Sweet Treats: A Love Bites Novella Read online

  Sweet Treats

  A Love Bites Novella

  Maggie Dallen

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  Cinderella Blackmail

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Elise and her two best friends sat in Tabitha’s living room celebrating their very own holiday for the eighth year in a row. Elise’s proposal that they change the name from “Friendsgiving” to “Cheesegiving” had officially been shot down.

  “I’m just saying,” Elise said through a mouth full of gorgonzola, “Friendsgiving implies it’s a Thanksgiving thing but really, our little holiday is closer to Christmas and Hanukah.”

  Katerina looked over the rim of her glasses as she reached for a brownie. “And Cheesegiving somehow implies Christmas?”

  Tabitha gave a snort of laughter as she sipped her wine.

  “Leave it to Kat to look for logic in Cheesegiving,” Elise huffed, making Tabitha laugh harder.

  Katerina was sweet as could be but approached everything with the same serious intensity she devoted to her doctorate. Everything. That included dating, love, wine tastings, and apparently Cheesegiving.

  Katerina shrugged, unfazed by the critique. “I just don’t see the logic.”

  “Does it really matter what we call it?” Tabitha chimed in. “It’s only a holiday for the three of us. I’d think we could each call it whatever we like.” She looked at the spread of cheese and desserts in front of them. “Besides, one of these Friendsgivings I’ll actually cook a decent meal for us all.”

  Elise and Katerina exchanged a doubtful look. It was true that Tabitha was the resident cook among them—she was an up-and-coming caterer, after all. But while she was busy being up and coming, she also worked for other caterers. Which meant that she was insanely busy cooking for everyone else in the world, especially around the holidays.

  “One day,” Katerina said solemnly.

  “Mmm,” Elise murmured as she sipped some wine. “One day we’ll rate high enough in Tabitha’s life to actually warrant some of her cooking.”

  Tabitha rolled her eyes as she and Katerina continued to tease her.

  “Do you suppose Jacob gets to enjoy her cooking?” Katerina asked.

  Jacob was Tabitha’s boyfriend. Ever since Halloween they’d been joined at the hip. It was sweet, really, except that it also made Elise glaringly aware of how incredibly lacking her own love life was. To Katerina she said, “Oh, definitely. Do you see how she’s blushing? Dead giveaway that she loves him more than us.”

  “Shut up,” Tabitha said, throwing a chunk of brownie in Elise’s general direction.

  “Uh uh uh,” Katerina said. “No food fights on Cheesegiving.”

  Elise’s face lit up. “See? It’s a catchy name, right?”

  Her friends ignored her. They exchanged a look and somehow she just knew that they were plotting something.

  “El,” Tabitha started slowly. “Katerina and I have been meaning to talk to you….”

  Oh no. They really were plotting something.

  “It’s about Ben,” Katerina said.

  Elise bit back a sigh. An intervention, it turned out. She should have seen this coming. A little before Halloween they’d made a pact that they would each make some changes in their lives—namely, their love lives. All three had a terrible track record…well, not Tabitha anymore. She’d made good on her vow to stay away from bad boys and was blissfully in love with her new boyfriend.

  Tabitha turned to her with a terrifyingly serious expression. “We made a pact,” she said. “And you’re up.”

  Elise scowled as she bit into a piece of brie-covered bread. “Why can’t Katerina be next?”

  Katerina shoved her glasses up her nose and arched her brows. “Because I don’t have a man problem.”

  Tabitha and Elise exchanged a look of disbelief before Tabitha turned to face her. “Kat,” she said gently. “Sweetie. You have a problem with men in general. You’ve never even been on a date.”

  Katerina sniffed. “I have other priorities.”

  Tabitha turned back to Elise. “See? Katerina needs time.”

  “Exactly,” Katerina said quickly. “I’m still working on my doctorate and—”

  Tabitha held up a hand to cut her off. “That’s not what I meant.” Turning back to Elise she continued, “Kat’s issue is clearly far more complex than yours. She’s going to require massive amounts of help.”

  “Hey!”

  They both ignored Katerina’s protest.

  “But you,” Tabitha said, patting Elise’s hand across the table. “Your problem is pretty easy to fix.”

  To her credit, Tabitha ripped her heart out with a look of regret. Yes, her problem was exceedingly easy to fix. She just had to give up on the idea that the love of her life was indeed the love of her life. No big whoop.

  She cleared her throat. “I said I wanted a change in my life—”

  Katerina with her irritatingly perfect memory cut in. “Actually, you said you wanted to move on from Ben. You were very specific.”

  Elise sighed. “Yes, but that was before—”

  “Before what?” Tabitha asked. “Before he flirted with you again. Before he led you on again? Before he gave you false hope again?”

  Elise winced. “Geez, you made your point.” Much as it sucked to hear, it was the truth. Her best friends had spent the past year hearing her get her hopes up and then watched as they came crashing down. Being in love with Ben was like being stuck on the un-fun roller coaster from hell.

  “So you’ll do it then?” Katerina said. “You’ll move on?”

