“I took over watching the gremlin whenever Jenna had to do her work stuff. We couldn’t trust taking her to a daycare on account of the dead-beat dad swearing he’d kidnap Emma the first chance he got.”
“But he decided to rob a bank on the way to following us here,” Jenna said with a huge smile on her face. “The feds picked him up yesterday.”
Humble didn’t even begin to cover what I was feeling at hearing what Jonathan and his family had been going through. “Why didn’t you tell us? There might have been something we could have done!”
Even if the guy hadn’t been dumb enough to try to rob a bank, I was sure that Zoey could have digitally manufactured a bank robbery and pinned it on him.
“I told her,” Jonathan said, and then again directly to his daughter he said, “I told you.”
“It’s my fault,” Jenna said. “I’ve been in hiding with Emma since I found out I was pregnant with her. No matter where I went, he always seemed to find me. I just didn’t know who I could trust anymore. That’s why I asked Dad to keep things hush-hush.”
“Sorry, boss. I know I left you high and dry a whole bunch.”
“No no no, you helped me succeed a whole bunch,” I said. “This place wouldn’t be doing half as well as it is without you. If I have to share you to keep you, I’ll take it.”
“What do you do?” Brad asked, and I was sure that it was professional curiosity as much as personal. If Jenna said she was a chemist, he’d add her to his mental suspect list the next time a designer drug started making the rounds.
“Cake decorator,” she said.
Her answer had my ears perking up. “Do you have any pictures?”
She pulled out her phone and tapped into the screens she wanted before handing it over. My eyes bulged when I scrolled through the images. Jenna had decorated everything from wedding cakes to life-size cake sculptures of what I could only assume was for a bachelorette party. They weren’t the kind of cakes that I would sell by the piece as an after-dinner dessert, but knowing a cake decorator could come in handy nonetheless.
The café’s door chimed again, and Robert Cornish walked in with a stunning Stella on his arm. She was wearing an engagement ring with a rock on it so large that it could have been spotted from outer space, yet it still didn’t outshine her. The woman was happy.
Daria extracted herself from a table of people and gave her father and soon-to-be step-mother a hug. Sebastian was on his feet, too, but he was headed our way.
“It okay if we take things over with a big announcement?”
“Go for it,” I said. I was pretty sure that Paperworx and PaperMore employees were the only ones out there anyway.
Sebastian turned to the crowd and was joined a half-second later by Daria. “Everyone, can I have your attention?” he yelled. No one noticed. Everyone continued to talk, eat, and mingle.
Daria put her fingers to her lips and let loose with an ear-splitting whistle. The whole room went silent.
My attention shifted nervously to little Emma. Daria’s whistle had been so loud that it made me want to cry. I couldn’t imagine what it would do to Emma, but I shouldn’t have worried. Zoey delivered a well-timed mouth fart to Emma’s belly that had the little girl giggling.
“Everyone, we have an announcement,” Sebastian continued. “A lot has changed over the past week. My Pop will be missed and remembered. He started Paperworx from the seed of an idea and nothing more, but he managed to grow it into the successful industry leader that it is today.”
“And my father did the same,” Daria added. “When Sebastian’s father and my father started their companies, they were the visionaries of the day.”
“But today we have a new vision,” Sebastian said, “one without a Paperworx or a PaperMore.” The room broke into whispers with a lot of worried glances. “Instead, our vision is for Paperworx More.”
“A joining of our two houses,” Daria said as she slid her hand into Sebastian’s and lifted their joined hands high above their heads. Her ring finger twinkled with an engagement ring all its own. “Our two strong companies—once rivals—will instead become one unstoppable force. United, we will lock in our title as the undisputed leader of the packaging industry, and we’ll be able to remain the leader for at least another thirty years to come.”
The murmurs of the gathered employees grew before erupting in cheers. Robert Cornish chose that moment to hug his daughter and shake his soon to be son-in-law’s hand.
I sighed. “Looks like Romeo and Juliet finally got a happily ever after.” Then I remembered Zoey and her feelings for Sebastian, but I shouldn’t have worried. She was playing patty-cake with Emma and didn’t seem to have a care in the world.
“What about you?” Brad said. “You wanting to get yourself one of those?”
Joel leaned in, clearly interested in hearing my answer as well.
“Seriously? We’re jumping from go-away-with-me to have-a-baby-with-me?”
“Wait? Who asked you to go away with them?” Brad turned his narrowed eyes on Joel. “You trying to steal the princess out the castle’s back door while I’m off doing the honorable thing of slaying the dragon?”
“Honorable,” Joel scoffed. “The only thing I’ve seen you do is run in to pick up the pieces after she slays the dragon for herself.”
“Yeah, well at least I didn’t tell her to stop slaying dragons because it wasn’t her job,” Brad shot back.
“Well maybe if you were better at doing your job, those dragons would get slain before she ever figured out where they were!” Joel was on his feet now, and Brad was following suit. The two looked ready to face off in an epic battle. All that was missing was a gauntlet they could throw on the ground.
“Guys! Guys!” They turned and looked at me. “I’m not a princess, and I like dragons. Can’t you use a different metaphor, like I don’t know, swamp sludge?”
Joel’s mouth pulled into a goofy grin and Brad looked… proud. He gave Joel a backhanded tap on the chest. “That’s our girl,” he said.
“That she is,” Joel conceded, smiling.
I felt my cheeks heat in a blush. They were both looking at me with too much adoration.
“I don’t even care that she can’t cook,” Brad said, and I felt my bashful blush turn into an angry one.
“And I don’t care that she keeps getting herself almost killed,” Joel said.
Brad turned to face him. “Yeah, well I don’t care that she’s got a psychopathic maniac as a best friend.”
Joel stepped closer so that they were in each other’s personal space. “And I don’t care that she has the survival instincts of a moth around a bonfire!”
I slunk my way into the kitchen. There were some battles of affection where simply no one came out as a winner. That was definitely one of them.
I looked around me at the gleaming steel counters and at the pots and pans needing to be washed, and it was my turn to smile. It was true; I wasn’t a good cook. And I was barely bumbling my way through being a café owner. But I had friends and a growing list of talented people around me to help make it all work.
I was home, in a space that was my own, and there was no other place on Earth that I’d rather be. So with my café full, my friends near, and my two best guys arguing about all the ways they adored me, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work—smiling the whole time.
These were the best days of my life.
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A Berry Baffling Businessman Page 20
