Best Friend Bride

“Okay.” His smile broadened. “I hear you saying that you need help coming up with a five-year plan. Part of that should include a robust marketing strategy and expansion.”

Expansion? Her eyebrows lifted almost by themselves. “Are you suggesting I could become a chain?”

The idea seemed so far-fetched. She just made cupcakes and had no ambitions beyond being able to recognize regular customers. But she didn’t hate the idea of seeing more Cupcaked signs around Raleigh. Maybe even in Chapel Hill or by the university. The thought of owning a mini-cupcake empire made her smile. Poor substitute for Jonas. But not a terrible one.

“I’m not suggesting it. I’m flat out saying if that’s what you want, I will make it happen for you. Sky’s the limit, Mrs. Kim.” He waggled his brows. “You should take as much advantage of me as you possibly can. Ask for anything.”

Mrs. Kim. What if she told him that she’d like to ask him to call her that for the rest of her life? What would he say?

Before she could open her mouth, he launched into another long litany of things to consider for her shop and his gleeful tone told her he was having fun helping her think through the items that might appear on her five-year plan. They talked about any number of ideas from branded cupcake mix to be sold in grocery stores to licensing her flavors to other cupcake bakeries.

Frankly, the discussion was fun for her, too. Partially because she was having it with Jonas and she loved watching his mind churn through the possibilities. But she couldn’t deny a certain anticipation regarding the leaps and bounds Cupcaked could take through the doors her husband might open for her.

Camilla popped in to say hi and make sure Viv was okay with her opening the bakery to customers. Viv nodded her assent and dove back into the fascinating concept of franchising, of which Jonas admitted having only a rudimentary knowledge, but he knew way more than she did. She wanted to know more.

His phone rang and he lifted a finger in the universal “one minute” gesture, jabbering away to the caller with a bunch of terms that sounded vaguely legal. Eventually, he ended the call and stood.

“I’m so sorry, but I have to get back to the world of electronics.”

She waved off his apology. “You’ve been here for two hours. I know you’re busy. I should give Camilla a hand anyway. If today is anything like the rest of the week, she’ll need the help.”

Jonas laid a scorching kiss on her and left. Dazed and more than a little hot and bothered, she lost herself in cupcakes until the day got away from her. As planned, she and Jonas went to dinner at her parents’ house that night. Given that he shot her smoking-hot glances when he thought no one was watching, and her sisters were nothing if not eagle-eyed when it came to potential gossip, she didn’t think they had anything to worry about when it came to revelations about the nature of their marriage.

Or rather, the revelations weren’t going to be publicized to the rest of the world. Just to Jonas. As soon as she figured out when she could start clueing him in to the idea that friendship wasn’t the only thing happening between them, of course. This was the problem with playing it cool. She wasn’t sure when to bring up concepts like love, forever and no divorce.

She bided her time and didn’t utter a peep when Jonas carried her to his bed after the successful dinner with her parents. He spent extra time pleasuring her, claiming that tomorrow was Saturday so she had plenty of opportunity to sleep later. Not that she was complaining about his attention. Or anything else, for that matter. Her life was almost perfect.

On Monday, she learned exactly how many people in the business world jumped when her husband said jump. By nine o’clock, she had appointments lined up every day for the entire week with accounting people, retail space experts and a pastry chef who had ties with the Food Network. A marketing consultant arrived shortly thereafter and introduced herself as Franca, then parked herself in Viv’s office, apparently now a permanent part of her staff, as she’d informed Mrs. Kim, courtesy of Mr. Kim.

Franca lived to talk, as best Viv could work out between marathon strategy sessions that filled nearly every waking hour of the day. And some of the hours Viv would have normally said were for sleeping. At midnight, Franca sent a detailed list of the short-term and long-term goals that they’d discussed and asked Viv to vet it thoroughly because once she approved, the list would form the basis of Cupcaked’s new five-year plan. Which would apparently be carved in stone.

By Friday, Viv hadn’t spent more than five minutes with Jonas. They slept in the same bed, but sometimes he climbed into it well after she had, which was quite a feat since she hadn’t hit the sheets until 1:00 a.m. most nights. He’d claimed her busyness came at a great time for him because he was able to focus on the merger with Park Industries without feeling guilty for ignoring her. The hours bled into days and she’d never been so exhausted in her life.

It sucked. Except for the part where sometimes Jonas texted her funny memes about ships passing in the night or had a dozen tulips delivered to the shop to commemorate their one-month anniversary. Once he popped up with Chinese takeout for dinner as a “forced” break for them both. He gave her his fortune cookie and told her a story about how one of the ladies in his procurement department had gone into labor during a meeting. Those stolen moments meant the world to her because she could almost believe that he missed her as much as she missed him.

The pièce de résistance came when the pastry chef she’d met with a couple of weeks ago contacted her via Franca to let her know that he’d loved her cupcakes and gotten her a spot on one of the cupcake shows on the Food Network. Agape, Viv stared at Franca as the tireless woman reeled off the travel plans she’d made for Viv to fly to Los Angeles.

“I can’t go to Los Angeles,” Viv insisted with a head shake. “I have a business to run.”

Franca tapped her phone on Viv’s new desk. “Which will become nationally known once you appear on the show.”

She’d had Viv’s office completely redone and expanded at Jonas’s expense and the top-of-the-line computer that had replaced the old one now recessed underneath the surface of the desk with the click of a button. It was very slick and gave them a lot more working space, which Franca used frequently, as she spread brochures and promo items galore across the top of it at least twice a week.

“How long would I be gone?” Viv asked. Josie and Camilla had never run the bakery by themselves for a whole day, let alone several. They needed her. Or did they? She was often in the back strategizing with Franca anyway. They had four or five irons in the fire at any given time and the woman was indefatigable when it came to details. There was literally nothing she couldn’t organize or plan and often took on more of a personal assistant role for Viv.

“Depends on whether you make the first cut.” Franca shrugged and flipped her ponytail behind her back, a move she made when she was about to get serious. “It’s a competition. You lose the first round, you come home. You win, you stay. I would advise you to win.”

Viv made a face. “You’re talking days.”

“Sure. I hope so anyway. We’re going to launch the new website with online ordering at the same time. It’ll be an amazing kick start to the virtual storefront.”

Sagging a little, Viv gave herself about four seconds to pretend she was going to refuse when in reality, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity. It really didn’t matter if she won or not because it was free advertising and all it would cost her was some time away from Jonas. Whom she rarely saw awake anyway.

“When do I leave?”

Franca grinned like she’d known the direction Viv would end up going the whole time. “I’ll get the rest of the arrangements settled and let you know.”

With a nod, Viv texted the news to Jonas, who instantly responded with at least four exclamation marks and a congrats in all caps. Funny, they were basically back to being friends with no benefits, thanks to her stupid career. She had all the success she’d lied to Jonas about wanting and none of the happiness that she’d pretended would come along with it.