Page 17 of Wrapped with a Beau

He slides her coffee cup across the kitchen island in a silent invitation to join him. “Who said that?”

“My ex. The guy I mentioned last night.” She keeps it short. The less said about Bentley, the better.

Ves’s lips quirk. “Right. The one you were showing off to about scoring my house to film your movie.”

“I wasn’t—” She starts to contest, then sighs. “Okay, fine, yes. I talked a big game and now I’m in a jam. And not of the delicious, goes-great-on-toast variety, but the oh-my-god-I’m-so-fired sort.”

The cup stops halfway to Ves’s mouth. “Oh, I see. This is a guilt-trip breakfast.” He lofts one dark brow in a silent Busted.

“Don’t give me that knowing look.” She crosses her arms. “I categorically deny trying to manipulate you with spiced crumb cake, lemon loaf, blueberry streusel muffins, and the almighty bebinca.”

His eyes light up, and for a second, he looks so elated and boyish that Elisha’s heart takes an involuntary tumble into her tummy. Has a smile ever been so transformative in the history of ever?

“The Old Stoat, the Chocolate Mouse... is every local business in this town named after a rodent?” he asks, sounding appalled.

“Technically, a stoat is a weasel,” she corrects absently, more than a little distracted about where his smile went and how she can get it back. “The emporium has been in my dad’s family for generations. Like, all the way back to the founding of the town. We’re sort of an unofficial landmark.”

He taps at the box where Elisha’s neat, rounded, all-caps handwriting identifies the bebinca. “I’ve never heard of this.”

“Something else we’re known for. Open it,” she says. “See those delicate layers? The lighter one is cake sweetened with coconut milk and the brown one is caramel. My mom grew up eating this during Christmastime in Goa, but it’s pretty popular here year-round.”

Ves turns to open a cabinet, returning with two of Maeve’s best china plates and matching forks.

The gold-rimmed buttercup-patterned china was a family heirloom passed from mother to daughter; Maeve tucked it away for safekeeping 364 days of the year, except for the anniversary of her mother’s passing, when she carefully removed the fine layer of dust. Elisha has never actually seen it in use before. She opens her mouth in faint horror before she realizes it doesn’t matter anymore. The house, like everything in it, is Ves’s now.

“Thanks,” she says instead, as he hands her a plate.

Ves studies the bebinca. “It seems a bit sacrilegious to cut into this after all that effort.”

“Mhm.” She grins. “Wait until the first bite hits your taste buds, though. Now that is an unholy experience.”

His lips twitch. “I hope you’re not all talk.”

“Guess you’ll have to find out.”

He makes the first cut and brings the fork to his mouth. When his lips close around the morsel, she leans in eagerly. “Well?”

Ves chews slowly, drawing her eye to the line of his jaw before she snaps out of it. He looks at her with those baby blues, which sends a whisper of a shiver down her spine. What’s going through his head? And why does she care so much? Agonizing seconds tick by before he says, “Heaven on earth.”

The tension in her shoulders relaxes. His answer matters more than she thought it would. “Really?”

“Would I lie to you?” He pauses before adding reproachfully, “You might come at me with a candy cane again.”

“You’re not letting that go anytime soon, are you?” Elisha laughs with a trace of embarrassment. Despite it being such a feeble weapon, she’d certainly managed to do some damage—both to her dignity and her own knee. “Keep it if it makes you feel safer.”

He scoffs. “Like I don’t see the other dozen on your driveway.”

“You’re really not a morning person, are you?”

He takes a sip of his gingerbread latte. “Not in the slightest. Although the restorative powers of this drink are doing wonders.”

“Feel free to come by the Chocolate Mouse if you get a craving.” She casts a dubious eye over the house. “Although I’m not sure there’s enough sugar in the world to power you through cleaning this mess up.”

He pops another piece of bebinca. “I think it calls more for rolling up sleeves and getting right down to it than it does for sugar. Just need to give it my all.”

Elisha blinks. The visual imagery of him rolling up his sleeves is...

She clears her throat and pretends to take another sip of her latte. Unfortunately, she gulps down rather more than she’d intended. She sputters and coughs, waving off his concerned eyes and wordless gesture to bring her water.

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