I Hate, I Bake, and I Don’t Date! by Alina Jacobs

66

Tess

Beck stood back, his body language cautious.

“You could have called.”

I crossed my arms. “I am currently not on speaking terms with people who lie and gaslight other people and sleep with them in their office then fire them for it.”

“I knew it,” Vera whispered to her friends. “I knew he didn’t need any extra help.”

“I only came to retrieve my belongings,” I said, trying to channel my inner regency romance protagonist. However, I was not in a period-appropriate regency dress.

“What are you wearing?” Beck asked, finally taking a good look at me.

“I need to do laundry,” I said, “and my water is out. So let me get my things, then I’m leaving.”

“Back to your apartment with no hot water?” Beck raised an eyebrow.

“Why do you care where I shower?” I snapped at him. “I’m nothing to you, just a tool you can use on your path to more and more billions.”

“Tess,” Beck said. “That’s not true. I care very much about you, and I completely mishandled the situation.”

“The situation?” I said, irate. “You mean the casual hookups we were having in your house and in your office and in your car? That’s what you’re referring to? That situation?”

“No,” he said. “The situation is me falling in love with you.”

My chest clenched, and my inner romantic set off fireworks.

Stand strong.

Beck came over to me and gingerly rested his hands on the sleeves of my robe. “I didn’t intend to fall in love with you, Tess. But I did. I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I did that too. I understand if you never want to see me anymore. I know I deserve it, but I did want to make it up to you. I owe you that much.”

“You mean the painting?”

Beck grimaced.

“Flower delivery!” the doorman called, opening the door as a man loaded down with an array of roses wheeled them in.

“Can the concierge come sign for these please?” the deliveryman asked in an annoyed Long Island accent. “I’m behind schedule.”

Vera hustled over. “Looks like these are for—”

“Wait!” Beck called.

I glared at him. “Your grand gesture was a bunch of roses?”

“It’s part of the grand gesture,” he said as the seniors admired the flowers. “Tess, I—”

“Tess!” Annie and Enola yelled, running to me. “We’re so happy to see you!”

I immediately felt terrible. Even though I hadn’t written the article, I had written the hate list.

“I’m so sorry,” I told them.

“We know it was Cressida, not you,” they said.

“You smell good,” Enola told me, “like chocolate cake.”

I scratched my batter-soaked hair under the plastic wrap.

“I didn’t mean what I wrote on the hate list,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I was having a bad day.”

“That’s okay!” Annie chirped. “Beck is having a really bad day too. He’s supposed to make a mashed potato bar, but he didn’t start the roast beef.”

“Rookie mistake,” I said. “You have to start slow cooking that in the morning. You’re going to have bacon, right?”

“I think we might just order pizza,” he admitted.

“Why did you agree to host if you didn’t even have anything planned?” I scolded.

“My brothers surprised me,” he said. “I was caught off guard. And now I’m behind on your grand gesture.”

“You should come upstairs first,” Annie said, tugging his arm. “Liam is trying to make cheese sauce to tide everyone over, and I think he’s going to burn the place down.”

Beck looked frazzled.

“Do you want the keys or not?” Belle asked. “I have another meeting.”

“It’s supposed to be part of my surprise,” he hissed.

Belle raised an eyebrow. “Oh? I thought it was part of the deal.”

“What deal?” I asked in confusion.

“Tess,” Beck said, grabbing my hand. “Like I said, I’m sorry about taking your painting. I never should have done it. I’m sorry for not believing you about the article and am very sorry for firing you. I know you hate me. You made that pretty clear. I’m not asking you to get back together with me. But I did just spend twenty million dollars—”

“Not refundable,” Belle added.

“Not refundable, on a very nice condo in this building for you.”

“For me?” I gasped. “A condo?”

Beck nodded.

This is it!I thought gleefully. I get the big moment and the happily ever after.

But when did that ever really happen to me? I had trusted Beck once and been screwed over. Should I do it again?

“What’s the catch?”

“The catch?” Maeve screamed. “Even if it’s hot sex every Tuesday wearing a SpongeBob costume, what the hell does it matter? Think of your friends.”

“I have standards,” I said stubbornly.

“No, you don’t!” Maeve said. “You wore a bathrobe and mismatched slippers in the subway.”

“To be fair,” Beck said, “there is a slight, very slight, catch.”

“I knew it!” I crowed.

“Belle,” Vera interrupted as the tall woman headed to the door. “I’m sending out a building-wide email to reschedule the HOA presidential election for tomorrow night. Tess, you better dress up a little bit, or people may still vote for Greg instead of you.”

“I can’t be HOA president!”

“You’re a resident of 101 Park Place tower,” Belle said. “So you absolutely can.”

“Why?” I asked Beck. “What’s in it for you?”

“Your painting,” he said.

Belle brought it from behind the concierge table.

“You got my painting back!” I hugged it.

“I hope you can accept my apology,” Beck said carefully.

“That depends,” I said as Maeve had conniptions next to me. “I need to see the unit first.”

“No, she doesn’t. We will literally live in a windowless storage shed as long as it doesn’t leak,” my friend wailed.

A few minutes later, I was the one having conniptions. The whole group had trouped upstairs to see my new digs.

I fell to my knees when we walked in.

“It’s so beautiful. It’s huge!” I ran around the big open space.

“We can put the bunk beds here and a bookcase here, and we could even buy one of those fancy screen things to give us more privacy,” I told Maeve excitedly.

“This is a twenty-million-dollar condo,” Beck said irritably. “You’re not going to sleep in the living room.”

I turned down a hallway that I had thought just led to a small bathroom, but it led to the other eighty percent of the condo.

“This is amazing!” I squealed.

“This is a state-of-the-art tower,” Belle said, giving her sales pitch. “Along with a very generous master suite and two other bedrooms with en suite bathrooms, there is also a study.”

“A craft room!” Maeve and I said automatically.

“And room for a home gym.”

“Which shall be my pantry,” I declared.

“There is already a pantry,” Belle said, leading us back to the kitchen. She opened the door to a huge walk-in pantry bigger than my current apartment. It even had its own wine-storage fridge.

“I’m in heaven. I accept!” I yelled, wrapping my arms around Beck and kissing him. “I accept your apology, and I accept my new crown as queen of the homeowners association, and I accept being your booty call.”

“That wasn’t part of the deal,” he said, frowning.

“You don’t want to sleep with that?” Vera scolded. “Look at those tatas! You can’t buy those, let me tell ya!”

“No,” Beck said to me. “I was just giving this to you with no, well, very few strings attached. At least no strings that led to me.”

“Too bad,” I said happily.

“I didn’t even have the proper presentation. I didn’t have the flowers or the cake.”

“And you got me a cake!” I kissed him again. “I love you!”

“It’s ice cream cake,” Beck said. “I helped design it myself.”

“We are eating that after the mashed potato bar.”