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I’m trying to step away from the workaholic that I was, but now that I’m running this shit show, it’s on me to fix it, and that’s going to take time. Time that I would rather spend with Addison with her bent over my desk. Or with her legs wrapped around me in bed.
Or even just watching an old movie.
Phillip Loughton
I’m sorry. A meeting ran over. Want to come up to my office now?
I hope that she’ll still take me up on it, but I know she can’t just wait around for my schedule to open up.
Addison Adelaide
Sorry. Eating with Victoria. Rain check?
Phillip Loughton
Definitely. Enjoy your lunch. I love you.
Addison Adelaide
Love you too.
Damn it. I sit down in my chair and take a deep breath. Why couldn’t this have all happened after Addison and I’d had a few months to get settled in together? I can already feel the tenuousness of everything. We’ve spent nearly every moment together for a month. Now, I barely see her.
I look at the scratches across the otherwise unmarred desk that Addison made the first morning I was back in my office. Deeper than I’d have believed she could make, they’re a constant reminder of why I’m doing all this.
Taking a deep breath, I steel my resolve. She’s worth it. The weight of a multi-billion-dollar company is on my shoulders in the middle of a collapsing industry. My fingers trace the scratches, feeling the indentions, the way my desk is forever changed because of her.
If I can’t find a way to get everything squared away, the cracks that are starting to show are just going to grow. And I cannot let that happen.
No matter what it takes.
Forty-Six
ADDISON
New employees were the answer. Angela sits at a table and watches the first two working to prep the bakery, terrified of the razor’s edge she’s walking. This bakery was her dream for so long, but now… Now, she’s not so sure. Is running Sweet Temptations really what she wants from life? Now she knows what else she was missing.
Donovan.
The man who stole her heart and then refused to give an inch when she got lost in expanding her bakery. It took Angela a long time to understand why he walked away. She thought he was being selfish, that he’d been afraid of a strong, independent woman. But that’s not it. He wants her to have her dreams, but he wants to come first. Just like before, when she’d gone to college for business and left him behind.
Her dreams had always come before him. Now she’d have to show him that things had changed. She wants him more than anything. Even more than being covered in flour and icing sugar. Even more than being able to claim that it was her hand that gave so many people joy when they ate her food.
She wanted to run Sweet Temptations to see people smile. Now, she has to show Donovan that his smiles were more important than anyone else’s.
That’s why she’d hired a manager to run Sweet Temptations. That’s why she hired two more employees. Now, she’ll run the business, but she won’t have to work fourteen hours a day, six days a week. But what if the employees who are giving her the chance to be with Donovan ruin her reputation? What if they don’t do as good of a job as her? That’s just a risk she has to take because some things are more important than business.
Her eyes turn to the door as a man walks in. She’s expecting the last employee the employment agency chose to come in for training. But this definitely isn’t him.
The man with dark hair and eyes that seem to burn into her smiles as he hands her a sheet of paper. She glances down, completely confused. Why is Donovan here? And why is he handing her his resume?
“I heard you appreciated employees showing up early,” he says with a grin.
“What?” Angela is lost. This doesn’t make any sense.
“I’m your newest employee. I tried to walk away, Angela. I really did. But I couldn’t stand losing you a second time. I still won’t let you put your dreams above me, but maybe if I’m part of those dreams, you can’t forget about me…”
I smileas my heart pitter-patters a little too fast. I never thought that I’d be giving myself goosebumps when I was writing my novel. That always sounded like something that only the truly great writers did.
