I was about to hand the flyer back to Megan in confusion, when my eyes landed on the last contest listed on the sheet. A “Cake Sculpting Contest.”
“What in the world? That’s so random,” I said aloud. Megan instantly knew that I’d spotted the contest she’d been referring to.
“You’d be perfect for this,” she said. “Your cupcakes are so good!”
I frowned. “My cupcakes are good, but a cake sculpting contest isn’t about making delicious cupcakes. It’s about making a cake look like some sort of fancy sculpture. You know, like when someone shapes a cake like a famous castle or a celebrity’s face or something ridiculous like that. I have no idea how to do that.”
“Oh, come on. How hard can it be?”
I nearly choked. “How hard can it be? Pretty damn hard! And there’s only a week until the entry deadline. I’d have a week to figure out what I wanted to sculpt and then to learn how the hell to actually sculpt a cake into that object.”
Megan shrugged. “It’s worth a shot. How many other people on this island are going to enter a cake sculpting contest? Only a handful of the locals. Perhaps a few tourists will, but I doubt there’s going to be a rush of them. Even if your cake ends up looking totally amateur, you might at least win third prize. And two hundred and fifty dollars is nothing to sneeze at.”
“No, it’s not,” I agreed, still staring doubtfully down at the paper. “Why in the world did the city council decide to add this contest, though? It’s kind of a random addition.”
“I heard they’re trying to expand the fair and add things that will attract more rich tourists. I guess rich tourists are into cake sculpting contests? Or at least the city council thinks they are? The council is trying to add more contests that appeal to wealthy city folks, and pig races aren’t quite cutting it.”
“Hmm.” I was starting to get excited about this. I had no skills at actual cake sculpting, but I probably wouldn’t have very much competition. Megan was right. Even if I only won third place, I could use any spare cash I could grab. I had been saving for forever for Decaf’s surgery, but I was still about a thousand dollars short. And that thousand dollars felt so out of reach some days that it might as well have been one million.
“Do it!” Megan insisted. “You’ll be great. Who knows, maybe your cake will even attract some sexy boy from the mainland, and you can finally lose your virginity while licking frosting off each other.”
I wadded up the flyer and threw it at her. “You’re one to talk! I don’t see you making any progress on losing your V-card.”
Megan shrugged. “True. But I’m younger than you so, it’s not as sad that I’m still a virgin.”
“You’re younger than me by six months. That hardly counts.”
Megan only laughed harder, which seemed to delight Decaf, who perked up and barked a few times. I rolled my eyes, and was about to tell her that I wanted to go down to Joe’s Sandbar and have a beer if I was going to have to put up with her, when the café’s phone rang. I shushed her and picked up the receiver. Sometimes, one of the locals would order a box of breakfast pastries for a meeting the next day. I loved it when that happened, because it meant my day started off with a sale. Dare I hope for tomorrow to be a good sales day like today had ended up being?
“Conch Shell Café,” I said in a cheery voice.
“Good afternoon,” a stiff, formal sounding woman’s voice greeted me. “I’m calling to inquire about placing an order for delivery to Evans’ resort this afternoon.”
“Um…” I was caught totally off guard. I had never been asked to do a delivery to the resort, and it was already nearly five p.m. This was going to be one heck of a last minute delivery, assuming I even had what this woman wanted in stock. “What were you wanting delivered?”
There was a pause and rustling of papers before the woman answered. “We’d like an assortment of pastries and cupcakes to feed approximately twenty-four people. Can you also do coffee to go? We’d like a box of both regular and decaf coffee. Delivered by five-thirty p.m., if possible.”
I glanced at the clock. I could get the coffee made and the pastries packaged up and delivered within the next half-hour if I hustled. And the order the woman was requesting would clean out my pastry case for the day, which virtually never happened. But the order struck me as quite an odd request. It almost seemed like a practical joke of sorts. I had this strange feeling that I was going to show up at the resort with a load of food and only be laughed at when I tried to deliver it. Feeling suspicious, I decided to make sure that this order was serious.
“I’d be happy to fulfill that order for you, ma’am, as long as you understand two things. First of all, the assortment of pastries and cupcakes will be my choice. Hopefully you can understand that an order on this short of notice cannot contain any special flavor requests.”
“Of course. I understand.”
“Second of all, we do require prepayment on an order of this size. I’d need to take credit card information over the phone before I begin packaging up the pastries and coffee.”
I saw Megan’s eyes shoot up from her perch on the counter. She knew I never required prepayment on orders, and I could see the curiosity burning in her eyes. I ignored her as best I could for the moment, and focused on the woman on the phone.
“That’s no problem,” the woman said. “Tell me when you’re ready and I’ll read the card numbers off to you.”
I’d expected a bit of protest, but this woman seemed more in a hurry to get everything paid and ordered than she was worried about the cost or the time of payment. She almost seemed relieved when I ended the call, promising that her order would be delivered within the next half-hour.
