Control Games (Game for Cookies Book 2) Read online

  He loathed being accused of things he wasn’t responsible for, though, and grabbed a different comeback. “Never? The two of you tell each other absolutely everything? You’ve never kept some kind of important, life-altering decision from her?” He didn’t know if Julie had or not, but it was a safe assumption. Very few friends shared everything.

  Julie’s lips drew into such a thin line, they almost vanished. Impressive, given how full and kissable they normally were. And he wanted to slap himself for thinking that in the middle of this fight. Her silence stretched on for long enough that his concern multiplied, and then some.

  She spoke. “I assume, being the grand, anal-retentive, hands-on-everything kind of guy you are, someone’s on their way to repair my mixer?”

  “Me. As soon as the part gets here, you’ll have the core of your livelihood back.”

  She clamped her mouth shut, narrowed her gaze on him, and then brushed past him.

  What the fuck? She never let him have the last word. Not willingly. Never this easily. He spun and realized the crew stood nearby, pretending they weren’t eavesdropping.

  “Back to work.” He forced any further emotion from his voice and gestured toward the conference room. “Break’s over.”

  As they shuffled back to their places, he took a few more breaths to calm himself. It was an argument. No different from any other. But he didn’t like how this one sat heavy inside. A nagging voice asked if he felt bad about pushing Julie’s buttons. He ignored it.

  When he got back to his seat, Julie was hunched over, staring at her script, shutting herself off from everyone else.

  They began another read-through, complete with the dialog changes made during the last one. A few minutes in, Dante’s phone buzzed.

  The text from Elisa simply said, I’m back.

  Leave the part in the kitchen. He resisted the desire to add, and don’t touch anything. She wasn’t clumsy. Hadn’t knocked over the device or done anything more than walk past it. It was just a bad-timing type of series of events.

  * * * *

  Julie was irritated about the kitchen casualty, but not furious. That damned dream had her off her game, though. She didn’t dare look Dante in the eye, because it brought vivid images rushing back, and if her reactions were this bad around the guy she couldn’t stand, she had no idea how she was going to face Christopher.

  It was exhaustion and stress. Nothing more. Given time to clear her head, she’d be fine. After everyone left, she tucked herself into the now-empty conference room and sifted through recipe notes from last night. With a few hours’ rest under her belt, it was easier to look at what she’d tried. What worked and didn’t.

  She didn’t know how long passed, but the sunlight hit the western window now. A knock shattered her concentration, and she looked up to find Andi in the doorway.

  “You need anything?” Andi asked.

  The two of you tell each other absolutely everything? Dante’s question from earlier bounced in Julie’s head, taunting her with the past she never filled Andi in on. Andi knew about the college boyfriend Julie thought she was going to marry. The guy she’d been ready to bring home to meet everyone, and talked to Andi non-stop about for months.

  Andi didn’t know the reason Julie’s relationship crumbled—he wanted to experiment, and everything fell apart. The secret never mattered until Andi hooked up with two guys, and Julie had no idea how to tell her the relationship wasn’t going to last.

  “Actually, yes.” Julie used the vocal response to bring her back to—and ground her in—the now. “Any idea if they’re almost done?”

  “The Hobart is put back together, if that’s what you’re asking. But Dante feels bad about the mess and asked me to keep you out of there until he has a chance to clean up.”

  Julie had a tough time believing Dante felt bad about anything. The moment she had the thought, guilt joined it. That was a new feeling. Andi’s plea to get along must be getting under Julie’s skin. Which also explained the small voice in Julie’s head, insisting Dante was a nice guy and she needed to ease up.

  Despite the urge to see for herself that everything was all right, she wasn’t in the mood to argue. A little more time to make sure she didn’t blush beet-red next time she talked to Dante or Christopher wouldn’t hurt either. “All right.”

  Andi furrowed her brow, suspicion creeping onto her face. “All right, what?”

  “Tell him you succeeded in keeping me out of there until he’s done.”

