beside her, bare chested and all. Dina must have stayed out the night before if she was just returning home. Shari reached across and pulled a sheet across her naked body.
“I think we all know what happened,” Grant said sheepishly from her side. “Could you be so kind as to give us some privacy, Dina?”
“I guess I have no choice,” she said haughtily, slamming the door behind her.
Once she’d gone, Grant sprinted out of Shari’s bed, dressed and ducked out the room. He was gone so fast that Shari hadn’t been able to tell him just how much she’d enjoyed herself.
The following day was worse because as soon as he saw her, Shari noticed how embarrassed Grant looked. Gone was the easy camaraderie they’d shared before they’d slept together, and in its place was a weird awkwardness that she didn’t know how to combat. She sought to alleviate his fears by making light of their night together.
“Listen, Grant,” she said after class ended and the room had cleared. “About last night...”
“I am so sorry I allowed things to go as far as they did—”
“There’s no need for you to feel sorry,” Shari said, interrupting him. “We’re good. Last night was just a hookup.” She looked down as she spoke. It was a lie, but she didn’t know what else to say. “We’re still friends. Nothing has to change. I don’t want you to feel like you owe me anything.”
“What?” Grant was floored. He hadn’t expected this reaction. He wanted to see if Shari forgave him for behaving so selfishly and taking what he wanted regardless of whether it was the right thing to do. He was hoping she would give him another chance to start fresh and take her out on a proper date. He desperately wanted to see her on a permanent basis, but it was clear she felt differently. And it crushed him.
“I...I don’t want you to feel....you know...bad,” Shari reiterated, fumbling over her words. “What’s done is done. I just hope it doesn’t ruin our friendship.”
“Uh, okay,” Grant conceded. He couldn’t believe Shari was being this coldhearted about the intimacy they’d shared. Could he have been wrong about her all along? Perhaps around campus they had it wrong. Shari was the heartless bitch and Dina was the nice one. “If that’s the way you want it.”
“I do.” Shari offered her hand. “Friends?”
“Friends.” Grant took her hand and shook it reluctantly.
* * *
Shari wished she could say the same about her roommate. Two months later, she caught Dina and Grant in the courtyard holding hands and whispering softly into each other’s ear.
“No, no, no.” She shook her head and ducked behind a column so the duo wouldn’t see her. Shari wiped away the tears rolling down her cheeks at seeing her best friend betray her. Surely Dina wouldn’t steal the man she’d adored. The man with whom she’d shared her first time. It was girlfriend code. You never dated a man your friend had been with or wanted. She’d told Dina how she felt about Grant. Why would Dina do this to her?
The answer came to her like someone had dropped a ton of bricks over her head. Nausea rose up in Shari’s throat and she clutched her mouth. Ohmigod. Dina had wanted Grant all along and was merely humoring Shari’s deluded fantasies. It must have really gotten her goat that Shari had managed to get Grant in her bed. So she’d turned on the charm and made sure Shari would never have a chance with Grant again. How could she have been a fool this entire time? How had she not seen who Dina truly was?
Shari rushed into the bathroom in the Business Administration hall, but that didn’t stop her bout of nausea. Nothing did. Several hours later, she was staring at the nurse in the Health Clinic.
“When was your last period?” the nurse inquired, jotting down some notes.
Dread rushed through Shari. Her period. Her mind raced to the last time she recalled having it. Two weeks before her one-night stand with Grant. She hadn’t had one since, hadn’t even thought about it because she’d been trying to push down her feelings for Grant. Her hand flew to her mouth.
The nurse looked at her. “So we need a pregnancy test, then?”
Chapter 1
“Our cake is a visual masterpiece,” Shari told her cousin, Carter Drayson, the artisan cake maker for Lillian’s Bakery, and the black sheep of the family. They stood in a large studio kitchen with cameras in front of them. “It’s by far the best cake. We are going to win this.”
Shari glanced behind her to look at the four-tier champagne cake before finally setting her eyes on her nemesis Dina English’s cake from Brown Sugar Bakery.
Dina was standing there, looking poised and sophisticated in designer duds, making Shari feel dowdy in her jeans and Lillian’s Bakery T-shirt. But that was okay, because Lillian’s was the better bakery. Not only had Dina stolen Grant Robinson, Shari’s first love, and run off with him to get married, but she’d stolen Lillian’s recipes for her own bakery. And Shari felt responsible.
When Shari and Dina had attended Ledgeman University together, Grandma Lillian had taken a liking to Dina almost immediately and offered her a summer job after freshman year. While in college, Dina had continued to work at Lillian’s during the summers. Shari had hoped that she and Dina would work side by side at the bakery after graduation. They’d been a great team. With Shari’s background in business and Dina’s finesse, they would have been unstoppable. Shari would have finally risen to the top in her family instead of always feeling like a dimly lit planet among her confident, smart cousins, the real stars of the Drayson clan. But life had thrown her a curveball when Dina had left to create her own bakery.
Five years later and Shari had never truly recovered from the betrayal. How could she when Dina had married her son’s father and prevented them from ever being a real family?
“We got this,” Carter said confidently. He had an arrogant swag about him that Shari sometimes envied.
You Take the Cake’s host came over and stood between the two bakeries and said, “And the winner is... Brown Sugar Bakery!” Applause erupted from the live audience, and Shari’s heart deflated.
How can this be? Shari looked over at Brown Sugar’s creation. The cake was at best ordinary.
Dina came over and laughed. “That’s right, Shari. I win again.”
Shari rushed over to the host of the show and grabbed his arm. “There has to be a mistake. She should be disqualified.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” the host asked.
“The whole world should know what kind of person Dina English is.” Shari turned and glared at Dina. “She traded on our nearly four-year friendship, turned her back on my family’s bakery and then stole the man I loved. You can’t let her win!”
Dina smirked and gave Shari a pitiful look as she walked toward her. “You’re so pathetic. Can’t you see? I’ve already won.”
Shari looked down, but not before seeing, to her horror, Dina holding her son, Andre, in her arms and carrying him away. “Noooo!”
Shari woke up with a start and her eyes popped open.
