The Billionaire’s Betrothed(4)

With a roll of my eyes, I flipped through my mom's old recipes, searching for the famed blue frosting that Sebastian remembered so fondly from his childhood. I could almost see it now, the sticky sugar stuff clinging to his tiny fingers, his tongue tinted as blue as his eyes.

Did he smile more, as a child?

I'd never been one to be so excited for sweets, unless you count a big glass of sangria.

Perhaps it was because I was so surrounded by cakes and cookies growing up, I was overwhelmed by the constant presence of saccharine flavor.

If there was one thing I ever enjoyed the most however, it was the tart lemon cakes my father would make.

Every birthday until I moved out at eighteen, I would demand one of his lemon cakes. Even after I moved, he would send me one in the mail, though I never ended up eating it then. It felt too strange, to eat the cake he'd worked so hard on without him. Yet, that being said, I never bothered to go home to join them on my birthday.

"You passed it." Sebastian interrupted my thoughts before they could slip into regret, taking the booklet from me as he turned the pages, "Where do you keep the confectioner's sugar?"

Quietly, I bent down, pulling the large box from under the counter. We were almost out of the powdered sugar now. Would it be worth it to even get more?

"I've been trying to figure out how to ask this." Sebastian said quietly, watching as I measured out the sugar into a bowl.

His deep tenor voice trailed off with an uncharacteristic hesitance. When I glanced at him once more, his eyes were narrowed on me, as though he hoped I would read his mind without the need for him to speak difficult words.

Instead, I turned back to the bowl, counting out drops of blue food coloring.

The billionaire sighed, one of his fingers drawing a line through the dust on the counter, "Your parents...they're no longer with us are they?" He asked softly.

With a shake of my head, I stuck the tip of my finger into the icing, tasting its sweetness.

Almost instantly, Sebastian was behind me, once again stealing my breath with the closeness of his hulking proximity. I could smell the musk of his cologne. I would leave the shop today with my hair scented like man instead of cupcakes.

"I'm sorry." He offered softly, squeezing my elbow as his eyes shifted towards the icing, "They were always kind to me. I'd hoped to be able to speak with them today."

"You can try some." I relented with a chuckle, watching as he grabbed a spoon, taking a rather large sample of the icing and licking it happily.

"They died a year ago." I added, watching as he lowered his spoon.

"At least they have you to carry on their memory." He replied, eyes searching my own in the hopes that he was being comforting.

He was clearly uncomfortable with condolences, unsure of how to properly comfort a woman. He spent his days surrounded by cold, calculating office workers. He was not paid to be kind, his massive mounds of wealth had not been accrued by acts of graciousness. Yet, now he struggled to appropriately help me through what he assumed to be a difficult time.

"For now." I mumbled, rubbing a hand over my forehead, "Unfortunately their memory is going to be snuffed out at the end of the week."

His dark brow creased as the oven timer rang out.

I bent down with a heavy sigh, sliding on an oven mitt and pulling the cookies from the oven. The sweet smell quickly filled the small space of the bakery. There was nothing quite like the scent of sugar and butter baked together.

"What do you mean?" Sebastian asked, impatiently eyeing the cookies as though he hoped his stare could blast chill them into an edible temperature.

Patience was one of the few things that man lacked. It was also one of the even fewer things that he could not simply buy.

"I don't have enough money to keep us afloat anymore." I murmured sadly, "I just can't bring in business like my parents used to."

A sigh rolled out my lungs, so deep and heavy with my sadness that I was sure it was almost tangible.

"So you'll have to close then?" Sebastian replied with a frown that marred his flawless face. Even so, he was still beautiful as a painting.

"This may very well be the last batch of cookies that ever gets baked here." I replied gently, bittersweet smile on my face.

At least they weren't burned. Was this the first batch I’d managed to make successfully? I supposed I had Sebastian to thank for keeping me on track.

Quietly, working side by side, we carefully iced the still warm cookies, our impatience to taste them finally winning over waiting for them to cool. The blue tinted frosting melted against the heat of the cookie, sticking to our fingers.

Though Sebastian seemed to rarely run out of words to say, he seemed to be deep in his own thoughts at the moment. Perhaps he was focusing on the sweets.