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"I tried, but now I have no choice, Tia. Old Jen and Jeff gave me notice. They're taking the money being offered to them. So is Rebecca. And Arnold. Mikey. Eliza and Steve. Everyone just gave me notice. Except you, my dear.

"They said they couldn't turn down the money, which is now double what they were initially offered to relocate their stores. If I can't collect rent, Tia, I'll have no income. Without income, how can I live?"

I take a deep, sobering breath that does nothing to quell the fury running through my veins. Two months ago, some big-deal company called Apex Industries came sniffing around Darling Rose. Now they want to dig up the entire town I've started to call home, for some valuable resource on which the town was built.

Everyone else decided they would only sell up if Mr. Almaty, a respected pioneer of Darling Rose, sold out. And now Mr. Almaty was going to sell out.

No. No. No.

This can't be happening.

Well, not over my baked body is it actually going to happen.

Chapter Two

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Tia

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"That's a very dangerous look you have on your face right there, Tia Langley."

"Oh, not dangerous at all," I tell Kamilia as she saunters into the kitchen at the back of the bakery, just as I slide a tray of cupcakes into the oven.

"But if you mean dangerously sweet, then yes. I plan to go right to the top of Apex Industries—no middlemen for me—and fight him or her with sugar. And I think if my Classic Billionaire Cupcakes work on my father and all his many billionaire friends and associates, they'll definitely work on any billionaire."

Suffice to say my father isn’t a billionaire anymore. He lost most all his money in bad trades and now just has the Montgomery House, two luxury cars and a modest stipend his mother left him.

Yes, the fluffy coffee cake, the middle filled with espresso cream, then topped with a robust buttercream and generously sprinkled with a combination of coffee and cocoa, and delicately decorated with slivers of gold leaf, will do the trick.

I'm going to nicely ask them to please leave Darling Rose alone, seal the deal with my cupcakes, and walk away the victor.

"You got an appointment? Hell yeah," Kamilia says, punching the air.

"No," I say, annoyed. "I did not get an appointment." Not because I didn't try. I tried the whole freaking morning to get to see the CEO of Apex Industries, only to be told by the receptionist that she'd slot me in on Friday next year. "Which means I now just have to show up and demand to be seen, and armed with those babies over there," I point to the oven, "they'll welcome me in with open arms."

"Umm... I don't know about your Billionaire Coffee Cupcakes working this time, Tia," Kamilia says, looking at her phone.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean they might work on billionaires over sixty, and that has been your audience for these cupcakes before, but I don't know about these guys. Also, my gosh, I think my ovaries just applauded my eyesight."

"What are you talking about?" I say, wiping my hand on a dishtowel. Kamilia hands me her phone, then adds, "Apex Industries has three CEOs, and they are fucking hot and only in their thirties, if you ask me."

Holy crap. Is this for real? My lips part in shock and awe as my gaze travels over the images, placed side by side, of three men.

They are impossibly handsome, but not in a good, wholesome, traditional way. No, these are men, each with dark, piercing eyes, thickly fringed eyelashes, angular jaws, and structured facial planes that emitted a kind of dangerous male beauty that made my heart thud so heavily in my chest, my knees threatened to give in.

Which in turn made my nipples peak and the sudden ache between my legs intensify. Okay, but what was happening to me? I've never experienced this kind of visceral reaction to mere pictures of men before. But I catch myself just in time before I dive headfirst into the freezer to cool off.

Clearly, they're just cover models, the faces of Apex Industries, while the real CEOs look like my father, because, well, sexy even sells in corporate. They can't be real, obviously.

I order my nipples to back down, and I press my legs together hard to squash the fluttering in the center of my thighs. Then, with a heavy frown on my face, I use Kamilia's phone and scroll through for more articles.

Well, double crap. It's really them. They are truly the owners of Apex Industries: Brandon Wright, Joel Bates, and Rex Stevens.

"Crap," I say out loud.