LITMIR.BIZ

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smiled and ran his hand through the messy strands of his dark blond hair. “Well, honestly, I have no intention of ever doing anything more complicated than making a bowl of cereal in here. But when I saw it, I knew how much you’d love it. This is all for you, really.”

      His pale blue eyes were focused on her with unmatched intensity as he spoke. She could feel the truth of his words and the depth of what they really meant. He could’ve rented a lesser house with average amenities, but he’d wanted to find the one that would make her eyes light up and her heart flutter with excitement. The kitchen had done that, easily. And he knew it.

      Looking around her, it was obvious that her life had taken a very surreal turn. Tyler would rent this house, she was certain of it, and they would be living here by the weekend.

      The flowers, the dinners, the granite countertops... She’d demanded Tyler woo her, and he was doing a damn fine job. She could already feel her resolve weakening, and it was day two. What would happen over the next twenty-eight days?

      The mere thought scared the hell out of her.

      * * *

      “I didn’t say anything because it’s a temporary arrangement.” Tyler rolled his eyes as his brother Jeremy needled him. He shouldn’t have answered the phone when he saw his brother wasn’t accepting his text at face value.

      “Moving to Nashville doesn’t seem temporary.”

      “I never said I was moving, just that I would be here for a while. I kept my apartment in New York,” Tyler argued. “And I’m not moving my business. I’m only telling you so someone knows where I am.” He’d chosen to text his younger brother Jeremy so someone in the family knew where he was if something happened. He had his cell phone, of course, but at least one person needed to be able to find him in an emergency. He regretted the decision now. Jeremy wouldn’t accept the fact without the justification.

      “What’s going on that would make you drop everything and run to Nashville? Wait...” Jeremy hesitated. “Amelia lives in Nashville, doesn’t she?”

      “Yes,” Tyler confirmed, feeling anxiety pool in his stomach. The conversation was unraveling faster than he’d like.

      “Is she okay?”

      “She’s fine. She just...needs me for a little while.”

      A long silence followed. “Needs you? Cut the crap, man. What’s going on? I’ll tell everyone you’ve moved to Nashville if you don’t tell me why. Your life will be hell.”

      Tyler sighed. Better Jeremy know than the whole family. “Okay, but you can’t breathe a word to anyone. I mean it.”

      “Of course. I’m not the blabbermouth in the family. I never even told anyone about that trip to Tijuana where you got arrested.”

      Tyler frowned at the phone. “I’ve never been to Mexico, Jeremy.”

      “Oh, that must’ve been Dylan,” Jeremy said. “Crap, I just told a secret. It’s normally not a problem, though. I’ve kept that secret for five years.”

      That didn’t make him feel better, but he didn’t have a choice. “Okay...I’m going to stay in Nashville for a few weeks because Amelia and I got together at the reunion and we’re trying to make it work.”

      “You hooked up with Amelia?” Jeremy asked with an edge of incredulity in his voice. “Finally! I thought you guys would never—”

      “We’re married,” he interrupted. “And she’s pregnant.”

      “Holy crap!”

      “I’m telling you, Jeremy, no one can know.” That was Amelia’s first and most important rule. It couldn’t get out.

      “Okay,” Jeremy said. “It’s safe with me, but when Mom finds out, she’s going to kill you.”

      Tyler hung up the phone and shook his head. That hadn’t been how he’d wanted that conversation to go, but it actually felt good to get that news off his chest. At least he had one semireliable person to talk to about all this. If all went well, when the rest of his family found out, it would be good news and no blood would be shed.

      His phone rang again, and this time it was the moving company. There was no time to dwell on this. The clock was ticking.

      * * *

      The next few days were a blur of activity that made Amelia dizzy just thinking about it. Tyler signed a short-term lease on the house, and his moving companies went to work packing up both their apartments. The real estate agent referred them to an agency that provided domestic contract work, and they hired a part-time housekeeper named Janet, much to Amelia’s relief.

      After they left the agency, Tyler took Amelia to brunch, and they went furniture shopping to pick out the few things they needed in the interim, including a king-size bed and a desk where Tyler could work.

      It was a good thing Tyler had the money to make all this happen, because Amelia certainly didn’t have time to do it all. She’d spent all day Thursday baking, filling and crumb-coating a five-tiered wedding cake. Although chefs tended to specialize in culinary arts or in pastry arts, Amelia had studied both. That came in handy when she and her partners had decided to open From This Moment and did pretty much everything themselves.

      By Friday afternoon, the cakes were iced, covered in her famous marshmallow fondant and stacked high on the cart she would use to move the cake into the reception hall. Today’s cake was a simple design, despite being large in size. All she needed to do was load a pastry bag with buttercream and pipe alternating tiers of Swiss dots and cornelli lace. The florist was bringing fresh flowers for the cake Saturday afternoon.

      Leaning back against the stainless-steel countertop to eye her accomplishment of the day, she came to the sad realization that soon she would have to let the cakes go. Cakes took hours. There were some days when Amelia was in the kitchen working on a cake until two in the morning. On more than one occasion, she’d just stayed over and slept on the chaise in the bridal suite.

      Those days were coming to an end. They’d need to bring in help anyway to assist her late in the pregnancy when she couldn’t power through a sixteen-hour day on her feet in the kitchen, and to bridge the gap of her maternity leave. That would be much easier if they started contracting out the wedding cakes.

      Reaching for her tablet, she brushed away a dusting of powdered sugar from the screen and made a note to talk to Natalie about that. When that was done, she loaded her piping bag and started working on the final cake decorations.

      “That’s a big cake.”

      Amelia looked up from her work to see Tyler standing in the doorway of the kitchen. She was surprised to see he’d shed his suit today and was wearing a snug-fitting green T-shirt and a pair of worn jeans. It was a good look for him, reminding her of the boy she knew in school. “That’s an understatement. It weighs over a hundred pounds.”

      He whistled, strolling into the kitchen to stand beside her and admire her handiwork. “Pretty impressive. Does it taste good?”

      She frowned at him. “Of course it does. It’s my special lemon–sour cream cake with a fresh raspberry-and-white-chocolate buttercream filling.”

      “No real chocolate?”

      “This is the South,” she said. “Chocolate is for the groom’s cake, which, fortunately, I do not have to make. The groom’s aunt is making him one that looks like Neyland Stadium at the University of Tennessee.”

      Tyler nodded thoughtfully and eyeballed the bowl with leftover raspberry filling. “What are you going to do with that?” he asked.

      Amelia sighed and went to the other side of the kitchen to retrieve a plastic spoon. “Knock yourself out,” she said, holding it out to him. She waited until he’d inhaled a few spoonfuls of icing. “What brings you by today, Tyler? I really need to get this finished. I’ve got several hours of prep work ahead of me

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