Sugared (Misfit Brides #4) Read online

  She shuttered those thoughts.

  Arthur had always been nice to Kimmie, and his friendship with General Mom had mellowed her this last year, though more outside the bakery than inside it. Their relationship had gotten rocky around Valentine’s Day, but they’d made up. Still, Kimmie hadn’t expected retirement and marriage.

  She did appreciate the prospect of stepsisters, though. Nat and Lindsey, Arthur’s daughters, had been two of her best friends for a long time. “Wow. Huh. That’s—congratulations, Mom.”

  “Too soon for congratulations, Kimberly. I need to see to the future of Heaven’s Bakery first.” She dusted her hands. “Which brings us back to your problem. What do you intend to do next to woo your birthright out of Mr. Kincaid’s claws?”

  Obviously hiding and eating coconut ice cream wasn’t the answer General Mom wanted. “Birthday cupcakes. And… a surprise.” It was such a surprise, Kimmie didn’t even know what it was yet.

  “Excellent,” General Mom said. “Do feel free to use bakery resources as necessary.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Don’t thank me, Kimberly. Reclaim Heaven’s Bakery, and you can thank yourself.”

  * * *

  Kimmie had a quick dinner of takeout from Wok’n’Roll while she paused at home to feed her cats. She checked her fortune cookie—Ignore your destiny at your own peril. Doom awaits those who wait on others for their fortunes.—and headed out.

  Seducing Josh wasn’t something she could plan on her own, nor did she want her mother’s suggestions. She had ideas—she did live in one of the most romantic towns in the world, and she had read her fair share of romance novels—but she needed a boost in confidence.

  Or possibly someone to impersonate her for her next attempt at seduction.

  The door swung shut behind her at Suckers, her very favorite bar, and she felt her shoulders relax, her belly settle, and her coconut receptors perk up. Suckers not only had the coolest purple track lighting and silver semicircle bar, they also served the best coconut cream pie on the planet.

  “Hey, Kimmie.” Natalie waved from a nearby booth. She scooted closer to the wall and patted the red cushion. “Sit. Is Josh coming?”

  “And does he have a brother?” Pepper Blue said across the table. She was Nat’s sister-in-law and co-owner at Bliss Bridal Boutique, the dress shop on The Aisle that shared a wall with Heaven’s Bakery. “One who wants to get married? To someone like me?”

  “Stop,” Nat said to her. “First of all, you can do so much better. And second of all, he’s still only engaged. Not married yet.”

  Kimmie sank into the booth next to Nat. “Oh, another one?” she said. Poor Pepper. Every guy she’d ever dated—apparently including her latest ex-boyfriend—had gone on to marry the next girl he dated after Pepper.

  Pepper tipped her head back and downed her drink. She slammed the short glass on the table, and the ice clinked. “Another one. And Max Gregory’s mother stopped in today. She asked me to ask Max out because she wants grandbabies.”

  “You should at least consider it,” Nat said. “Max has his own curse. You two get together, one of you is bound to break the streak.”

  Kimmie nodded. “That Golden Bouquet hex is serious business. I don’t know who cursed you, but I’ll bet you break yours before Max breaks his.”

  “Mail-order grooms would have to be a thing for that to work.” Pepper’s tone was sarcastic, but her cheeks went a delicate pink.

  Kimmie had always wanted to blush like that. She wouldn’t have minded having Pepper’s thick chestnut hair and pretty green eyes either. But the curse—Pepper could keep that.

  “You are not buying a groom. End of discussion.” Nat rattled the ice in her soda glass, making her wedding ring sparkle under the lights. She nudged Kimmie. “Is your mother having a coronary over you dating a mass-produced-snack-cake guy?”

  Natalie was one of two people in Bliss who knew exactly who Josh was. She had to suspect Kimmie’s relationship with him wasn’t real, but if she was playing along, then she probably hadn’t told Pepper the secret.

  “My mother’s handling it… okay,” Kimmie said. She paused to ask the waitress for a half-strength Kimmie colada—piña colada mix with orange juice and a shot of grenadine. Extra coconut on bad nights, rum on even worse nights. But she needed her wits tonight. “Actually, can I ask you guys something? I need advice.”

