Sugar & Spice (Spicetopia Book 1) Read online

  “On your salary at Sweetopia? You can’t afford me,” I said, rolling my eyes. “My clients pay me five hundred a month.”

  “I can give you a thousand cash tonight.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Right.” I looked him up and down. He was a kid in his mid-twenties. A foreign exchange student, basically, a recent college grad who hadn’t even nailed down a fulltime job yet.

  “I can give you...” He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and took out a wad of cash, which he began to count.

  I ripped the wallet out of his hand when I saw all the gold and platinum credit cards tucked into their slots. I flipped it over and glanced down at his driver’s license, which looked to be a regular Florida one.

  I was expecting to see the name Marcus Young, but that is not what appeared.

  Cyrus Anthony Sweet.

  That was what his license said.

  A sensation I hadn’t experienced since the morning I woke up and River’s dad was gone, leaving nothing, no note and none of his possessions behind, welled up in me like magma rocketing up a volcano. It was a burning, searing pain, ripping through my gut and funneling every bit of fear, anger, and hurt I had floating around in my body into one whirling, twirling cylinder of rage.

  “Jolie, I can explain—”

  I didn’t even finish putting on my boots. After dropping the wallet into his waiting hands, I threw the second boot in the back seat and swung my legs into the car. I wanted to scream obscenities at him, but I couldn’t even look at him. I had no idea what expression crossed his face as I started up my car, slammed my door, and squealed out of the parking lot.

  Not only that, I didn’t fucking care.

  Fourteen

  I didn’t know how long I stood in the parking lot after Jolie drove off in a huff. I couldn’t blame her. Yes, she’d hidden her second job and her son’s health from me, but that was nothing compared to me pretending to be an entirely different person. A different nationality even.

  Her secrets were, well, completely understandable. They weren’t the type of things you’d tell someone you barely knew—they were things you told someone once you had gotten to know them a little. And I’m sure those were the things she was planning to tell me earlier today at work. And I would have been there to hear them if Colleen hadn’t called me into her office.

  Colleen. I needed to speak with her. It only took me a few minutes to hack into the employee database to find her address and phone number. I thought about calling first, but I figured there was little chance she would answer, let alone invite me over.

  I didn’t know much about Colleen’s personal life, but when I pulled up to her house, some things became clearer. She lived in a modest ranch-style brick home that had two palm trees in the front yard. There was a “welcome” flag flying on the porch and a couple of Adirondack chairs painted in bright teal.

  Taking a deep, bolstering breath, I marched up the rock-lined walkway to her front door and rang the doorbell. I had ditched my glasses and would forgo the accent too. No need for those things now.

  A teenage girl with a confused look on her face answered. “Hello?”

  “Are you Colleen’s daughter?”

  A funny, embarrassed smirk appeared. “Yes?”

  “Is your mom home? I need to speak with her.”

  She stood there for a moment, confusion still wrinkling her brows.

  “I work with her at Sweetopia,” I explained.

  “Just a sec.” She disappeared down the hallway, and in moments, she was replaced with an older, more filled-out version of herself.

  “Marcus?” Colleen huffed out. “I mean Cy.”

  “Hey, can I come in? I want to talk to you.”

  She pursed her lips and reluctantly swung the door open. “What do you want?” she asked as she guided me into a small parlor off the foyer. She gestured to the loveseat as she took the armchair across from it.

  “Is everything okay?” a tall, gray-haired man with a deep voice asked from the entryway once I got settled.

  I stood up and extended my hand to him. “I’m Cy Sweet.”

  “Oh. Right,” he said as if he’d already heard this story. He turned to his wife. “You okay?”

  “This is my husband, James.” She gave the man a pointed look as if to say she wasn’t impressed by his lack of introduction. “I’m fine, honey. This won’t take long.”

  “I just got back from talking to Jolie at the hospital,” I started.

  “What? How did you—”

  “I called all the area hospitals till I found the one that had admitted a River Daniels.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Does privacy even mean anything to you? I’m surprised they gave out that information.”

  “British accents and adding M.D. to your name really seem to help.” I chuckled. I had found out her son’s last name from hacking into the employee information database at work. Same place I found Colleen’s address.

  “So why are you here?” She folded her arms across her chest and glared at me. Her expression was nearly as intense as it had been earlier in her office.

  “I want to help her,” I explained. “I just found out she has a second job. And I know the issue she has with my parents and her benefits at work. I just want to help. Monetarily.”

  “You rich people are all alike,” she seethed. “You think you can just sweep in and drop some cash on a situation, and it will fix everything. It’s so fucking cocky.”

  I couldn’t refute her accusation. But money could solve a lot of problems—if that wasn’t the case, then why would Sweetopia employees be organizing this protest? They wanted more money, better benefits, and they were willing to strike and call for a boycott to get them. Those things would deprive my family of money. It was all about money. It always was.

  “Why don’t you talk to your parents and get them to change their policies?” Colleen suggested. “Why don’t you get them to make some changes before the media gets involved and there’s a strike and boycott, and they’re made to look like assholes, probably on national TV? Maybe international...”

