Healing the Billionaire Page 5

  Or…close her business completely.

  Hailey wasn’t quite on that verge, but really, that wasn’t an option. She’d do whatever she needed to in order to keep her business afloat. So she focused in on these French toast cupcakes and hoped to bring them to life.

  No blending was needed for this batch, so she stirred the best she could with her left hand, weakly holding the bowl to her body with her right. This didn’t need to be perfect because they were just for her. All she needed to do was make sure the flavor was on point and she’d be happy. She’d worry about the mixing part later.

  Or even ask Jared to help her with that.

  If she wanted to keep her business, she had to explore all opportunities. His two good arms were on the opportunities list. She wasn’t above begging her ex-husband to mix her cupcake batter if it came to that.

  All right. Maybe she wouldn’t beg. But she also didn’t think he’d make her.

  With the batter as smooth as she could get it with a hurt shoulder, she poured it into the cupcake tin lined with liners and popped them into the oven. In fifteen minutes, she’d have either two perfectly amazing French toast cupcakes or another failed disaster on her hands. Only time would tell.

  While those baked, she thought about possible frosting options. A cream cheese frosting? Or a pure vanilla icing? Maybe a maple bourbon frosting? Now she was in the realm of possibilities that didn’t exist without going to the store. For now, she’d concentrate on getting the cupcake right, but she made a list of other ingredients she might need to buy anyway. Just in case this actually worked. Then she went back into the living room and iced her shoulder.

  When the oven timer went off, she could hardly wait for them to cool. She leapt to her feet and put the peas back into the freezer. Once the cupcakes were out of the oven, the aroma nearly undid her. They smelled perfect, and she hoped they tasted the same way—or even better.

  Without any frosting, she wasn’t sure if these would be the ones, but she’d have a good idea. And that first bite told her everything she needed to know. Yes! The flavor was incredible. They were perfectly spiced, and the maple syrup was just the right sweetener for this kind of cupcake.

  Too bad they were dense and unevenly baked thanks to her poor mixing. That would never fly, and her elation deflated. She had no idea what she was going to do to make these cupcakes right. Even asking Jared felt like a risky thing to do—not something she should place the entire chance of her business’s survival on.

  As if summoned, Jared came into the kitchen right as she swallowed her first bite. “What are those now? They smell like they taste much better than dog cupcakes.” His warm smile made her feel a tiny bit better. His confidence in her was refreshing.

  But she couldn’t let him eat this cupcake.

  A cupcake for dogs, sure. But not this one meant for humans when it wasn’t up to her standards.

  “Don’t,” she said as he reached for it.

  With the cupcake in his grip, he tilted his head. “You were eating one, so I’m guessing they’re meant for humans, yet you won’t let me try this one?”

  “They’re just not…” She trailed off, not even sure how to finish that sentence. “It’s a new recipe and I couldn’t mix them very well.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” he said, smirking. Then he unwrapped the cupcake and took a bite. Too many emotions crossed over his face and Hailey couldn’t decipher them. So she waited until he settled on one, which seemed to be surprise. “Wow. It tastes just like it smells.”

  Hailey scoffed. “All you said was that they smelled better than cupcakes for dogs, so I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means,” he said before taking a second small taste, “that they smell and taste just like French toast. I thought that’s what you were making, so I came downstairs for a real breakfast. But wow. These are really good.”

  It was her turn to experience too many emotions. She’d always wanted Jared to be proud of her, even if she’d never wanted to admit it. Jared had always been so focused on his own success, which he’d insisted was their combined success. But she’d wanted her own, so this felt like a huge win.

  Still, she knew she could have done better. “I’ll need to figure out how to mix them better, but I think the flavor is where I want them.”

  An appreciative smile curved his mouth. “The flavor is perfect, Hailes.”

  The same kind of grin spread across her own lips as she savored the feeling of this moment. With Jared’s hazel eyes shining with pride, she felt like she could make this work. Land this contract. Save her business. Even get good news from Dr. Campbell. Anything could happen as long as he looked at her that way.

  But she was stripped from the moment the second Jared’s phone rang.

  He popped the rest of the cupcake into his mouth, held a finger up, and dug it from his pocket. “Sorry,” he said before checking the screen. When he saw who it was, his proud gaze morphed into an apology. “I have to take this. I’ll be right back. Keep going with the cupcakes.” Then he disappeared from the room, taking all the warmth with him.

  Anything could happen as long as he looked at her that way, but it could all be taken away with a single phone call.

  So typical.

  Hailey had gotten her hopes up more times than she could count thanks to that phone. Every time their relationship felt like it was heading down a better, stronger path, something at work would destroy the progress and she’d lose everything all over again. She couldn’t do that to herself anymore.

  Except he’d been different than before. She hadn’t even asked him to come downstairs to try a cupcake. In fact, she’d asked him not to, but he’d wanted to help her, even at the risk of eating a dense, poorly blended cupcake. Things weren’t the same as they’d been before, and a small piece of her heart latched onto that. Hope built in her chest, but she was determined not to let it grow too big. She wouldn’t get attached to the idea of having Jared back in her life. Not again.