  “On dealing with your mother?” Nat tucked her short brown hair behind her ear.

  “Ask Arthur to run interference,” Pepper said. “She’d do anything for him.”

  “Can we go one day without mention of something that makes me want to throw up?” Nat said.

  Pepper grinned. “No.” Her chunky green earrings danced when she turned to Kimmie. “Threaten to quit. She knows what she has in you.”

  Her mother also knew Kimmie would never quit Heaven’s Bakery. Where else would she go? Bliss was home, and Heaven’s Bakery was the best. “Actually, it’s about you-know-who—I mean, Josh.”

  “Sin-on-a-stick Josh?” Pepper said.

  “Your boyfriend Josh?” Nat added with a cheeky glint.

  “Yeah.” Kimmie swallowed the nauseating flavor of deceit. “My Joshanova. My Josh Juan. My Snack Cake Romeo. That guy.”

  “Oh, you have it bad,” Pepper said. “If he had a brother, I’d totally buy me one of those.”

  Nat coughed. “He had better be treating you right. I will personally kick the ass of any man who dares offer you anything less than the best.”

  “We’re in the getting-to-know-you stage of our relationship,” Kimmie said. “But his birthday is in two days, and I don’t know what to get him. I’ve never, erm, really done birthdays with, erm, boyfriends before.”

  “Give him the trench coat,” Pepper said.

  Nat snorted her soda. “A little warning next time?”

  Something dirty and wrong tickled Kimmie’s brain. “A trench coat?” Surely Pepper didn’t mean what Kimmie thought she meant. Hopefully Pepper didn’t mean what Kimmie thought she meant. “His family’s rich, you know. He can afford lots of trench coats.”

  Pepper giggled.

  Nat grabbed Pepper’s glass. “No more whiskey for you. Kimmie, how long exactly have you been, ah, dating?”

  “A little while.” The lie flew out of her mouth as if it had a mind of its own, even though Nat had to know better. And while Nat was certainly not Kimmie’s mother, she did have an adorable five-year-old boy, which meant she’d also mastered her you are lying to me and I know it expression.

  “The trench coat is totally the way to go,” Pepper said. Mischief twinkled in her eyes. “It’s a great early-relationship surprise.”

  “What’s the trench coat?” Kimmie said again.

  “When you show up at his house. In a trench coat.”

  “Why a trench coat?”

  Pepper fiddled with her necklace and wiggled her dark brows at Kimmie. “Because it’s big enough to hide the nothing underneath part.”

  Heat rose from Kimmie’s neck into her cheeks, and there went that image again of tassels spinning from her nipples while Josh turned bedroom eyes on her.

  Not that there was any chance of that happening on this earth. Or on Mars. Or any other planets, universes, or unidentified trans-dimensional portals.

  He might’ve publicly claimed her, but he hadn’t called, he hadn’t emailed, and he certainly hadn’t suggested he wanted to do anything in private with her.

  The waitress slid past and left a pink-tinged drink in a frou-frou cup on the table for Kimmie, an amused grin playing on her lips.

  “No trench coat. Just be yourself,” Nat said. “You are adorable and unique and irresistible, and you don’t have to do anything beyond being you to make people love you. And if that’s not enough for him, screw him.”

  “Good point,” Pepper said. “Screwing him is a great option for a birthday surprise. I haven’t met a man yet who wouldn’t have been satisfied with birthday sex. If you’re a
t the having-sex stage. How long did you say you’ve been dating him?”

  There was a possibility Kimmie should’ve considered asking different friends for advice. Or at least sober friends. All of whom didn’t know that Josh was secretly Kimmie’s boss too. “I don’t want to do something any old girl could’ve already done for him,” Kimmie said. “I was hoping for something unique.”

  Pepper’s lips parted. Nat’s eyes bulged.

  “What?” Kimmie said.

  “Kimmie, most women don’t want to think about their boyfriends getting sex from other women,” Nat murmured.

  Kimmie’s cheeks went so hot, they were in danger of spontaneously combusting. “I know he’s slept with women before. We all have histories. I just need to be… best.”

  “I could date him for you first,” Pepper said. “The movies or dinner or a river cruise or something. I don’t think I have to sleep with him for it to count. I wouldn’t do it for Max’s mom, but for you, Kimmie, I would totally take one for the team.”

