Page 25 of Emma and the Grumpy Baker

I followed suit, opening mine and nearly dropping it as soon as I did.

On the inside of the menu, above the drink selection, were the words, “Congrats, Emma!”

I bit my tongue to keep myself from saying anything yet. How had he managed to get them to custom-print the menu? When did he make this reservation?

Slowly, I put the menu down. Liam continued looking at his, but I just stared at him until he finally noticed. His brows raised.

“You didn’t have to do all of this,” I said very quietly, still amazed. “But thank you.”

His lips turned up in a beautiful smile, and I thought about putting my menu in front of his face so that no one else could see it. I didn’t want anyone else seeing his gorgeous smile ever again because then an equally gorgeous person would snatch him up.

“Of course, Emma.” His words made it seem so simple. That there was no other option but for him to treat me this way.

I chewed on my lip to hide my huge grin, and picked my menu back up. There were so many options and I just couldn’t even understand what half of them were.

My phone buzzed and I ignored it, trying to decipher things on the menu. Also, this was definitely not the type of restaurant you would get your phone out at, nor was it the time. I wouldn’t dare get it out while Liam had me here unless it was an emergency.

But my phone kept buzzing. Incessantly. And it was loud enough that Liam looked up at me.

“You might want to answer that.” He smirked at me as he nodded to my bag.

I quickly pulled it out to look at what was going on, seeing that it was the group chat between me and my sisters. We rarely used it anymore, so I opened it just to make sure it wasn’t something urgent.

Scarlett:EMMA! You’re on BuzzFeed!

There was a screenshot attached, showing an article with the heading: “Small Bakery in Florida Becomes an Overnight Sensation”. A picture of the front of my bakery sat under the title.

Isabella:OMG! Congrats Em!!

Scarlett:Emma! Are you seeing this!! Check it out!

Isabella:I don’t care what you’re doing right now! You have to go read this!

Scarlett:Emma! Open your phone! Tell us you’ve seen it, or we’re just going to continue freaking out!

Isabella:You better not be sleeping!

Scarlett:Should we call her?

Isabella:Maybe she’s reading it. EMMA!

Scarlett:EMMA!

My eyes were wide and I nearly started crying. How was it possible that things just kept getting better for me?

“What’s wrong?” Liam asked, seeing my change of facial expression. I opened the screenshot and gave him my phone.

“Emma! This is amazing!” He was about to say more, but our waitress approached and asked us for our drink order.

“We’ll have your best red wine, thank you.” Liam smiled at her and she nodded before walking away.

I wanted to protest, knowing that the bottle of wine was about to cost a fortune, but Liam smirked at me with a warning in his eyes. So I just smiled at him gratefully.

“Well, let’s read the article!” Liam handed me my phone back, and I just put it in my purse.

“We can do that later. I just want to enjoy this right now.” I couldn’t help the blush that I guess, perpetually stayed on my face now. I couldn’t believe I said something that corny, but it was true.

Liam had gone through all of this trouble and effort, and I could care less about the article, even if it was a huge deal. Becausethis, this date or whatever it was, was a huge deal too.

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