  Until the doorbell rang and a brand-new top-of-the-line Vitamix with her name on it showed up on Rachel’s doorstep.

  She tried to refuse, saying she hadn’t ordered it. But the delivery person insisted that this was the right house. She could clearly see that on the address label, yet it didn’t make sense. She’d merely complained about needing one a few hours ago. Then the deliveryman explained that it was a rush delivery, which was how it’d gotten there so fast. After that, he wished her luck with it and was on his way.

  Which left her on the porch with the one thing she needed most—besides a healed-up shoulder.

  The only person who could have done that was her ex-husband. The man who, with that one incredibly thoughtful action that must have cost him a small fortune, had annihilated any chance of her not getting too attached to having him back in her life..

  8

  If Jared’s assistant was calling him on his vacation, something was either going right or going wrong. He prayed that it was the former and not the latter, but something in his gut made him doubt that.

  “Jessica? Is everything okay?” he asked as soon as he answered the phone in the master bedroom.

  “Well…” she started hesitantly, “no. Not really.”

  His eyes fluttered shut in disappointment. This was why he didn’t take vacations. Things went wrong when he wasn’t in the office.

  “Don’t tell Thomas I called you,” she quietly told him. “He said he could handle it, and he probably can, but I thought you’d want to know about this.”

  “You thought right,” he answered, closing the bedroom door. Then he pressed his fingertips against his eyes and ran through a list of things that could have gone wrong. Had Nourish Fresh canceled their meeting on Thursday? Was there something in the media about his company? “What’s going on?”

  “HomeGrown Meals just pulled their contract with us.”

  Jared groaned before he could stop himself. “Why?” he growled down the line.

  “
Something about their head chef quitting. They don’t have a company without him, so they’ve been forced to dissolve the business.” After a pause, she continued. “Thomas said he’d look for someone else to fill the orders, but there aren’t many other companies on the market that we haven’t already looked at.”

  He hadn’t predicted how much the make-at-home meals business would explode when he’d gotten into it. But it had, and quality companies who fit the needs his customers looked for were hard to come by. That was why he’d felt like he’d won the jackpot when he’d landed the contract with HomeGrown Meals. He hadn’t seen this coming, and it was a huge blow to his company.

  “They were the only one I wanted,” Jared told his assistant. Then he wiped a hand down his face as he thought about what he was going to do. After a sigh, he said, “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll look into some things and get back to you. And I’ll tell Thomas myself that I’m handling it. I won’t mention you told me.”

  Jessica let out an audible breath. “Okay. Let me know what you find and I’ll see what I can do on my end.”

  “Thanks,” he said. Then he hung up, frustrated that he was so far away from his office now.

  Vacations were for people with families or those who wanted to travel the world. He’d seen so many different places in his travels for work over the years, and he certainly didn’t have a wife or kids. So he needed to remember this the next time Thomas pushed him out of the office to finally visit his sister after years of promising he would. Because look at what happened when he did.

  His sister wasn’t even home for the visit and a major contract had fallen through.

  First things first, he needed to take a shower. After the flight in, the visit to the ER, and a night on the couch, he really wanted to get clean. He went downstairs to grab his suitcase. At the bottom of the steps, he could hear Hailey already pureeing something in the Vitamix he’d ordered. He knew what those sounded like without needing to see it. After enough demos from companies wanting to do business with him, he’d ordered one for his own kitchen. Not that he had a lot of time to use it himself, but his own on-call chef appreciated being able to use it for the meals he made for Jared.

  He was glad she’d received it—and received it well. She hadn’t turned his offer down or refused the help like she’d been doing. With any luck, it’d be just the confidence booster she needed to land this contract with the vendor she was working with. It warmed his heart to know he could help her in that way.

  Once Jared got back upstairs with his suitcase, he grabbed a change of clothes and went into the en suite bathroom. The shower spray took nearly a minute to get hot, but it felt good against his skin the moment he stepped under it. Ten minutes later, he was wrapped in a towel, checking his phone to see if he’d missed anything. Nothing had come through, so he pulled his laptop out of his bag and sat at the small desk in his sister’s bedroom.

  Water dripped down his chest as he leaned over to concentrate on the screen. He typed in the address bar of his browser to do some research on other companies that might have started since they’d landed the contract with HomeGrown Foods. He wasn’t confident in what he’d find, but with the demand in the market, perhaps more people had started companies with both dinner and dessert options for the make-at-home fans.

  An hour later, the water had dried and he had just as many results as he’d thought he’d have: zero. When he was about to drop his head to the desk in frustration, the door to the bedroom burst open and Hailey appeared on the other side, a gigantic grin covering her face and a perfectly iced cupcake in her hand. He rose from the chair at the desk and faced her as she approached him, a focused expression on her face.

  “Oh my goodness, you have to try—oh my goodness!” she squealed when she was only a few feet away from him. Her eyes widened, her gaze frozen on his chest like she was stuck, unable to do anything else but stare.

  When he glanced down, he realized why: his post-shower attire. He was still in only a towel. She was staring at seven years of committed gym time after his wife had left him.

