I Kissed The Boss

“Most people go for a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Ambi blinked at him and answered in her most sugary tone. “That would be to imply that you’re the type of animal that is strong, powerful, independent, alpha when we both know you’re just a little boy who does his daddy’s bidding. So, no. Turds is a much better analogy.”

“I think it’s a metaphor actually.”

Ambi blinked again. “Whatever, Turds. A shit in sheep’s clothing has a nice ring, actually. Do you want to play at this? Fine. We can do that. At the end of the day, I’ll be seventeen grand richer and you’ll still be working at a company you despise, letting your daddy run your life.”

Her barb dug deep. The Ambi he knew never would have stooped so low. The Ambi he knew also loved him. Now? He was public enemy number one in her books. He didn’t blame her and her fire only made her that much more attractive. He hadn’t broken her spirit. She was still alive and kicking and ready to stick it to him. Fuck, if she knew how sexy that was, she’d paste on a happy smile and do his orders willingly. Her easy compliance and capitulation would be so much less thrilling and dangerous than the wildcat in front of him.

“Amberina!”

Ambi spun at the sound of her name and his attention was dragged up to the counter where an ancient woman stood. She was so short that only her grandmotherly wrinkled face with her shining eyes and flushed wrinkled cheeks topped by an enormous white chef’s hat, were visible behind the counter.

“Marcella. Good morning.” Ambi’s face broke into a radiant smile that wasn’t at all forced.

For a split second, Trey was actually jealous of a granny with flour smeared all over her wrinkled cheeks. There was a time when Ambi reserved those smiles just for him. Or at least, he was included on the list of sunny radiance she gifted the world. Now? Now he was just a turd on her shitlist. He deserved to be there, but it didn’t stop him from wishing.

“You’re here for the cake tasting. I have three set aside for you. The usual and two new ones we’ve been experimenting with. You’ll be the first to try them.”

“So, we’re your guinea pigs?”

Ambi shot him a dirty look while Marcella blinked. Obviously, his attempt at humor fell flat.

“No, sir, we’ve been working on these cakes for months. We wouldn’t feed them to anyone if they weren’t ready,” Marcella corrected like he was too dense to understand. To make it worse, she had one of those sweet granny voices that said that it wasn’t her first rodeo when it came to dealing with idiotic individuals.

“Turd,” Ambi muttered under her breath as she swept past him. The sweet fragrance of her trailed in her wake, lemons, and flowers, intoxicating him, turning his knees to something close to goo.

Trey shook his head. Right. He’d asked for this. He could damn well play along. Ambi was a formidable foe, but she had her weaknesses. He used to know just about all of them. He didn’t plan on keeping her as a foe for long.

Marcella showed them to the back, a small room that looked very officey, with tiled floors and generic white walls. There were three collapsible tables set up and each one contained a huge, four-tier cake fully done up.

“These are just models,” Marcella explained. She was dressed all in white, white chef’s coat, white pants, and a huge hat. She kind of looked like an adorable granny-style snowman.

Trey had never had a grandma. Both his sets of grandparents died either before he was born or right after. He thought that if he’d had a grandma, he would have wanted her to look like Marcella. Sugary, sweet, and soft looking, a little round with the softest loving arms, but with an acerbic wit of steel.

“Models?” Okay, this was new to him.

“They don’t set out freshly baked cakes to sit and spoil for months,” Ambi hissed. She rolled her eyes. “This is what they’ll look like. They’re just cardboard. But if you want to taste one of those, go ahead.”

“You’re the one doing the tasting,” Trey grumbled.

Ambi turned to Marcella and her smile was back. It was like it was on auto-pilot. As soon as she wasn’t looking in his direction, it was safe to use it.

“What are the new flavors?”

“Well, we have a dark chocolate with buttercream frosting, a red velvet with cream cheese, but it’s not your regular red velvet and a gingerbread egg nog latte for Christmas.”

“The cake is gingerbread eggnog latte?” Trey stared at Marcella in disbelief.

She broke into a smile that gave her wrinkles wrinkles. In short, she was entirely adorable. She was entirely too charming, the perfect warm kind of granny and he could see why Ambi chose this bakery instead of some big corporate machine.