Sugar & Spice (Spicetopia Book 1) Read online

  Her eyes expanded as they bounced between mine. “How did you know that?”

  “Colleen told me.” I tried reaching for her again. “Please? Let me touch you.”

  She relented this time, letting one hand fall into mine. Her skin was cool to the touch, so I warmed it against my own, rubbing slightly. I noticed she let out a soft sigh, her eyes half-closed before they bolted open and locked with mine.

  “I don’t understand what you want from me, Marcus.” Her voice sounded small, defeated, not like the royal voice I had heard her use in the throne room.

  I’d had a few girls corner me about “what I wanted.” I made it pretty clear what I wanted when I whipped out my sizeable assets. There was usually a pretty swift understanding that developed between myself and any ladies I might fancy.

  But Jolie was not a girl. She was a woman. And the jumble of thoughts and, dare I say it, feelings bombarding me right now was making me say weird things, foreign things. And it wasn’t just because of my fake accent.

  “Nothing in particular.” I squeezed her hand in mine and held her gaze captive with my own. “Except maybe a date?”

  “A date?” The quizzical way her mouth formed an O and her eyebrows arched made me guess that perhaps she hadn’t had one of those in a long time.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed. “To get to know the real Jolie. The one under the costume.”

  “I still don’t know—”

  My finger instinctively went to her lips to stop her from finishing her sentence.

  She backed away, wrangling her hand out from my grasp. “It doesn’t bother you that I’m older? That I have children?”

  “Children?” I gulped. “Plural?”

  I still didn’t understand why people wanted to make miniature versions of themselves.

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes. Two sons.”

  “Wow,” I breathed out, trying to conceal my shock. Well, if you pop out one kid, you might as well pop out another, right?

  “That’s great,” I quickly recovered, letting the alien in my head take over again. “I don’t think you’re that much older than me, anyway. What are you doing tomorrow night?”

  “I have to think about it.” Her features had softened; there was a spark dancing in her pupils again.

  It wasn’t a no.

  “Think about it?” I repeated. “Okay.” I wasn’t used to the ladies needing to think about it where I was concerned. This conversation was just full of firsts, wasn’t it?

  “I have to see if I can get a sitter...you know...” She fluttered her hand in front of her face as if that would finish the rest of her sentence.

  No, I didn’t know how these things worked. I was the youngest of the three sons in my family, and none of us had kids yet—much to my parents’ dismay. But, so far, Carson bore the biggest brunt of that complaint, by virtue of being the only one of us who was married.

  “If not tomorrow night, then maybe Saturday night?” I regretted the hopeful upswing of my voice, but there was no way to hide my anticipation. “Or I’m free all next week.”

  “Next week is the meeting.” She looked me up and down. “You’re not just trying to get an invite to the secret meeting, are you?”

  I chuckled as I shook my head. “I already got one. Colleen is checking on it for me.”

  Jolie’s eyes narrowed. “Mmmhmmm,” was all she said.

  “Here, let me give you my number,” I suggested, my eyes trailing over to the phone on her vanity. “Is that yours?”

  She nodded, reaching for it. “Okay.” She paused, waiting for me to rattle off my digits.

  I much preferred having her number than giving my own, so I whipped my phone out. “Let me text it to you.”

  “Uh, wrong. Give me the number, Romeo,” she snapped with a smirk. She was clearly on to me.

  After I gave it to her, she laid her phone back on the counter and turned to me. “I’m still not sure about going on a date with you. I don’t know if you’ll still like me once you see who I am under all this.” She gestured from her wig all the way down to her velvet slippers, which just barely peeked out from her dress.

  “If that’s what you’re afraid of,” I said, taking her hand again, “don’t be. I know you’re just as beautiful underneath that costume as you are...well, you know what I’m trying to say.” I laughed, unable to finish the compliment I was trying to deliver. Real smooth, I chided myself.

