Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 17362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 87(@200wpm)___ 69(@250wpm)___ 58(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 17362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 87(@200wpm)___ 69(@250wpm)___ 58(@300wpm)
Hannah Lee is the queen of cupcakes, with her bakery at the heart of town—and her heart locked tight. But when Elias Lawson, the city’s too-hot-to-handle health inspector, struts in with his clipboard and a wicked grin, he’s ready to turn her world upside down.
He’s here to inspect her bakery, but all he can think about is tasting something sweet—and it’s not just her famous brownies.
With his smoldering good looks and smooth-talking charm, Elias is about to prove that rules were made to be broken. Especially when the sparks between them burn hotter than the ovens in the back.
Can Hannah keep her cool, or will this big-city heartthrob tempt her into something deliciously dangerous?
Small town girl meets city boy
Opposites attract
Forced proximity
Workplace romance
Sassy heroine, alpha hero
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
ONE
hannah
I love baking.
I grew up with it. Countless memories with my mother, my aunts, my grandmother, all over a hot oven, creating such delicious and sweet treats.
It’s become my life’s work, and some would say I have a dream job, being surrounded by sweets and all the joy they bring.
Except it’s still a job. And the Sweet Stoppe is still a business.
So I’m in the back, hunched over a laptop with a bunch of spreadsheets open and doing all the business expenses to make sure I don’t make any sudden bad financial decisions.
It’s not like the bakery is living on the edge. It’s always made a tidy little profit, more than enough for me to live on.
But the books are still stuff that has to be managed, and I have to decide what special recipes keep getting made, and which go back into the recipe rolodex, retired for a few years and that I may bring back later to see if tastes have changed.
A knock sounds on my door and I shoot my eyes up over the laptop. The door isn’t closed, but Lavender is just the type to be that considerate. “You got a moment, Hannah?”
“I always got a moment for you, Lavender,” I smirk.
Lavender’s a bit of an outlier when it comes to most of the folks in Evergreen Valley. She’s going around with purple - she’d call it lavender - hair and looks amazed at everything around her. Possibly because she’s not originally from here or anywhere like here. This rich city girl just wandered into my bakery one day and asked for a job, and I couldn’t think of a good reason not to hire her.
She’s been one heck of a hand in the year or so since. A lot has changed for her in that time, such as finding love, getting married, and the very, incredibly large round bump that she’s been carrying around for the past couple of months. She approaches my desk very delicately and takes a seat. “I got some bad news for you, Hannah.”
“It’s finally time to take your maternity leave?”
Lavender is slightly surprised by my words. “Uh, yes. How did you know?”
I gesture toward her abdomen.
“Oh, right. But maybe I wanted to work as much as possible. Some women do that, you know.”
“Some do. But I’d feel ashamed of myself as a boss if I let someone so pregnant work until their water broke.”
She lets out a long sigh. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to be a hassle for you.”
“You’re not a hassle. What do you think I hired Melanie for?”
“To help run the bakery?”
“So that you could take off without feeling guilty that you’re putting me in a bad spot.”
Lavender’s shoulders sink, she seems a bit relieved by my words. “Thank you, Hannah. You’re the sweetest boss I could hope for.”
“Well, I do deal in the sweet,” I say, my smirk growing.
“I think I got two weeks before I have to take off," she says.
“Take off when you need to, Lavender. But I won’t say no to any help you can give me.”
I finish off the work I need to do on the laptop and close it. The two of us get up and go out to the counter, where my new hire, Melanie, is tending to the register.
She’s just come back from college, and has that ‘What am I going to do with my life?’ phase that we all have, and I think it’s especially worse as someone who’s gone to college and comes back to a small town.
“Four dollars, sir,” she says to the man across from her.
“Oh, let me get my wallet.” The doddering old man who is my current customer was Ben, who ran the local gas station. Evergreen Valley was the kind of small town where everyone knows everyone, and there’s usually only one gas station and one Chinese restaurant; and up until recently? One bakery.
Ben paid for his muffin and took the scent in. This is his routine. He’s here at 10 am every morning. If you want to get gas without your credit card at that point? Tough cookies, Ben needed his breaks. We always made sure to have a fresh one ready for him with how punctual he is.
He takes a bite. “Oh, this is heaven. This is what gets me out of bed every day.”
“That sounds awfully depressing,” Melanie says.
I glance at her with scorn, silently telling her not to judge the customers.
Ben cradles his muffin. “Your muffins are just that good. I don’t know what I’d do without them. Thank you, Hannah.”
He takes his leave, heading out the front door, until another semi-familiar face makes his way in. This one is in a suit and about half Ben’s age. Arguably, he’s twice as pathetic, though. He clears his throat. “Hannah Lee of Hannah’s Sweet Stoppe?”