  Elise sighed. ‘Oh Katerina. Sweet, loveable, never-been-in-love, Katerina. It’s not that simple.” She turned to face Tabitha, who had been and currently was in love.

  Tabitha’s pretty features were pinched in an empathetic pout. “No one said it was going to be easy.”

  “Easy?” Elise nearly tipped her wine glass over as she threw her hands up in despair. “It’s impossible. I’ve tried to move on, but how am I supposed to do that when I see him every single day at work?”

  Elise had meant the question to be rhetorical but Katerina didn’t seem to get that. Tilting her head to the side, she studied Elise like she was one of her lab experiments. “The way I see it, you have two options. You could either cut off your friendship with Ben and go cold turkey—”

  “No. Not happening,” Elise interjected. “He’s my best friend at work. He’d be crushed if I just started ignoring him. I don’t want to lose him as a friend.”

  “Or,” Katerina continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “You could tell him how you feel.”

  “Seriously? We’re friends. I don’t want to ruin that.” Katerina looked unmoved so she turned to Tabitha. “He likes me as more than a friend, I know he does. We just need more time.”

  Tabitha patted her shoulder. “Sweetie, you sound like a junkie.”

  Katerina nodded her agreement and popped a mozzarella ball into her mouth. “I vote for cold turkey.”

  Elise let out a little squeak of horror at the idea of giving her work husband the cold shoulder. “I can’t! We’re friends—”

  Before she could repeat that argument, Katerina cut her off. “But you don’t want to be friends. Or not just friends, at least.”

  Elise opened her mouth to protest again and nothing came out. Crap. That much was true and they all knew it. When sh
e finally did speak, her voice came out pathetically small and whiny. “There’s still a chance that he might feel the same way.”

  “Which is why you should say something to him,” Tabitha said. “If you’re not ready to cut off this friendship to end this will-they won’t-they madness, the only other option is to force the issue.”

  Katerina nodded again. “It’s true. It’s time to fish or cut bait.”

  Elise stared at her. “What does that mean?”

  Tabitha interpreted. “Shit or get off the pot.”

  Elise scrunched up her nose at the charmingly descriptive phrase. “What if I don’t like either option?”

  Her friends gave her impassive stares. She let out a sigh. No excuses would work here, which meant the time had finally come. It was time to decide—cut him out and try to move on or tell him how she felt and hoped he felt the same way too.

  She set her wine glass down and faced her friends. There was no debate, really. Elise was not a wuss. There was no way she could walk away from the potential love of her life without at least trying to make a go of it. She’d never be able to look at herself in the mirror if she didn’t try.

  “I’ll tell him,” she said.

  Tabitha squealed and clapped her hands but Katerina just cocked her head to the side. “When?” she demanded.

  Oh crap. She had to give them an actual date?

  But now that the decision had been made, a nervous excitement had her blood rushing and her stomach doing backflips. She was doing this. She was really going to tell Ben that she loved him. Well, that she had feelings for him. She didn’t want to scare the crap out of the guy.

  “The holiday party.” She spit it out quickly, before she could chicken out. And it was perfect now that she thought about it. Last year’s holiday party was where they’d cemented their friendship. She’d been an intern at the ad agency while finishing up her final semester and he was one of the younger members of the creative team. He was on the graphics side while she’d been interning as a copywriter. They’d both gone solo and everyone else had brought spouses or significant others so they’d decided that they would be each other’s dates for the night.

  And so began a yearlong flirtation that was the best and worst part about her job at Simmons & Black.

  “It’s this Friday,” she told her friends. “Last year we had so much fun we agreed that we’d go alone again…together.”

  She ignored their looks of confusion. “Trust me, it will be romantic. Practically a date.”

  And that right there summed up the crux of her issue with Ben. They were forever doing things that could only be classified as ‘practically a date.’ He’d invite her out to the movies… only to find out he’d invited everyone else on the creative team as well. They’d have a blast at happy hour… surrounded by several of his close friends. And even on those rare occasions when it came down to just the two of them, the night always ended with a fizzle. No goodnight kiss, just a hug and a peck on the cheek. Despite the chemistry between them and the obvious affection, they had somehow set up residence in the friend zone.

  But not anymore. A new year was about to start and their relationship would get the reboot it so badly needed.

  Reaching for the wine bottle, she poured herself a sizeable glass. The time had come. She could do this. She could.

  It would just take a gallon of liquid courage.

  Chapter Two

  The day had arrived. For better or worse, the week flew by without pause, as if fate just couldn’t wait to make her take the plunge.

  Ever the optimist, Elise dared to hope that Ben might beat her to it right up until four in the afternoon on the Friday of the party. Their coworkers were already heading out to get to the restaurant where the party would be held. As she watched Ben laughing with a couple of the guys from accounting, getting ready to head out, there was no way she could maintain that hope. He wasn’t going to make a move. It was up to her.