  Kimmie’s drink suddenly looked as appetizing as boiled tar. Her dinner rolled in her stomach. There went Kimmie’s pathetic crush, rising up like a giant Jell-O mold of jealousy.

  Pepper was gorgeous and smart and stylish and funny. She wasn’t a twig, but she was more Josh’s type than Kimmie was. “Thanks, but I don’t want to marry him.”

  “Then why are you dating him?” Pepper said.

  Kimmie gulped.

  Josh was so not the marrying type. “Right now,” she said. “Erm, that is, I might want to marry him some day, but right now, we’re in the getting-to-know-you phase of our business. Relationship. Our relationship. It’s way too soon to be thinking… you know.”

  Nat sucked her lips in, but Kimmie still saw the smile lurking in her expression.

  “That’s good,” Pepper said. “Slow is good.”

  Slow wasn’t good. She needed to get rid of Josh, and she needed to get rid of him fast. “I need to get his birthday right. I screw these things up all the time, and how often does a girl get a chance to impress a guy who’s normally out of her league?”

  Pepper squinted at Kimmie, then at Nat.

  “It’s really, really important,” Kimmie whispered.

  Nat leaned her forearms on the table. “He’s a Cubs fan, right? Are they playing in Chicago anytime soon? Could you get him tickets?”

  Pepper raised her hand. “Oh, I know! You could make a donation to his favorite charity. We could have an old-fashioned bake sale at the end of The Aisle to raise money. You know the whole town would rally behind you doing practically anything. Or you could make him a cake. A special cake. Seriously, Kimmie, baking is your superpower. Use it on him, and he’ll do anything for you. He does like your baking, doesn’t he?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Kimmie muttered.

  “You could do all of it. With a trench coat.” Pepper grinned. “I’ve got one you could borrow. Although, it might have my curse cooties on it.”

  “Enough with the trench coat,” Nat said. “A little black dress would work as well. Plus, she could wear it again somewhere else. Unlike the trench coat. And your crazy curse cooties.”

  “You can totally use a trench coat again. Besides, it never hurts to be memorable.”

  “Memorable would be showing up at his office in a pink bunny costume and singing him ‘Tiny Bubbles’ while I rubbed fresh buttercream on his chest,” Kimmie said.

  Her friends paused.

  “Wait, why do you need our help again?” Nat said with a wink. “You have memorable down pat.”

  “But I need to be right.” She needed to win. Against a man who could stand up to her mother. And who wasn’t afraid to own being with her in public.

  Kimmie shivered. Someone willing to own her in public was half of what she wanted from a knight in shining armor. But Josh?

  Her eyes could do all the swooning they wanted, but her heart knew there was only pain in the future. Pain, and the wounded pride of forever having to share Heaven’s Bakery.

  Until he decided he wanted it all.

  General Mom was right. There was no way they could win if he decided he wanted the bakery. He had the money and the resources to squash them if he decided to sue over any aspect of how their business was run.

  “Relationships have a lot of give and take,” Nat said pointedly. “Are you sure it’s worth what you put in?”

  Nope. Not at all. And this was where Kimmie wouldn’t have minded one of them stepping in and offering to do her dirty work for her. “I won’t know if I don’t try, will I?”

  “And you’re sure you want to try with him?” Nat pressed.

  As if she had a choice. “I know I’m not his usual type, but—”

  “Oh, honey,” Pepper said, “you got that right. You’re a hundred times better than his usual type. And I’ll bet he doesn’t have a clue yet how much better you are.”

  Nat studied Kimmie for a minute. “Is your mother up to what I think she’s up to?” she murmured.

  Pepper leaned toward them. “What?” she said.

  “Probably,” Kimmie whispered to Nat. “But if it works, she might retire.”

  “Wait, what?” Pepper said.

  Nat’s frown morphed into a sly grin. “Oh, I just had a thought.” she said. “And trust me, Kimmie, this is going to be better than any birthday present.”

  She leaned closer to Kimmie. Pepper stretched as far as she could over the table.

  And two hours, a slice of coconut cream pie, and three Kimmie coladas later, Kimmie almost believed in herself as much as her friends did.

