Falling for Fitz (11 page)

She swiped at the tears on
her cheeks, walking purposefully down the street in the direction
of the Haverford Village Green, as his words bounced around like
missiles in her head. The ones that kept reverberating loudest,
however, were the last ones:
I’m going to
do whatever I have to do to make you fall for me, Daisy.

Falling for Fitz?
That had never been the problem. She’d fallen for
Fitz at seventeen and never looked back. The problem was Fitz
falling—or more accurately,
not
falling—for her.

She turned under the small stone arch,
into the town park. The green grass was littered with fallen
leaves, and she hugged herself tighter, realizing she’d left her
jacket in Fitz’s car. She kept walking briskly until she got to the
gazebo in the center of the park where she and Fitz had once
made-out until daybreak, lingering long after an evening concert in
the park, kissing and touching each other, talking about their
hopes and dreams long into the night. Pieces of that conversation
floated around her, almost like she could hear their phantom voices
from so many years before.

“…
but what do you want to
do, Daze?”

Be with
you
, she’d thought immediately, leaning
forward to kiss his lips. When she sat back, he was still waiting
for an answer.

“
I don’t know. I don’t want
to be unhappy like my parents.”
She’d
sighed, resting her head on his shoulder.
“They never have fun. They never say ‘I love you.’ I don’t
know if they ever really loved each other. And now my Mom’s moving
out to California, and I’m going to stay here with my Dad. It feels
so weird and lonely. It makes me so sad.”

“
Don’t be sad,”
he’d said, pulling her into his side and nuzzling
her temple.
“You don’t have to be like
that. You can make different choices.”

“
Like having fun and saying
‘I love you’ every chance I get?”

“
Sure,”
he’d chuckled softly against her skin, rubbing her shoulder
gently.

She had considered telling him then
and there that she loved him, but he’d continued speaking too
quickly for her to muster the courage.

“
But you should figure out
what you want to do with your life so you know where you’re
going.”

“
Like how you’re going to
London,”
she’d said with a heavy heart. It
felt like everyone she cared about was jumping on an airplane and
leaving.

“
Exactly. I’m going to
study British law there. Learn more about the origins of our legal
processes. When I come back I’ll finish out pre-law, and hopefully
get into a good law school. And then someday… someday…”

He’d stopped there and Daisy had
wondered—just for a split second—if she figured into the someday he
was talking about, but he hadn’t said any more. It didn’t bother
her that Fitz was so pragmatic. In fact, in such a time of
instability in her own life, Fitz made her feel safe, which was
comforting. He felt strong and stable and deeply rooted. He was
going to England for a year, yes, but then he’d be back and he
would be the sort of person who made careful choices, who built a
good life, who didn’t divorce his wife after twenty years and throw
away a marriage. His dependability was almost as much of a turn-on
to her as her whimsy seemed to be for him. Couldn’t he see how well
they fit together? How well they complemented each other? Couldn’t
he be the one to whom she said “I love you” every chance she got
for the rest of her life?

“
Daisy?” His voice brought
her back to the present, and she looked up to see all-grown-up Fitz
standing in the archway of the gazebo like a mirage.

“
Why, Fitz?” she asked in a
tired voice, her eyes still glistening with tears. “Why would you
ask me that?”

He flinched and his eyes narrowed for
a moment, searching her face, as though making a
decision.

“
Because I—” He sighed. “I
care about you, Daisy. I’ve always cared about you.”

“
That’s not enough for
marriage,” she said softly.

He fixed his eyes on her, worried but
true. “Because no else has ever made me feel like you do. Because
you’re so beautiful, I can’t look away. Because I can’t bear for
you to marry someone else.”

Her breath hitched as he said these
precious words. They were so romantic, Daisy felt her resolve
weaken. It was the closest he’d ever come to telling her how he
felt. But ultimately, jealousy and love weren’t the same thing, and
wanting her so someone else couldn’t have her would be a terrible
reason to encourage him.

“
How long will your fiancé
be gone?” he asked, still staring at her intently.

“
A couple of weeks. Maybe a
month.”
Forever.

“
Then give me a month. At
least let me help you with the bakery. Spend some time with me.
Give me a chance.”

“
A chance for
what?”

He clenched his jaw, taking a deep
breath. “To pay my debt. To deal with baggage. To get to know each
other again. To show you what I can offer.”

Daisy sighed. These weren’t
the words of love everlasting she’d always hoped to hear from Fitz,
but she had to admit—they weren’t just about settling old
grievances either. What Daisy loved most about what Fitz was saying
was that it had everything to do with settling the past
and
considering the
future. It was like he wanted to see what could happen between them
if she gave them a chance, and she had to admit, she wanted to see,
too.

“
Daisy, if Dr. M.’s the
one? The love of your life? The person you want to say ‘I love you’
to every chance you get? Then tell me to leave you alone. You’ve
done it before, and I’ll leave you alone just like last time. But
if there’s a chance… just a
chance
… for you and me? Come to
dinner with me tonight and give me a month to make my
case.”

Her heart thumped like crazy as she
stared at him, locked in the intensity of his eyes, his use of her
own words from so long ago not lost on her. She’d come home to
settle things once and for all with Fitz English, and this
certainly wasn’t how she imagined things being settled. But, her
heart—her hopeful heart that trembled with love for him—gave her no
choice but to offer him a chance at her future.

“
Okay,” she
whispered.

“
What?”

“
Okay,” she said again,
unable to keep her lips from quivering up.

“
Really?”

“
Fitz!” she exclaimed,
standing up, starting to feel exasperated.

He closed the space between them in a
flash, drawing her into his arms, burying his face in her neck and
sighing into her skin. “Okay.”

