Sleeping with the Enemy (An Enemies to Lovers Collection)

I always thought Hal should change his birth certificate, but maybe I should change mine. Maybe a cool wizard name of my own would give me some power to fix my life.

CHAPTER 4

Hal

“Holy shit! Have you been standing out here all this time?”

I don’t mean to scare the shit out of Stella, but of course, I scare the shit out of her. As soon as she walks out the front door to leave for the day—yes, she really did keep it locked after we had our conversation behind the building—I ambush her. Kind of. But not in a creepy way. More like I just thrust my weight off the building beside the front door where I’ve been leaning for the past few hours.

I take in the sad vinyl siding. “You know, we really should give this place a facelift. I think something more modern…”

Stella turns, her keys jangling in her hands, strands of dirty blonde hair flying all over the place. “Maybe we should give you a facelift,” she snarls at me. “Touch up a little bit here and there. Something more modern…”

“I’m actually quite happy the way I am.”

Those deep blue eyes of hers, the same blue as her brother’s, pierce through me. My heart kicks up a few beats, and my suit feels extra tight and clammy, especially since I’ve been standing out here for hours, and May in Bellevue can be punishing. But on the outside, I’m grinning at Stella like a composed bastard.

“You don’t look at yourself very often. If you were on the receiving end of your image, you might change your mind.”

Ouch. I shrug off the wounding while Stella locks the front door. “Glass isn’t a good idea. Someone could smash it, go in, and take everything.”

“Unless they want to abscond with cupcakes, doughnuts, some pans, or rip the wall oven out, which would take hours, I don’t think they’d get much.”

“What about the cash?”

“I don’t keep cash in the register after hours. I’m not an idiot. I never keep anything on site. I take it home with me and put it in a safe at my house until I get to the bank. Then, I bring the float back with me every single morning.”

“They could steal the computer at the register.”

“Nope. I use a tablet and a card reader. It’s all portable.” She holds up the bag in her hand. “It’s all in here. They’d literally get nothing.”

“Still. They could bust things up.”

“Insurance would cover it.”

“With a high deductible, no doubt.”

Stella’s face wrinkles and I can tell she’s getting annoyed, which probably means she’s getting ready to rage at me. “No one on this street has had anyone break in or vandalize anything in years. Do you expect me to take out the glass windows too? Put bars on everything? Yeah, that’s super attractive. Come to our bakery, where we have bars on our windows, so it looks like a freaking prison. Yummy.”

“I think we should go back inside.” I set a hand on the window, leaving fingerprints all over the place. This May is unusually warm, and it’s still quite hot out, even though it’s past six.

“What?”

“We have a lot to discuss. The partnership, some changes, and the fact that you don’t stay open in the evening.”

“It’s not worth it. And we do. On Thursdays and Fridays and for special pickups or deliveries.”

“With regular hours and more staff, you wouldn’t have to practically live in this place.”

“I like staying in this place, even after hours. I like that it’s my life, and I’m very happy with all of it, thank you very much.”

Red mottles Stella’s long, beautiful neck. She also has the same pale, alabaster skin Sam has, but on Sam, though, it annoys him because it burns easy. On Stella? Well. Let’s just leave it at that. Well. It matches the flush of anger on her cheeks. She looks healthy, alive, and vital. Like she could throw me through the glass window. Every bit of her is really quite alluring, from the tips of her black work non-skid shoes up her flour and icing stained jeans, all the way up to the white t-shirt that is two sizes too big for her slender figure. Her work outfit still can’t quite conceal the gentle curve of her hips or the swell of her breasts, and I react to them as any hot-blooded male would.

I grunt like a caveman and keep my sweaty palm on the window.

Stella grinds her teeth as her right eye twitches three times in rapid succession.

“Fine,” she hisses. “But only because I can’t wait to get this done and over with. Thinking about how shitty this all is will only give me anxiety.”

“Certainly.” I pull my hand away from the window. “By all means.”

Stella has to unlock the door, and I can tell it kills her to let me into what she considers her place. She’s done a lot of stewing in her angry juices since I first knocked on the back door.