“You still think you’re going to win?”
“I know I’m going to win. I always get what I want, Cam. And right now, I want only two things.”
“What’s that?”
“That bakery. And you.” He refills both our wineglasses and raises his for another toast.
His confidence is something I normally would find attractive, and I try to give myself over to it. Across the table is a gorgeous man, an intelligent and driven man who wants to fall in love with me. I need to snap the fuck out of it and play the game so I can go home.
I raise my own glass. “To getting what we want.”
—
Luckily, my neighbor’s porch isempty when Noah walks me to my front door at the end of our date. This is the point when I would normally invite him in for a glass of wine and a fuck fest, but I need this relationship to beabout more than just sex. I tell myself that feeling’s not relief coursing through me. Because if I let myself really think about it, I’m not all that sure I actuallywantto have sex with Noah. Which is fine. It’s only the first date. Surely the spark will grow.
I spin around in front of the door, making it clear that no man, no matter how hot and confident and on paper perfect, is going to be entering tonight. “I had a nice time tonight. Thank you for dinner.” Platitudes that I mean, but platitudes nonetheless.
Noah gives me a wolfish smile and leans down, pressing a quick kiss to my cheek. He smells like fancy cologne, and the scent sticks in my throat. “When can I see you again?”
It’s barely a question, but I know how I have to answer. “When do you want to see me again?”
“Is tomorrow too soon?”
I chuckle, impressed with his brazenness despite myself. “Maybe. How about this weekend?”
“Saturday night it is.” He squeezes my hand and heads down my front path, walking backward as if he can’t tear his eyes away from me. “Good night, Cam.”
“Good night.”
I open my front door, slipping in quickly before I’m tempted to let my eyes drift next door.
16
“Soooooo, how was your date?” Emma squeals basically the second I enter the bakery doors the following morning.
“You do remember the man who took me on said date is trying to destroy your entire livelihood, right?” I hang my coat—the weather has turned full fall and the mornings are chilly—on the rack near the back door and slip an apron over my head.
Our routine is well oiled at this point and, as I take my place at Emma’s side, we move with practiced motions around the kitchen, prepping the day’s muffins and breakfast pastries.
Emma nudges me with her hip, her hands covered in flour. “If Noah turns out to be your true love, I promise I won’t hold the destruction of my life’s dreams against him. Besides, if he is your true love, maybe you can convince him to drop the whole thing.”
I grimace. “I wouldn’t count on that, Em.”
“The true-love part or the him-dropping-it part?”
“Either.”
Emma’s head tilts to the side as she cracks a pile of eggs into a mixing bowl with one hand. “Did you write him off already?”
I sigh, taking the bowl and moving it into place on the stand mixer, turning the machine to low. “No, I haven’t written him off.”
“But?”
“But I don’t know if he’s the one.” I’m fairly certain he’s not the one, which is not really a thing I believe in anyway, but that’s a conversation I don’t think I want to have with Emma, who clearly not only believes in the one, but has found hers, even if neither of them will admit it.
“Well, are you going to go out with him again?”
“Yeah.” I wait for a spark of excitement at the thought of a second date with a hot, successful man, but it doesn’t come.