  4

  You’ll Never Believe The Surprise Chicago’s Sexiest Snack Cake Heir Got For His Birthday! —Greta’s Gossip, Chicago Daily Sun

  “Happy birthday, sweetheart!”

  Josh squinted through a headache at his parents in his doorway. He’d been head-down studying sales figures, focus group survey results, and the cupcakes Aiden had snuck into Josh’s office this morning, and he hadn’t realized how late it was getting.

  His mom sailed into his condo, hands full of presents, her dark hair tucked up in a fancy do. “So sweet of you to spend it with us.” She marched past him with an innocent but knowing smile—the I heard about your girlfriend, but I won’t press you until you’re ready to talk smile.

  His squint turned to a wince.

  Yet another item on the pile of things he didn’t want to contemplate. Despite being a not-bad chef, Aiden hadn’t simply failed at replicating Kimmie’s cupcakes.

  He’d bombed it.

  Aiden was as moody as a girl about it too. He’d come into Josh’s office this morning and suggested that he try cupcakes from a big food blogger or two and investigate what it would take to get one to sign on for a line of gourmet snack cakes.

  Josh believed in contingency plans for contingency plans, so he’d told Aiden to have fun baking, and if he could make a decent cupcake, Josh would talk to Dad about a new line.

  But not tonight. Because tonight he had to block his parents from seeing the cake on the kitchen table when they went past on their way to his living room.

  “Honey, you don’t look well.” Mom deposited the stack of presents on the black lacquered buffet in the hallway, then took his face in her hands and inspected him. “Dad said you left the office early. Oh, dear. Are you sick?”

  “Give the boy breathing room, Esme.” Dad slapped Josh on the back. “He works hard. Deserves an afternoon off once in a while.”

  “He’s much too pale.”

  “It’s all that sunscreen you make him wear. Kids need a healthy tan once in a while.”

  “He’s thirty-one, Clayton. And skin cancer isn’t healthy for anyone.”

  “He’s thirty-one,” Dad agreed. “Old enough to take an afternoon off and not get henpecked about it.”

  Josh forced a smile. They didn’t know he knew how dire the situation was at Sweet Dreams, so he’d keep up the normal family act until he had the solution to their problem. “He’s thi
rty-one, and he’s hungry.”

  Mom’s ruby lips spread in an indulgent smile. “We booked tables at the Club, your favorite steakhouse, and that new bistro my tennis friends keep raving about, since we didn’t know what you were in the mood for.” She brushed a piece of lint off his shoulder. “We have time if you want to shower.”

  “Could take you out for a beer instead.” Dad winked. “Imagine you’ve got plans already tonight. No need for us to keep you late.”

  There was nothing to keep him from. He didn’t have other plans, because what he wanted for his birthday was to crowd around the kitchen table in his parents’ Lincoln Park mansion while Birdie, their longtime housekeeper, carried in one of her famous lemon chiffon cakes.

  His second birthday since she passed away wasn’t proving any easier than the first had been. If anything, it was harder.

  “No plans,” Josh said. “Been a while since we hung out, just the three of us. The Indian place around the corner delivers. Great butter chicken.”

  Mom clapped. “Oh, lovely idea, honey.”

  Josh steered them both down the hall and into his living room—quickly past the kitchen—then pulled his phone from his jeans pocket and hit the button on his favorite restaurant app while he pointed to his black leather sofa. “Sit. Enjoy the view. Extra naan?”

  “Our treat, young man,” Dad said. “Put that thing away and let a man make a phone call.”

  “Clayton, you don’t even know the name of the restaurant.”

  Dad grunted. Mom snatched his phone. “Lordy goodness, let a woman handle this.”

  Josh backed out of the room. These two. Always fussing at each other. “Be right back,” he said. “Little headache.”

  “You take care of you, honey,” Mom said. “I’ll take care of the food.”

  Josh detoured to his modern, steel-and-black kitchen, shoved the financials from Sweet Dreams into the cabinet above the built-in fridge—too high for Mom to reach if she ventured in here—then swiped the cake crumbs off the table and tossed them into the trash. He pulled three wineglasses from a cabinet and dug out a bottle of Mom’s favorite cabernet sauvignon. When he returned to his living room, his parents were standing together at the large picture window overlooking Lake Michigan.