Year of Living Blonde (Sweet Life in Seattle, Book 1) (2 page)

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” Natalie sputters.

Peter stops chewing for a second. “Eating breakfast?”

“You can’t just come in here and announce that you’re leaving me for another woman and expect me to let you eat my muffins!”

“I can’t?”

“No!”

Peter steps away from her, clutching his muffin protectively. “I’m going to go then.” He looks away, but then glances back longingly at the rest of the ones in the pan.

Natalie grits her teeth with rage. “Do you want some more of these?”

“Sure, I—”

“Here you go then!” She reaches down, and in a moment of fury, grabs one of the muffins and throws it at Peter as hard she can. It bounces off his eyebrow with a satisfying
thump.

Definitely too rubbery to sell.

“Ow!” Peter looks astonished as he puts his hand up to rub his eyebrow. With his pale Scandinavian skin, it’s already turning pink. “What are you doing?”

Still riding the wave of fury, she reaches down and grabs another muffin. This one hits him right in the middle of his forehead before crumbling into bits.
Bullseye!

“Hey, that hurts—stop it!” Peter backs away from her.

Natalie’s next muffin gets him in the chin.

“Cut it out!”

Just in time, he manages to swat away the one aimed for his nose. In alarm, Peter turns and runs out of the kitchen while Natalie pelts him with muffins.

“You’re crazy!” he yells.

With some satisfaction, she sees that the back of his blue polo shirt is now covered with butter stains.

“That’s right, you cheating asshole! You better run!”

The front door slams and Natalie is left panting in the aftermath of silence. She tries to catch her breath, but then dashes to the sink, barely making it in time before she throws up.

Natalie scrubs her face and brushes her teeth before loading the rest of the pastries and sweet breads she baked that morning into the back of her white van. Despite what just happened, she still has to work. She starts up the van and pulls out.

A memory of her mom comes to her.
It’s natural for men to want more than one woman.
It’s who they come home to that matters.

Natalie takes a deep breath. She always thought Peter was her home. To her surprise, she feels the sting of tears and quickly touches her eyes, but they’re dry as always.

Even now I can’t cry.

She swallows and looks out at the road. How did this happen? After all this time, she thought Peter was a sure bet—though as a gambler’s daughter, she should have known better.

There’s no such thing as a sure bet.

Natalie thinks about the past year, and it’s true what Peter said. Work has taken center stage and she hasn’t been home much. She and her business partner, Blair, opened their bakery, La Dolce Vita, a little over a year ago and it’s taken a lot of time and energy. Though it’s been a labor of love, they’ve worked like slaves. Chloe often came to the bakery after school, but Peter was another matter. They’ve been apart more often than together. But didn’t Peter tell her that he understood? It was the same way in the early days of his dental practice, yet somehow they’d weathered that.

She pulls her van into the alley behind the bakery. It’s a typical overcast day in Seattle, and since they’re in the U-District, a number of college students with backpacks are walking toward campus for summer school.

It was a stroke of luck when she and Blair found this spot. They’d wanted to open their own bakery for a while and had been searching for the perfect location. When the realtor told them about this coffee shop with a bakery attached near the University of Washington, they jumped on it even though it was smaller than what they were hoping to find. An Italian family had owned the place for years, and they’d decided to keep the name. La Dolce Vita—The Sweet Life. It seemed an appropriate moniker.

Unfortunately, the kitchen isn’t big enough, with only two commercial ovens and as their business has picked up, Natalie has been forced to use her own ovens at home. They need to expand, and in a happy twist of fate, the space next door is available, but for some reason their cantankerous landlord is resistant. Actually, resistant is too polite a word. They can only reach him through his lawyer, who has stopped returning their letters and phone calls.

Natalie parks the van right behind the bakery’s back door and gets out. The morning air is scented with diesel and damp cement. She props open the bakery’s back door, and when she sees Carlos, one of their baristas, asks him if he’ll help bring in the baking racks.

It takes the two of them about ten minutes to unload everything. With the last of it, Natalie follows him inside, carrying the final large rack. The familiar scent of butter and fresh espresso from the kitchen surrounds her.

“Thank goodness, you’re here.” Blair rushes over. “It’s been a crazy morning. Two people had birthday cake orders we couldn’t find, and I’ve been scrambling to get them done.”

“What happened?”

Blair, a redhead with porcelain skin and a classic preppy style, sighs in annoyance. “The usual. Zoe took a phone order and didn’t write it down. When she comes in I’m going to drag her around by that nose ring until she screams.”

They’d recently hired two part-time bakers and one of them, Zoe, was a real space cadet. Twice now, Natalie had caught her taking a phone order without writing down a single thing.

Blair shakes out her apron and reties it. “I’m seriously tempted to fire her.”

“Let’s talk to her about it again. Maybe we could have Carlos take the cake orders when neither of us is available.”

“She should be able to handle it. Carlos isn’t going to be able to manage both drink orders and the phones.”

“I know, but you have to admit she’s doing a good job otherwise. She’s fantastic with cupcakes.” What she doesn’t say is Zoe has a young son and Natalie doesn’t have the heart to fire her when jobs are so scarce.

Blair smiles knowingly. “You’re too soft-hearted.”

Natalie shrugs. “I suppose.”

“Okay, Zoe stays, but,” Blair holds up her finger, “if she keeps screwing up, she’s out on her forgetful ass.”

“Agreed.” Natalie means to grab her white apron and start work, but instead, she sits down.

