“He’s really not so bad.”
I laugh. “Yeah. He’s worse.”
“What if he came and asked you personally?”
“He wouldn’t be caught in hell coming to ask me for help,” I point out. I hardly know the man, but I’ve gathered that much from him. He seems like the kind of person that doesn’t ask for help, let alone ask for it from someone he said he never wanted to see again.
“But if he did? If he came over here and begged for your help, would you help us then?”
I smirk, trying to get the mental picture of him in my head. It would be pretty nice to hear him beg and grovel. Maybe I could find a way to make it work if he just got down on his knees…
“Sure,” I say, mostly as a joke. There’s no way he’d come over here and beg. He’s too good for it, but it gives me an excuse to not feel like I’m being rude to this nice woman. She reminds me of my mom in a way. There’s a quiet kind of confidence to her. One that doesn’t accept bullshit but is still one of the nicest people you know.
Trisha holds up one finger in the air as she begins to back up. “Don’t move.”
“Not going to hold my breath,” I call after her. There’s no way he’s coming through the door, but I don’t burst her bubble.
“He might just surprise you.”
I try not to roll my eyes at her statement. Camden could never surprise me. What you see seems to be what you get. And what I see is an asshole.
With Trisha gone, I turn to face Bri. “Now with that over with, I’m going to go finish a few things in the back.”
I’m busy preparing a tub of icing for tomorrow when the door to the kitchen is thrown open. “What the f—！” I yell, accidentally dropping a bottle of food coloring. It splatters on the floor, red dye exploding at my feet.
“I truly don’t think I’ve met a messier human.”
I scowl, giving him my dirtiest look. “What are you doing here?”
Camden looks at the floor. It looks like a murder scene with the amount of red dye all over the tile. It goes up my jeans, ruining the pair I just bought a few weeks ago. I groan, wondering if I’ll be able to get the stains out. My size is always sold out online, and these fit my body better than any pair before.
“I’m here to ask for help.”
“You would’ve been a lot more help if you hadn’t ruined my brand-new pair of jeans.”
“I’ll buy you a new pair if you help me out tonight.”
I wipe at the food coloring with a rag, but all it manages to do is further spread it everywhere.
“We have a deal?” he pushes.
I scoff, looking at the red splotches all over the light denim. “No, we don’t have a deal. They take forever to come back in stock.”
“I’m in a real fucking dilemma right now.” He seethes, his voice tight and low, the grit to it sending shivers down my spine. “I’ll find the jeans. I’ll buy you ten. I just need food at this opening, and I need it now.”
Camden Hunter sounds vulnerable.
What alternate universe am I in?
I sigh, slamming the rag on the counter. It used to be beige. Now it’s almost red, truly looking like something they’d keep as evidence in a murder case. “What time is the opening?”
He clears his throat and looks down at an expensive watch on his wrist. It’s so shiny it catches the light from the ceiling, almost blinding me when he turns his wrist a certain way.
“Technically, the artists are arriving within the hour. Guests will be here in a few.”
“And what happened to your fancy caterers? Clearly, I wasn’t your first choice.”
He laughs. It seems a little less cold than the times I’ve heard him laugh before. “No, you weren’t, shortcake. Yet here we are.”
My eyebrows raise as I grab the edges of the counter. “I’m waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“For you to tell me that maybe fancy, uppity choices aren’t always the best option.”
“Not going to happen.”
I shrug, going back to my earlier task before he scared the shit out of me. “Then it seems like you don’t need help that bad.”
“I’m not going to stoop that low and tell you that until I at least know you have the time to create something suitable for the night.”
“It isn’t stooping low when it’s the truth.”
“Just because one business from New York has shitty business principles doesn’t mean that everything here in this dingy town is better than Manhattan.”