  I considered what she said. I had tried to talk to my parents at the dinner table. My father was pretty sure he was the victim in this scenario, and I was beginning to see how pigheaded he was. How selfish. I never thought of my parents as anything but hardworking, honest businesspeople. But they clearly had even more wealth than I originally thought and had used some questionable tactics to maintain it. Meanwhile, their employees were suffering, being treated unfairly.

  There was no reason my parents couldn’t stay rich and successful and be fair to their employees. But I highly doubted they were going to listen to me if I suggested a compromise.

  “I tried to talk to them tonight at dinner.” I rolled my eyes. “It didn’t go too well.”

  “Then talk to your brothers; get them on your side,” she suggested. “Look, Cy, if you want to make this better...if you want to help Jolie, you need to put in the work. Try harder. Money doesn’t solve everything, you know. Step the fuck up, Cy.”

  “She knows now,” I blurted out. “She knows who I really am.”

  Colleen’s eyes widened as she stared at me. “And how did that go over?”

  “About as well as you’d expect. She really does hate my family, doesn’t she?”

  Colleen smirked as she nodded. “I know she hasn’t been at the park for too long, but they haven’t treated her well. They’ve treated her like an object, not a human being. And they’ve been completely unreasonable about her needing time off to care for her son. Not to mention the medical stuff that hasn’t been covered under their cheap insurance policy.”

  “I didn’t know about her son till today.”

  “Your parents did,” she fired back. “Trust me.”

  That made me angry. My parents had three sons! How could they not be sympathetic to the plight of a single mother of two sons? Especially if one of them had a grave illness?

  Colleen c
ontinued, “Jolie hoped that portraying The Red Velvet Queen would get her some visibility. There’s talk about a movie, you know...a live action movie.”

  There had been animated films based on the Sweetopia characters for quite some time. Books first, of course. Then films. My parents had talked about a live action film, but as far as I knew, they hadn’t found a studio or director they wanted to work with. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect Red Velvet Queen than Jolie.

  “So that’s why she wanted to stick it out in the job,” I realized, “despite the bad insurance and benefits.”

  “She feels like it could be her big break, and once she started organizing this protest—”

  “So she is the mastermind,” I interrupted.

  I knew Jolie was headstrong, but she was so young and relatively new at the park. I figured the lead organizer was someone who had been around a while, a veteran. Someone like Colleen.

  “Jolie has the passion, the drive, the personality,” Colleen explained. “I have the experience. We make a good team. She was hoping telling her story to the media would open a lot of doors for her—with Sweet Enterprises and in general...maybe in Hollywood.”

  “I see.” Truer words had never been spoken. Everything had begun to crystallize. I knew what my next steps were.

  I glanced down at my watch, and it was nearing eight o’clock. There was no more that could be done tonight, but tomorrow I needed to pay a visit to our family lawyer and then to my brothers.

  I thanked Colleen for her time and advice then headed home.

  Cyrus Anthony Sweet, are you fucking kidding me?

  Yeah, I made it through the session with Mr. Barry then hightailed it home to do some research. My laptop was a bit dusty, but I fired that baby up and typed “Cyrus Sweet” into the search engine. Hundreds of results appeared. Most of them were about how the youngest Sweet boy was a world-class partier. World class in that he’d been all over the damn world—on his parents’ dime, no doubt.

  “How was River tonight?” my mother asked from the doorway to my bedroom.

  “Hey, Mom.” I angled the laptop screen down to hide my search, though I wasn’t sure why. Instinct, I guessed. “He was tired. We did his homework, and I read him a story, and that was about it.”

  “And your session?” She wore a concerned look on her face.

  “It was fine. Just the usual stuff.” I shrugged.

  “What are you doing now? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

  “Shouldn’t you?” Sometimes it was hard to tell who was mothering whom around here.

  “Your big meeting is tomorrow, isn’t it?” She stepped a little further into the room. “Is everything set?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, good thing I’m not working tomorrow. I can sleep in a little.”

  “Maybe looking tired and worn out is a better game plan?” She smiled in a way that made me think she was probably joking. She did have a point, though.

  “Yeah, maybe.” I forced a smile. “Are you coming?”

  “Did you talk to Dr. Grimes about discharging River early so he can be there?” She didn’t answer my question.

  I shook my head. “No. He needs to finish out his tune-up. If you don’t want to come with Reed, it’s fine. You guys can stay here. I’ve got this.”

  “You seem upset. What happened today?” She paced toward my bed, where she sat down. It was abundantly clear she wasn’t going anywhere until I spilled it. She could always tell when something was bothering me.

  I huffed out a long sigh as I debated what to tell her. Then I remembered my search on the laptop. I could give her a pretty fast executive summary accompanied by a visual aid. “Remember that guy from work I was seeing? Marcus?”

  My mother nodded.

  “Yeah. So, this is him.” I turned the laptop screen toward her.

  She got up, moving closer to inspect the photos. “Whoa...that’s—”

  “The Sweets’ youngest son, yes.” My face immediately went into my palm before I ran my fingers through my hair.

