Since this whole gingerbread situation was clearly Super Important and Very Serious, Eve changed into one of her favorite new T-shirts—READ LIKE YOUR BOOK IS BURNING—and put on a shit-ton of pink eye shadow. Then she remembered that Jacob found excess color offensive, and added pink lip gloss as well. It was good for him to be kept on his toes.
They met outside on the gravel drive, the evening hot and sticky and golden. He was in Ultimate Jacob mode again, everything about him even more pristine and precise than usual. Eve took in his perfectly sewn-up shirtsleeve, the razor-sharp part in his hair, and his gleaming, polished glasses with a single look.
“Are you nervous?” she demanded, shocked and yet utterly certain.
He flushed, but his expression remained severe. “No. Are you wearing glitter?”
“Absolutely.” She waited for a glower of disapproval. Instead, he studied her for a long moment before sucking in his cheeks and looking away. “What?” she prompted.
“What?” he shot back.
“What have you got to say about my glitter, Wayne?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, come on. Be a big boy.”
“Fuck off.”
“Just say it—”
“I think you look nice,” he blurted.
Eve’s mouth fell open, but her capacity for words had been stolen by the power of her astonishment.
Setting his jaw, Jacob met her eyes again. “What? You asked. Pink suits you. It’s my opinion. I think you look nice. Okay?”
She choked. “Um. You’re saying a lot of words right now.”
“You were right,” he said shortly. “I’m nervous. And concussed, don’t forget. Your fault, of course. Oh, look, here’s the car.”
A black Volvo with a taxi company logo on the side pulled up just beyond the gate, and Eve blinked, momentarily distracted. “You ordered a taxi?”
“Of course I ordered a taxi,” he said, striding across the gravel.
“I thought you were going to drive.”
He gave her a pointed look, one she supposed she deserved. “Eve. My wrist. Is broken.”
“Well—well—I can drive!”
“I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.”
Before she could defend herself, the taximan stuck his head out of the window and asked, “Jacob Wayne?”
“Yeah. Cheers.” Jacob opened the door and stood aside.
Eve stared, uncomprehending. Was he—opening the door—for her? She rather thought he might be, unexpected as such politeness was.
Before she could overcome her surprise enough to actually move, however, Jacob rolled his eyes, slid into the car, and slammed the door shut.
Bastard.
* * *
Pemberton was a bustling town with a booming food industry, multiple nature walks, and a history of producing mildly famous writers and engineers. It was also responsible for 100 percent of Skybriar’s fledgling tourism trade: they were the overflow town, offering Pemberton’s sightseers a quaint home base that possessed regular transport links to the county’s main attraction.
Jacob had always planned to take advantage of that fact, but he’d never expected an opportunity like this: the chance to take part in the widely known Gingerbread Festival, to have Castell Cottage’s brand stamped into the minds of Pemberton regulars. It was an incredible marketing opportunity that would take what he’d done with the business so far and boost it into the next stratosphere. Or rather, it could boost the business—if the food they served at the festival was actually mind-blowingly good.
This time last week, he’d been quietly disintegrating with worry that he wouldn’t have any food, never mind the good stuff. And now—well. Now, he had a chef who’d recently run him over, who was squatting in his sitting room, and who sang made-up nursery rhymes about his grumpiness every morning at breakfast. He really shouldn’t feel as confident as he did.
But he entered Pemberton’s town hall feeling rather good about the entire situation.
Pessimism was Jacob’s natural state, but today, his dark thoughts were vague and abstract, rather than real and specific. And he knew that fact was down to Eve. Over the past few days she’d proved herself shockingly competent, culinarily talented, and, most importantly, bloody hardworking. He was starting to actually admire her. It was sickening, and slightly worrying—because Jacob knew himself, and admiration would only worsen his inappropriate physical attraction to this woman. Which was something he really couldn’t afford.
He snuck a sideways look at her as they approached the table. Her expression was alight with something that might be interest, her glossy lips curved into a gentle smile and her dark eyes gleaming. He tried to be irritated by the obnoxious pink scrawl on her white T-shirt, but when he read the words READ LIKE YOUR BOOK IS BURNING, all he wanted to do was smile. Eve, he’d noticed, read using an app on her phone. Dirty books, if her laughably easy-to-read expressions were anything to go by. She always got shifty and furtive whenever anyone passed too close, as if they might catch a glimpse of the words she devoured so eagerly.
He shouldn’t have noticed that. Just like he shouldn’t notice the shape of her beneath that T-shirt, or the little glances she flicked up at him now, as if she was noticing things about him, too.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Jacob!” The leader of the festival’s committee was Marissa Meyers, Pemberton Gingerbread’s marketing director. For a small, still family-owned business, the popular bakery had a very well-developed staff. That was what Jacob wanted, one day: an establishment run firmly in the black, known for what it did, and staffed by the best. Marissa, for example, was incredibly good at her job.
“Please, sit. And help yourselves,” she smiled, indicating the jugs of water and plates of gingerbread at the center of the big, circular table.
Eve made a stifled little squeaking sound as she sat, and Jacob knew without looking that she was shooting heart eyes at the gingerbread.
“Thanks, Marissa,” he murmured. Then he snagged a plate of gingerbread and held it out to Eve, because, well—her arms were shorter than his, so she’d have to lean over to reach.
She stared at him wide-eyed, like his basic courtesy was some kind of miracle, and Jacob felt himself grow irritable and overheated. For fuck’s sake. Just because he wasn’t a sunny cartoon character didn’t mean he couldn’t be nice, too.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he muttered, “and take the gingerbread.”
After a moment, her surprise dissolved into a smile. “Yes, boss,” she whispered impishly, and took two.
He ruthlessly squashed his grin.
Then a voice to his right popped the little bubble that had formed around he and Eve. “All right, Wayne. What’s up with the arm?”
Ah. Yes. There were . . . other people here. It looked as if almost everyone had arrived, in fact: the ice cream people, the artisanal cheese people, the teacher in charge of the floats by local children, the Thai street-food people, and so on. The man speaking was Craig Jackson, a florist from another nearby village. He was a loud and nosy type with beady, judgmental blue eyes and a love of speaking over people. Including Marissa. Jacob privately suspected that the man would not be contracted again for next year’s festival.