Take Three (The Jilted Bride #2)(25)

“What? Why do you need to do a rally sale? Isn’t that for businesses that are failing?”

She nodded. “Sweet Seasons has lost more money over the past three months than it has since we opened…Even though I own the place I’m barely breaking even. I’ve been paying everyone’s wages with my savings account, but I can’t afford to do that too much longer…I even told the staff to start looking for other jobs just in case we have to—”

“Close? You’re closing?”

“Not exactly,” she sighed. “I’m going to put up a fight, but I’ve been fighting for years and to be honest, I’m tired…I could handle Starbucks, but Autumn Wonder is something else. They’re a whole lot faster and their sweets are a whole lot cheaper. I won’t be able to compete with them forever.”

I remembered what she’d told me about Autumn Wonder a couple days ago: How they literally stole the best sweets from small bakery businesses and incorporated them into their own menus. How they deliberately underpriced the local pastry shops until they could no longer compete and were forced to shut down. How they called her on two separate occasions and offered to pay for the recipes to all her pies, with particular interest in the cherry bourbon pie.

Although she refused, they placed their own versions on their menu anyway and touted them as “the best pies in Arkansas.”

I promised her I would never give Autumn Wonder a dime of my money again; I had no idea their business model was so disgustingly cutthroat.

“I’ll help out in any way I can, mom. What do you need from me? You do know I’m rich, right? I could just give you enough money so you can stay open for as long as you want. How much do you need?”

She laughed. “That would be very sweet of you darling, but you’d pretty much be throwing money in the wind. What I need first are customers. I know you can’t be here when the news cameras come next week, but I need you to make signs for outdoors. And you’ll have to help us cook up as many sweets as possible. We need to get people to come out and remember that Sweet Seasons does baking the best.”

She and I talked for two more hours and it felt like we hadn’t missed a beat. She was completely vested in the life of her bakery and was determined to do whatever she could to save it. It was her passion in life and I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of guilt for holding that against her four years ago.

“I think I heard the bell ring, Selena. Could you go take care of that customer?”

“Okay, I’ll be right—”

“Wait. Just to be sure,” she leaned back in her chair, “you mean to tell me that you were never pregnant by Matt Sterling? I never had a grandchild on the way?”

How many times is she going to ask me this?

“No mom. For the umpteenth time, I told you I was wearing a prosthetic baby bump.”

She snorted. “I knew that! I just wanted you to say it again because it cracks me up! I still can’t believe you did that!”

I rolled my eyes and walked into the kitchen.

From the windows, I saw that “that customer” was the sexy stranger guy, but today he was dressed in a well-tailored black suit. He was looking towards the kitchen doors and smiling.

Can he see me?

I ducked down and moved to the other side of the room. I didn’t want him to see me like this.

My hair was tragic. It was in a lifeless ponytail and there were bits of flour in it. My shirt had coffee stains and crumbs on it, proof of my poor attempt to slice pie and pour coffee at the same time.

I looked at the employee schedule and saw that the next waitress wasn’t scheduled to come in for another hour. I decided to wait in the back for a while, hoping she would show up extremely early.

She didn’t.

I took a deep breath and walked out to his table, trying my best not to stare at him.

“Welcome to Sweet Seasons. What can I get for you today?”

“I’ll have the heritage coffee, preferably in a cup,” he smiled and I couldn’t help but blush.

I still couldn’t figure out why he affected me, why the mere sight of him made me feel like a teenage girl with a high school crush. I didn’t even know his name, but every time he came in my heart sped up and I became nervous, so nervous that I went out of my way to avoid him.

“Selena Ross, right?” he said as I filled his cup.

“Well, what do you know? You are the only person here that actually recognized me. You want anything else?”

“What made you come here? Are you researching the waitress-life for a new movie?”

He can’t be serious…

“Don’t you read the news?”

“I don’t consider celebrity life news,” he looked into my eyes and I nearly lost it. “Plus, I don’t believe everything I read. I like to ask the direct source.”

So he IS serious…

“Well, since you’ve clearly been hiding under a rock, I’m here to get away, to disconnect myself from the world for a while,” I handed him a couple napkins. “It’s called being reserved.”

I suddenly remembered that I needed to beg Joan to re-install the internet on my dinosaur phone. She’d canceled it two days ago when she caught me googling myself.

“You don’t want to sit down?” he smiled.