  Andi crossed the room in quick strides and rested the inside of her wrist against the back of Julie’s forehead. “Are you sick? Do you need more sleep?”

  “I’m fine.” Julie batted Andi’s hand away with a laugh. “I’m trying to play nice is all.”

  “If you say so... What do you need my help with?”

  “When I get my kitchen back, I need you to taste some cookie recipes for me. We need to decide which is best. Come get me when it’s all clear?”

  “Will do, boss.” Andi made her way back to the door and paused. “Seriously, though. Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve seemed a bit off since this morning.”

  With any luck, Andi was the only person who noticed. “I’m fine.” Julie waved her off. “Lack of sleep—etcetera, etcetera.”

  Julie dove back into her work. She should have brought her laptop down here. It wouldn’t take much to wander upstairs and grab it, but that meant going past the kitchen, and the temptation to peek at how terrible things were would be too great. Besides, it would feel good to go hands-on with her work again, pen to paper—the old-fashioned way.

  Andi was the artist and the numbers person. She took care of the company finances and made sure the bank account wasn’t drained at the end of the month. Julie was better at marketing. Andi did the final artwork, but Julie picked the advertising venues, designed the campaigns... all that. Most of the grand opening work was completed weeks ago, but there was no reason she couldn’t come up with a few one-off ideas.

  The sun sank lower in the background, while she made lists, sketched rough layouts, and brainstormed innovative ways to reach out to customers. Having Dante’s name associated with the place would help. She could admit that. But a large part of their audience wouldn’t be fans of his show or care who he was, beyond that TV cooking guy.

  Her phone buzzed, drawing her attention from her work. When did it get so dark? The only illumination spilled in from the hallway. She checked her messages. The new text was from Luke.

  I know you said you’re busy, but I’m in the neighborhood. Hoping to drop by for a few minutes.

  Seeing him might be preferable to dealing with Dante. It wouldn’t accomplish anything though. Sorry. Super slammed. She was about to type more when she sniffed the air. The place always smelled like cookies, so she didn’t notice earlier, but this was fresh. Still-baking sugar and flour.

  She hit Send on the message, then followed her nose down the hallway, concern growing when she passed no one. Her feet stalled when she reached the kitchen. Everything was the way she left it early this morning. The mixer no longer sat in parts, and every surface gleamed. Except for one tiny corner of the room.

  Flour smeared a cutting board. A series of bowls littered the counter. Tubes of dough sat covered with plastic. Dante had his back to her and was pulling a sheet of what looked suspiciously like cookies from the oven.

  She waited until he set the tray down, then asked, “What is this?” She had a pretty good idea but needed some time to make up her mind about how to react. On the one hand, it was a thoughtful gesture. But if it was his idea, it was because he doubted she was capable, and this was his way of proving it. She stowed the achingly familiar insecurity.

  He whirled, startled expression shifting to a fluid smile in a blink. “Hey. I thought you were going to stay away until someone came and got you.”

  “That was...” She glanced at the clock on the wall. Holy crap. It was almost eight. “Six hours ago. Where’s Andi, anyway? And answer
my original question.”

  “Stop asking new ones.” The light teasing in his voice wilted. “I told her I’d find you when I was done.”

  “Because...?” Julie was getting tired of prompting for answers.

  Dante gestured to the sheet of cookies. “I think I have your recipe. Chocolate chip. The chips have to be small, but I believe it will work for both shaping and painting, and still hold up in shipping.”

  “You were supposed to fix the mixer and then give me my workspace back. Not commandeer it for your needs.” Uncertainty nudged her senses again. He didn’t think she could do this. Felt someone more capable had to step up and take the reins.

  No. That wasn’t what this was.

  The self-doubt pushed back, gnawing at anger to back it up. “You don’t have the right.”

  He stripped off his apron and set it aside with a sigh. “Let me get this straight. Last night, you were upset I dumped this on you last minute. Today I’m still to blame, because I realized I could have approached the situation more nicely, and stepped up to help?”