“Well, that was weird,” I said as I hopped up and began to brew a fresh pot of both regular and decaf coffee. I quickly explained to Megan what the phone call had been about, expecting Megan to be thrilled for me that I’d just sold out my entire stock for once. But the more I explained, the bigger the frown on Megan’s face became.
“This is really weird,” Megan finally said. “You know who’s behind this, right?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. All I know is that I’ve actually made a decent amount of money in a day for once.”
Megan shook her head. “There’s something fishy about this. Why would anyone at the resort order so much from you, so suddenly? I’ll bet you anything Logan Evans is behind this. And I’ll also bet you anything that he’s up to no good.”
I shivered as I realized that Megan was probably right. But I had already taken the order and accepted payment for it. I had no choice but to continue, regardless of what the motives behind the order had been. Besides, what did I care what Logan was doing? If his way of trying to intimidate me or butter me up to sell my café was to buy all my stock, I wasn’t going to complain.
And I’m definitely not going to complain if I have an excuse to look at that chiseled face and those gorgeous blue eyes again.
That thought caught me off guard, and I pushed it away quickly. Whatever Logan’s end game happened to be, I was one hundred percent sure that it involved something to do with the resort expanding, and nothing to do with his actually liking my coffee or genuinely wanting to help me out. I shuddered, and started to quickly box up the pastries just as “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” started playing from the jukebox.
Chapter Four
* LOGAN *
I straightened my tie and glanced at my reflection in the mirror one last time. The last thing I had wanted to do this afternoon was put on a suit and go to a stupid “welcome reception,” but the staff had already planned the event and Zach had texted me telling me I better not dare cancel it.
Everyone wants to say hello and shake your hand, the text had read. You’ll be working closely with these people over the next few days, so try to start off on the right foot.
I wanted to argue with Zach that if someone wanted to start off on the right foot, they should have known that scheduling
a reception for practically the moment I arrived wasn’t the best idea. Couldn’t a man even have an hour to relax and catch his breath after the long trip from New York?
Okay, so I had had an hour. I’d spent it first buying and then consuming a dozen cupcakes. Consuming bites of a dozen cupcakes, anyway. I’d sampled at least one nibble from each of the twelve cupcakes Julia had picked out for me, and they were all delicious. Julia knew her stuff.
She hadn’t even given me her name when I went into the café earlier, let alone told me that she was the owner. I’d assumed she was just an employee, but a few quick inquiries had set me straight. When you’re the billionaire owner of a resort, you only have to ask a few people to get whatever information you want. I would have stopped at nothing to learn who that gorgeous woman was, and what her relationship status might be. Luckily, it only took about ten minutes for my personal assistant at the hotel to get back to me, telling me that the woman, Julia Price, was the owner and operator of the Conch Shell Café. Julia was definitely single, but also definitely not looking. She especially wasn’t looking if the man in question was one of the Evans brothers who owned the obnoxious, intrusive Evans Resort and Spa.
We’ll see about that, I thought. I was determined to impress her. For one thing, the woman knew how to make coffee. When I took my first sip of the simple drip coffee she’d brewed up for me, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Finally, finally, someone on this goddamn island had figured out how to make coffee. But the fact that she also knew how to bake, and that she was so beautiful that a mere glimpse of her was enough to give me a hard-on? Yeah, I was going to find a way to convince her that I wasn’t as obnoxious as all the locals seemed to think I was.
I had started by asking my assistant to change whatever food had been ordered for my welcome reception to food and coffee from Julia’s café. I didn’t care what the cost was, or even what food Julia had available at such short notice. After sampling twelve different cupcakes of hers and thinking that every last one of them was the best cupcake I had ever tasted, I felt confident that whatever food she had to offer would be good. I also felt confident that she would appreciate the giant order. Instead of having to throw out pastries that would be stale the next day, she’d make a shit ton of money.
I had no plan beyond ordering the food, other than to show up and dazzle her with my smile once she arrived. So far in my life, that had always been plan enough to get any woman I wanted. I had a vague, nagging feeling somewhere in the back of my mind that Julia wasn’t going to be so easy to snag, but I pushed the thought away. Surely, everyone overestimated how much she hated me just because I was an Evans brother. After all, it’s not like I was Zach. I might have the same last name as the name on the resort’s flashy welcome sign, and I might share in whatever profits the resort made. But it wasn’t like I was out here campaigning for expansion all the time like Zach was. I actually thought he would be better off just letting the issue go. The resort was profitable enough, and we had plenty of other resorts on other islands that had been allowed to expand and were more than making up for the smaller size of this one. It seemed like a waste of energy to keep pursuing the whole expansion thing as hard as Zach did, but that was my brother. Once he got an idea in his head, he could not let it go.
I was pretty much the opposite. I wasn’t afraid of hard work, but if something was pointless I had no trouble shrugging my shoulders and moving on to the next thing—something that actually had a point.
Something like figuring out how to get Julia to overlook my last name and indulge in a little summer fling with me.