  In lieu of flubbing up my words again, I swept her into my arms, claiming her lips with my own. How perfectly she fit into my embrace, how sweet her mouth tasted...it was so magical and yet so natural at the same time. I released her moments later and watched her spin back down to earth after our breathtaking kiss. There was no way she wasn’t just as beautiful underneath that costume.

  There was only one slight problem: I was basically in costume too. I had no choice but to take her on our date as Marcus Young. I couldn’t blow my cover when I was so close to victory. How angry would she be when she discovered I was actually Cy Sweet?

  The best time to show up unannounced at my parents’ house was dinnertime. Maureen’s cooking was about nine million times better than my own. Who am I kidding? I didn’t really cook so much as heat stuff up in the microwave—or order takeout. Now that I was rather accomplished at.

  “How’s my baby?” my mom gushed as soon as I rounded the corner into the living room where my parents were both stretched out on opposite sofas, my mom with her reading glasses and a book and my father with the remote control in his clutches.

  I proceeded directly to my mother to bend down and let her give me the obligatory greeting kiss on my cheek. So I’m a bit of a mama’s boy. Whatever. At least that’s what I let her think. It always worked to my advantage.

  “Hi, Mom,” I greeted her. “Hey, Dad.”

  My dad relinquished the remote control, setting it on the marble-topped end table but he left Fox News blaring in the background. “What’s going on? Did you figure out where the meeting is on Monday night?”

  “How did you know it’s on Monday night?” I glared at him. Why was I doing all this recon work if he already knew this shit? I hadn’t even gotten the actual date confirmed yet.

  “My PR guy has a mole in the secret Facebook group,” he explained, “but they won’t give out any of the meeting details, time or location, till the last minute. Supposedly it’s to keep it on the downlow.” He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Imagine your own employees holding a meeting on your own damn property to bitch about you!”

  “Who’s to say it’s in the park?” I questioned. I hadn’t really thought of that before. If it was a public place, how could they keep anyone they didn’t want there out?

  “Corden, calm down. Dinner is going to be ready in a moment, and you know you’ll lose your appetite if you get too irate,” my mom piped up, shooting my dad a warning glare.

  He completely ignored my mother and turned toward me. “They are meeting to finalize their media campaign.” He pinched the bridge of his nose as though it hurt him to relay the details to me. “I am afraid they are going to strike, Cy. I need you to stop this meeting. Stop the media from finding out.”

  “I don’t know how to do that, Dad.” At this point, I was getting close to telling him to get Clem or Carson to take over. I was sick of all this sneaking around, not to mention betraying the trust of the friends I’d made like Jolie, Colleen, Buster and a few other bakery employees.

  “Cy,” my mother took over, taking a cue from the red, angry rage spreading across my father’s cheeks. He looked as though he was going to blow a gasket at any moment.

  “What, Mom? I’m doing the best I can, for fuck’s sake!” I snapped at her.

  “Don’t you use that kind of language in front of your mother!” my dad berated me. “You are skating on thin ice, Son. If you can’t find out who is organizing this effort and stop the media from finding out—stop them from striking and interfering with the operation of the park—then you can kiss you
r inheritance goodbye. You can kiss all our support goodbye, in fact.”

  “What? You can’t do that, Dad. That’s not fair!” I protested, glancing back and forth between him and my mother, hoping at least she would be on my side.

  “Cy, we’ve been trying to get you to grow up and take responsibility for your future for years,” my mother said in her soft yet still completely patronizing voice. “We’ve given you this mission as a way of proving that you’re a real adult and that you’re committed to helping your brothers run Sweetopia after we retire. We are getting up there in age, darling. We need our three sons to step up and fill our shoes—and soon. We would like to retire after the next summer season.”

  My eyebrows shot up into my hairline. “Next summer? Why so soon?”

  “Your dad’s health isn’t in the best shape. His doctor thinks it’s time for him to retire. He’s under too much stress,” she explained.

  I looked over at Dad, but he just stared at the television like he wasn’t listening to her talk about him. Then, just when I thought he wasn’t paying attention, he whipped his head to face me.

