Good God.

It wasn’t as if Eve had never made breakfast before. She really had taken several cooking courses. It was just, she’d taken those courses for fun—to pass time, to learn a new skill. They were a party trick to impress friends with, a way to devise the perfect hangover breakfast for Gigi or comfort food for Chloe.

She hadn’t taken those courses to be an actual bloody chef, a professional who was held to specific standards and on whose shoulders the weight of a bed-and-breakfast guest’s morning experience rested. And yet, here she fucking was.

Delightful.

Huffing out a breath, she bent to check the fresh pastries she’d chucked into the oven, tapping her thighs in time with the hypnotic beat of KATIE’s “Remember” blaring in her ear. Mont had arrived half an hour ago to check on her—but Eve, like a witless fucking oblong, had sent him home because he looked tired. Who gave a damn if the man looked tired? She was tired. She’d spent last night on Jacob’s pullout sofa, courtesy of Mont, sleeping on lumpy pillows he’d dragged out of some cupboard, wearing pajamas he’d apparently borrowed from some mysterious—and outrageously long-limbed—sister. She’d been up for hours reading Jacob’s various employee handbooks—

And checking on his adorable sleeping face.

—and googling bad bed-and-breakfast reviews to torture herself with the various ways all this could go wrong. She’d gotten ready that morning under the cover of darkness, trying to put off the moment Jacob discovered her presence for as long as possible because she knew he’d be unreasonable about it. Really, under such stressful circumstances, it was only a matter of time until she crumbled into dust and contaminated the croissants. This entire endeavor was doomed to go tits up with her at the helm.

“Excuse me?”

Eve jumped so violently, she was surprised she didn’t bump her head on the ceiling. Smoothing down her apron and adjusting her hairnet—HOW NOT TO FUCK UP MY HEALTH RATING: Chapter One, Section A, THE BASICS: Wear your fucking hairnet—she turned toward the source of the sound.

There was a windowlike hatch in the kitchen wall, and the employee handbooks had revealed that it was meant to be opened. Eve had done so when she came down that morning and discovered the window let her see into the dining room, sort of like an olden-days shop front. Now that window was occupied by what appeared to be—shudder—a guest.

“Hello in there,” he said brightly. He was a man of middling age, pink cheeked and gray haired, with far too friendly a smile for this time of day and a waterproof parka covering his torso. “Bit early for breakfast, am I?” he asked cheerfully.

Eve stared at him in disbelief. Who in God’s name was early for a 6:30 A.M. breakfast? “Yes,” she said faintly, then rallied. HOW NOT TO PISS OFF MY CUSTOMERS: Chapter Three, Section B: Harmless rule breakers are to be humored, however much it might pain you. “But I’m sure we can accommodate you, sir. The pastries are still in the oven, but I can take an order for a cooked breakfast?” Eve approached the window, produced her little notepad, and steeled her spine. Do not fuck up. Do not fuck up. Do not fuck up.