by Liz Meldon
Even if selling tickets and giving information to tourists and lookie-loos wasn’t what Skye had envisioned as her first postgrad job, she had never been happier at work. For the first time in her life, she didn’t dread the start of each day, nor did she lay in bed fantasizing about elaborate, awesome ways to quit as her alarm shrieked unchecked on her nightstand.
And she needed that, considering every other part of her life was a fucking disaster.
Just after Skye put her cleaning supplies away in the small, nondescript storage closet near the museum exit door, a bright-eyed college-aged woman strolled into the lobby, dressed to the nines with a folder tucked under her arm. Before Skye had a chance to intercede, Hans directed her to carry on through, saying he would be there momentarily.
“I’m considering bringing on another intern,” he explained when the woman disappeared through the museum entrance. Skye schooled her features as she nodded. When she had applied to work here, she’d been passed over because she lacked experience. That woman couldn’t have been older than twenty-one.
“That’ll be nice.”
“One of the college programs is doing an HR internship,” he clarified, as though sensing the shift in her tone. “I’ll get additional funding for hiring one of their students.”
“Oh.” She brightened, then instantly felt ridiculous for having such a sour reaction. After all, who was she to make a face at Hans’s hiring procedures? At least she had a job she liked and a boss who liked her. She still had the opportunity to join the back-of-house museum staffers in a few months, at the very least. “That’s great. If you need help organizing the interviews, just let me know.”
They quickly tidied up the rest of the space, and, just as she was switching from heels to flip-flops, Hans stopped her.
“One last thing,” he said. “There is a museum fair happening next weekend. All the local establishments will have a booth. There will be games, prizes, guest lectures from specialists. We even have a few larger institutions gracing us with their presence, and I was wondering if you would like to help me and Theresa man the booth?”
Skye blinked, taking a few seconds to process the wealth of information, then hastily nodded. “I would love to!”
Anything to show she was committed to being a more hands-on member of the team.
Hans told her he would give her the details tomorrow, then shooed her out, insisting her shift had ended eight minutes ago and she had the whole night ahead of her. Weekdays meant an eleven-to-seven shift, so by whole night, he meant dinner and a few hours of TV before crashing in bed. Still, Skye appreciated that he took an interest in their out-of-work lives and was always determined to at least try to get everyone out on time. Gossip through the museum circles suggested that other owners, directors, managers and the like were less inclined to believe their employees even had a life outside of work.
She hurried out the main glass doors, waving as Hans locked them behind her, and walked home with an extra bit of pep in her step. However, that pep quickly leeched out of her when she spotted her apartment building—an ever-present reminder of Cole Daniels, and, by association, Finn Rai, two men she had been trying to keep out of her mind since ending things with both them a month ago.
That was always made more difficult, however, when she returned home to find a stack of moving boxes by the front door, still flat and waiting to be put together. Since ending her sugar daddy contract with Cole and cutting ties with the company who had paired them, Skye had been determined to move out of his apartment and find a place of her own. Unfortunately, rent was sky-high in Coral Bay, and after living in an incredibly safe building for the last four years, sketchy suburbs and rundown low-rises on the city outskirts had zero appeal. Cole had insisted she stay until she found something better—but better seemed more and more unlikely with each day Skye spent scouring apartment ads.
“Love of my life,” she greeted as Oz weaved his way around the boxes, purring thunderously. She swept him into her arms and snuggled him close, knowing that even if she had lost Cole and Finn, she would always have Oz to keep her warm at night.
In theory, anyway. As soon as the white floof got what he wanted—a quick snuggle and a chin rub—he squirmed out of her arms, circled her legs purr-meowing, and then stuffed his face into her work bag. Rolling her eyes, Skye stepped around the purse-diving expedition and grabbed her pad thai leftovers from the fridge, dumped them in a pot, and set them on the stove. After changing out of her work clothes, she stretched out on the couch, got the TV going, and half watched while she perused her phone’s notifications.
A little part of her was always disappointed not to see anything from Finn or Cole—but that was absurd. Of course she wouldn’t get anything from them. She had sent them packing firmly and abruptly when they showed up at work on her first day, insisting the jig was up. That had been a month ago, and besides the brief bit of contact she’d had to have with Cole about the apartment, both men had kept a respectable distance.
Did she regret how it all went down? Absolutely.
Was her regret strictly related to how she handled things? No.
Did she regret walking away from them? Definitely.
But Skye knew she couldn’t change that now. As much as she missed texting all day with Finn or wiping lipstick off Cole’s cheek, laughing, nothing could change what had happened. Her decision, while heart-wrenching, would be the best for everyone in the long run. All she could hope was that they were both happy. Because they deserved to be happy.
Skye, on the other hand, accepted her regret, her sadness, and her pain in stride. She had been in the wrong, even if Cole could never communicate properly and Finn probably shouldn’t have pursued his friend’s sugar baby. It didn’t matter now. It was in the past.
So why couldn’t she stop thinking about it?
Why did she hope to see their names flashing on the screen whenever her phone rang?
