specialties. Everything in the bakery was made from Zoe’s family’s recipes, of course. But Zoe wasn’t as… culinarily gifted… as Josie was. It wasn’t an insult to her friend. It was just a fact. Like saying Zoe had more freckles or Josie had bigger boobs. Josie was just better in the kitchen. So Zoe stuck to the basics. Muffins, cookies, scones. Zoe could decorate the basic cookies and cupcakes, of course. She’d been doing it since she was old enough to hold a whisk. But if anyone needed something special—a cake that looked like a dinosaur or cupcakes that looked like cats—that was Josie’s expertise.
She always did a few cute little things for the bakery case to go alongside the basic vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry with the swirled icing. And she wouldn’t lie, she loved the fact that her stuff usually sold out first.
But not to Grant Lorre.
Grant stuck with the basics.
He had no idea how moist and sweet her cupcakes really were.
And yeah, she meant that to sound a little dirty. Even if it was only in her head.
She was losing it.
“’Night, Jose,” everyone echoed in multiple variations as she started for the front door. She couldn’t face Maggie again. Maggie would either get even more worried… or she’d figure out Josie was lying about not feeling well.
She was feeling fine. Horny. But fine.
She really didn’t want to explain that to the group at dinner.
“I’m going to head out too.”
Josie froze in the doorway between the dining room and foyer as Grant spoke. She slowly turned back.
Grant was getting to his feet. He laid his napkin by his plate and smoothed a hand over the front of his shirt as he stepped around his chair.
“No dessert?” Dax asked. Dax Marshall never skipped dessert.
“Nah. I have some stuff I need to do yet tonight,” Grant said.
“Something more important than lemon cake?” Dax said, clearly not believing it.
“Definitely,” Grant answered.
Then he glanced at Josie.
2
Her heart stopped.
Just for a second. Maybe two. But it actually happened. And she realized that, for some reason, Grant Lorre was following her out of the house on purpose.
“So, I’ll see you tomorrow at the office,” Grant said to Aiden. “And you… sometime, I assume?” he asked Dax.
Dax grinned. “I’ll stop by. I know you miss me when I’m not there.”
“Yep. That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
Dax had been a partner at Hot Cakes, the snack cake company that Aiden and Grant, along with their other partners, had taken over. But Dax had given up his shares so that he could date Jane. Since she worked for the company, she’d refused to go out with him while he was her boss.
Dax giving up the potential for millions of dollars of profit to be with Jane was the most romantic thing that Josie had ever heard, and she sighed a little every time she thought of it.
He now owned the nursing home where Jane’s dad lived and was working to remodel it and introduce several new, innovative eldercare programs. Honestly, that was also all because he’d fallen in love with Jane, and Josie knew that any guy who came along for her now was going to be measured by the Dax Marshall standard.
She was so screwed. Who was going to be able to compete with all of that?
And it wasn’t even the money. Dax definitely had enough of that to throw at any and all of Jane’s problems. Whether or not she would let him do that was another issue, but still, money was no object. But Josie wasn’t expecting to meet a guy whose wallet could measure up to Dax’s. It was his heart that she admired. His willingness to do whatever it took to make sure Jane—and the people she loved—were safe and happy.
But while money made that easier, it wasn’t the primary factor. Her father and grandfather were two of the most romantic, caring, generous men she knew. And neither of them had ever had more than a couple thousand bucks in the bank at one time. They’d both lived paycheck to paycheck—her dad still did—but they still provided a safe, happy, loving home and treated their wives like queens.
Just queens without jewels or gold or servants.
That was what Josie wanted. Just to be loved with someone’s whole heart. Even if all they had to give in the romance department was a Netflix subscription and microwave popcorn every weekend. That would matter as much as someone else giving her diamonds and trips to Paris.