“I still can’t believe you,” said
Daisy, shaking her head from across the table, her eyes sparkling
and excited over a big bowl of pasta and a glass of good Chianti.
He could watch her forever. Heck, that was the plan.

“
Which part?” he asked,
grinning back as he twirled his fork through a pile of
linguine.

While they had agreed to spend time
together over the next few weeks to get to know one another again,
Daisy had asked that they not discuss his impromptu proposal any
further, though Fitz couldn’t help teasing her a little. For Fitz’s
part, he wondered if spending time with Daisy meant being able to
kiss Daisy and touch Daisy and drag Daisy to his apartment to make
love to Daisy because just sitting across from her at a public
place was enough to make him hard.

She gave him a look and picked up her
wine. “The bakery.”

“
Can I admit
something?”

“
Sure.”

“
I thought you’d be
furious.”

Her sweet smile widened.
“Why?”

“
Don’t women like input on
major life decisions?”

Daisy shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s
not like you plucked the idea out of the blue. Anyway, I downplayed
it last night. It’s been my dream for years.”

“
But you never pursued
it?”

“
I never meant to bake
cookies for a living.”

“
How’d you fall into
it?”

“
Well, food always figured
into the equation. I went to culinary school out in California, and
my favorite part was working with the pastry chef. When Glenn and I
graduated—he was my boyfriend at the time—he was offered a job
outside of Portland in a little town called Wilbur, and asked if I
wanted to move north with him.”

Fitz clenched his jaw at the mention
of “Glenn,” some guy she’d obviously lived with. It was crazy and
irrational that he envied Glenn, hated Glenn, wished Glenn was
dead, but he couldn’t help it. “Then?”

“
Well, I had trouble
finding a job. I was a hostess for a little while at Glenn’s
bistro, but I kept finding myself in the kitchen, which eventually
found me out of a job. I worked as a barista in a sweet little
coffee shop for a while, and I was shocked by the number of people
who came in midafternoon for a pick-me-up. A half-caf latte and a
mini cupcake. Or a cookie and espresso. It was the bite-sized
treats that went the fastest. I saw the market for them and started
baking out of my apartment.”

“
You distributed them
locally?”

“
I did,” she said. “I sold
them to that little coffee shop. I sold them to a nearby bakery and
a candy store in the adjoining town. They got really popular, and I
didn’t know anything about marketing myself, but I did know that if
I had a website, I could take orders. So, Glenn had his brother
make me a website. I was so surprised the first time I got an
order, but it was a woman who’d seen my cookies and had asked for
my information. She wanted two dozen in the shape of umbrellas
painted white and blue for a baby shower and sent to her in Yakima.
I worked on those twenty-four cookies for two weeks and must have
thrown away twenty batches before I got them right. Anyway, I
packaged them up beautifully, took them to the post office and sent
them off. And I got sixty dollars and three new orders out of
it.”

“
How long ago was
that?”

“
Umm. About three years
ago.”

“
How many orders do you
fill a month now?” he asked, swirling another mouthful of pasta
onto his fork.

“
Oh,” said Daisy, sipping
her wine as she did some math in her head. “Hundreds, I
guess.”

Surely he hadn’t heard her right. She
baked cookies out of her apartment in Oregon. “Come
again?”

“
I sell over eight thousand
cookies a month. Give or take.”

Fitz’s jaw dropped. She had
no MBA training, no business skills, no business plan. She baked
cookies in her apartment and sent them to her clients from the
local post office. He was ashamed to admit that he hadn’t even
researched the financials of
Daisy’s
Delights
before having Alex draw the loan.
In fact, Alex had secured it against Fitz’s private bank account,
which left him responsible if Daisy ended up defaulting, and made
him the silent partner of her bakery. But the reality is that Daisy
could have afforded a much larger loan than the one they secured.
She wasn’t a risk. She was a success and her potential was almost
wholly untapped.

“
That’s two hundred and
fifty cookies a day.”

Daisy nodded. “Yep. Remember that
they’re small. I have industrial cookie sheets which means it’s
about ten batches. They each cook for fifteen minutes. That’s not
even three hours of baking. Most mornings I’m done by ten. There’s
time for cooling, time for decorating and drying. I wrap them in
cellphone and ribbon, pack them up and send them out by four
o’clock every afternoon.”

“
And you do all of this
yourself?”

She shrugged, grinning at him as she
dipped a piece of focaccia into a saucer of oil. “Who else would do
it for me?”

“
An assistant. A horde of
workers in an industrial-sized kitchen.” He stared at her across
the table, impressed with her drive and initiative. “You charged
$2.50 per cookie three years ago. Even if you never raised your
rates in three years, that would be $20,000 a month, Daisy. That’s
not some little start-up in your kitchen anymore. That’s a real
business.”

“
Well,” she said, “the
$2.50 includes shipping and handling and cellophane and ribbons and
all of my expenses. It’s really only about $12,000 a month once you
include bulk discounts, return customers and freebies.”

“
Freebies?” he asked,
screwing up his face at her.

“
Sometimes. I’ll throw in
an extra dozen. You know, if they’ve been nice to me.” She looked
at him across the table. “I know almost all of my clients by name.
I’ve gotten to know them.”

She had a thriving business, a work
ethic to-die-for, and a loyal customer base. She was a triple
threat, and all she wanted to do was open a dinky little coffee
shop in Haverford, Pennsylvania?

He took another sip of his wine,
admiring this new side of Daisy. Intrigued by her. Hell, utterly
fascinated by her. It was so goddamned sexy too—her natural
business acumen—he thanked God that Barrett had fallen for Emily
years before they’d ever met Daisy, or she would have been the nip
to his cat.