Why had it hit her this hard?
And why, for goodness sake, couldn’t she stop thinking about them? Both of them. Work offered some reprieve, as she was still learning the ins and outs of the business, but as soon as those heels came off and she was out the door, Cole and Finn managed to wriggle their way to the front of her mind. It was a vicious cycle: missing them, then remembering she had severed the connection and this was all her fault, then scolding herself for being upset, followed by a swift game of what if. It wasn’t healthy, but she couldn’t stop it. That fucking cycle was on repeat, and now, a month after everything had happened, Skye still hadn’t figured out how to break it.
At the sound of something sizzling on the stove, she tore herself away from her phone and dashed across the sprawling living space into the kitchen, hastily turning down the burner and stirring her day-old noodles. After a few pitiful meows from Oz, she fed him his dinner a little early, then flopped back down on the couch for a little guilt-free TV time before she dove back into rental listings.
And tried, at least for a few hours, to forget about the man who actually owned her apartment—and the man who had once showed up at its door with chocolate roses.
15
Chocolate Knight
Skye was in a waking nightmare.
All around her, kids aged seven and under screeched at the top of their lungs, running into each other, knocking things over—and no one was coming to save her.
“Guys,” she cried as she tried to gently remove gum from a sweet little blonde’s very fragile hair. “Come on, let’s settle down. We can’t start our games if you don’t… settle… down…”
Hopeless. The only relatively sane one was the delicate creature whimpering in front of her, tears spilling down her cheeks and a wad of bright pink gum in her hair. The best she’d been able to offer, when Skye asked who had done it, was a boy, which was promptly followed by waterworks. And not a parent in sight, of course.
“Almost out, sweetheart,” Skye told her, but from the look on the girl’s face, she didn’t trust Skye�
�s half-crazed smile and frantic eyes. Somewhere behind the multicolored jungle gym playset, someone screamed, the sound followed by laughter and the scattering of a bunch of little shits in superhero shirts. Skye exhaled sharply, wishing she’d had the good sense to tie her hair up before she had stepped into this madness. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck. For an indoor kiddie playroom, it certainly was sweltering as fuck.
Or maybe Skye was just melting into the floor.
She could deal with that. Just dissolve into a puddle of sweat and stress. Puddles didn’t have to manage a herd of twenty monsters.
Everyone had done it, apparently. The Central California Museum Togetherness Festival at White Water Point, a midsize city about a half hour inland from Coral Bay, had a children’s room inside the convention center where parents could dump their brats. It allowed them to peruse the many booths, displays, and exhibits without worrying their kid might break something, get lost, or cost them extra cash. Museums got a discount on their booth fee if they signed up for an hour of monitoring the playroom. They had all been told that an attendant who handled kids this age for a living would be present. From what Skye had heard from the other museum folk suckered into this gig, it had sounded like an hour of phone time.
When Skye arrived, Janet, the trained attendant, had zipped out immediately, citing the excuse that she hadn’t had a break yet during her ten-hour day. So there was Skye. Alone. In a room that smelled sticky, with twenty chubby-cheeked munchkins who wouldn’t. sit. still.
Had she expected Hans or Theresa to do this? No. Both had seniority over her. Both were more knowledgeable at the booth. But she would have at least preferred there to be a vote. Something. Instead, Hans had clapped a hand on her shoulder about fifteen minutes ago and smiled sadly. Skye had known right then and there that things were about to take a turn for the awful.
“There we go,” she said, a victorious cackle slipping out of her mouth when she pried the gum from the little girl’s hair. “Free!”
She had expected the tears to cease immediately and the gum’s prisoner to rejoin the chaos. Instead, the girl dug her hand into Skye’s jeans pocket—hooray for informal attire—and followed her to the garbage can.
Okay. She was going to have a shadow now. The blonde couldn’t have been more than four or five, and when Skye crouched down and asked her for her name, she uttered an almost inaudible Cassandra before her lip started to quiver again.
“What a pretty name,” Skye cooed. “Do you want to be my helper?”
Lip still wobbling, Cassandra nodded, blonde curls bouncing and cheeks a rosy pink. Skye sighed and straightened, trying to figure out the best way to keep Cassandra from bawling and wrangle the rest of them into something closer to organized chaos than what it was right now.
“Well, doesn’t this look like a barrel of laughs…”
Skye’s head snapped in the direction of the door, eyes widening at the sound of an all-too-familiar voice—one she hadn’t heard for over a month, but sometimes whispered naughty things in her dreams. Finn Rai. In the flesh. Leaning on the locked swinging gate—which came up to roughly to Skye’s waist and was the only thing keeping the beasts from breaking out and ruining the festival. There was an actual door located inside the storage room at the back, of course, if she needed to make an escape to the outside world. It had been singing its siren song for the last ten minutes or so. Suddenly this door, however, was much more appealing.
