Arabella

I jerked up, the drowsiness from my two orgasms disappearing. Crowding against his back I tried to listen in on the conversation, but I could only hear Gaige’s side of it.

“You’re shitting me.”

The bunched muscles in his shoulders relaxed under my fingertips.

“How much did it cost you to get her to give you the name?” There was a slight pause as his friend answered. “Okay, I’ll send you the money to cover it. Thanks, man. I appreciate the help.”

He heaved a deep sigh as he set the phone down on the bedside table. His chin dropped to his chest, and my nerves frayed. When his shoulders started to shake, I began to freak out—until I realized he was laughing. I didn’t understand what his friend could have found that was funny.

“Gaige,” I grumbled. “What’d he tell you?”

He flopped on his back, tugging on my arm until I cuddled into his side. “The girl at the shop remembered shipping a box of champagne filled truffles to LA. It wasn’t something she was supposed to do, but she felt like she couldn’t say no because of the person who asked for the favor.”

“Who was it?”

“Owen Walker.”

“What? No! It couldn’t be,” I gasped. “Owen and Sienna were here in LA with me when I got the chocolates. They couldn’t have gone to the store in Hawaii. It’s impossible.”

“That’s why she wasn’t supposed to do it. Sienna called and sweet-talked her into breaking so many rules. She took Owen’s credit card information over the phone. Agreed to ship the chocolates overnight from the store to LA. And she accepted a bribe to do it all. Back then, and again today to give us the name.”

I shook my head, still not quite grasping what was going on. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would they send me gifts like that?”

“From what Sienna told the girl, Owen was hoping to lure an unnamed pastry chef into moving to Atlanta and working for him.”

“Owen Walker wants to hire me?” I gasped.

“Sounds like it,” Gaige confirmed.

I scrambled off the bed, yanked one of Gaige’s shirts from the dresser, and pulled it over my head. Then I ran into the kitchen and grabbed my cell phone off the counter where I’d left it when we’d gotten back from our bike ride. I hadn’t been paying super close attention to my voicemail messages since I’d gotten to LA, and it’d only gotten worse when Gaige and I came to the island. I wasn’t ignoring them, but I was saving them to listen to later after I checked to see who’d called. The only ones I’d been returning were from my sister so she’d know that I was still alive, as she kept putting it each time she called.

As I walked back into the bedroom, I pulled up a message from Owen that I’d received the day we left LA. When it got to the part where he asked me to call him back to discuss a job opportunity, Gaige chuckled. “Mystery solved.”

“This was all a big misunderstanding?”

“It certainly seems that way. The shop girl mentioned that there was a note in the box when the chocolates were shipped via UPS. It must have gotten lost in transit. The same could have happened with the flowers and dinner. Why don’t you give Owen a call back so we can be certain that everything is explained away?”

“Okay,” I whispered, trying to adjust to a reality where there was an innocent explanation for the gifts. I pressed the button to return his call and waited for Owen to answer. It only took three rings.

“Owen Walker.”

“Hey, Owen. It’s Arabella. I’m sorry it took so long to return your call, but I’ve had a lot going on,” I apologized.

“No worries. I would have called again if it was urgent, but things have been pretty hectic for Sienna and me too.”

I took a deep breath and asked a question I never thought I’d voice. “You mentioned a job opportunity?”

“Yes, I planned to talk to you about it while we were in LA. But between what happened with Jude and Liz, adjusting to a new producer in the middle of taping, and Sienna being pregnant, there never seemed to be the right opportunity.”

I was pacing back and forth nervously until Gaige pulled me onto his lap. I offered him a reassuring smile.

“Sienna’s pregnant?”

Gaige’s hand drifted down to my belly, and it made me wonder if Sienna was the only one considering how many times Gaige and I’d had unprotected sex. I should probably be more worried about the possibility of being pregnant, but I’d never be able to regret it if Gaige’s baby was growing inside me.

“She is.”

“Congratulations!”

“Thanks. You know what a great baby shower gift would be? Taking a job at Saphyre as our head pastry chef.”

“In Atlanta?”

Gaige perked up at that, nodding his head as Owen went over the details of his offer. Between the chance to work with a chef I respected so much and having a job in the same city as Gaige lived, I was ready to leap at the chance. But before I could accept it, Owen sweetened the deal. “Sienna said that you mentioned how much you were hoping to leverage your role as a judge into a show of your own. I can talk to the producers from mine to see if they’d be interested in talking to you. I left them with a whole in their schedule when I decided I was done, one that they might be willing to fill with you.”

“Yes!” I shrieked.

“Consider it done,” he chuckled. “And if they say yes, we’ll figure it out. You can set up our new pastry menu and then split your time between Atlanta and LA like I used to do.”

“Thank you.” Gaige looked at me questioningly, and I remembered the point of the whole call. “Was Sienna the one who thought up the idea of sending me all my favorites? Chocolates, flowers, and dinner?”

“Yeah, it turns out that my fiancée is a genius when it comes to figuring out people’s motivations.”

“That she is,” I agreed, thinking about how much closer I was to achieving my dream. We wrapped up the call, and I twisted in Gaige’s lap to plant a kiss on his lips. “It was them. It was all completely innocent.”

“Thank fuck,” he murmured.

“You realize what this means, don’t you? My sister overreacted, and you’ve been protecting me from an offer for my dream job.”

His arms tightened around me. “I’ll owe your sister for the rest of my life because if she hadn’t asked Carissa for help, who knows how much longer it would have been before we finally found each other again.”

“Me, too,” I agreed, my heart melting at how thankful he was and how certain he seemed to be that we still would have met. I liked to think that he was right. That we were meant to be.