No Weddings (No Weddings #1)(17)

“It doesn’t have to be me ‘working’ for them or with them. I could just be the cake supplier. They order, I supply.”

“No.”

She narrowed those darkened hazel eyes at me, hiding them behind thick black lashes. I understood her irritation over the point. Weddings were the stuff of girls’ dreams. She named her store Sweet Dreams for Christ’s sake. Like all women, she got caught up in the fantasy painted into their minds by commercialism—manipulated by the billions-of-dollars-a-year industry.

Kudos to the wedding industry.

But not from me. I wasn’t ensnared by the hype. Nothing pretty went on there. The entire pretense was only to provide momentary escape from the guests’ lives onto the shoulders of one couple’s stress and dollars under the guise of a “celebration.”

I waited while she regarded me under that scrutinizing gaze.

Her move. Nothing on Earth would make me speak first. Or budge on the one point.

“I will provide cakes to hotels.”

I blinked. The left-field comment lost me. “What?”

“Hotels and resorts. I will provide cakes to them. They’re my backdoor business, as you so aptly pointed out. You were the one who argued I couldn’t ignore my biggest money-maker. If I have to give up working with all other event companies to remain exclusive to Invitation Only, including those that throw lucrative weddings, then I claim any and all business directly from a hotel and resort as fair game.”

I cocked my head.

She leaned forward.

Her meaning registered a split second before my protest hit my lips.

In calm confidence, she clarified her point. “Even if it’s for a wedding.”

I shook my head. “No.”

An empty laugh. “Is that the only word you know?”

I smirked. “No.”

She crossed her arms, pressing them into the pert breasts already spilling over the corset. Really? Who the hell wears that shit to a business meeting? Clearly a female angling to win, I thought as I tore my eyes away from her absent neckline and met her eyes.

Now she smirked. “My contact will only be the hotel staff. No communications with any event planners. You said yourself it would be business suicide not to solicit the resort industry.”

Cunning. Using my own words against me. I didn’t make a habit of arguing with myself, even if someone else spouted off the quoted material.

“Fine.”

“Fine?” She pulled her arms away, surprise widening her eyes.

I chuckled. “Don’t get used to it, Maestro. And you cannot attend those events. You want to be a supplier to the resorts? You supply the cake. Nothing else. No deliveries by you in person, and no attending any of the events.”

She leaned back in her chair, shaking her head. “No. You obviously don’t understand what I do. I create works of art. I deliver and set up. You agree to that, or we have no deal.”

I took a deep breath. “I can’t agree to that.” The whole point of keeping her interactions away from other event-planning companies was to minimize the risk of her forming any kind of relationship with another company. That’s how business ideas and clients got stolen.

Her eyes narrowed. “Can’t or won’t?”

I smiled. She was still in the game. She just didn’t realize it. And the next words out of my mouth could make the difference between her continued interest or her withdrawing entirely. “What if we don’t sign the contract yet? How about we do a trial run with our first party?”

She tilted her head to the side, gaze holding mine. “Why would we do that?”

“Consider it a good-faith act on both our parts. We’ll get to see how each other operates. I’m hoping you’ll come around to our side of the fence. And I don’t have the authority on my own to alter such an important contract point.”

I knew the whole thing sounded harsh, but this wasn’t coming from just me. The Founding Foursome of Invitation Only had pounded these additional rules and details out over a fierce game of Monopoly. And that shit was set in stone.

“I’ll agree to that.”

“Good. Why don’t I make the changes we’ve agreed upon and destroy the ones you’ve already signed?”

She nodded. “That sounds okay.”

I took the contracts back out and tore them in half. Deal sealed. Well, almost. But I felt confident her signature on the new dotted line was only a technicality.

After a solid handshake, I typed furiously on my laptop, making the revisions to the contract with our agreed-upon amendments. I tried not to notice the generous amount of toned thigh Hannah revealed between the tops of her boots and the bottom of her skirt every time she shifted her legs, recrossing them.

By the third time, I stopped typing midsentence and raised a brow, not bothering to take my eyes off the screen. “I noticed. A man would have to be blind not to.” Then I leaned back, removing the laptop that obstructed a full view, and glanced over, taking a good long look, deciding two could play at her game.

She sucked in a breath as my gaze lingered at the juncture of where those thighs met.

I imagined what she had on underneath there, probably some lacy black thong. I let my thoughts drift over what treasure lay waiting beneath the thong and licked my lips. Slowly scanning up from there, I made plans of how I would take my time working my tongue up her body until I reached those gorgeous tits before setting them free from that confining material.