A knock on the door snapped me out of my reverie, and I gave my tie one last tug before going to open it. My personal assistant was standing there, wearing a prim and proper navy skirt suit and holding a stack of folders. I thought it was a bit ridiculous that we were all wearing suits after five for a casual meet and greet at an island resort, but this was what the staff expected of me so it’s what I did.
“Mr. Evans, I can escort you down to the meeting room if you’re ready? I can also brief you on your schedule for the weekend while we walk, if you’d like.”
She handed me one of the folders, and launched off into a discussion of my schedule before I even told her whether I was ready. I only half-listened. I’d already read over the paper copy of the schedule she’d sent me, and it was all the same-old, same-old. All sorts of boring business meetings I didn’t care about. God, I wished Zach would let me give up this façade of actually wanting to be a business man. After a while it all felt so boring and purposeless. I already had more money than I knew what to do with, even if I never earned another cent for the rest of my life.
When we arrived to the giant conference room where the meeting was to take place, no one else on the attendee list had arrived. But the smell of good, fresh coffee and delicious pastries hit my nose, and I knew Julia had already made it here. I held up my hand to my assistant, signaling her to pause in the long, rambling speech I hadn’t actually been listening to.
“We’ll finish up later, thanks. I want to see if Julia is here.”
My assistant sighed, and I got the feeling she was working really hard not to roll her eyes at me. Whatever. She could doubt me all she wanted. I would find a way to win Julia over.
“I’ll just wait out here in the hallway until the meeting starts, in case you need me, sir.”
I nodded, thankful that at least the assistant knew well enough when I wanted to be alone with someone. I stepped into the room, hoping that Julia was still here and still setting up. To my relief, she was. She had just finished putting the finishing touches on the elaborate tray of pastries, cupcakes, and cookies she’d brought. My mouth watered at the sight, even though I’d just eaten way more than I should have of the dozen cupcakes she’d sold me earlier.
“Julia!” I said brightly, striding confidently toward her with my hand outstretched, as though she was some sort of business partner I was trying to win over on some big deal or another. Julia looked at me suspiciously, her eyes darkening when she saw me. That wasn’t a good sign. She did manage to reach out and shake my hand, although she drew back from the handshake rather quickly. I was pretty bummed about that, because the feel of her small, soft hand inside of my larger, strong one was one of the best things I’d ever felt in my life. I felt a strange surge of protective instinct rushing through me. I wanted to pull her into my arms and tell her that I would always use my strength to protect her. I didn’t, of course. I’m too much of a gentleman to force myself on a woman in a random conference room. But I had never wanted a woman in my arms so badly in all my life.
“Mr. Evans,” she said coolly as she took a step back from me. “I guess it was you behind the order after all.”
“It was indeed,” I said, keeping a bright smile on my face despite the fact that her reaction was a lot less happy than I had anticipated. “I enjoyed the cupcakes you picked out for me so much that I knew I had to have you cater this meeting this afternoon. And it looks like I made a good choice. These pastries all look fantastic.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me. “Look, Mr. Evans—”
“Logan. Please call me Logan.”
She scowled. “As I was saying, Mr. Evans, I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, but if you’re trying to get me to let down my guard so that I’ll let you buy out my café, it’s not going to work.”
For a moment, I was too stunned to say anything. Then, I burst out laughing. “No, no. I’m not trying to buy out your café. I’m not like my brother. I’m not trying to expand the resort or anything like that. I just genuinely like your cupcakes and coffee and thought they would make a nice change of pace from the usual junk we serve at these meetings.”
Julia kept glaring at me. “I don’t care if your name is Logan instead of Zach. You’re still one of the owners of this resort. You still care more about adding a few more dollars on top of the billions you already have than about helping out our lo
cal businesses. I’m happy to sell you cupcakes or coffee anytime, but don’t think we’re going to be friends. Don’t think that I’m not going to have my guard up around you. I don’t trust you, and neither do any of the other locals. And with good reason. Your resort has a history of bringing in lots of noisy tourists who only make you richer. My people get nothing, while your people get richer and richer.”
“My people? Who are my people? I don’t have people. All I want is a good cup of coffee, and maybe to actually get out and enjoy the sun for once while I’m here. I’m not on some sinister mission to take over the island.”
She shook her head at me in disgust, her green eyes flashing as her red curls bounced behind her in their loose ponytail. “Good afternoon, Mr. Evans. Enjoy your pastries.”
She strode out of the room, her back stiff and straight as she left. I stared after her in disbelief.
“Well, that didn’t go quite as well as expected.”
My assistant came timidly into the room. To her credit, she didn’t say anything even remotely close to “I told you so.” Instead, she asked in an apologetic voice if perhaps we could quickly finish reviewing my schedule. With a sigh, I nodded. I went to grab a cup of coffee and then sank into a chair as I once again half-listened to all of the torturous meetings that were coming up for me in the next few days.
Craving Him: A Billionaire Beach Island Romance (Billionaires of Driftwood Island Book 1) Page 3
