really couldn’t be serious with this.
But he’d said it with a straight face.
Maybe he just wasn’t aware of the catastrophe that had befallen her family’s bakery because of doing business like this with his family in the past. It had been years and years ago, long before Heddy was born, before her mother had even met her father. Probably long before Lang Camden had been born, too, since he looked to be her age—thirty or not much past it. She supposed that it was possible that he had no idea that her mother and her grandfather had made a deal with the devil— as her mother liked to put it—and paid for it with their livelihood as well as her mother’s broken heart.
Regardless of the harsh lessons of the past and whether or not Lang Camden knew about what had happened, it seemed more than clear to Heddy that she couldn’t accommodate what he was proposing, so that was the tack she stuck to.
“Again, I couldn’t begin to meet your needs.”
Why had something about that sounded a tad suggestive? She hadn’t intended for it to. And apparently she wasn’t the only one to have heard it because it brought a smile to Lang Camden’s handsome face.
But he made no comment and instead went on to say, “I know that at least part of what makes you leery is that a deal similar to this cost your family their bread business.”
So he did know….
“That’s why we want to do things differently this time around,” he continued. “We’ll provide the financing in the form of a grant for you to expand production—”
“‘A grant’?” Heddy interjected.
“A grant,” he repeated. “Not a loan, not even a partial subsidy. It won’t cost you a penny and it will still be your business. The facility will be in your name alone. You’ll own it outright, and the whole thing will still be your baby.”
Skepticism and suspicion set in.
“That seems a little too good to be true,” Heddy told him point-blank.
“I don’t know why, there are grants for a lot of things—education, small businesses, housing …”
“Maybe from the government, but—”
“There are private grants, too. Camden Inc. gives several of them.”
“Like this? On this scale?” Heddy asked with a full measure of disbelief in her voice.
“I will always be perfectly straight with you,” he said as if he were making a vow. “Yes, this is the first time we’ve done a grant on this scale. But that doesn’t change the terms. A grant goes out free and clear to the recipient—in this case, to you. And I come with it.”
He added that with a smile that was so engaging it was hard for Heddy to maintain her grip on reality. “You come with it?” she said, hating whatever it was in her tone that almost sounded as though that made the offer more tempting. Which of course it didn’t.
“You’ll have my personal guidance as Camden Inc.’s start-up guy to establish and staff a commercial kitchen big enough to produce the supply we need. I’ll make sure that you grow to whatever extent is required to meet demand, and that you’re up and running effectively and efficiently before I leave you on your own so that history doesn’t repeat itself.”
Again, too good to be true.
“Where’s the catch?” Heddy asked.
“I guess if there’s any catch at all, it’s in the exclusivity. Camden Superstores will be the only place to get your cheesecakes. But other than that—”
“If they don’t sell, you won’t carry them and I’ll be through.”
“No-oo,” he assured her. “You’ll have a contract with us. If they don’t sell, we’ll nullify the contract and you’ll be free to sell somewhere else—grocery stores, restaurants, whatever. You’ll still have the capacity for mass production that you don’t have here, so you’ll still have the chance to keep going. But I can’t imagine why your cheesecakes wouldn’t sell through us. Especially since you’ll have our marketing and advertising division behind you, and cheesecakes in a worldwide chain of stores that are never hurting for sales.”
It still seemed too good to be true to Heddy but she couldn’t find the actual flaw so she merely shook her head in continuing disbelief.
“It will all be drawn up legally,” Lang Camden said then. “And you can have whatever lawyers or advisors you want to review the terms for anything that might cause you concern. But let’s face it …” He glanced around and, with a sympathetically wrinkled brow, said, “You gave a party here and no one came. What I’m offering you is a way to still do this but on a larger scale and at no cost to you except to throw in the towel on this place. And let it go back to just being your house.”
Still trying to figure out what the downside was in this, Heddy saw Carter stand on his chair again and lean onto the table to lick the second empty cheesecake plate. Only this time he was tipping the chair and instinct made Heddy jump to her feet and lunge to catch him.
Lang Camden’s reflex was to reach for the chair and steady it, and together they kept the child from falling.
“Carter …” Lang Camden groaned again.
“Good pie,” the toddler responded. “More!”
“I think you’ve had your limit. But we’ll buy one to take home,” the obviously inept caregiver promised.
“The ra’berry one,” Carter demanded enthusiastically.
The older of her two customers again sat the child in the chair. Then he used the wet towel in another attempt to clean him up.
“Wash lallow Zsorzse,” Carter instructed, holding out one arm where cheesecake smudged the face of his yellow wristwatch.
“‘Zsorzse’?” Heddy repeated.
“George. He’s obsessed with Curious George, but he pronounces g’s like … I don’t know, like the way you say Zsa Zsa Gabor.”
“And he tells so much time he needs two watches?” Heddy asked.
“He’s obsessed with watches, too. Don’t ask me why. And some kind of weird toy with a stuffed animal head and a body that’s just a small blanket. He calls that Baby and he has to have it somewhere near at all times. We left Baby in the car but at any minute the fact that it isn’t in here could become a crisis.”
“Baby’s nappin’,” Carter said as if the man was deluded. Then to Heddy, the child said, “More pie?”
“It’s cheesecake, Carter,” Lang Camden amended.
“Not cheese. Pie!” the two-and-a-half-year-old shouted.
Lang Camden sighed and gave up washing the cherubic face before getting it completely clean because Carter had wiggled out of his ineffective grasp.
Now that he was free, the little
