truth. I couldn’t be with the guy who was my business rival. No matter how much I still wanted him.

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The next day, Liam showed up again to help me finish orders. He took charge of the cinnamon rolls after Anne had cut them, and he did it exactly the way that I told him. Grady was still here, filming anything and everything he could for content. I wasn’t even sure what he’d posted today, because I didn’t have time to check.

I worked on the macarons, which sold more than anything else on my website. Since they were sold in six-packs, I had a lot of work to do. Over eighteen hundred of them had been ordered, and I had no clue how I was going to complete that many since I’d been unable to start on them yesterday.

Anne moved on to making the icing for the cinnamon rolls, and then began packaging the icing in small plastic bags, which Grady helped her heat seal. He said it was the only thing he could be helpful for since he would mess everything else up.

We were all working like a well-oiled machine. A perfect team.

“How are the macs coming?” Liam asked from where he was pulling two trays of cinnamon rolls out of the oven. He immediately placed them on the cooling rack. I looked at his station and saw that he was finished with all of the cinnamon rolls, meaning the ovens could be completely dedicated to macarons.

“One hundred down. Seventeen hundred to go.” I thought about crying because my statement was too accurate. I didn’t know how I would manage to finish all of these.

“What can I do to help?” He asked, coming up next to me. His arm brushed my shoulder.

“She trusts no one with the macarons, Liam. Don’t even try,” Anne yelled over the sound of the sealer. Liam chuckled, and I could feel his hot breath on my ear. A shiver zipped down my spine.

“Sorry, I’m just very picky about them.” I turned slightly to look at him. “Plus, I’m the one who taught you how to bake. So unless you’ve had another coach since then, I know you don’t know how to make macarons.”

He chuckled. “You’d be correct. But I’m sure there’s something I can do to help?”

“Can you go get us lunch?” I asked, my stomach grumbling. I wanted nothing more than a greasy hamburger to get me through the next few hours. I pushed past him to get my credit card out of my purse, which was hanging on a rack by the back door. I pulled the little pink card out and offered it to him. “Just pay for all of it with this.”

He shook his head and pushed the card away. “I’ll pay for it. What do you want?”

“No, I’ll pay for it, really. It’s the least I can do.” I shoved the card back at him, hitting him in the chest with it. He stepped closer, trapping my hand against his chest with his own hand.

“Emma, I’m paying for it,” He said lowly, prying the card out of my hand. He leaned forward and placed his free hand against the wall behind me, and I instinctively took a step back. Our faces were close, and he leaned in even more. “Just tell me what you want, and I’ll get it.”

I don’t know why I found this so sexy, but my breathing was becoming short and my heartbeats were erratic. My face was hot and I knew it was bright red, but how could I not when the one man I’d ever loved, who also looked like a movie star, was standing over me like that? And his arm was leaning on the wall behind me? It was literally like what happened in the movies.

“A cheeseburger.” I tried to say it calmly, but it came out shaky and breathy. Not smooth.

He nodded and backed away. “Anne? Grady?”

I looked past him to see both of them staring at us, and Grady’s camera pointed in our direction. I would have to talk to Grady about what should and should not be considered content.

They told Liam what they wanted, and then he left, which was perfect, because it gave me time to cool off.

An hour later, I had five trays of macarons piped out and drying, almost ready to go into the oven. Liam finally returned and we all ate in what could only be described as an awkward silence. Anne kept looking between me and Liam, and I did everything I could to not look at Liam. Grady and Liam just had small conversations about sporting goods, which apparently Grady was super into.

Their friendship had come a long way already.

As soon as I finished my burger, I ran back to the kitchen like a coward and got to work on the remaining macarons, which were a ton.

After about thirty minutes, Grady called me over to where he was setting up the camera, which was connected to his computer.

“So, we’re going to broadcast live. It’s really good for your growth, and I bet a lot of your followers will want to watch. So if you could, just stand there and then tell the audience what’s been going on today. Then we’ll package orders and I’ll move the camera around to show some different things happening.”

Already, Anne and Liam had set to work boxing up the cookies that were completely cooled down. Grady gave me a few more instructions and then he was turning on the live across three different platforms.

“Hey everyone!” I said with a grin to the camera. Now that Grady had forced me into making so many videos, I felt better about talking to an inanimate object. “Emma here, and we just wanted to give you an inside look into what’s going on as we get everyone’s orders ready to ship out! You all blew me away and sold out my whole website in less than an hour, and I couldn’t be more grateful! Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me in any way during this journey.” I motioned behind me. “Liam and Anne are here packaging cookies in these adorable boxes withThe Pink Bakerylogo on them. They are seriously the cutest, and I have Grady to thank for that. You all don’t know who Grady is because he’s the man behind the camera, but please show some love for him!”

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