Sebastian (The Billionaire Boyfriend #1) - Christina Benjamin Page 0,4
with my own hands.
Still, sometimes I do wonder if it would be easier if I just hired a ton more people, kicked up my heels, and watched as Holly Cakes flourishes. That’s what Bob says every time he calls. Hadn’t I worked hard enough already? Wasn’t I ready to pass on the baton?
It’s taken eight years to get where I am today. I started when I was sixteen, selling cookies at the local flea market. As the years passed, I opened up an online store, visited local restaurants and peddled my goods, and even traveled to the local nursing homes and grocery stores to try and catch people hankering for a treat.
I didn’t get a real storefront until two years back. Business was slow but steady for a while and I continued to bust my sticky buns slaving over sugar cookies and homemade pie crusts until The New York Times article came out a few months ago. I hadn’t even known I’d been reviewed until I showed up to open the bakery one morning and found a line halfway down the block. Everyone wanted a taste.
Holly Cakes has been slammed ever since, but I haven’t hired a single new person.
This bakery means the world to me and I don’t want to take away what makes it special, and that’s . . . well, that’s me. I don’t want anyone to come into my bakery and wonder just who Holly might be. I want to be the one to greet them, to shake their hand, to get to know them.
That’s why I'm the one who makes the deliveries and I'm the one who answers the phone. Bob keeps warning me that if I procrastinate, my time in the limelight will be over before I know it. I'm enjoying my fifteen minutes of fame now, but it will soon come to an end. The celebrities will move on to the next cult crush on the block and the masses will follow.
However, if there’s one thing I listen to more than anything else, it’s my own intuition, and my intuition tells me that I'm going to be just fine because I treat my customers right.
Right, Mom? I add, glancing toward the ceiling as though I could gaze right through the concrete block to the swirling white clouds above to see her gentle smile peering down.
Has it really been three whole years since I lost her?
My heart throbs in my chest, my palm pressing above it to ease the sharp pain. Three whole years and it still hurts as bad as it did that day.
My assistant leans over, thrusting a tin of fresh baked oatmeal raisin cookies into my hands, successfully yanking me out from my own head.
“These are ready for the fridge!” she beams.
I nod absently, glancing at the long line of customers waiting at the register. While a few are here to grab a cookie or muffin a la carte, quite a few of them are eagerly waiting to pick up their finished orders, most of which had been placed weeks ago.
All of a sudden, the line begins to move, surging and swaying as the people are forcefully parted. A dark-haired figure appears in front of the register, shooting a scowl at the first person in line until they step plaintively aside. The man, dressed in a pressed ebony suit that matches his dark locks, looks vaguely familiar—and not just because he looks like he could’ve stepped right out of a Calvin Klein ad. There’s something about his stern, downturned eyes and hard mouth that jostle something in my memory.
“I'm sorry sir, but you’ll have to wait in line,” I say with a frown, gesturing toward the people who he’s displaced from the line.
“I'm Sebastian Titus,” he interrupts, pressing one palm forcefully onto the counter and leaning between myself and the people waiting, “and I need those cupcakes I tried to order over the phone before you hung up on me.”
Chapter 3
Sebastian
The woman’s emerald eyes abruptly narrow on mine, one hand setting firmly on her hip while the other drops a tin of cookies onto the counter before her. She takes a step forward, leaning toward me in a mirror movement of my own authoritative stance.
“So, that was really you on the phone earlier?” she asks, though it’s clear from her furrowed brow that she already knows the answer.
I give an exasperated sigh and nod my head a single time. It’s about time she realizes that she was wrong in assuming that