  “But—”

  “An undercover thing, I guess. I am pretty sure his parents sent him in to get close to me, to try to uncover the plot to organize the strike and boycott.” I blew another breath out as I realized what it all meant. “He never even liked me. He just wanted to out me to his parents.”

  “Wow. Honey, I’m so sorry.” My mom’s eyes were filled with sadness for me. “He seemed so nice. How did you figure it out? What did he have to say for himself?”

  “He actually tracked me down at the hospital. I don’t know how. Pisses me off that he would even try to do that.” I shook my head, trying not to let the anger bubble up inside me again, but it was too late. I could feel rage spiking the blood in my veins. “He offered to pay me double whatever Mr. Barry was paying me if I would cancel my session with him, and when he whipped out his wallet, all the gold and platinum credit cards caught my eye—he’s in his mid-twenties so he shouldn’t have all those—so I grabbed it from him. That’s when I saw his driver’s license. He’s not even British!”

  My mom made a tsk-tsk sound. “That may be the biggest travesty of it all!”

  I couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  “So what are you going to do?” She patted the space next to her on my bed, and I plopped down on the mattress beside her. She put her arm around my waist and squeezed me to her body.

  “I’m not going to work tomorrow, so I can’t be fired.” I laid my head on my mom’s shoulder as I continued, “And even if they did fire me, that would just make things worse for them when I talk to the press. I’m going to just do my thing tomorrow and hope for the best. Fuck the Sweets.”

  My mom’s laughter filled the room, and for a moment I worried it might wake Reed up. But it was too contagious, and in seconds, I was joining in too.

  Fuck the Sweets.

  Fifteen

  One errand down, one to go. I parked in the staff parking lot at Sweetopia in my beat-up truck. My cover was blown with Colleen and Jolie, but I didn’t want anyone else to figure it out. I was hoping Colleen had kept her promise not to tell anyone.

  I used the elevator that required a key to get up to the corporate offices at the top of Cotton Candy Castle. I’d never realized how plush and luxurious things looked up here. I guessed after spending time in so many kitchens and storage rooms, nice stuff was starting to look swanky to me.

  I breezed past Clem and Carson’s secretary. She tried to stop me, not recognizing me in my Marcus Young get-up. I guessed with the pink polo on, I looked like any other park employee. I glanced over my shoulder at her and simply said, “They’re expecting me.”

  Poking my head into Clem’s office first, I announced, “Conference room. Now.” Then I did the same thing at Carson’s office.

  My dad was just down the hall, or he would be, but I happened to know it was his morning to play golf, which meant he was out on the green, not here. The timing was perfect.

  I settled in at the head of the table, the position where my father typically sat. The last time I was in this room was when the entire family nominated me to be the one to go all undercover boss. Oh, how things had changed. Hell, I was supposed to be leaving for Greece in two days, and I had nearly forgotten all about that trip. If things went as I planned, I would still be going. And I wouldn’t be going alone.

  “What the hell is going on? Where’s Dad?” Carson grumbled as he took a seat in one of the leather executive chairs.

  “I thought you were supposed to be down in the bakery. What are you doing up here? You’re going to blow your cover,” Clem added.

  “You’re such a fuck-up, Cy. I knew you wouldn’t be able to pull this undercover boss thing off.” Carson folded his hands together on the surface of the desk and glared at me.

  I looked from one brother to the other and cleared my throat. I had rehearsed this speech on the way over here, and I wasn’t backing down. “How much do you like your jobs here at Sweetop
ia?”

  Clem furrowed his brows. “Well, it’s not bad as far as jobs go. It’s not like we do that much.”

  “You do know that Dad is planning to retire and turn the park over to the three of us next year, right?” I continued.

  Carson spoke up with his normal know-it-all attitude. “Of course we know. But I think you mean turn it over to me and Clem. I’m pretty sure you’re getting written out of the will after the stunt you’ve pulled.”

  “Both of you need to listen really closely to me,” I said, leaning toward them. I took a deep breath before laying all my cards on the table, “The Sweetopia employees have arranged a press conference tonight at The Roost starting at five PM. One employee will be telling her story about unfair treatment and accusing our parents of some pretty heinous things, including not adhering to the FMLA. She has a pretty compelling story about the terrible health insurance we offer employees too. Her son has cystic fibrosis and is in the hospital as we speak.”

  “Are you talking about The Red Velvet Queen?” Carson questioned. “You fucked her, didn’t you?”

  “Of course he did!” Clem laughed.

  “It doesn’t matter who it is.” I could tell they were not taking me seriously—a problem that had been going on my entire life. No one took me seriously. I was just the baby. What did I know?

  “This is not going to bode well for Mom and Dad,” I warned them. “Or for us. We need to go to the press conference and offer to do everything in our power to help our employees.”

  Carson rolled his eyes. “If they don’t like working here, they are welcome to get other jobs. It’s not like we’re forcing anyone to work here. Do you know how many applications we had for The Red Velvet Queen when we let the old lady go?”

  Old lady. Wow. What a fucking tool, I thought to myself. Did I used to sound like that? Had I changed?

  “How many of those applicants would have made a good Red Velvet Queen?” I questioned. Their faces were blank. “How many would have made even a passable Red Velvet Queen?”