  “Your brother has been doing some surveillance of his own,” he shared. “And it’s become clear you’ve befriended the The Red Velvet Queen...a woman by the name of Jolie Cox. Is that true?”

  Fuck. No one was supposed to know that. Except Colleen, but she only figured it out because she could read it all over me when Jolie was around.

  “Yeah, so?” I didn’t like where this was going. I could just tell I wasn’t going to like it.

  “Well, there is considerable evidence that she is involved in this employee uprising,” my dad continued. “If you were doing your job like we asked, you would have already known that.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I know she’s planning to go to the meeting, but I don’t think she’s involved in the organization.”

  “What about your boss, Colleen Neese?” my mom fired at me.

  My jaw clenched as I struggled to keep my volume from rising defensively. “She’s planning to attend, but, again, I don’t think she is in charge. She said she had to check with some other people. To me, that means she doesn’t know herself. I am trying to get the details so I can be there, Dad. And I will record it.”

  “It’s probably a cover-up,” my mom theorized. “I told you when you promoted Colleen to management she was going to be a problem.” She shook her head and let out a deep sigh. “But do you ever listen to me?”

  “We’ve got Ms. Cox on camera passing notes to some other employees in the hallways of the castle, and her assistant has delivered some notes to her on the throne. The throne room is full of cameras, as you know, as are the hallways and tunnels,” my father continued, once again not bothering to acknowledge my mother.

  “So what?” I could no longer hide my exasperation. “Why is nothing I do ever good enough for you two? I just said I’m going to infiltrate the meeting. What the hell else am I supposed to do?”

  “You have a relationship with Ms. Cox,” my dad fired back, his voice now lowering to the same level I always heard him use with William and the rest of his executive staff at work. It’s his business tone. If it came out, it meant you were expected to comply with his wishes. No ifs, ands, or buts. “You need to leverage that to stop the organizers from going to the media. And you need to make sure the employees don’t strike.”

  “How do you expect me to pull that off? I’m just a summer temp. I have no fucking power.”

  “Cyrus Anthony Sweet!” my mother gasped. “Quit stressing your father out and do as you’re told. If you can’t handle this assignment, then there won’t be a Sweetopia for you and your brothers to inherit. Do you understand?”

  I simply nodded, turned on my heel and marched toward the front door. I had suddenly lost my appetite. I tried my best not to slam the door behind me, but it was still a little slammy despite my best efforts.

  I got in my stupid beat-up truck that I couldn’t wait to quit driving, consoling myself with the fact that my trip to Greece was only a week away. I couldn’t wait to bask in paradise, soaking in the Santorini sunshine and feeling the warm waters of the Aegean Sea gently lap at my feet. If only I could take Jolie with me. Then I would be looking forward to it even more. Then it truly would be paradise.

  “So do you want to go out with him?” my mom pressed as we cleaned up the dishes from dinner. The house was so quiet without River there. Reed was in his room doing homework. I’d stopped by the hospital after work, and Mom was going to run over there while I got Reed ready for bed and tucked in. Then I would go and spend the night with River on the tiny fold out sofa in his cramped room.

  “I don’t know, Mom, he’s so much younger than me!” It was the handiest excuse I could think of. I’d been thinking about Marcus asking me out on a date ever since he left my dressing room two and a half hours ago, and I had a feeling the topic was going to haunt my dreams all night, too.

  “How much younger?” My mom’s brows quirked.

  “Five years? Six? He has a degree in art history,” I filled her in.

  “Art history?” Her nose wrinkled up. “What is he going to do with that?”

  “Work at Sweetopia?” I joked. “Did I mention he’s British?”

  “British! Does he have an accent?” My mom put her hand to her chest as though she was experiencing a swoon. Though it could have been a hot flash. She’d had a lot of those lately.

  I nodded. “Yeah, and he wears glasses.”

  “Jolie, he sounds like your dream man!” My mother giggled as she laid a hand on my shoulder. “Is he nice? Gentlemanly?”