  Licking her suddenly dry lips, she squared her shoulders and straightened her spine. Right. She could do this. It was now or never. She had it all planned out—what she would say, how she would say it. She’d even scripted his responses. After a year, she knew exactly how he would respond.

  She ignored one of her coworkers who called out to her as she headed in Ben’s direction. He and the accounting friends were headed toward the elevators and she was on course to cut him off. Now or never.

  Hey, can I talk to you for a second? She ran through her opening line as he met her gaze and smiled from a few yards away. Oh God, that smile! It was adorable. His dirty blond hair was falling into his eyes, adding to the boyish cuteness that made her heart flutter every time he walked into her cubicle.

  They were getting close. Her knees went weak and her stomach gave a sickening lurch. She couldn’t do this. Crap, he was coming toward her too quick.

  Her steps faltered as sheer panic left her blind. What was she thinking? She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t!

  Without thinking, she reached for the handle of the closest office and opened it, slipping inside just as Ben and his buddies drew close. Heart pounding, she leaned her back against the door and struggled to catch her breath.

  Cold sweat dripped down her back beneath the festive red wool tunic she wore over some leggings. The buzzing sound in her ears started to fade and she opened her eyes.

  “Can I help you?”

  Crap. Derek Hawk stared at her from behind his desk, his face the picture of confusion. Not surprising, really, since this was the first time she’d ever stepped foot in his office. Quite possibly the first time she’d ever spoken to him outside of the occasional ‘hello’ as they passed in the hallways. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Derek, per se. She didn’t really know him. The fact was, she was sort of intimidated by him.

  He was one of those people who seemed to have it all figured out. Though he probably wasn’t that much older than her, he seemed like a grown up. Cool, collected, and reserved, the guy made her feel like a gawky, awkward teenager. Probably because she always seemed to run into him when she and Ben were giggling like idiots over some stupid joke. Or times like now when she clearly looked like a lunatic barging into his office and then freezing in fear. One thing was for certain, Derek Hawk was definitely not the type to develop a massive crush on a co-worker, not do anything about it for a year, and then run away like a little sissy when the time came to man up.

  He was still staring at her so she opened her mouth. If she could just bring herself to form words, this could be the beginning of a beautiful new friendship. “Uhh….”

  Oh no. Her brain was stuck in spastic panic mode. What the hell was she doing in here?

  “Umm….”

  Yeah, not better really.

  Pop quiz, hotshot.

  Derek’s best friend was obsessed with movies—namely cheesy 80s movies. Kyle quoted them constantly and he could practically hear him in his head right now quoting Speed.

  Pop quiz, hotshot. The hottest woman in the office comes into your office for no known reason and slams the door behind her. What do you do?

  Apparently he turned into a sales representative from a department store. In his shock he was vaguely aware of his voice asking her ever so politely, “Can I help you?”

  Would you like to see that dress in another size, perhaps?

  Dammit. Every other man in this office would have been able to come up with a clever line. Something teasing or flirtatious. And they would flirt because even the married old curmudgeons in accounting were smitten with the woman who was currently splayed against his door like she was modeling a sports car.

  This wasn’t just any hot woman, it was Elise—the woman he’d been crushing on all year. Well, he didn’t know her well enough to say he had a crush on her. Besides, he was probably too old to have a crush. It sounded like something a teenager suffered from not a thirty-year-old man with an established career and a life insurance policy.

  But crush or not, he would
be lying if he said he didn’t harbor some fantasies about the perky blonde. She just seemed so nice. Always friendly, usually smiling, and often laughing. Granted, he was never one of the people she was laughing with or smiling at. He got the occasional ‘hello’ and one of those cheerful grins that went along with it, but he’d never been able to break the invisible barrier between them. They worked in different departments, hung out with separate crowds in the office, and had nothing in common, as far as he could tell.

  But for some unknown reason she’d come into his office. Voluntarily. So…that was good.

  He watched her fumble for words, her eyes wide and filled with someone resembling terror. His reputation for being standoffish aside, he had a hunch her current state was not his doing. What could he say to put her at ease? “Would you like to have a seat?” He pointed toward one of the chairs across the desk from him and she nodded before shakily sliding into one.

  Well, this was pleasant. Now they were two uncomfortable people staring at one another over a desk. He cleared his throat as he tried to think of a conversation starter. Nothing. A complete void in his brain where vocabulary should be.

  Finally she spoke and her voice seemed just a tad too loud in the otherwise quiet office. “Are you going to the party tonight?”

  She meant the holiday party, of course. And while he typically hated enforced fun time with co-workers he already spent too much time with, the annual party was somewhat obligatory. “Yes.”

  She looked like she was waiting for him to say more so he added, “I have a call with a client in an hour so I’ll be there a little late but I’ll be there.”

  “Great.” She glanced over her shoulder as if waiting for his office door to burst open with another frantic and lovely visitor. The awkward pause that followed her pronouncement was hell on earth. This was why he didn’t go out of his way to talk to Elise when he saw her at the copier or in the office’s kitchen.

  This awkward silence was exactly what he had been avoiding. But here it was. It had sought him out.