Blowing out a breath, I close the app before I make a monumental mistake. She said Sunny accidentally swiped on my profile, so if I swipe on her—also accidentally, of course—she’ll be notified.
And I don’t want Noelle Whitten. Ican’twant Noelle Whitten.
7
NOELLE
Ican be a raging bitch when I want to be. And, unfortunately, even when I don’t want to be.
Like now: sitting beside Shay fucking Harland in a production trailer, across from three people from the network whose job titles I’ve already forgotten. They’re all perfectly nice, they’ve been surprisingly forthcoming with information, and they’re going to pay us each a small fortune. But I can’t seem to stop myself from snapping at everything they say. And like she’s trying to piss me off, Shay couldn’t be nicer to them.
“We’re going to be splitting our trailers across the town—the park, the grocery store parking lot, a bunch of empty fields, et cetera—so we’re not disrupting any one area too much,” the redhead in the middle explains, and I immediately question her on traffic controls. Environmental concerns. Wildlife. It’s like Rora has taken over my body, and I half expect the words “fuck Christmas” to slip off my tongue at any moment.
They meet my questions with the patience of saints, smiling the whole damn time. God, I need to get more sleep. Or maybe Rora’s right and I need a good orgasm or two to de-stress. Clearly, I’m not taking good enough care of myself.
I jump as Shay lightly touches my arm. “Noelle? You still with us?”
My instinct is to snap at her, but I push it down. Growth. Sort of.
“Yep, sorry.” When I look back at the network folk, they’re watching me warily. Shit. “Look, I’m sorry. This isn’t how I usually act, especially to strangers. I’m just really protective of this town and worried about how this is going to impact my business. I promise I’m usually pretty nice—ask anyone. Well, maybe not anyone,” I tack on, thinking about the woman beside me.
I shouldn’t have bothered; Shay is a better person than I am and immediately jumps in to back me up.
“She really is. Everyone loves Noelle,” Shay says, and it doesn’t sound like she’s forcing herself. Which, of course, makes me feel worse. “But you have to understand how important Wintermore is to everyone here. This town means so much to everyone who lives here, and we just want to make sure the town and the people are respected.”
It’s a perfect answer that has the network people relaxing, and me more tense than ever. Why is she, of all people, defending me? Being tired and stressed isn’t an excuse to be an asshole, though it is the reason I’m acting like I have been to the people working on the movie. To Shay, though? That’s how I always am.
She’s either an incredible liar, or this is just another example of her managing everything better than me.
At this point, I have to pick my battles, and I’ve already agreed to the movie, so I may as well stop being so difficult about that. Besides, I do believe that this will be good for Wintermore as a whole. My family’s businesses might be doing well, but I owe it to the town to do whatever I can to make sure everyone is thriving—even if I have to work myself to the bone to do it.
As for Shay being so nice… I can unpack that later.
I take a deep breath and make my shoulders relax. “I’d love to hear your plans for splitting your time between the two bakeries, and what kinds of things you’d like me and Shay to work on.”
Relief shines from the faces of the network people, and I force a smile onto my own.
The redhead in the middle claps her hands. “Well, let’s get started, shall we? The plan is simple…”
The plan is anything but simple.
I walk away from the meeting more exhausted than when I went in. Shay walks quietly beside me, and I have no idea what she makes of everything.
They’re going to film inÉpices et Sucréfirst, since Shay is happy to close completely and work on her orders from my basement kitchen, like we discussed. The Enchanted Bakery will operate as normal and close for one week right before the movie wraps so they can film whatever they need to film. I think the appeal of having a fully operational café and bakery in town for the crew, and the 25 percent discount I offered for anyone working on the movie, was the main driver there.
My team will continue to work in the main kitchen, and I’ll work there until lunchtime, when I’ll move to the basement to work on the ridiculous list of things the network wants for the movie.
The list they’ve given us ahead of time is only the items they know they want in advance. We’ve been warned that they’ll likely double the amount while filming, and they’ll need duplicates of most things. The baking itself should be relatively straightforward; I half expected them to ask us to decorateStyrofoam cakes and fake cookies to make filming easier, but they want the real thing for “authenticity.” At least the crew will eat well.
Since the movie features two bakers, they want to see both my decorating style and Shay’s reflected, which is a relief. I really don’t want to have to learn a whole new style overnight if I don’t have to.
Technically, as long as we stay on schedule—or get ahead—we should be able to take one day off a week, but I don’t remember the last time I actually managed a full day off, so I doubt it.
We have a dedicated contact on the crew to help us coordinate everything, free rein to request whatever we need to make things work, and exactly six days until they start filming. Six days to prepare myself to spend over a month stuck in a kitchen with Shay.
I don’t know what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.
“The plan is simple.”Liars.
