Sweet On You - By Kate Perry Page 0,5

of yoga pants and a tank top, showing off her toned arms, which were partly credited to Pilates but mostly due to manipulating batter and dough. Her mass of dark curly hair was rolled and pinned on top of her head, a few short strands trailing loose. Her cheeks looked flushed, like she was feverish.

It was the look she got when she was determined.

A determined Daniela never bode well for Marley. It meant her job of wrangling the hot-headed pastry chef was going to be difficult.

But the fact that she was baking had to be a good sign.

Marley slowly backed out of the kitchen, careful not to make another peep. Daniela got extremely focused when she was cooking, and the slightest interruption set off fireworks that rivaled the Fourth of July.

Stepping over construction debris, she let herself out of the showroom, which wasn't completed yet because Daniela was dragging her feet, and went out the front door. She locked it and hurried to the house Daniela's brother had arranged for them to live in.

House was understating things. It was more like a mansion, especially for someone who'd grown up in Manhattan. Four stories on the edge of Laurel Heights, it was gaudy as hell, but that was Antonio Rossi's style. Daniela hated the house.

Marley loved it.

Not the whole house, per se, but the basement level that she'd taken over for herself, with Daniela's blessings. She had the entire floor, which included an office, a huge bedroom and sitting room, a bathroom fit for an emperor, a sauna, and a room entirely dedicated to her photography.

She called it her Batcave.

She had a separate entrance that led directly into it, and sometimes when she came back from taking photos at night, she imagined she'd been out fighting crime and was slinking back to her lair.

Her mother, a high-powered editor in New York, would have hated the basement. She'd have tried to light up every corner, complaining about how dreary it was. But then, her mother had never understood her—or even tried to. Marley had always been some foreign creature to her literary mom: a strange girl who loved to be in the shadows and had an obsession for comic books.

When Daniela had declared they were moving to San Francisco, Marley had been torn. The distance from her mother would be a blessing. The distance from the man she loved? Torture.

Not that Antonio Rossi knew she loved him. Or even that she existed, for that matter.

She unlocked the door to her Batcave and wound her way through the hallway to her office. Closing the door out of habit, she sat at her desk, blew a kiss to Batman who stared enigmatically from the print she'd hung on the wall, and took her iPhone out of her purse.

Tony answered the phone the way he always did, regardless of caller ID. "Rossi."

Every time Marley heard his voice or saw him walk into a room, she had a moment when she couldn't breathe. Struck completely speechless.

She knew it was ridiculous—she'd been around him in some form or another for seven years—but she couldn't help it. It wasn't that he was gorgeous, which he was. He had that "it" quality movie stars like Brad Pitt and Gerard Butler had, that made you just want to wrap yourself around them and ask them to take you.

Marley was so not the kind of woman anyone would take, especially Antonio Rossi. But, goodness, did she want to try.

"Marley?" he asked, concern in his voice. "Are you there?"

"Oh. Yes." She cleared the jittery nerves from her throat. "Daniela's baking."

Silence stretched on the other end of the line. Then he said, "Is she listening to music?"

"Frank Sinatra."

Tony heaved a sigh. "Thank God. Does this mean she's over whatever funk she's been in?"

"I don't know, but it seems promising," she said hopefully. "She hasn't baked anything except one wedding cake in months, and she's only baking bread."

"Bread?"

"A lot of it."

After a moment, he said, "Okay, it's a start. It's better than nothing. Listen, Marley, I need you to press her."

She blinked in surprise. "Press her on what?

"For one thing, finishing up the storefront. Renovation has been going on too long."

"Got it," she said, writing down a note. With Daniela baking again, it shouldn't be too difficult to get her to finally tie up all the loose ends with the remodel.

"Additionally, the Food Network wants her to do another show. They see her as the counterpart to Bourdain, traveling around the world, trying desserts.