Call Her Mine (Harmony Pointe #1)- Melissa Foster Page 0,21
at Vic’s office and how his face had crumpled every time she cried, as if her pain were his own. She’d be lying to herself if she tried to pretend that the whole time she’d been at the bakery she hadn’t been thinking about both Ben and B.
Her phone vibrated again with a text from Ben. Good. Someone misses you. Comments like that might drive her mad. She was falling even harder for him, and she was an idiot. He didn’t say he missed her. For all she knew, what he really meant was that B needed a diaper change.
“Hello? Earth to Aurelia.” Piper waved her hand in front of Aurelia’s face, startling her.
“Sorry. I’m so tired I must have zoned out.”
Piper eyed Aurelia’s phone, and Aurelia quickly turned it over. “I asked if you could pry yourself away from my brother’s big project long enough to meet me at the bookstore to go over a few things before my guys start painting.”
Piper was handling the renovations to the bookstore and to the bakery for the new direction of Aurelia and Willow’s partnership. They were going to offer books at the bakery and baked goods at the bookstore.
“Yeah, sure, of course,” Aurelia said. “I promised Ben I’d drop off breakfast. Let me just swing by his place and then shower real quick.”
“With Ben?” Piper arched a brow.
Aurelia glared at her. “At home. Before I go, though, I want to see how Willow’s book nook is coming along.”
“Oh my gosh, it’s gorgeous,” Willow said as she put dollops of batter on a tray. “I think this was the smartest thing we could have done, utilizing both locations instead of just making the bakery/bookstore here in Sweetwater. And it leaves the apartment above the bakery free. Shira’s been tossing around the idea of spending more time here now that Bodhi and his mother have both moved. This way she can stay upstairs if she wants.”
Willow put the tray in the oven. As they headed into the bakery to check out the book nook, she asked, “Did you hear about Remi’s stalker?”
“What? No.”
“Scary shit,” Piper said.
“Someone is sending her threatening letters, and they broke into her house. I’m surprised it wasn’t on TMZ, but Aiden managed to keep it all under wraps to protect her,” Willow explained.
“Oh my gosh. How is Remi handling it? Was she home when they broke in?”
“No, and you know Remi,” Willow said. “She thinks everyone is overreacting. She hates the bodyguards Aiden hired, and she feels like if whoever broke in really wanted to hurt her, they would have broken in when she was home. She kind of has a point. I’m just glad she’ll be here filming soon. LA is so crazy.”
Aurelia thought about Ben’s big-boobed LA hookup, and her stomach seized. She’d always known Ben had been with plenty of women, but she’d been thinking about it so much the last twenty-four hours, it made her queasy.
She forced those thoughts away and focused on the bakery, which adjoined Bridgette’s flower shop through an arched doorway. Aurelia loved the distressed mint and pink cabinetry and the wide glass displays spanning almost the full width of the store. Behind the register, packages of bakery paraphernalia wrapped with pretty pink and green bows decorated the shelves. They’d cleared the tables at the far end of the room for the new reading nook. The shelves started halfway up the side wall and ran the length of it. Aurelia pictured the shelves displaying books from her store, the enticing covers silently calling out to readers—and even those who didn’t yet realize they were readers—because she knew books had special powers to captivate people and sweep them out of their own lives into someplace magical.
“We’re going to stain the bookshelves the same color as the hardwood floors,” Piper explained.
“This is perfect,” Aurelia said in wonder. “Simply perfect.”
“I found an antique sofa and two end chairs online last night,” Willow said. “I’ll send you pictures. I think they’ll give it the coziness we talked about.”
As Willow and Piper discussed the build-out, Aurelia’s mind circled back to Ben and B. Had he changed her diaper? What if she needed another bath? He couldn’t bathe her alone. He hadn’t showered last night because B was sleeping on his chest. She should probably stick around long enough for him to shower before going home.
Half an hour later, as she drove down the cobblestone streets toward Ben’s house with a bag of his favorite cheese Danishes and