  The pink on her cheeks was downright adorable, he thought. She was breathing shallowly, and if he wasn’t mistaken, that was appreciation written all over her face. Maybe a little shock too. And then perhaps some anger, which confused him. Before he could pose a question about it, she spun around and exited the way she’d entered, grabbing the door to make it slam once she was out of sight.

  Jared blinked a few times, confused by what had just happened. “Hailey?” he called to see if she hadn’t gone far.

  “Yeah?” she answered, her harsh voice carrying through the door.

  “Everything okay?” He pulled a shirt on while he waited for her response. When one didn’t come, he slipped more clothes on until he was fully dressed.

  “Are you decent now?” she asked, sounding annoyed.

  Jared chuckled under his breath, tossing his towel over the chair at the desk. “Yeah, I am.”

  Slowly, the door opened again. Hailey peeked in this time before walking back in and looking around the room. For what, he wasn’t sure. He’d told her the truth about being dressed. Then she held the cupcake out to him and he took it.

  “Try this one.” The excited lilt to her voice made him even more interested in the cupcake than he had been.

  He peeled the wrapper back, keeping his gaze on her. “Sorry about that,” he said, gesturing with his head to the towel.

  With her good hand, she tucked some of her short hair behind her ear and waved dismissively. Then she cradled her other arm. “No big thing,” she said before rolling her eyes and looking away from him.

  He didn’t think she’d told him the truth, and he wasn’t sure how that made him feel. Was it not a big deal because she’d seen him half naked before? Or was it actually a big deal because she didn’t want to see him like that ever again? Perhaps she did but didn’t want to admit it. It confused him even more, so he decided to do the one thing he was absolutely sure about.

  Eat the cupcake.

  With the icing and a much, much better blender, this cupcake was what dreams were made of. The first bite tasted like heaven, but the subsequent bites were just as delicious. The cupcake was never too much, too sweet, or not sweet enough. Seriously, it was perfect.

  Just like Hailey.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off her as he swallowed the last bits of her cupcake. She looked like she was glowing as the afternoon sun highlighted the blond of her hair and her sun-kissed cheekbones. Her smile lit the whole room up as she waited for his feedback, and all he could do was smile back.

  “So?” she asked, wringing her hands. “What did you think?”

  Jared licked the last of the icing off his thumb and then said, “So good, Hailes. Really.”

  The smile on her lips stretched wide. She pressed up onto her tiptoes and made an excited noise. When she leaned forward, she raised her arms in what he thought might be an attempt to hug him, but pain must have radiated in her shoulder. She stopped halfway to him and sucked in a breath.

  “Careful,” he warned her softly, reaching a hand out to steady her near her shoulder.

  She wrenched away from his touch though, which stung. He crumpled the cupcake wrapper in his other fist, trying to keep his breathing even. There were so many mixed signals, but in the end, all he wanted to do was help her. He couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t let her do that.

  “Thanks,” she said softly. “If I get this vendor contract, I can pay you back for the Vitamix.”

  Jared tossed the wrapper from one hand to the other, catching it with ease. “That cupcake will get you that contract. I guarantee it.”

  She gave him a self-deprecating smile. “Well, I have to bring them three samples, so hopefully I can make the other two just as well.”

  “If anyone can, Hailey, it’s you.” He touched her arm with the pads of his fingers and his thumb, and this time, she didn’t shy away.

  She didn’t lean into it, either,
but he’d take that as a win.

  Hailey swallowed hard. “I hope you’re right,” she said. “My business depends on it.” Then she made her way toward the door. In the doorway, she paused, her hand lingering on the frame. “You know,” she started, her eyes finding his, “I really wa—”

  His ringing phone cut her off and her eyes shot to it. When her gaze returned to him, a mask of disappointment covered her face.

  “You really what?” he pressed, taking a step away from his phone.

  Hailey looked like she was going to answer him, but she shook her head instead. “You should get that,” she said. Then she disappeared down the hall.

  Jared took another step forward, but his phone wouldn’t stop ringing. With the crisis at work, he felt pulled to take it. But with his ex-wife back within reach, he felt pulled to follow after her too. Confused, he didn’t know what to do.

  In the end, her footsteps down the stairs made him decide to put the closest fire out first. Maybe Jessica was calling to say she’d found the perfect company to work with. The fire would be gone and he could enjoy the rest of his vacation by getting to know his ex-wife again.

  A guy could dream.

  The phone call was not even close to that dream though. Thomas was on the line, claiming he could handle the issue at work. But the phone call had ruined a moment with Hailey, so Jared had frustration running through his veins when he told his COO no. He’d handle it and Thomas would wait for his instructions. That’s what CEOs did. And if there was one thing he was good at, it was being a CEO.

  Not necessarily being a husband. But he hoped to get a second shot at that.

  9

  “Wait, wait, wait. Back up,” Rachel said, her hand taking up most of the Skype image on Hailey’s computer. “You saw what?”

  Hailey rolled her eyes. “Of course that’s the only part you heard,” she replied in a hushed voice. “But what about the rest of it?” Then she adjusted the frozen peas on her shoulder and leaned back in her bed. With the door closed, she felt safe talking about Jared with his sister, but she didn’t want to get too loud.