  “It’s not your business. You get a say in things as an investor, but you can’t make decisions without warning us first.” When he opened his mouth, she held up a finger, to keep him from interrupting. “And you can’t tell one of us, with the expectation the other won’t find out. How long do you think we’ll last if you keep pitting us against each other?”

  “I’m doing no such thing. Have you ever listened to yourself? You’re this hyperactive control freak who won’t let anyone do anything without you knowing, and you blame me for not liking it.”

  She hated the sound of control freak, especially the way he spat out the syllables like a disgusting flavor. “I blame you for making unreasonable demands. For pushing the limits of how much input your contract gives you, and sometimes breaking them. And I blame you for assuming I’m not capable of handling things myself.” Shit. She hadn’t meant to let that slip.

  “You’re perfectly capable, but you don’t have to do it all by yourself. You need to learn to fucking delegate, Julie.”

  No. That was how it started. Delegate, and someone else came in and either did it wrong or did it so much better, people figured out she didn’t have her shit as together as she pretended. Reason reminded her it had never actually happened that way, and she shoved it and her qualms back out of reach, on a high shelf in her brain. “Why? So some Hollywood bozo can come along and disrupt my order and snatch it out from under me?”

  “I’m not—” His voice increased in volume. He clenched his fist and sighed. “My goal isn’t to steal your business from you. I don’t want another one. I want yours to work, under your care—it’s why I invested—and it won’t, unless you learn to let go of a little control.”

  Damn it. Why was he being reasonable? If he shouted, it would fuel her anger. “You still shouldn’t have done this without letting me know,” she said.

  “Would you have given me the go-ahead?”

  There was that stupid rationale again. “Probably not.”

  “Are you okay with it now?”

  “I guess.” Her instinct screamed to keep arguing. Months of Andi insisting Julie give Dante a chance won out. When Julie let herself pay attention, he wasn’t giving her reason to fight back. Well, the deception—and damn it if that didn’t piss her off—but he was sorry. He even looked it. No hidden snideness lined his words. His posture was open.

  He smiled. “I’ll take a maybe. I’m sorry I went behind your back.”

  Were they actually reaching a consensus on something? “Then I guess I’m sorry I was a raging bitch queen.”

  “You weren’t a raging bitch queen. It was more like convulsing.” He winked.

  It didn’t help take the edge off the words. Her concession wilted, and her smile turned flat. “Thanks. You’re done here now?”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “See you in the morning.” He paused. “I almost forgot. There was a ton of extra catering, and I didn’t want it to go to waste. Someone from the battered-women’s shelter in town will be by early, to pick up the leftovers. Andi knows, but in case you don’t talk to her before then, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  And with that, he was gone. Julie leaned against the counter, exhaustion washing over her. Great. Now he was a reasonable guy, and she was the woman who overreacted. She absentmindedly grabbed one of the cookies and nibbled on it. Based on the shape and consistency, she expected it to be dry and bland. Instead, a wash of sugars, butter, and chocolate teased her tongue. It was really good.

  She sank to the floor, finishing off the treat. This was worse than Dante having the last word.

  Chapter Five

  “I’ve taken care of all the charges.” Dante struggled to keep his voice from rising. He’d repeated himself so many times in the last fifteen minutes, he might as well be a broken record.

  Nash, the producer for Dante’s show, Sensational Goodies, sighed over the phone. “The point isn’t where the money comes from; it’s that you went over budget.”

  “Except that I didn’t, because you’re not footing the bill.” Dante didn’t know how to make himself clearer.

  “You pitched this idea as costing a certain amount. The bill will come to more than that. This won’t be the first time, but unlike your other specialty projects, this one is too niche a market. Video game companies don’t want prime advertising spots on a fucking cooking channel.”

  Dante’s simmering irritation threatened to boil over. “In other words, you’re throwing a fit because you don’t like this idea. Or rather, because you’ve hated it from the beginning. If you’d said that an hour ago, we could have kept this conversation short.”

