CHAPTER 2

She stood, handing change and a bag of treats to a customer. She was so focused that she didn’t notice who walked in, but he sure as hell noticed her. He stood at the line stealing glances at her, and to him she was the most beautiful girl he had ever met.

 “Good morning, what can I get you?” she smiled, asking the next customer. She couldn’t help but take in the small features of his face. The short dark hair, captivating hazel green eyes, the freckles scattered on his nose and cheeks. In all, he was simply gorgeous. When he didn’t respond, she called out louder “uhm sir” shaking him out of his day dream.

  “Oh yeah, can I have a chocolate mocha cupcake and a coffee to go please?” he asked, flashing her his infamous cheeky grin.

  “That will be $4.64 please” she smiled.

     He place a five on the counter, she turned and reached into the show glass and grabbed a chocolate mocha cake. Placing into a small box, and grabbed a cup of coffee.

  “Here is your change” she dropped it on his palm ‘thank you and have a nice day”

    He turned to leave and she released a breath. She was getting ready to attend to the next customer when he turned back towards her.

     “Hey, can I actually get another mocha cupcake?” he asked, a small smile forming on his face.

   “Uhm sure,” she replied, confused. She grabbed another cupcake and boxed it, before she could hand it to him, he stopped her.

    “Is there any way I could add a date to the tab?” he asked, with a smirk.

  Her eyes widened at his tone, before it morphed into a frown.

   “If it wasn’t obvious enough sir, I’m not for sale. Your money is $2.08.” She glared at him, not caring that he was a customer.

  His face fell “Does that mean you’re taken?” he asked

 “No,it means that I’m not for sale” she snapped “Now if you don’t mind sir, you’re holding up the line". she added.

He placed the money on the counter,and told her to keep the change. 

  He glanced at her name tag “thank you for your time Brooklyn". He gave her a small before he turned, and walked out of the shop.

          Basically, it was the most impressive cake she had made so far and in such a short notice too. She had started with a perfect tiered cake and then used the movie poster for inspiration as she decorated the layers, creating mind blowing scenes with sugar and icing. They’re many bakers in the world who would find making a cake both elegant and captivating almost impossible to achieve, but Brooklyn, she sure as hell managed to nail it. The cake was basically her gateway to get more work for even months or years.

  She wore her favorite dress for luck, a knee length flowery dress that compliments her red hair, and she paired it with a black pom. She paid one of her workers overtime to help transport the cake to the venue, since she didn’t have money for a full-time delivery man and she didn’t have a car herself.

   Traffic was so horrible that she ended up reaching the venue thirty-five minutes late and she went straight into panic mode. Her stomach was basically in knots as she and jack grabbed the pieces of cake and dashed inside. She wasn’t sure what scared her the most, the possibility of running into Brian, or the possibility of messing everything up.

   Don’t think about him, she scolded herself. Besides, the party doesn’t officially start for another hour and she would definitely be out before then. 

  The ballroom was in chaos when they walked in, people were rushing around trying to get everything set for the party. The place looked spectacular. Draped in silver and blue and shimmery taupe, and with ruins that managed to evoke the setting of the movie and look beautiful at the same time.

 They were directed to the far end of the room where the large table set aside for the cake was located.  She glanced around for Tegan, but saw no sign of him.

   “Start assembling” she told jack “I’ll go get the rest” 

  Shifting into business mode, she thought through her plan for getting all the decoration on the cake quickly. She grabbed the decorations from the van and returned inside.

  On the way back to meet jack, she decided to swing by a kitchen or bathroom and get some water in case her sugar paste pieces decide to break in the process of assembling. She didn’t know her way around the place obviously, but it shouldn’t be hard to find a sink, or so she thought. She set off quickly down a hallway to the right, away from the main ballroom.

 Normally, she would stop and ask someone for directions, but everyone was so busy and she didn’t want to be a bother. She pushed open a few doors but most of them were just storage rooms.

   How on earth was it so hard to find a bathroom? She asked herself. She glanced down at her watch, twenty minutes until the party. She was thinking of forgetting the water and heading back when she heard voices.

  Good,finally someone who could point her to the right direction.

 She followed the voices down the hall to a door that was slightly ajar. Her arms were occupied with decorations, so instead of knocking, she nudged the door with her hips. If she knew what she was about of see, maybe she wouldn’t have.

