No. I’m sick of saying, “How high?” when he tells me to jump. When he told me yesterday he wanted me to make sure the house got clean today, he said, “If you’re going to be my wife someday…” and I thought I was going to vomit. I can’t even think about that. Yeah, I got myself into this mess, but marrying him would make it not so much a mess as a living, breathing hell.
Strange how it’s okay that I’m using him to keep my business afloat, and it’s okay that he’s using me to make himself look good, but it’s not okay that he wants to make that a permanent situation.
Of course, maybe if he hadn’t started hitting me on a regular basis, not to mention the verbal and emotional abuse, I’d look at things a little differently. As it is, it’s untenable. I can’t keep it up. I certainly can’t imagine being married to him.
I shudder as I check the sauce again. I drop a lid on it and turn the heat down just a bit more. I need to get the hell out of this house for a while. The sauce will be okay on its own for a few hours. And if Sal doesn’t bother to come home, and his sauce is ruined because it’s on the heat too long, then that’s his own damn fault, isn’t it?
#
The bakery—my bakery—smells like home and comfort when I open the door and head inside. It’s warm, the air full of yeasty smells. It’s enough to draw a smile onto my face in spite of everything.
Sadly, though, the smile doesn’t last long. I love this place—was willing to sacrifice everything for it, including my happiness—but things haven’t turned out the way I hoped they would. Sales started out fairly brisk, but then they fell off. I know I could get things going again, but it would take some money to invest in things I desperately need, like updated equipment, the capacity to produce a wider menu, and, yes, advertising. But I can’t get the money, because somebody is holding the purse strings far too tightly.
That somebody, of course, is Sal himself. If it weren’t for Sal, I wouldn’t have had the money to start the business in the first place. If it weren’t for Sal, I’d have the freedom to do what I need to do with the bakery, but not the money. The deal I made with him was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life, and there’s no way I can get free of it.
There are a few customers at the counter, being helped by Mandy, the only employee I can afford to have in today. I rotate a few people, but it’s hard to keep staff paid when there’s so little money coming in. I know Sal refuses to let me improve the place because he wants to keep me under his thumb. As long as I’m there, he has control of the bakery, which gives him control over me as well as a convenient place to launder his dirty mob money. I should have figured that out from the get-go, but no. I went into the deal believing in the innate goodness of humanity. More fool me.
“Sarah, can you take a look at this?” Mandy asks me. I move to stand behind her. The cash register is being wonky again. Because of course it is. One more thing to be broken. One more step closer to the destruction of my life’s dream.
I poke a few buttons and finally get the machine to open, letting me pass the customer her change. “Sorry for the inconvenience,” I tell her, and hand her a coupon from the counter. Maybe she’ll come back. Selling a stack of pastries at twenty-five percent off is better than selling no pastries at all.
I hear the bell above the entrance ring, and there’s a man in the doorway, holding the door open for my departing customer. My breath catches. He’s broad shouldered and handsome, wearing suit pants and a dress shirt. He’s also the guy I danced with at the party last night. Nick. I have to say, he’s a hard man to forget, with that dark, almost blue-black hair and green eyes. There’s a scar on his right cheek, but it just makes him that much better looking, as far as I’m concerned.
My body gets hot just looking at him. I remember the way it felt to let him hold me when we were dancing last night. He’d held me so close I could feel him getting hot for me. But even with that big erection giving him trouble in his pants, he’d stayed the gentleman. Mostly. Well, he didn’t try to rub off on me, which frankly is more than I expect from most of the guys who were there last night.
He gives the woman a nod as she moves past him and then lets the door fall shut. Looking up, he meets my gaze and smiles.
“Hi,” I say. “May I help you?”
Mandy gives me an odd look. She’s probably figured out that I know this guy, or recognize him at the very least. I’m suddenly self-conscious and wonder if he likes the way I look in my everyday clothes. He obviously liked the way I looked in my eveningwear, but this is a whole different me. I’ve got my hair in a ponytail, and I’ve got on jeans and a T-shirt—stuff that won’t end up ruined when it gets flour all over it, as it inevitably will. The only thing I’m missing is my apron, and that’s just because I haven’t quite managed to put it on yet.