Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
There were always people who wanted to get close for purely selfish reasons. Then there was Nicole. We met through mutual friends at a time when, despite all the success, I was lonely. More so than normal. I let my guard down. I fell in love. When my face was ruined, and she decided she didn’t want to come and live out here or have anything to do with me at all, I wasn’t mad. Anger didn’t begin to cover the devastation I felt at that rejection. I haven’t had a single weak moment since then.
Until this mouthy, intelligent, gorgeous goth woman stepped into my life.
And fed me lines.
And lies.
And had more serotonin in just one single smile than my entire brain has packed in an entire lifetime.
She made me feel again.
So, no doubt, my face is doing all sorts of horrible things I can’t control. Do I even want to? Part of me wants Dulcie freaking Piecroft to see how deep her crazy scheme has cut me.
When she squirms, and her eyes glaze over with tears that probably aren’t fake, that part of me feels like a straight-up asshole.
“I’m so sorry, Luca. I know that doesn’t make anything better, but I am. The way my dad described you… it made me not like you. I could see how much he was hurting and has been hurting all these years. I thought you didn’t care. I pictured you as quite heartless. But I was wrong.”
“You went to such great lengths to lie. For what reason?”
“I needed you to hear me out. I needed to get in here and let you get to know me. There’s no way you would have just let me in, met with me, and agreed to go halfway across the country to see my dad just out of the blue. You would never have even listened to me or let me past the front gates.”
I cross my arms. “You don’t know that.”
She mirrors my pose, but with her arms wrapped tight around herself. “I couldn’t take the chance. This is my dad’s last hope. I would never have done anything like this, but I was desperate. By last hope, I mean truly last hope.” She swallows thickly, which does not make my throat get tight too. “If he loses the bakery, it’s going to crush him.”
“Explain to me why he thinks I can help with any of that.” It’s money. It’s always, always money. “If he needs financing—”
“It’s not money.” Her eyes practically cross. “I… well, it is, but we don’t need that from you. It’s exactly what I said.” She slashes her hand through the air dramatically. “He believes the pie magic died when you left.”
“What?”
She leaps up and starts pacing. Watching her manic energy, I want to do something to stop her and reassure her. I’m the one who was lied to and wronged in this horrendous charade, so why do I feel bad?
“People are losing faith in us. We haven’t won a pie competition in so long, and before that, we were unbeatable.”
“Your family was selling pies long before I was ever around. I was just a blip on the radar. The smallest, most infinitesimal flash of nothing at all.”
She shakes her head, paces a few feet away, and turns back, gesturing wildly with her hands. “People just aren’t buying from the bakery like they used to. I have a business degree, and I tried to talk to my dad about marketing and a new website, about advertising and all of it, but all he wants to believe in is the curse.”
I don’t want to talk about curses. They aren’t real. I might use that word, and other people might too, but it’s just what people use in place of actions.
Dulcie apparently doesn’t need me to tell her that. “Really, he just needs to get past this idea of him not being capable. He’s lost his heart and soul.” She thumps her chest then flattens her hand, holding the spot right above her heart like it aches.
I know all about that.
I hate that I’m going soft when I should be kicking this woman out of my house and probably serving her with some kind of lawsuit. It does no one any good, least of all me, to turn into a giant marshmallow.
I don’t even like marshmallows.
But marshmallow peanut butter cake is quite delicious, though I’ll deny that until my dying breath.
I clear my throat, so tempted to rub the spot in my own chest where it hurts. “I stole that. The magic.” To prove I can be a hardened asshole, I wave my fingers like I’m going to perform a spell, but that just causes a wave of acid to splash up the back of my throat. “That’s what you thought.”
“I don’t think you stole it,” she mumbles, hanging her head.