The convention center that had offered to host the museum fair had several rooms just like this. Some were used for choir practice or other musical affairs, given how wonderful the acoustics were. This one, however, sat at the far end of the building, past the bathrooms, the for-rent art studios, and even the food court. Totally round, its walls coated in animal kingdom murals, the day care took place inside during the week. Parents would check their child in at that little gate, which would swing open and lock soundly behind them, and then watch the little hellion dive into the fun from the safety of the other side.
Someone should have been manning said gate. The person who was paid to deal with kids should have been manning it, monitoring the sheets of parent names that coordinated with a specific child. Well, no, Skye should have been doing that. Fucking Janet should be pulling gum out of string-thin hair and wrangling the little monsters.
But she was all by her lonesome.
Cue the entrance of her white knight, just when she least expected him.
No. Her chocolate knight. Skye hadn’t touched any Rai’s Sweets products since that awful day, and yet there was Finn, grinning down at her before whipping out a packet of her favourites—chocolate balls stuffed with salted caramel. How did he know chocolate was precisely what she needed in this exact moment?
Wait—how did he even know she was here? Did he have a secret love child checked into her waking nightmare who was causing everyone a world of misery? Skye stood and swept her hair out of her face, then took a quick count of the kids. All accounted for—and none that resembled a miniature Finn.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, finally striding toward the door, Cassandra at her heels. The little girl barely gave her an inch of space as she shuffled along after her, grabbing hold of the fold in Skye’s jeans when she stopped.
Handsome as ever, Finn’s dark eyes swept over her. Skye had missed the way he studied her, like she was a living, breathing work of art that he desperately needed for his private collection. He had a knack for making her feel special, like the only woman in the world, without saying a word. Her cheeks burned at the thought, and she bit them, hard, in an effort to distract herself.
Clearing his throat, he gave a slight shake of his head, as if to refocus, and then leaned over the kiddie gate.
“Well, hello,” he crooned down to Cassandra, whose face went beet red as soon as their eyes met. “Who is this charming creature?”
“Finn—”
“Would she possibly be interested in a bit of chocolate?”
“Finn.” As soon as the pack of hyenas inside caught wind of chocolate, they’d tear Cassandra apart to get it. Like any of them needed additional sugar.
“All right, all right,” he said, straightening with a chuckle. “I brought them for you, anyway, but it’s always polite to share.”
“And why,” she said, forcing a smile at the feel of Cassandra’s huge round eyes peering up at her, “are you here, bringing me chocolate?”
“Oh, get over yourself.” Finn picked a nonexistent bit of lint off his navy suit jacket, a garment perfectly tailored to highlight every delicious curve of his muscular, towering frame. “I’m here for the fair. I’ve invested in six of the museums attending… Figured I’d check on things in a less official capacity.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” Her blush darkened. Of course he was here on business. Both he and Cole had probably slipped right back to their high-class lifestyles in a flash without her. They’d probably already found new women to fill their free time with.
Well. Not Cole. But he could certainly afford to take on a new sugar baby now that Skye had severed ties.
The very idea made her stomach twist, even though she knew it had no right to.
“But,” Finn murmured, leaning in just slightly, as though whispering a wicked secret, “I thought you might be here. At the fair. So, really, the chocolates were intended for you. I planned ahead.”
“Why?” Behind her, the shrieks and laughter had reached a crescendo. She had to get back in there. Skye winced at the sound of something crashing to the floor.
“Consider it a peace offering,” Finn told her, albeit somewhat distractedly as he peered over her. “What on earth is happening in there?”
“Chaos,” she huffed. “Pure, unbridled chaos. I’m not a nanny, but apparently today I…” Skye pressed her lips together, only just processing what he had initially said. “Finn, you don’t need to give me a peace offering. I… owe you one, if anything.”
“Water under the bridge, darling,�
�� he said, still distracted. “Would you like a hand?”
“What?” Skye opened and closed her mouth, but no words of protest came when he shoved the chocolates into her hand, then reached over and unlatched the door. Finn slipped into the room, body no more than a breath from hers, and she tried not to inhale too deeply at the first hint of his intoxicating cologne wafting over her.
“You look like you’ve lost control,” he noted. “Are you all by yourself?”
“I’m just here because we volunteered to help for an hour. The girl who actually captains this sinking ship is on her break.”
“Unacceptable.”
“Well, it’s been a long day—”
“Find a place for this where no one will touch it with what I suspect are sticky little fingers,” Finn instructed, slipping off his jacket and holding it out to her. Bewildered, Skye took it and hung it over her arm, then watched as he unbuttoned the cuffs of his collared dress shirt, rolled the sleeves up to his elbows, and squared his shoulders. A steely glint appeared in his eye as he surveyed the scene. “Fortunately for you, children love me.”
He shot Cassandra a quick wink and a dazzling grin, and Skye held back a smile as the little girl hid her flushed face against Skye’s leg.
Don’t worry. He has that effect on everyone.
“Finn, you really don’t have to…”
But he was already off, marching into the eye of the storm, clapping loudly and calling for everyone to meet him by the jungle gym. Much to her surprise, the horde of tiny shits listened.
