I’m busy folding puff pastry dough for my sausage-and-cheddar pastries when the bell to the bakery door rings. Lexi is helping me open the cafe today, but I just got a text from her a few minutes ago telling me she was running late this morning. There’s no way it should be her walking in, but we’re also closed, so I don’t know who could be walking through the door unless I accidentally left it unlocked.
I wipe my hands on my apron, hurriedly trying to finish folding the pastry before busting through the kitchen doors.
“I’m sorry, we’re—” My feet come to a halt a few feet away from the counter when I see the person standing in front of the register.
“You.” The sweet tone I normally use with customers is gone. In its place is something much closer to a growl.
Camden tucks his hands into the pockets of his slacks. It’s barely five in the morning, and he’s dressed like he’s about to go to some sort of fancy business meeting. “Good morning,” he says, his voice sharp and cold.
“It’s not a good morning if I have to see you before the sun has risen.”
His lips twitch with humor. It’s the only movement of his body; the rest of him stands as still as a statue. Except for his eyes—they travel over my body, coming to a stop on my face. “Trust me, you weren’t my first choice. In fact, you were my last. But there’s nothing open here that has coffee.”
“There’s a Starbucks about fifteen miles away. You should try it.”
“I’ve had it every day since I’ve arrived. My assistant has run and got it for me, but she woke up with a fever this morning, and I don’t have time to go there.”
“What a bummer for you.” I shrug. Caffeinating him is not my problem. He can figure it out. “We aren’t open.” I point to the giant pink neon sign that sits in the window. “In case you don’t understand how it works, typically if a place is open, their sign is lit. The closed sign on the door is also a great indicator that, you know…” I gesture to the empty space around us. “We aren’t open.”
“Figured you could do a favor for a friend.”
I choke on my own spit. Awkward sounds come from my throat as I try to regain my composure. I eventually get it together, able to finally swallow without causing another coughing fit. “I know you just didn’t call me a friend.”
He takes a step closer, his eyes training on the menu board behind me. “I did. It tasted vile coming from my mouth, but it was worth a shot.”
I stare at him in shock. My mouth hangs open as I try to figure out what in the hell is going on. Am I still dreaming? It’s been a few days since we last spoke next door. I thought we had an agreement—he stayed on his side of the boundary line, and I stayed on mine. He’s come to enemy territory, and his air of superiority makes him so arrogant that he assumed I’d just welcome him in with open arms.
Hell no.
“Camden, leave,” I demand. “I’m not serving you coffee.”
All he does is glare at me. It makes me uncomfortable. His icy-blue eyes stare too deep. Men shouldn’t be allowed to have hair so dark but eyes so light. It’s like he can see right through me, and I hate it with every fiber of my being.
“Hello?” I press, trying to fill the silence. I want him out of my bakery and, quite frankly, out of this town, but that might be a little dramatic. Just sending him back to his own property will do for now. “I’m quite worried about your understanding of the word never. I vividly remember you saying you never wanted to see me again. The feeling was very mutual.”
He lets out a small groan. It’s so quiet I almost miss it. It’s the first real emotion I’ve seen from him. The first time his rigid demeanor has fallen, at least for a moment. “Look, I said that thinking there’d be somewhere else to get a cup of coffee. But nothing is open, and I have a splitting headache that has made me resort to asking you. All you have to do is make it, and you’ll never see me again. Trisha should be back on the mend tomorrow, and we’ll pretend this never happened. Okay?” He pinches his perfectly straight nose between his thumb and pointer finger, massaging to ease the ache.
I chew on my lip. Camden doesn’t seem like the kind of person to back down if he wants something. And I really do need to get back to baking to get everything ready before the store opens. I could just leave him here…
I sigh, knowing he’d have the audacity to follow me back there. The easiest choice is one I hate—I think I could get rid of him if I just make the damn cup of coffee.
“I’m only doing this because I want to get rid of you,” I tell him, pinning him with a glare.
“I’m only here because I’m desperate.” He smiles. Actually smiles. Why does it look so good? It seems unnatural for him to smile. He shouldn’t look good doing it.
I spin on my heel immediately, not wanting to stare at him for a second longer. His teeth are too straight and perfect, and the long dimples that form on either side of his upturned lips are too deep—too enticing.
A man with dimples is my freaking weakness. They aren’t supposed to look good on a man as ice-cold as Camden.
“How do you like your coffee?” I ask, speaking to the wall instead of looking at him.
He clears his throat. “Flat white. Hot. As big as you can make it with vanilla and oat milk.”
I laugh, starting the espresso machine. I welcome the hissing of the machine as it rumbles to life because it fills the tension-filled silence between us.
“Something funny?” he asks once the shots start to trickle out.
I look up, making eye contact with him through the mirror on the wall. “Your order just wasn’t what I was expecting.”
“Something wrong with my order?”
“You strike me as a black coffee kind of guy. Maybe an Americano.”
“I spent some time in France in my twenties. I do enjoy just an espresso shot every now and then.”
I don’t answer him. I want to ask him more about France, about what it was like. I’ve always wanted to go to France. It’s on the top of my bucket list. I would geek out to go to a French pâtisserie. All of my dreams would come true just to be in the presence of pastry chefs with that much talent and finesse.
Neither one of us speaks as I finish making his coffee. At one point, he answers a call, but it doesn’t last long. After a brief exchange, he’s silent again.
Turning around, I set two large to-go cups in front of him. He looks from me to the coffee cups to me again. His dark eyebrows pull together on his forehead. “I only asked for one coffee.” Reaching into his suit jacket, he pulls out a sleek black wallet. He hands me his credit card, and even his card feels expensive. It’s heavy and metal and far more fancy than my creased, plastic card that I’m pretty sure expires in a few months.
“There’s only one coffee,” I answer, suddenly feeling self-conscious about the other drink I made him. It was more out of habit than anything, but it’s too late to go back on it, so now I just have to own it.
“Okay,” he drawls, dragging out the word like he’s confused.
“One is the drink you ordered; the other is a tea. With chamomile, honey, and a couple of secret ingredients. I always had migraines, and my mom would make it for me. I figured it might help…” My words fall flat because now it seems ridiculous. This man has yelled at me multiple times for things that were a complete accident. I shouldn’t be nice to him. I don’t know what possessed me to make him the drink, but now I have regrets.
“That’s, uhh…”
Clearly, neither one of us knows what to say about the gesture. I hurriedly swipe his card and pretty much toss it back to him, wanting to be done with him and this interaction. My mom didn’t raise me to be rude to people. As someone who has suffered from many migraines, I just wanted to help.
Even if it was for him—the douchebag in a suit that tests every last ounce of my patience.
“I didn’t want to listen to you complain,” I rush out. “Couldn’t let Mr. Fancy Art Gallery have a headache.”
“Yeah.” He studies me for a second. I look right back at him, even though my cheeks burn from embarrassment that I just might’ve extended an olive branch to enemy number one.
“Don’t think too hard about it. You’re already enough of an asshole. I didn’t want anyone to have to deal with you if you had a headache as well.”
He picks up both of the cups, handling them with care. The hot pink cups seem out of place in his large hands. I don’t stick around to say anything else. Things are back to enemy-ing between us the way they should be. I blame the fact that it’s too freaking early to be dealing with him.
I scurry back into the kitchen, taking comfort in being alone and doing the mindless task of folding out dough. The bell above the door dings a few moments later, and it’s only then that I can take a deep breath.
Today is already weird, and the sun hasn’t even risen yet.
It gets weirder when I greet Lexi later on in the morning and find a crisp hundred-dollar bill neatly placed in our tip jar.