 She didn’t stumble across a staff like she thought she would, she stumbled across a couple with their tongue deep into each other’s throat. The man was sitting on a chair while the lady straddled him with her gown pushed up around her hips as she threw her head back and writhed against him. His hand gripped her waist as she quickened the undulations of her body, and a moan escaped her lips.

  She stood there stunned, unable to move even though she knew she probably should, but her feet were rooted to the floor. 

  The lady tilted her head a little further back and a gasp escaped Brooklyn’s lips as she realized that it was Brianna stars, the leading star actress in the movie. She couldn’t believe that she just walked in on Jason and Brianna going at it in the room. But as Brianna shifted again, Brooklyn’s body suddenly went cold as she caught a glimpse of the man, and it definitely wasn’t Jason Kamryn. Brianna stars was having an affair with her fiancé’s brother. 

    Some of the decorations slipped from her hands and crashed on the floor, causing the couple to freeze. Brianna’s head jerked around, her face filled with the embarrassment of getting caught. Brian’s gaze locked on hers, his expression was that of annoyance until he recognized her. 

  She quickly grabbed the decorations from the floor and dashed out of the room. She was still in shock, her whole body shook as she dashed down the hall, and she couldn’t stop replaying what she just saw in her head.

       Four years ago, he was basically everything to her. She did things for that man that she couldn’t do for anyone else, and the fact that her body responded to him so bad was just the icing on the cake. 

  And it still does, and that was what scared her the most. She was afraid of running into him, but that was far worse than anything she could’ve imagined. She couldn’t stop hearing her moans, and his heavy breathing as their body moved in sync.

    She wasn’t sure if she was falling apart because he was sleeping with his brother’s wife, or because she just saw her Brian with another woman.

     She was so scared that it could be the latter.

  Jack frowned when he saw her all shaken up “what’s wrong boss?” then his eyes dropped to the decorations “fuck, what happened?”

    “They fell” she replied as she dropped them on the table.

  “Is anything salvageable?” he asked as he scanned the decorations for unbroken pieces.

   She forced herself to take a deep breath, as she reminded herself that she still had a job to do and she wasn’t going to sabotage this opportunity just because she walked into something she shouldn’t have.

   “We’ll find a way around it” she said, going into full work mode.

 And they did. They found some unbroken pieces and stuck the rest with royal icing. She always made extra pieces of décor, so that helped too. It surely wasn’t how she envisaged the cake to be, but it was still pretty damn good.

  “Looks pretty good” a familiar voice whispered behind her.

  She smiled and turned towards him “I’m almost done” she said.

  “They’re going to love it” he reassured her, his eyes flickered from the cake to her face “why do you have that look on you face Brooklyn? Seriously, the cake is awesome”

     She tried to force a smile.

   “What’s wrong brook? Why are you all shaken up?” he asked.

     She looked around, jack was on the other side, arranging some décor on the cake. She went closer to Tegan, so only he could hear “I saw him” she whispered.

   Jack’s eyes widened “I’m so sorry brook, I thought he wasn’t going to show up”

   “It’s okay, you didn’t know” she waved him off. “I saw Brianna too though, and they were in a very compromising position”

  It took a while for that to sink in “you mean like….”

  “Compromising position” she repeated “of course they were fucking”

   “Shit” he whispered yelled “how? Where?  Damn, what did you do?”

    “I dropped the decorations”

   “Wait, did they notice you?”

   She nodded clearly embarrassed, she wanted to die of humiliation.

    “Well,” he urged “what did he say? Did he recognize you?”

    “I think he did, I’m not sure “she shrugged “didn’t wait to confirm”

         “Shit” he repeated “do you need a drink?”

    She shook her head “no, I just want to finish decorating this cake and get the fuck out of here”

       “I understand” he checked his watch “shoot, I need to meet up with my boss, call me okay?”

     She simply nodded.

    No matter how she tried to focus, she couldn’t get him out of her mind. It was wrong how much it hurt, how much she felt betrayed, some very pathetic feelings it seemed.

  She was supposed to hate him and resent him. But in the end, he still had that overwhelming effect on her. Maybe the incident was Gods way of telling to that whatever she was feeling was a lost cause and that she should get on with her life. 

   Even though her personal devil will forever have his claws In her, she had to suck it up and complete the task at hand, and that she did.