against her skin made her heart beat just a little faster. “Very impressive, Miss Amber. You’re the real deal, aren’t you? I don’t have a creative bone in my whole body.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound breathless. “There are tons of way to be creative.” She looked up into his eyes. “You just haven’t found yours yet.”
“I guess not.” He held her gaze, never looking away. Those eyes. The way he looked at her. It could make most women swoon. But technically he was her boss and she wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, a lover or any unnecessary attachment.
She had started this little interlude with the intention of simply being friendly. But it was ending with her feeling more than just that.
“I should go now.”
“You should. It’s late.”
“You should go home, too, Drayson.”
“I will.” He shut his laptop and stood. “Let me walk you to your car. I don’t want you walking out there alone.”
“I do it all the time without you, Chase.”
“But now that I know your name, I wouldn’t feel right about letting that happen. Especially if I knew there was something I could do to change it.”
Whoa. This man. She might be headed for trouble.
Chase sat outside on the patio of the little sushi place next to Sweetness Bakery. It was still a little too cool to sit outside and dine this early May day, but there he sat, sipping the warm tea the waiter had brought him and watching the foot traffic going in and out of Sweetness Bakery. He was running numbers in his head. For every three customers Lillian’s had, they had five. Two-thirds of those customers took their purchases to go. One-third of those customers came out with large bakery boxes. It was too late in the day for people to bring doughnuts to work. Sweetness was selling a higher percentage of cakes and pies than they were.
“Spying on the competition, are we?”
He recognized the voice. It surprised him that he recognized it because he’d only had one conversation with her, but he looked up to see that petite, pretty female with the delicious smile and expressive eyes standing a few feet away from him. “Amber,” he said, feeling the need to tease her. “Amber Bernard. You work in the bakery. As the barista. I remembered.”
She grinned at him. “At least now I know I’m not forgettable.”
No, she wasn’t. In fact he’d thought about her all night after he walked her to her car. He kept picturing her face. The way she ate that cookie. The way she licked her lips and moaned filled him with a pure surge of lust that took him completely off guard. But it wasn’t just that that kept him thinking about her. It was her smile. The way her face lit up when he told her about his last trip, the way she made him forget about work, when that was the only thing on his mind 99 percent of the time. “I’m not spying. Well, not really anyway. I’m just running numbers.”
“You’re running numbers while sitting outside and staring at our biggest competition? I’m just an artist so maybe I don’t know how these things work.”
“Come sit. I’ll explain.” She looked apprehensive for a moment.
“I don’t think I can. I’m heading to the bakery now. I don’t want to be late.”
“You can’t be late if you walk in with the boss. Sit down for a minute.”
She walked over and he couldn’t help but notice the way her hips swished in the long colorful skirt she was wearing. Her style would normally be a little too bohemian for his tastes, but on her it worked. On her, it was a combination of sexy and adorable that he had a hard time taking his eyes off of.
“Okay.” She gave him a mischievous smile as she took the chair next to him. “You going to let me in on your evil plan now?”
“No evil plan here.” He looked into her eyes as he said it. “Everything with me is always all good.”
“I bet you say that to all the women you encounter.”
“No. Only the special ones.” He was flirting with her. He didn’t mean to, but there was something about Amber that made him want to. Besides, she had started this. He was just minding his own business when she walked into his world.
He liked women, went on his fair share of dates. But all of the women he went out with were very much like him. Driven. They had practical careers with a tried-and-true path for growth. He figured he would marry a woman like that one day. Not a woman like Amber. Not that he was even interested in dating Amber, but he couldn’t pass up the chance to engage in a little conversation with a woman whose eyes sparkled when she got excited and whose smile made a man feel funny on the inside. “Look at the consumers who are walking out of Sweetness. What do you notice?”
“Hmm.” She placed her hand on her chin and leaned a little closer to him to get a better look. Her arm brushed his. And there it was again. That little rush that was more than attraction and felt a lot like lust. “Their clientele seems similar to ours. Not a lot of construction workers. Business people mixed with hipsters. People who wouldn’t mind spending six bucks on a cup of coffee.”
“Very good, Amber. What else?”
She smiled at his praise before she looked back at the door. “Most of them are taking things to go. I see a lot of large boxes.”
“Excellent.” He touched her arm, which was a mistake because she had the smoothest skin and it made him want to run his hand up her arm and down her body just to see if the rest of it felt as good. “I counted fifty-nine people walking into Sweetness in the past hour. At Lillian’s we had thirty-five at the same hour yesterday. Our average customer is spending $5.19 when they visit. But just by watching them, I can see that a higher percentage of their customers are carrying out large cake and pie boxes. Their average customer is spending at least twice as much as ours. And while we have three times as many customers in the morning thanks to Mariah, their profits are still higher than ours.”
“Wow. My head is spinning. You really are into numbers.”
“It’s my job. I spent a lot of time doing growth projections at my last job.” He stood up and tossed money on the table to cover his bill. “Come on. I’ll walk with you back to work.”
They left the little restaurant and walked in the beautiful street toward the bakery. They couldn’t have found a better location than the Denny Triangle section of Seattle. It was a mix of beautiful old houses and up-and-coming businesses. There was a park nearby. The perfect location to enjoy a sweet treat from Lillian’s. Chase had been a little apprehensive when he was approached with the idea of running a bakery. But now his chest filled with pride when he walked up and saw the beautiful storefront in this busy section of town.
“We talked about what I do for fun, but we never talked about what you do to let off steam.”
“Oh, I BASE jump and skydive. There’s this thing called parkour, which is like a military-style urban obstacle course.”
“Really?”
“No.”
