No doubt dating Sean had opened doors for her business, but she’d managed to keep most of those clients and gain more on her own merits by delivering an excellent service and always being on point. She couldn’t afford an off day, not when dealing with food. People liked consistency. She couldn’t do an awesome dessert today and a mediocre one tomorrow and expect to keep her Sugar Queen title. This shit was hard, but because it was food, people like Keiran thought it was a joke.

Well, fuck him. Food was important. Her work wasn’t shit.

She pushed past Remi into the kitchen and started cataloging what ingredients she’d need.

“Cherry, what are you doing?” Remi sounded concerned.

“Uh-oh. Is she about to stress-bake?” Reba asked.

Cherisse ignored them as she started pulling ingredients and stacking them on the counter. “I promised Dale samples of the new thing I’ve been working on, and that’s what I’m doing. If I make an extra-special batch of something for his ungrateful piece of shit friend, so what?”

“Uh, Cherry? Please don’t send Keiran any poisoned goodies.”

She spared Remi a glance and smiled. They’d followed her into the kitchen. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t waste food that way.”

“Cherry.” Reba fell in beside her, eyes flicking over the ingredients as if Cherisse had stashed something deadly in there.

“Jesus. No poison, I promise!” She started humming as she got everything straight in her head before she began. Sugar, flour, eggs... Stuff for the mango white chocolate ganache filling, too.

Ava had texted to remind them about ladies’ night tonight, so Cherisse definitely wanted these done and delivered so she could sit back and relax before then.

Tampering with food like that wasn’t her style—that would be extreme—but she’d send Keiran a little message still. Poisoning the best man before the wedding would probably add unwanted stress anyhow.

#

KEIRAN

He’d fucked up.

The thought buzzed around his brain like a horde of flies as he tried his best to direct the artiste currently in the booth. They’d been cranking out some instrumentals while he tried to ignore the lambasting he’d received earlier.

None of his friends were shy about letting him know that he’d screwed up. Keiran had to pull his phone away from his ear as Eric shouted at him.

“What the hell did you do?” was the first thing he’d been greeted with when he’d finally returned Eric’s Call me now text. Eric avoided phone calls like the plague, except at work. Couldn’t escape that. That was Keiran’s first clue that something was up. After the call connected, Eric had basically handed him his ass, and that was how he’d found out about the article.

Eric wasn’t a loud guy, but when he was pissed off, watch out, he would let you have it. Afterwards, it always left you feeling like you’d gotten the scolding of your life from a parent who was highly disappointed in you. Even as an adult, that shit made Keiran feel bad. Because Eric was right: Keiran had fucked up.