  “I said it months ago, when you pitched this newest investment of yours. If you’d like, I can go down a list of all the advertisers who pulled out because of this episode.”

  “Sure. I’d love that again. In fact, toss in the group from the last special, as well.” Dante poured generous helpings of sarcasm into his reply. “You remember—the conservative corporations who were pissed off I featured that lovely lesbian couple and their kabob cart in Detroit.” The sponsors didn’t care they already had their money associated with Dante’s show and he was as open about his sexuality as anyone. He and Christopher didn’t hide their relationship. That specific show was an affront to the advertisers’ sensibilities.

  Nash’s chuckle was dark. “If we’re going to do that, let’s go down the full list of who you’ve lost since you started these specialty segments.”

  And leave out the group of sponsors who had replaced them. Dante rolled his eyes. “Can we not, today? I have work to do. If you don’t like the show, cancel it.” He was sick of this bullshit. Nash bitched and moaned with every new investment Dante picked up, but the show stayed on the air regardless. The ratings were on Dante’s side. Or they had been. The numbers had slipped lately, and combined with the unusually high number of issues that plagued this shoot, Dante was more nervous about the future of his show than he cared to admit.

  “I’m not going to cancel you,” Nash said. “You pushed for this. Went over my head, to make these stupid fucking specials happen, so you could grab free advertising time for shops you thought were spiffy enough to invest in. You enjoyed every fucking minute of watching my vote get overridden. I’m going to return the favor. You’ll fail with this cookie episode. I don’t have to wonder if that’s true; the writing’s on the fucking wall. When it all falls apart, I’ll watch you crash and burn, as your entire career unravels a thread at a time, until you can’t find work as anything but a sous chef at a two-star chain diner.”

  Dante swallowed his, that doesn’t make any sense. “Don’t hold back. Tell me how you really feel.”

  “I’ll fuck you in a way your boyfriend never has, and you won’t be able to get a producer to take your call except to laugh at you, when this is over.”

  “That’s swell. I’m glad we had this talk. You have a delightful day, Nash.” It
took the last of Dante’s restraint to pretend the words didn’t rattle him. Nash was a huge name in television and had pull at the network. He’d ruined careers before. Dante needed this to pan out. Rubbing Nash’s arrogant nose in the smashing success would be a pleasant side effect of success.

  “Oven.” Someone shouted.

  Dante filed it away with the rest of the background noise. He was focused on breathing and counting to ten, so he didn’t lose his calm before he had to face anyone. He whirled, to cut through the kitchen and head back to the conference room.

  “Look out,” Julie yelled.

  Dante didn’t register what she meant, until he smacked into her and the scalding hot tray of cookies she held. The sheet flipped up, catching him across his arm and burning the sensitive skin on the inside, and the sample cookies she'd been working on flew everywhere. “Watch where the fuck you’re going.” Anger tumbled into his voice, and pain seared through his flesh. He stepped away from the heat out of reflex and jarred something on the counter behind him.

  Even if he didn’t recognize the telltale clatter of cooling trays tumbling to the ground, the wide-eyed horror on Andi’s face would have told him. He’d knocked over a batch of her painted sugar cookies— the ones the customers expected first thing in the morning.

  Dread welled inside, mingling with his irritation and becoming a red-haze of rage. “What the hell are those doing in such a precarious spot?” As the words snapped out, a voice in the back of his head urged him to take them back. He was too lost in the throbbing on his arm and his anger at Nash.

  “That’s where we always leave them.” Andi sounded apologetic.

  Julie slammed the now-empty baking sheet on a countertop, and the clang echoed through the room. “Don’t you dare yell at her.” She glanced at Andi. “And don’t cower in front of this belligerent asshole. He knows the system in here as well as anyone.”

  “I know you keep this kitchen a wreck when you’re on a deadline, and if there weren’t cookies on every available surface in here, that wouldn’t have happened.” Dante liked shouting. It was a nice outlet. The whisper of conscience telling him to back down could go to hell, along with the nagging that said if this were anyone but Julie, he wouldn’t react this way.