  I had to chuckle. She seemed as taken with Marcus as I was, and she hadn’t even met him. She was generally quite skeptical about any man who showed an interest in me; she had been since Reed’s father had broken our engagement after learning I was pregnant and planned to carry the baby. He wanted me to have an abortion.

  I’d always pictured myself as a mom. My own mom had always been my best friend, and when my father passed away around the time River was born, my mother needed me as much as I needed her. That’s when she moved in, and we’d been roommates ever since. I didn’t know what I would do without her. She was my rock. All I knew growing up is that I wanted to be that rock for my own children.

  So when I got pregnant with Reed, even though I was young, I knew I could handle it. I’d learned from the best. I just figured Robbie, his dad, and I would get married a little earlier than we expected. I never thought he’d abandon me.

  And then a few years later, Tim, River’s father walked out of my life too. Except I knew that one wouldn’t last. He was a “rock star”—in that he had a band and he drank too much. But he had glasses and that intellectual side I’d always been attracted to. The rock star persona didn’t do a damn thing for me, but the fact that he quoted Walt Whitman to me on our first date? That got him in my pants.

  “I think you should go,” my mother decided, drying her hands on the dish towel before tossing it on the counter. “When was the last time you went out and had fun?”

  “Um, is that a rhetorical question?” I narrowed my eyes at her. She knew damn well I hadn’t been out since River was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis three years ago. I had a couple of girlfriends I hung out with before that, but then I ended up having to leave that job because the health insurance was even worse than what they offered at Sweetopia. I’d kind of lost touch with those girls, and since then, I hadn’t made any girlfriends my own age. The closest was Colleen at work, and she had to be at least ten years older than me.

  “I’m serious, Jolie. You need a few hours off. You work sixty hours a week. You Mom 24/7/365. Everyone needs a break,” my mother said. “And when one gets an opportunity to go on a date with a hot British nerd with glasses, one does not say no!”

  “Hmm, words to live by,” I teased her.

  “They are important words! They oughta be on a t-shirt or something!” My mother laughed and put her arm around my shoulder
. “So how about this: you stop by and see River after work tomorrow, then go on your date. I’ll stay here with Reed until you get home, then I’ll go spend the night with River. You shouldn’t have to sleep on that blasted fold-out more than one night anyway.”

  “Oh, Mom, I can’t ask you to do that!”

  “You’re not asking. I’m insisting.” She set her lips in a firm, straight line. “And that’s the way it’s going to be. Capiche?”

  Her Italian was coming out. She was half-Italian on her mother’s side and a mix of German, British and Native American on her dad’s. But it was always the Italian that came out when she set her mind to something. She always said her mother was the most stubborn woman in the world. I don’t remember my grandmother that well, but it’s hard to imagine her being any more stubborn than my mother.

  “Fine, Mom,” I conceded, watching her face light up with an excited smile. She was truly happy for me, and it was the first time I’d seen that expression on her face in a long time.

  I finished up with Reed, getting him all ready for bed, before heading out to my car so I could drive to the hospital. The night sky was glittering with a million stars, and I couldn’t help but pick out a few constellations as I settled myself behind the wheel. The Big Dipper. Cassiopeia, the latter one notable since she was a queen, and so was I. At least I played one during work hours.

  I took out my phone and pulled up the number I’d put in for Marcus. I took a deep breath and composed a text: Did you see the stars tonight?

  Much to my surprise, he texted back immediately: Good evening, my Queen.

  I nearly swooned just from that alone.

  And then: I did see the stars. There’s a nice view of Cygnus the Swan tonight.

  Holy shit, he knew astronomy too. Turns out I’m free tomorrow night, I told him.

  Marcus: Me too. Whatever should we do?

  Me: Hey, you’re the one who asked me out!

  Marcus: I will think of something. What time?

  Me: Seven?

  Marcus: Perfect. Can I pick you up?

  Me: Just give me an address.