“Are you okay?” Blair studies her with concern. “You look pale.”

“No, I’m not okay.” She and Blair started out purely as business partners, but have become good friends over the last year. Natalie sighs. “Peter told me this morning he wants a divorce.”

Blair’s mouth opens with surprise. “That’s crazy. Why?”

“He’s been seeing another woman. They’re ‘in love.’” Natalie uses her fingers to make air quotes.

“I can’t believe it.” Blair shakes her head in sympathy, then pauses. “You’re keeping the house though, right?”

Natalie isn’t surprised at Blair’s practicality. If Peter takes the house, Natalie won’t have access to her kitchen’s large double ovens anymore.

“Peter is moving in with his
girlfriend.
” Natalie struggles to get the word out. She swallows, still feeling sick to her stomach. “Chloe and I are definitely staying in the house.”

“Is there anything I can do? Just name it. You know I’m here for you.”

“I know. Thank you for asking. I’m mostly in shock.”

“That’s understandable. I mean, it just happened and at least he’s telling you face-to-face. It could be worse.”

Blair’s husband, Road, had left a goodbye note on her pillow one morning four years ago and she hasn’t seen or spoken to him since.

“I heard Road was in India and saw the Dalai Lama.” There’s a hard expression on Blair’s face. “Can you believe that?”

“Who told you?”

Blair brushes some dried frosting from her white apron. “Tori. She’s still my sister-in-law.”

Natalie has always wondered if Blair was still in love with her husband. Why not file for divorce? Surely after four years, she could get one on the grounds of abandonment.

Blair waves her hand dismissively. “It’s all in the past. Who cares, right? At least I don’t have to see his jerk face every day. Plus, I got full custody of Isadora.”

Isadora is Blair’s classic green 1965 Convertible Ford Mustang. “At least we never had to fight over her.”

Natalie imagines Blair and her husband fighting over the car as if it were a child. She hopes she and Peter won’t start fighting over Chloe or the house. At the thought, Natalie’s eyes narrow.
There is no way on Earth anyone is taking away my daughter or my home.
But she doubts Peter will cause that kind of trouble.

Though, he was furious earlier. He’d come back right away and marched upstairs, reappearing with one of their suitcases. It was so quick that he must have already had it packed and hidden somewhere. He was covered in butter stains.

Natalie tried to apologize for throwing muffins at him, but Peter never gave her the chance.

“I’m moving in with Lena,” he informed her in a nasty tone. “Don’t bother trying to contact me unless it’s an emergency. I’m really disappointed in the way you acted about all this. I can’t believe you resorted to violence!”

Natalie rolled her eyes.

Watching him leave, her hand twitched at her side like a gunslinger’s, wishing she had one more muffin she could bounce off his head.

“He’s here!” Carlos pokes his head through the swinging door into the kitchen. “Espresso Breve, table two!”

Natalie takes a sip from her double latte. Espresso Breve is a hot guy who comes in regularly and orders an Espresso Breve, so that’s what they all started calling him.

Since all the bakers are women, Espresso Breve is the high point of their day and usually causes a commotion. He’s tall, lean muscled, broad-shouldered, and more handsome than God. He’s also more charming than the Devil, according to everyone who’s waited on him.

Too handsome, too charming, too much of everything. In other words, Espresso Breve is exactly the kind of man Natalie dislikes. In fact, she does her best to avoid him. Unfortunately, she got a good look at him that first time and, as much as she hates to admit it—he’s something.

Espresso Breve is breathtaking. The most beautiful man she’s ever seen.

“He’s wearing that navy-blue sweater today,” Zoe says, coming into the back area with an empty bussing tray. “That’s my favorite on him. It really goes with his dark hair and eyes.” Bakers don’t typically buss tables, but everyone makes excuses to go out front when he’s here. “He’s eating one of your chocolate chunk cookies again, Natalie. This is the third time in a row. He really likes those!”

Still on break, Natalie tries to smile as she takes another sip from her latte.

She started putting those chocolate cookies out a month ago and they’ve been selling well. They already had a few special orders. The trick is to bake the cookies at a low temperature so they stay soft, and use the finest chocolate she can get her hands on. The real secret is using espresso powder in the dough. It doesn’t make them taste like coffee, but brings out the flavor of the chocolate. She ate more than she should have while she was perfecting the recipe, but it was worth it.

“He’s gorgeous.” Blair stares out the swinging door’s round window, admiring the view. “I’d let that man eat my cookies anytime he wants. He’s welcome to the whole menu, if you know what I mean.”

All three of the women in back laugh.

Carlos gets a look of mock horror on his face. “Ladies, that is TMI and HMJ all rolled into one!”

“I know TMI, but what’s HMJ?” Natalie asks him.

“Help Me, Jesus!”

There’s more laughter and then Blair comes over to Natalie. “How are you doing? You should go home. You don’t have to stay and work if you’re not up to it. We’ll cover for you.”

Natalie considers it as she takes a deep breath. “I’ll be okay. All I’d do is sit at home and go crazy, so I might as well keep busy here.”

“Have you heard anything?”

“No, nothing.” Natalie has been trying to call Peter all day. “I don’t know where he is. He’s not at work. When I call his phone, all I get is voicemail.”

Natalie went by Peter’s dental office during her lunch hour, but that turned out to be a mistake. Not only was he not there, but the pitying looks from all the young women who fronted his reception area were more than she could take. Clearly she was the last one to find out there was monkey business going on. It was humiliating.